Now that the dust has settled, I just wanted to write a few words about where I think we're at.
There has been quite a bit of criticism of players, not just on here but around the ground and elswhere online. Personally, it's hard to say if the players are applying themselves 100%, but I feel we've seen some really detirmined performances from all players this season. But players will start to look despondent if there is lack of leadership, or if leadership is proving inadequate.
The truth is, we have a very good squad, a squad that on paper belongs in the top half for sure. Granted, we've been hindered by injuries. But that's football.
Personally, I think Warburton and those immediately around have to be the ones to take responsibility. Warburton ultimately has the greatest responsibility.
I think we were eventually found out by pretty much everyone in the league. We seem to have one way of playing, and that's all. Quite frankly, we are way too slow in building up. We don't catch any teams off guard. We make teams feel comfortable and then they grow in confidence. We make it really hard for ourselves to score by allowing every team the benefit of getting back into shape by the time we try anything; we pass it around relatively slowly and have some kind of purist approach where we refuse to score in any way aside from through outpassing teams in their third of the pitch.
Although this has been an enjoyable season ultimately, there have been a lot of really frustrating moments. We seem to have a characteristics in our play which can only be seen as methods directly being given by the management team. For example, we seem to have an actual policy on getting a goal and then trying to defend that one goal lead. This very often comes back to bite us.
Another policy we seem to have is being overly careful with the ball. If there is no clear pass sideways or foreward, we pass backwards. When in our own half, this is understandable. But we do the same in the opposition half too. We don't put enough passes through to players feet or up and over. We don't take chances on through balls. In fact, we don't seem to take many chances at all! We only seem to 'go for it' when we have a clear opportunity.
Also, individual players don't seem to be being coached well. Certain bad habits are not being coached out of players and they just repeat them. Example: even though they're not the most physical, Chair and Willock do not go in for challenges. They won't try to win the ball in the air. It allows opposition defenders and midfielders so many free headers.
We don't play with guile. We don't play as if we want to dominate and lead on the pitch. We don't stamp our way of playing on matches. We seem to try and play to our opponents style/gameplan, almost like we're always responding to our opponents. And when we come up against a team who can play out their gameplan well, we get totally found out.
A great example of this was Millwall at home. That's how I want us to play. They played with a lot of purpose, went for us, put balls through and over from all sorts of angles, early crosses, tried to win every single ball. They gave our defence constant trouble and made us sweat. This is what I want to see us do: make defenses sweat and work. Even if it only works out 2 out of 5 times, just keep pushing defences, make them make mistakes, keep them away from our goal by making them defend theirs.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that Warburton has gotten us to play a very pessimistic kind of football at times. Which, for large parts of the season, has ironically been combined with players who optimistically don't give up and will snatch points away from others. But, like I said, we seem to have been well and truly found out by the other teams in this league.
For the record, I wouldn't dump Warburton this moment and I am very grateful for the real turnaround he has made. He clearly got the team really galvanised. But I don't think he has much tactical nuance and doesn't seem to be able to outsmart many other managers. Which is why I think we do need to find a new manager if we want to progress and get anywhere further. However, we should only let him go if we have found a genuine improvement. If we manage to finish strong this season, we should be able to convince a good manager to take a chance on a good squad (if we can keep our best players).
I think Sanderson looks a great prospect but needs too improve his decision making, concentration and possibly his temper. No doubt why Wolves loan him out to develop him as we do at at lower levels. I certainly would like to keep him if that should be possible because so far he does look a great prospect and he has that extra pace we lack in our back 3, except to a probably slighly less degree with Barbet.
To me, he looks like a natural footballer. He controls the ball well and can turn well. With time, he could fit in to a very good looking back line.