Alarm bells..

I still think we will go up! If by some miracle we do, I'm sure it will be down to Yorkie somehow

 

Sorry Nuggets, I'm going to disagree with you a bit here.

I don't think our failure to see matches out is down to coaching but rather the subs and lack of game management that Cook makes during the second half. He is averse to making decisions that would be considered 'shutting up shop' and so swaps attacking players for attacking players in the hope we score more goals. He would be better to play that attacking way until we get in the lead and then solidify us with a defensive sub to make sure we get the win. As a manager you have to expect that teams will come at you when they are behind and so should counter that with a change of shape and personnel. Cook could easily help the team to see the match out by choosing the right subs and tactical tweaks. The managers decisions are losing us matches, not coaching in my opinion.

Field attacking players and let them attack, get the lead and bring on defensive players and let them defend. Better way to do it than have your attacking players made to defend when it's not their strong point.

 

I think we are in agreement SD, it is a matter of semantics; for me and others, it has been tactical, game- management, decision-making, choice of subs, and defensive errors that can be coached out, all come to the management and coachng staff, not necessarily the players. This is my final word on this subject, I have my health to worry about!

 

I think I agree with the gist of the argument around it being more about tactics/in game management than coaching. For the little games I've seen, there's not one player we've brought in who I think looks a bad player (although the goalkeeper doesn't fill me with confidence but they can go through bad spells), they all look well coached but whether thats down to their previous club or this one who knows only time will tell, I guess the point is they haven't been here very long.

Although that doesn't remove concern about the coaching set up, where there is a real lack of experience and obviously an assistant (is there any other manager who doesn't have an assistant?). Is Cook waiting for his mate to get the sack, if so l think that is actually quite disrespectful?

There have been real errors in terms of tactics and substitutions on Cook's behalf, too much space in full back positions taking off tall players when we're defending a lead and bringing on flair players and the most shocking thing for me was last season, when he managed to take a team who were in the playoffs places albeit not pulling up any trees and produce some of the worst performances I've ever seen. Things have obviously improved but there are still problems.

At the end of the day any manager is going to have his weaknesses and I've not known one in my time supporting the club who we haven't questioned substitutes and tactics etc., so based on his record I'm currently willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that his strengths as a manager start to take shape and that the main reason for our poor start is down to the sheer number of changes we've made, we've rarely had a consistent line up and it takes time for players to understand each other, partnerships to form, to understand what the management wants, to get settled in the area. I know I've seen a few people say they don't think Cook would be the man to take us further than the Championship and to be fair I've not seen anything so far to suggest he can get us to the top half of league one yet but he did pretty well at Wigan in the Championship and in the cups he's beaten alot of higher level teams and not just beaten them but outplayed them, so he must have something about him.

 

Fair enough, San Diego. I agree with your assessment about the poor substitutions and game management, which I also mentioned in my original post.

I still believe the coaching has been underwhelming. The team shape does not look good to me, we’ve conceded far too many goals. I know it’s a new team, but I was hoping we’d be ironing out lapses of concentration and conceding sloppy goals from set pieces. Part of that is down to individual errors, but defending set pieces comes straight from the training ground. I do question whether we’ve got the necessary experience and tactical know-how. Hopefully we’ll get back to winning ways against a Portsmouth side in terrible form.

 

Our goal difference will surely help us out if we start to get close to the play off places.

We've scored more than any other, conceded a lot but sit in 13th with +6. That's the same as MK Dons in sixth place and higher than every team below that. If we make up the ground then our GD will be even better than it is now. Naturally teams towards the top will improve their GD too but they will have to drop points if we are to catch up.

 

That’s a good point SD,I’ve always said goal difference (positive or negative) is a significant pointer towards most promotion and relegation places.I bet if you looked back at most Seasons you could almost decide those that go up and down based on GD alone!