It’s wasn’t exactly a controversial statement Redruth. I didn’t say that playing the game makes you a great manager. Elite managers who didn’t play the game are few and far between.
Well I’m criticising the appalling lazy journalism, so I don’t think it is at all. I am not having a pop at the argument we should give McKenna time, just the completely ridiculous comparison between the two men. In well over a decade you can count on one hand the number of times I’ve disagreed with BigAl. Given that, I think ‘a load of old bollocks’ is a fair assessment.
Just seen this thread, things have changed majorly since even February this year. We had a pretty poor run of form in the middle of last season which as indicated was worse than the form Lambert and Cook got the sack for. We weren't having a consistent starting line up and the football was pretty turgid, just pass the ball around at the back for the sake of it, no urgency.....against teams we should have been completely overwhelming, we lost to Wycombe, Oxford and Lincoln, plus drew against the likes of Fleetwood, Cambridge and Bristol Rovers and they weren't good performances and we were conceding so many late goals. We were averaging just over a point a game yet we still were promoted with a record number of points for a team finishing second. Think it shows we have actually been performing above the levels we were at this time last year and puts some context around the recent away draws (and performances) at Birmingham and Rotherham
It also shows that if, as McKenna likes, you stick to the way you want to play, you will get better at it. Although it looks scary sometimes, we are actually pretty comfortable playing the ball out of defence now. The same can't be said about how it was this time last season where passes were getting picked off and players weren't totally convinced about what they were doing. Fast forward to now and the players are actually inviting the pressure in order to play around the press and open up the quick counter.
There’s a tw@t who sits behind me at PR who still persists in hollering “Get rid!” every time we play out from the back-some people will never learn.