THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

A few month back, I watched some goals that Gillingham conceded last season and Tucker always seemed to look a be a bit lost or not really putting in 100% to stop the shot.

He does put in some brilliant tackles at times for us and decent clearances but unfortunately his overall 90 min game is strewn with errors, wherever that be positionally or when on the ball.

I have a feeling this is what has happened at Gillingham too, and he got more praise than he actually deserved. Maybe due to age and coming through their youth system, he was an automatic fan favourte but deep down, he was a cause for their truly terrible defence.

We all know that Jackson would have dropped him by now, just like Manning did but painfully we have no other CB available.

The situation is so bad, I'd even be looking at getting free agent Paul Downing back

Oh god yeah. His covering defending is good. Its the rest of his game that shits me right up. But as I say with all the shite we have signed Manning places his trust in what Sweeting says and was too green to challenge him, not that he had no choice.

What also baffles me is do we not have a scouting network anymore? My place of work would not hire someone to replace someone who left my team cause on a piece of paper said we had less sales than 2021, even though getting out deliveries is only 10% of my job. Just cause it is on a piece of paper does not give you a full picture. Only seeing them work if the flesh will give you the full picture of what anyone does. Are scouts even a thing anymore? Cause if it is then surely they should be completing their due diligence and if not surely this is something Manning could and should have brought up as a concern.

That's him protecting the players. I don't think Jackson is that naive. I don't think there's a good vibe around the club at the moment. Imagine you're Tucker. You're having a bad season, the gaffer has brought in someone on loan to cover you - who then gets crocked in the first few days. You then have to play at least until March. The supporters know you're not good and out of your depth and you can hear the groans at the stadium when he fucks up.

Tucker is only 23 and stuff like Jackson saying "oh we sat down with him, his stats are great" etc is his way of publicly defending a lad who must be desperately short of confidence.

Same with other players. Devoy is not quite there yet. Grant and Burns haven't impressed. Holland has had a fitful start - was diabolical the first time I saw him, improved a bit since. It's not a squad that has great depth and I imagine Jackson must be doing this job for his CV if nothing else. Seems a good bloke though - I always wonder "would I like to play for this bloke?" probably a yes for Jackson. He has a tough job, our squad is weak.

Yes, far too error-prone. Alby said in another tread he was like Ebanks-Landell, who actually had the same problem. One big mistake in every game, guaranteed. I'm sure his stats are great Jacko, but the stats probably don't include "Let the ball drift over your head for Wednesday to equalise". I was never a great player but I was taught never to let the ball bounce when playing centre half!

That quote is from Alby, not me.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

Caught up on this post on the commute home and had time to deliberate on jack tucker and it might be controversial but i think he has the makings of being a top centre back for us or someone else if we dont have the patience. Now his start here has been rocky but on reflection i think hes been hindered by a few things and its caused difficulties in his young career:

- going from being the best player in a team struggling against relegation to move on with the ambition and expectation to be fighting at the right end of the table but instead find yourself in snother relegation cannot be easy on the mind and development

- having a manager train you all summer on 4 at the back, a system youre used to and then bottle it and go back to 3 at the back with harvie and tennai out injured and not the required wingbacks to make it work didnt help setltling

- i believe hes suffered where others prospered with the lack of a david kasumu type player. David really broke everything up before it arrived at our defence and was always an option for a ball out from defense. At times this season theres been noone offering a pass for the defence. How many times have one of our defenders pre jackson looked up and theres no midfield option showing for the ball?

- the defence last season was helped by a forward line capable of pinning the opposition back and retaining the ball and causing them to fear coming forward or pushing up. This seasons defence have faced more pressure, more actions snd a higher press against them. Couple that with no midfielders shoeing for a pass and that is a recipe for a disaster. Something we saw alot under manning was the defence being forced or asked to bypass the press and go long which would inevitably snd in loss of possession and facing another attack

So for me theres many, many things that have hindered jack tuckers progression this season. Hes not helped himself with the errors but a young defender under difficult conditions on the pitch with a completely different playing style to the success last seasons defence were able tk have has meant hes struggled

Personally, for me a defence of watson, ohora, tucker, lewington, harvie last season, with the midfield dtill in place and forward line wouldnt look at all different than having darling in place of tucker. For me tucker in last season/russ martins style of plag, last seasons team of confidence and midfield/forward ability would have been an exceptional player and souldnt look out of place.

Theres too many factors that have disrupted his start to life at the dons but as a like for like replacement for darling playing under the same conditions as darling would have been a very good replacement.

That's my opinion. Its impossible to say without having tucker experience the same fortunate working conditions as darling but from a recruitment perspective i think it was the right replacement for darling at the erong time, in the wrong team!

I'm talking about when he first came in. As if he didn't feel the position we were in was correct so littlebwirk had to be done to bring players in.

Protect them all he likes. But Liam said in his final post match interview that changes need to be made. If Liam had stayed on, that isn't an attack on the players it was a fact. A new guy comes in and feels the opposite and we barely improve results wise.

We needed more than what we got, and needed more put than went.

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"It's not about hoping this little moment will change our momentum, its about our daily actions and courage in everything we do.. We've got to stop believing in fairytales"

- Graham Alexander, October 2023

There are more than a few people who didn't think we were in the "right position" - I asked on the podcast if Toby Lock thought there were four worse teams than us this season and he thought not. Perhaps Jacko felt the same, you may be right.

I am not sure there are four worse teams than us in the division and if we do stay up it'll be because of a great run or some serious hard graft.

jacko seems like a good guy and I hope he works out.

my fear is that when martin left, the power shifted too far in sweeting's direction. I don't think it's smart to let the manager completely run the show nowadays — a director of football gives a longer-term balance — but the opposite is also true.

you see this quite a lot. there's initially an equal partnership of manager-dof and when the manager moves on, it falls to the dof to appoint the replacement. that creates a dynamic of the manager 'answering' to the dof. the summer window was way too much about "the model" and age profiles and contract structures and so on and not about actually putting together a functional squad. I don't think martin would have let it happen.