Carrick learning.

[Frozen Horse]

The trouble now is if we don't get promoted this year a lot of or player's will be leaving so we will be back to scratch that is why you need a experience manager to get you promoted if the club is happy making money out of Jones & our other good players by selling them every year no manager will get us up.

If you're in the championship, your best players leaving is a fact of life.
So long as our overall direction is upwards, I don't have too much problem with that.

I look at the Brentford team we beat in the playoffs, and the Brentford team that got promoted: I don't think there was a single player in both teams.
In the years in between they've seen the likes of Benrahma, Watkins, Konsa, Maupay and more come and go. They've progressed despite selling their best players. Never was there a point where they said "right, we've got to hold on to them all this time".

We are not "back to scratch" as we were last season: we lost 5 of our best players at the end of last season, and only got a fee for one of them as the other 4 were on loan.

While I fully support the idea of gambling on a high quality loanee in January to get us over the line of automatic promotion (hello Gaston Ramirez), I don't want to go back to the rent-a-team days we had last season. Yes, use the loan system to bring in squad depth; yes, use it if you think there's the chance of a good young player staying long term, but don't go building your team around high-priced loan signings.

 

[Sergio]

The start was bad, but we didn't have a striker un LL arrived, and he took some time to bed in, which is understandable.



You can lose the ball playing out from the back, or play it long to a striker not geared up for that, and he'll lose it instead, sure you're losing the ball in a better starting position, but you you get zero chance to build up play and pen them back in, so they're back in your half in no time. The end result is similar. People only tend to notice players losing the ball in their own half, yet a punt up field to nobody or clearing a ball out when you should be able to retain possession is almost as bad.

If we launch it forward, it would get picked off by the oppo, for the same reasons as above, we're not geared up for it, so we would score less. If we play out from the back and break the first line then we should have a significant advantage.

16 or so out of the 23 in the squad or whatever should be good enough to break the first line, if they can't do this it means we either have or have bought players who are not good enough. If we bought poor long ball merchants too, the result would be similar.



You have to make subs though, every team has to. Lots of time we've done well is because intensity has been high, but this comes at a cost of having to sub players earlier, sometimes when you really don't want to. We beat Sunderland away 4-0, scored 2 made 2 subs, scored again, made another three subs and then scored again? OR do you mean the home game? That should have been put to bed before we made any subs, and probably would have been if we had a striker. Preston away we were 2-1 down before we made any subs. We should have beat Preston if we put our chances away, but a lack of a Striker hurt us. The problem is the quality of the subs, less so that we make subs when we don't need to.

Forss isn't a lone striker, and is good at chipping in goals from the right, or if we play two up top, but he needs a partner for that.

If playing two up top we need another striker, possibly one who is better than both Latte Lathe and Forss, but equal and them all staying fit would be ok. Jones is fine right wing, he was in great form before he got injured and helps out getting back too.

Most crucial position we need though is a ball winning centre midfielder, and one who is already good enough, and going to get better over the next few years. Good luck finding that though, they're exceptionally rare. I love Johnny, but he's not the answer for 46 games, it's not possible. His game isn't fully ball winning though, he's better going forward/ in possession than that, but it's the destroyer type player we need in the middle to compliment hackney in a 2, or to play the hold role behind Hackney and Barlaser.

We need a RB, I don't mind Ayling or Smith but neither are a long term answer and probably not good enough for a promotion team without some superstars elsewhere making up the shortfall. Happy for Bangura and Engel to fight it out on the LH side. I think Engel is dangerous in his own half (to us), but he puts some good balls in the box and chips in enough on goals, so happy to prioritise other positions first.

I agree with a lot of this. I was getting at Sunderland home, we where in control of that game and pushing on and he brought Coburn on and our intensity completely died and they got back into the game and we lost two points.

I dont see Forss as a lone striker but I certainly see him up there alone rather than Silvera the road runner who just puts his head down and shoots.

That isnt meant to be a dig aimed at either Coburn or Silvera, both are young and raw and are getting more game time at this level than even they imagined due to injuries. My point being a lot of his subs have been strange.

I also hate the fact he puts injured players on the bench. McGree, Dieng and O'Brien are 3 obvious ones. I know we are thin on the ground but as a fan it makes me think they might get a run out to get some minutes in their legs but he has absolutely no intention of playing them. I'd rather see 3 kids on their who wont get minutes than give us false hope that senior players are potentially ready for minutes when they're miles off.

Smith and Ayling are definitely not the answer to a promotion push. Smith is 32 i believe and back from another serious injury, he is a quality cover but thats it, Ayling is finished at this level. I know he is only a stop gap but surely we have better than that.

As for lumping up top, what happened to wing play. Since Pep has came in to English football, everybody wants to tip and tap around the back and score the 30 pass team goal but only a few teams can do that. Our first team have looked OK in spells doing it but we've been running half full for most of the season and MC has persisted with it. His refusal to stick to something which isnt working is absolutely baffling.

As I have said I really hope Carrick is the answer, it looks as if we are finally grinding results out and he is open to a plan B, I just hope we dont revert back and start playing shee-ite again. I loved him as a player and love his calmness. I know his interviews are read from the usual script but sometimes but why not fire one into the team, some games are the worst ive seen and we'd be beaten by anyone in the pyramid and he still see's positives when nobody else in the ground does.

 

[Andy_W]

I agree with a lot of this. I was getting at Sunderland home, we where in control of that game and pushing on and he brought Coburn on and our intensity completely died and they got back into the game and we lost two points.

I dont see Forss as a lone striker but I certainly see him up there alone rather than Silvera the road runner who just puts his head down and shoots.

That isnt meant to be a dig aimed at either Coburn or Silvera, both are young and raw and are getting more game time at this level than even they imagined due to injuries. My point being a lot of his subs have been strange.

I also hate the fact he puts injured players on the bench. McGree, Dieng and O'Brien are 3 obvious ones. I know we are thin on the ground but as a fan it makes me think they might get a run out to get some minutes in their legs but he has absolutely no intention of playing them. I'd rather see 3 kids on their who wont get minutes than give us false hope that senior players are potentially ready for minutes when they're miles off.

Smith and Ayling are definitely not the answer to a promotion push. Smith is 32 i believe and back from another serious injury, he is a quality cover but thats it, Ayling is finished at this level. I know he is only a stop gap but surely we have better than that.

As for lumping up top, what happened to wing play. Since Pep has came in to English football, everybody wants to tip and tap around the back and score the 30 pass team goal but only a few teams can do that. Our first team have looked OK in spells doing it but we've been running half full for most of the season and MC has persisted with it. His refusal to stick to something which isnt working is absolutely baffling.

As I have said I really hope Carrick is the answer, it looks as if we are finally grinding results out and he is open to a plan B, I just hope we dont revert back and start playing shee-ite again. I loved him as a player and love his calmness. I know his interviews are read from the usual script but sometimes but why not fire one into the team, some games are the worst ive seen and we'd be beaten by anyone in the pyramid and he still see's positives when nobody else in the ground does.

Yeah I don't rate Silvera's finishing to be honest either, but to be fair to him he's scored what his xG is, which was a surprise, and he did better in that respect than Crooks and Rogers, which was slightly surprising. I'm going to be keeping my eye on him more. I wasn't convinced on him, but his numbers are not that bad, handy as an impact sub I think.

I'm not sure Dieng was injured was he? I was wondering why he was on the bench, as we've really missed him. He's made a massive difference since he's been back. Same with McGree, maybe he was just tired. O'Brien doesn't look fully fit to me, or at least he didn't a few weeks back, either that or he was being lazy as he lost/ didn't track his man, more times than I could count in the games he's played this year. Seems to be getting better though. I agree on not having injured players on the bench, but if that's all you have then it's all you can do I suppose. Keeps the oppo guessing too.

Easiest way to get it down the wing to feet is via the left/ right back, but they need to be aware and good enough to move the ball onto the wingers quickly, which they've not really been doing. It makes more sense to give it to Jones deeper, to run on with, or McGree to create. But it doesn't make much sense with Forss on the right, we're better off just letting him get higher up the pitch before we bring him into play, but it needs to be ball to feet (which takes time, and a lot of consecutive passes to go right).

To be fair Pep used to play a lot wider, but changed since everyone else started doing it, now he uses centre backs as left/ right backs, so the centre backs in the middle can push forward. I wouldn't want us doing that, not with most of our centre backs. There ain't many good enough to do that, never mind in the champo. I think we will be much better when Lenihan, Hackney and Jones are back and fit, but can't recall ever seeing them play together, this year, not since Jones got back into form.

I understand Carrick's man management style, and going out in the press and slating players is never going to really help, people are different nowadays and don't react well to that sort of stuff, as they're just not used to it. I'm sure he's being constructively critical behind closed doors, but won't want to make that public as it's free tactical info for the oppo's.

You can still take positives from a loss, the same way you can still have criticism for a win. We had a couple of games in that bad run where we deserved to win, and were unlucky, or we did as much as we could with what we have, which it's hard to argue against. Then you have games like Leicester where everyone was going bananas about how good we were, when in reality we conceded over 24 shots to a much better side, who were much better than us. No shame in that though, they're decent, but they couldn't finish their dinner.

Even games like Plymouth, you can sort of learn from those, about what not to do, but there will have still been players in that game who did exactly what they could do, for their own level, which is all you can ask. Plymouth played well, much better than anyone was expecting.

 

[Andy_W]

But a "destroyer" type player, wont have the requisite skills to play out from the back. As one or two posters have eloquently put earlier in the post, players traits and skillsets are hugely relevant.

You can't just plonk any old "centre mid" in there and expect the team to function in a very specific, tactical manner. One of the reasons for our downturn is the current centre-mids inability to take the ball effectively on the half turn and to create angles to beat the press.

Yeah, I'm not asking them to play the balls that Barlaser can or have that vision, or to half turn like Hackney and have a decent strike at goal, but any player worth of a squad number should be able to play a basic side ways or backwards pass in a triangle, they do it all day every day in training. The idea being that the other players make the more difficult passes or turns. There's likely no player in the championship who will tick every box in midfield, or they would already be in the premiership.

We've done ok in the middle, well enough for the standard of players we have had available, but they've not complimented each other all that well, against some teams. We've still created enough chances on average to be doing a hell of a lot better, and have conceded some absolute clown school goals, which neither have largely been the centre mids fault. We just need to be winning more of the ball back in the middle of the pitch at a time when the oppo doesn't want to be losing it, so they can be caught off guard etc. All the best teams in the world have a player doing the dirty work in the middle, who is a lesser "footballer" than those around him, it's just a case of finding the balance.

No team at this level will beat a good press every time, assuming we could even do this with a better side than we have now is unrealistic, there will always be errors. It's just a case of being net positive in all positions, for top 6 championship level football.