I love Liam, he’s very positive, very problem solving. He doesn’t create problems, he doesn’t give you ‘end of the world’ stories,” Kesler says. “He’s a good leader and he immediately earned the player’s trust. He’s got a game plan I love and he sticks with it. “He made sure we conceded less goals, our statistics changed dramatically. We enjoy the way we play now with the same boys but I’ve told him – and the chairman as well – now is the time to take risks so that the team can improve. “I’m not saying he doesn’t take risks by the way but we’re the type of ownership that want our approach to be even more brave. He took over the club two days before Millwall – he is brave, don’t get me wrong. But we want him to bring in more calculated risks to improve our game.”
It's as well we did pull away from the relegation zone when we did all those weeks ago,our last 10 games have yielded 11 points from a possible 30,that's Arveladze form!!
I'm torn. On the one hand, it's easy to see the defensive & organisational improvements. On the other hand, no matter who has or hasn't played up front, I just can't see any improvement in terms of our attacking play ... and that isn't about our strikers, it's meaning as a team, from our CB's & fullbacks, through to midfield and strikers. In fact, it's got worse. The only tactic I see is, when Longman plays wide, give him the ball and encourage him to take his man on. Now it's the same tactic but with Malcolm. There's nothing. Zero, Zilch. Be it from open play, corners, free kicks. Nothing. I can understand and make allowances for our ridiculous amount of injuries, but we have still had available some very decent players and options. Yesterday's puzzlers for me included: - why Allayhar didn't swap (or rotate) with Longman, it wasn't working for either of them and as others have said, Allayhar was supposed to be primarily a striker. - why Tufan doesn't start. It's not even like he had to somehow fit in Pelkas, Tetteh or Sinik (I know he's no longer here). Mystery. - Why only 1 sub used, at least to get some fresh legs on. - Why not bring Elder on to push on as a wing back (something he can do far better than Greaves). - Why we continue to recycle even when in decent attacking positions when we should surely be looking forward And then the same old apparent lack of urgency, not 'headless chicken mode', but more urgency from the off. If we are seeing Rosenior sticking to his game plan (the process), building consistency, then it's got to be concerning, as I see nothing in terms of a game plan that contains clever attacking plays. As others have said, it's a bit daft to be calling to get rid now. Give him the summer window & pre-season, and ten games. I of course hope he succeeds and goes on to be our most successful manager ever. But for now his rhetoric is starting to grind and the jury remains out.
I took the owner at face value when he said this was a long-term project , I hope he meant it and has a bit more patience than some of our fans
Isn't that one obvious? Because he's not done enough to be in the tean ahead of the players who did start. Seri and Slater have got the centre mid spots nailed down, Traore is claiming #10 as his own, and Tufan had a few games out wide when we had no wingers but now Allahyar and Ebiowei are available we don't need to use him there. He came on and did OK at times but got his finish badly wrong when it mattered, so hardly proved the decision wrong. I think he'll be gone next season.
Number of times in the first half, he had the beating of the right back on the outside, only for him to bring it inside because he doesn’t have a left foot. Thus the 36 year old right back was happy to show him inside, into a crowded area. This was accentuated because Greaves is not an overlapping left back. It negates the width we were creating, through I thought until that point we were playing decent football It cried out for trying something different ie switching Malcom, or bringing Elder on. I know we didn’t have many attacking options on the bench, but maybe he should have tried to be more creative tactically. He probably did, but I didn’t notice. It a shame because had we taken some of our chances, I think we’d have been talking about how well we played. We also have to take into account we had our only three central forwards (plus Pelkas who would likely have been the forward option in their absence).
I too think he'll be gone next season. Unfortunately. Only 28 years old. 133 games for Fenerbahce. 65 caps for Turkey. Clearly quality, yet can't get a start for us, and that's before we (presumably) strengthen again in summer. Something wrong.
Supporting the team atm is boring absolutely god knows what you watch, even WBA should have beat us, the brand of footy is dour. We are marginally better than earlier in the season. Current form is absolutely woeful, we simply do not win games, next fixtures till end of the season are all very challenging games bar maybe Swansea. A fair reasonable assumption would be to allow a pre season and a transfer window to see how he gets on but no im sorry, any critiscm is absolutely warranted and not deranged in the slightest. In fact it’s insulting to assume everyone thinks like you do and any line of thought outside what is deemed to be the correct narrative isn’t allowed. He isn’t our Bruce, he resembles our Barmby. A woefully out of his depth club “legend” who I see getting replaced before November, then we will get our Bruce when Acun realises he needs to stop being hoodwinked by blaggers talking a good game in a bastard interview.
Can't be arsed to get into most of that but on "WBA should've beat us", yes they should. And we should've beat Rotherham, Reading, Coventry, Preston, Stoke and so on. Very often results don't reflect performances. Making out that our wins in games we didn't dominate don't count, but all the results where we dominated and didn't win do count, is exactly the kind of overly dramatic analysis some of our fans need to start growing out of. We used to be better than this.
Not really - Shota was taking us backwards and probably to relegation. Weren't we conceding at least 2 goals a game or something? While progress under Rosie may be slower than some of us would wish to see, it is still progress and we are slowly moving in the right direction. And isn't that how progress at football clubs usually happens - Evolution rather than revolution? Didn't it take Fergie 4 years to win his first trophy at Manure? Fortunately for them they didn't sack him after 12 or 18 months, eh?
Rosie parades up and down his technical area pointing at players to where he thinks they should be. The players looking back at him as if they are learning this for the first time. Surely these players should understand his system by now. Rosie was also putting his hands up in dispair whenever Jones or McCloughlin passed the "wrong" direction. Surely this is basic stuff.
I noticed that Rosie was telling Ebiowei to go wide to the touchline when the ball & play were on the other wing and not come in, which I thought was strange. It often meant we had few players in the box. On one occasion Longman took the ball to the right and Ebiowie, Longman and Coyle then had no one in the box to cross to, as Allahyar was wide left. Longman was often on his own with no one within 30 yards of him. Not surprisingly we end up with few shots on target. Things only started to change when they went down to ten men. The ref was pretty good I thought, compared to the dross we have been getting.
Fair point I can’t use WBA to further my argument when the inverse does support yours. As I say, pre season and summer for me but I aren’t filled with confidence to say the least.
Clearly, the manager is feeling the heat. How many other people thought the free kick should have been a penalty? He must fear he's reaching the release clause within his contract if the winless run continues. He can talk the talk but doesn't walk the walk. It catches up with them all eventually.
