Happy new year folks. Here’s to Town moving onward and upwards and also to a spectacular winter World Cup!
Happy New Year Hampy! And to all you dedicated Town boys. May it bring lots of luck, joy, better health & happiness, and a few more wins! Will be interesting to see where we are at Years end. My predictions remain the same, a few more younger signings, much improved performances and a top 10 just outside play-offs, with outside chance of an end season scrap for 6th place.
Happy new year chaps. I’m almost as interested in who gets shipped out as who comes in. If ‘this season ain’t done yet’ and ‘km will he backed’ are true there must be incoming players… I don’t believe there is some magic coaching wand he can wave to suddenly improve how good they are; u can either cross a ball on the run or u cant…but he can improve a lot tactically with what he’s got, strengthen a couple of positions hopefully and get that vital balance and blend of people and their footballing ability right. Over to you KM…!
Happy New Year but I have to take issue with this. Crosses can demonstrably be improved by coaching - Tactics of crossing - which area to hit, style of crossing - Practice of the cross itself - Practice of attacking the cross - Positional tactics of the sender and receiver - Tactics and practice of overlapping - Coaching beating the defender, tricks and step overs - Coaching the mindset of the crossing and attacking player - Fitness and physical conditioning for stamina Kieran McKenna will be all over this type of thing. We already saw an improvement and a goal plus a disallowed goal from crosses that were hit much earlier with Norwood and Bonne both attacking the right areas.
I agree Bucky that it will be most interesting to see who departs. One or two surpises as no room for sentimentality here. I agree with Hampy on the coaching front. I am sure if Kyle Edwards was coached properly, he would be a shoe in to start in that outside left position. And he would have 2 up front to nail it. I am sure KM has viewed all those videos of his dazzling runs with a miserable percentage of final balls.
We shoulda bought Stockton!! What a performance tonight… The coaching thing comes up in plenty of books. Trappertoni said a coach can only add up to 10% improvement on a team, but badly coached they could drop by 30%. Which I thought was a interesting insight. In his book, Vialli interviews wenger and he said if u got the top 2000 coaches 1900 could coach players as well as he can. What he felt the secret was is in choosing the right players for what you want to achieve and blending them into a team. Hence each manager brings in ‘his’ players because there’s only so much you can do with what’s there and underperforming. you can be as clever as u want on the training ground but if the ability isn’t there to do a, b or c, that is hit a 60 yard pass, cross accurately or play possession football etc you can’t make it happen out of training methods alone. Surely it’s the right players WITH the right coaching methods? km’s likely to be the smartest most ‘on it’ coach (and staff) we’ve had in a very long time but I think he’ll need some new players that can carry out his plan on a Saturday as coached in the week rather than trying to get the existing lot to do stuff for him they can’t. take Edward’s; there’s a reason he’s hardly played any football at previous clubs; because he has the pace and perhaps skill for the PL but he must be 25 or close now and he’s wound up in L1. Can he really learn to add effective range of crossing and passing to his game now? I doubt it. But Christ I’d love it if he could…
So if you take over a badly coached side you could make a 40% improvement then. What an absolute mountain of bull. Of course better players will improve us and you can’t coach everything but we have capable players for League One and you were talking specifically about crossing. We don’t need to coach our wingers to beat Ashley Cole or our forwards to score against the likes of Baresi and Dino Zoff. They just need to get the basics right of hitting a zone and having bodies on the end of it.
I am hoping he is not tempted to have a major clear-out of what he he's got. Perhaps just a few positions that most of us agree, can be spiced up with a few of his talented young'uns brought in.. In my book, we have the makings of a decent Championship team in a year's time, if all goes well.
thats fine if Hampy thinks Trappertoni is completely wrong. I’d think the 40% is the absolute extreme case and rarely are a team that far below their maximum potential and rarely do they get such a good new coach as to achieve a 40% swing. You’d have to discuss it with Trappertoni I guess Hampy…. But u could take Norwich now and even a 40% improvement in their performance (relative to their max potential which is very low) might mean they are still a relegation bound team cos they are so poor. Ultimately KM needs additions because he can’t coach what we’ve got to achieve the success/league position that we want no matter how good he is. I guess it’s a bit like motor sport; u can put the best driver in the worst car and he’ll maybe finish a few places higher than with the regular driver. It’s only when U put him in a top car that he’s competitive at the top of the race.
1st move of the window - Barrie back to villa. Absolutely no surprise with this. Loans are supposed to help the parent club and the loaning club and this has done nothing for either. Good luck to him for the future and hopes he gets a chance to play somewhere
Well yeah, it’s not me saying he’s wrong. Primary school Maths says he’s wrong. Your F1 analogy is not a bad one but the truth of that is that Hamilton improves the performance of the car, not only the driving of it. because he’s involved in every aspect of its development just the same as a good coach can improve the players at his disposal.
There's definitely areas we can improve on in terms of signings particularly in terms of balance but that depends on the formation we wish to play. I think the left side needs to be strengthened whether that be a wide forward, Left Midfielder or left back. We could also strengthen the CM and CB positions as no has either stepped up yet or we don't have great strength in depth. On the coaching side, whilst this is important and I'm sure can improve players surely this is most important in the younger groups, when it comes to the first team it's more about management of the players and getting the best out of them so about tactics and psychology, man management but also one think which I think is really important in the context of us is cohesion or gelling we've got 19 new players in, it takes time to understand your team mates game plus the managers way of playing and when that's every player and member of the back room staff having to do that understanding at the same time it can be difficult which we have found this season. I still think we could have a decent second half to the season if we didn't sign anyone this month
We’ve got plenty of young players like Edwards, Woolfy, Chaplin, Harper… but also don’t forget the great Sir Bob got the best out of an ageing Alan Shearer and he credits him with saving his career. Gullit had Shearer coming deep and Bobby encouraged him to run toward the goal. You’re not teaching Alan Shearer to play football in this thirties but he still needs coaching. Even the older players need to learn and adapt their game and when all the training is done they also need motivating. Donacien is a great example of a player - and not a youngster - who was out in the cold with one coach to improve immensely under another.
