The things is Drew, in terms of converting chances the DOES lie with Rosenior. He took the decision that Oscar did not 'suit his style off play' and rather has gone with Connolly who for me is not the answer. He has played people out of position on numerous occasions and I firmly believe he still does not know what his best team is, what their best position is, developing successful relationships on the pitch. To rely on Tufan to score says just how wrong SOME of the recruitment has been.
I agree with you that Oscar shouldn't have gone. I guess we don't know how much other deals hinged on him leaving? But yes, I agree, that's the wrong decision. Connolly, if he stays fit and interested - there is no reason he can't be the answer though. He's already been scoring. Get back into that form and he'll be grand. The out of position thing I partly agree with. Saturday I hope was a sign of things to come - as there have been a lot of injuries. I think we looked better with two proper wingers and Delap up front. I wasn't particularly saying we should rely on Tufan to be scoring, but I think our attacking play looks better when he is on the pitch.
I felt it was a risk letting him go without another in the building, but realistically he wouldn't be in ahead of Delap or Connolly anyway - and they have 8 between them. We'd definitely look thin if one of those spent a period out, but given our pursuit of Davis in the window and that we're half way to january now, then the risk looks like it may just pay off, given that I assume well be revisiting that position in the next window.
Funny enough I think you have a point, though not in the way you'd expect. If you look at the players who have effectively played in Oscar's position ( I include Ozan as false 9) then we have 12 goals from 12. Strikers do tend to miss a fair proportion of chances - just the good ones get over it and nail the next one. What concerns me most really is the contribution from midfield and defence. Apart from Slater and Adama getting 4 between them, and Philogene whos scored 1 - are we getting enough runners in support to either provide an option for the forwards when they can't get a shot off themselves or to smash home the second balls? Not only that, but even on the second phase with corners and set pieces, we're not really getting anything from the defenders in an attacking sense this year - Jones has been close but last year both Greaves and Christie looked more of a threat than this. I worry that we are relying on the strikers to score all the goals at the moment. That's just not feasible. And it also puts the spotlight on the strikers misses, which are simply part and parcel of the game and just increases the unhelpful scrutiny on them. Even if we still had Oscar, would he have scored anymore than Connolly, Tufan or Delap? If we don't get more goal contributions from other areas then we could have Ronaldo up front banging them in and it wouldn't be enough to seriously push the top 6. We need goals from elsewhere, not just strikers. .
If Rosenior didn’t play for us, I can guarantee the overwhelming majority of fans would’ve thought ‘what the ****? Why has Acun appointed Derby’s former interim manager?’. He was hired because Acun didn’t want to pay Pedro Martins what he wanted and he knew Rosenior is well-liked and respected here because of his days as a player and sentimental City fans would lap that **** up. It’s the exact same reason Abramovich appointed Lampard and the Glazers appointed Solskjær. It wasn’t because of their CVs. They were purely feel-good appointments. There’s a big ‘jobs for the boys’ culture in certain clubs these days. Personally, I’d rather have a manager who has **** all connection to the club or city if he’s the best man for the job over an ex-player who isn’t. Marco Silva was the best manager City have ever had imo. Not the most successful but the best in terms of his understanding of the game, his tactics, his brand of football etc.
Yep. All part and parcel of our attacking play being nowhere near good enough, be it from set pieces or open play, from strikers, midfielders, or defenders contributing. As you even comment, in some respects it's arguably gone backwards from last season. I just don't see an improvement in our attacking play. I don't even see signs of what he's trying to achieve. I even wonder if he knows (as others also allude to). That's what gets me so frustrated during games, as we do get in promising advanced positions but then time & again it just breaks down, fizzles out, slow's down, get's wasted, or, too often, we just go for the recycling retain possession option with the ball going backwards yet again. It all just seems so disjointed, so undrilled, so aimless / hopeful, so lacking in creativity, incisiveness, positivity, and clinical-ness (if that's even a word!). That's about coaching.
Shoring up the defence from worst in the whole football league to 4th best outside the promoted championship clubs is his coaching also. We've had our forward line together 7 weeks. It will become less disjointed in time. That doesn't change the fact that players still need to compete man for man though, and we do seem to have lost a bit of that recently.
Partly that, and partly that he speaks so eloquently & passionately about the game. It was only last Saturday that a Sky reporter said something about his interview with Rosenior the other day was probably the best he'd ever done. He can talk a good game for sure, but that doesn't win matches. I'm sure it was that combination (of link to us, and the way he can talk about the game) that persuaded Acun to appoint him. But you are right, if there wasn't that link, most would surely have been saying wtf, and also why the **** is he talking like he's Mourinho or Pep! Acun took a huge gamble and / or was very naive himself (again). There's still of course time for the gamble to pay off, but the doubts may soon snowball.
As you yourself have only just said, it's not just about the forwards. Let's start seeing some evidence that he can build us as an attacking force, starting from tomorrow.
I wonder if some players are hiding behind the system a little and not being quite as competitive individually - and I'm not talking about the strikers. It'll either be addressed or it won't. If it isn't and he loses touch with top 10 then some on here will get their wish and he'll be gone for another manager - albeit with a similar profile, style and wage demands that they'll whine about and want rid of instead, most probably. Oh, and Rosenior doesn't talk like Pep or Mourinho. He talks like Rosenior. He's always talked like that, even as an England u21, premier league player, coach or talking to millions on sky. He always will talk like that. He believes in himself. Has a self assurance with a touch of arrogance and good for him, cos he needs that in every aspect of his profession. Someone mentioned Silva before. He has that too. The rescue job he did last year has earned him the rebuild job this year. And unless he falls significantly below the top 10 expectation this year, then he'll have earned himself a tilt at it next year too.
If we let go rosenior tomorrow, he'd most likely get another championship job. Probably from a side who he didn't play for. And Pedro's salary was agreed in principle before he got on the plane - otherwise he wouldn't have got on the plane. It was the other stuff surrounding his potential appointment where it fell down, by all accounts - i. e. Working within the existing club structure as opposed to being able to dictate it, staffing, recruitment strategy etc. Wouldn't be surprised if he shat himself when he saw the training ground either.
"Sadly it's not surprising. The Championship - if you look at teams that are up there consistently, I look at Coventry last season, Mark Robins has been there a long time and imprinted his way of playing," Rosenior tells Hull Live. "Luton, Rob Edwards took over a team that had a way of playing under Nathan (Jones). Teams that have stability and consistency normally end up where they want to be. "It's no surprise and it's mad that in the Championship I'm the 12th (longest serving manager), it's ridiculous, I haven't had 12 months in this job. That's up to owners to make decisions, they put their money into the club. I feel really fortunate that I'm well-backed here and there's long-term thinking and I want to be here in the long term as well. I know I need to get results in the short term, but I know with Acun and Tan, they're seeing the benefits of working in this way as well." During the recent international break, Rosenior spent a couple of days with vice-chairman Tan Kesler at his East Yorkshire home and says the pair covered a whole range of topics, not just the first team, but the whole club. "Everything," he said when asked what was on the agenda. "I speak to Tan about how we can improve as a team, off the pitch with the staff, how we can maybe look at different roles within the club to help the performance on the pitch, how we can grow. I like to take a look at the bigger picture, how the club looks financially, really good chats and Tan's a great guy. "I spent two days with him, I spent a night at his house which was lovely and spent time with his dog. We took a walk in the morning which was nice, but it's good when you have that time to take a look at things overall, how we can improve, how we can improve the academy structure, how can we improve the first team, how can we improve the staff? So many things go into the way that we want to work." While Rosenior is edging towards his 12-month anniversary, it will soon be two years since Ilicali took over the club from the clutches of the Allam family, and the popular head coach believes things are very different to what they were, with attendances regularly above 20,000 and a feel-good factor around the club. "If I compare this club to when Acun took over this club, it's like chalk and cheese in every aspect," Rosenior continued. "The engagement from the fans and the community. The team, maybe I'm biased but I think the team is completely different for positive reasons in the time that I've been here. "The academy, I watched them against Barnsley and they're trying to play in exactly the same way that we play at first-team level so we'll have that continual growth through. Young Stan Ashbee trained with us this week, he's only 17. He looks like he's going to be a really good asset and a really top player. "I'm starting to learn about the academy and what's great is they're starting to learn about our style of play from the age of 16 or 17. It's like the iceberg, there's a lot of stuff happening underneath that won't show until the end of the process but there's so much good happening. It's not down to me, it's down to the staff especially Acun and Tan who had this kind of holistic thinking for the football club." Saturday's late home loss to Southampton was an obvious setback and more will inevitably follow but Rosenior remains confident he retains the absolute support of Ilicali. "Yeah, I think so, they say that to me (he has their support). I have great conversations with Acun, great conversations with Tan, they're really open. "They tell me where they think we can improve and I agree with them. It's great because every time they give me their opinion, I agree with what they have to say on the whole. Then I speak about the more in-depth, in-detail things that it's my job as a coach to see and bring up to them. "We're all on the same page and I think that shows in the team's performances. We've been consistent, we've lost two in 11, we should have had more wins, for sure, two in 18 at home in the year, two in 11 this season playing some very good teams away from home who are up there, we're on track, we're alright."
At the point LR took over Oscar had 13 I think (someone will look and check for sure) that was playing in an unstructured side. Then I think he was injured at the point Rosenior arrived. After that especially after January he was consigned to cameos because he wasn’t fancied. Oscars goals were screamers, tap ins, bundle ins, he was a nuisance who held the ball up and he chased. Everything and I mean everything we agree we’re missing . And yet that doesn’t suit a style. If he had been fancied he may well have scored 25 and we’d have got more than 3 million for him!!!
He had eight goals when Rosie came in, Rosie started him in his first game in charge, but he got sent off after 37 minutes. He then started him in every game he was available for, before dropping him to the bench for the West Brom game in March (he scored another four during those thirteen league games).
When Peter Taylor came here he sought a set of players who had decent ball control better than before and collectively so that we could retain the ball more than we had . Anyone who went to Rochdale when we won 2-0 , (Green And Burgess) May recall a totally compfirtable composed performance . It’s when we had gone up a level in that division . I think he plays Twine for that reason primarily , Oscar was not up to standard IMO and he chased around but he got balls delivered to him and they would bounce off him or for his size he got dispossessed I think it’s about posession stats - great if you get the results but no use if you don’t kill teams off - we need an Ings , Evans , Gallagher type , solid strong and hard as nails in the box - they all have good control
Comparing Shota’s record to Rosey’s is a little misleading until you put into context, most of those results Shota’s team managed to get we got ****ing annihilated in, and couldn’t really have grumbled if we’d have lost them all. Rosey’s team however has been unlucky to lose all but the Norwich, Donny and Ipswich games, and has been unlucky not to win several of the draws. We are a team that is playing well but not quite getting the results we should. That first half against Southampton was as good as I can remember playing in years.
I think with Twine it's a few things. Rosenior definitely values his pressing game, which is something that fans don't really see or think about but it does seem to be important to managers. The other thing is he's supposed to have seriously good end product, which is what we lacked when we signed him and sadly still do lack. Still waiting to see him show that for us, it doesn't seem like chances fall to him very often compared to other players, so maybe it's about him getting into positions more. And then there's the set piece thing, which again is a weakness that he was brought in to improve us on but which we haven't seen meaningful improvement on yet. On paper he should be one of our best attackers, as undroppable as Philogene is, but we need to start seeing his quality soon or he'll start to look like this season's Pelkas.
