Well it is easy to say what has gone wrong! The problems on the pitch are obvious, certainly we have as Gary Bennett puts it, have become a soft touch, we concede easy goals, and scoring has dried up. Personally I doubt the players have had a falling out with the manager and are playing badly to get him sacked. That theory smacks of some silly conspiracy/anti-vaxxer type bollocks. The players, particularly the defence have lost form. Momentum is a strange sporting phenomenon, that loss in the rain a few weeks ago, seems to have hit a lot of the players self-belief and confidence. Obviously it is the managers job to help the players to regain that indefinable quality of oomph... it he cannot do that...
He’s already admitted he doesn’t know how to sort it. This isn’t just a bad patch in form, that would suggest that we’ve been in games but lost them. Since Charlton we haven’t even been in games, we’ve been nothing short of atrocious and if there was an opportunity to turn it around as you say, yesterday was the ideal opportunity
Has he? All I've heard him say is its his responsibility to sort it out. Confidence doesn't work like that though, does it? You can't just say "snap out of it" and someone immediately becomes more confident. And we have been in games and lost them. Neil hit the bar yesterday. That goes in, its a different story. Against Wednesday we were fine apart from clear problems defending from that right hand side.
Nope there was a comment recently where he said teams have worked us out and doesn’t know what to do about it As for the confidence thing, it’s funny you can’t snap out of it, because they certainly snapped into it. A loss of confidence should also be a gradual thing, unless they go to bits after one mistake and bollocking or something else has happened. Again though, how are you going to snap out of it if you perform so atrociously against a team with one win in fifteen. I’m not all in this “lost the dressing room” stuff, but it’s fairly apparent that something has went drastically wrong for us to witness such a down turn. I can’t affect the players confidence sitting here, it’s up to the highly paid manager to do that. And I doubt hauling 4 of them off at half time against a team currently perilously close to the National league is doing their confidence any good.
I am spreading no rumours fella. Don't deal in that stuff. There are people who know what happened. Nothing specific has been put on here to that effect. From me anyway.
The thing is mate it should be kept internal, it should not be out in the open. Secondly if there has been some fall out then Speakman and the owners will certainly know all about it. I would expect them to act in the interests of the club
I agree if you are aware of something that's gone on but either cant say or wont say what it is then its probably best to just not mention anything at all.
Off course following the very poor performances on the pitch, arguments, harsh words and loss of temper, from manager/coaching staff with the players and within the team itself will have occurred and be ongoing. Toys will have been thrown out of prams... I would expect nothing else. Many years ago when I played team sports it was a common occurrence, if anything with Sunderland a fully professional team marooned in the turd division the pressure to perform and get results is enormous. Yesterday I 3 putted 3 holes in a row, you should have heard my language I was furious (with myself). So do I think the confidence and resilience of the team has taken a hit, yep we did not handle the water polo game well at all, we have then been roughed up by a couple of other teams and had several defensive blunders. So yes I reckon the dressing room and training pitch may well be fraught and toxic right now. LJ has to orchestrate the turn around and we have to come out of this set back stronger Or somebody else has to be brought in who can.
He’s a trusted poster with inside knowledge at times, if he says something has happened but can’t divulge I’ll accept that as gospel. So for me I’d prefer he kept it up rather than say nowt, at least we get a little background on the situation.
No problem with that viewpoint. Personally think it gives folk ammunition to believe there's a full on meltdown when it could be something trivial. But it's all about opinions and that's what a forum is for. I've no issue with a bit of a verbal scrap behind the scenes as it shows folk care as long as its dealt with professionally it's not always a bad thing.
I've just watched the United v City highlights and there are parallels with us, for different reasons. City had a far higher number of sprints than United. The pundits rightly pointed out that if a player doesn't put in a high number of sprints then they get dropped - the same for a team like Liverpool. Compared to us, and Prehab's comments about the sprint levels dropping, it looks like a number of players aren't putting in the same shifts anymore. The obvious conclusion is that they are no longer playing for/being inspired by LJ.
The puzzling thing is that it isn't too long ago that we were saying the same people were good good good players. I know players lose form, that's part of the game, but for all the players to lose form at the same time is a bit too much of a coincidence.
Why would not being inspired by a manager stop you running? Personally think its players out of form with a lack of belief in their own ability who simply dont want to sprint to put themselves in a position where they can potentially be blamed for conceding a goal or missing a chance. This is a problem if this is the case but confidence and belief are things that can be turned around easier than belief in a manager.
That's a fair point about there being different reasons for the lack of running. We don't know which of our theories (if either) are correct. Why would not being inspired by a manager stop you running? If you are not enthused by a boss, then you'd struggle to put maximum effort in.
Yeah, the players haven't become bad players overnight. There's definitely something up I just don't buy this idea that poor form is solely the fault of the manager. I would bet that he has a very good idea of what the problems are but the solution might not be one that's immediately available. He's not going to say that publically though.
Data is hugely important and key to how we do things now. It needs to be taken in context though, and to me that means judging them whilst watching the 90 odd minutes as well. Some games do not require or present opportunities for lots of short sprints for example. The coaching team will have all of this data, plus lots of other data not mentioned such as player fitness data. If the coaching staff think players are downing tools they will bench them. If they keep their place it is just as likely they havent downed tools. At least that is what should happen. Same should be done when players form drops and arguably that hasnt happened quickly enough. Where this leaves us is a team not performing at the level they were. It looks to me like entirely a confidence thing, but that is only my opinion. Youngsters will suffer that more than older lads, so arguay we are more susceptible. The likes of Speakman need to judge whether Johnson is the man to recover the situation or not. It seems to be sacking season this weekend so who knows.
