THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

THE MELTDOWN – NOTTS COUNTY
Where to start …..how about Ipswich Town, played them last season home and away, today they are top of the Championship, makes you wonder how they did it…..cough ….cough……down on their luck and dwindling attendances, in fact the season before we were 19 points in front of them come the final reckoning, it could have been us…ok I’m joking, it couldn’t be us, and most of us know why.

So if Ipswich Town doesn’t cut it, I suppose I better try and get my head around the elephant in the room. I did consider writing this last night, but my old headmaster always taught me to never write angry, so I hope I am better equipped this morning to give a proper Meltdown assessment of the situation with a clear head, and there is a bit to unravel.

First things first then, the dropping of Kelly, and surely it can only have been that.

I’ve heard the talk about contractual obligations regarding Marschall and that has to be bollocks, how a club could sign a player with clauses that say the said player must play if fully fit is ridiculous, and if it really is the case, Sweeting, Williamson, and Winkie have lost the bloody plot. I’m sorry I just don’t believe we could be that bloody stupid, even though as I’m typing this, I am doubting myself, as I know this club is no stranger to being bloody stupid….we visit it on a regular basis.

I’m sorry for mentioning this again….I really am….but I feel I have to give the merest suggestion I know what I’m talking about. I was a keeper up until I was 42, eat your heart out Lewie, and I like to think I know what I’m talking about. Yes the game has changed over the years with keepers being confident with the ball at their feet, but the concept really hasn’t changed that much, dominating the box, narrowing angles, commanding, and reminding defenders of their roles, and in that 18 yard box, you are the guvnor, Marschall in no way shows me those attributes, so why did Williamson pick him, and drop Kelly.

Kelly injured…..possibly….but I doubt it. I watched the whole warm up focussed solely on the keepers and in no way did Kelly look to be in any discomfort, restricted, no visible signs of strappings to his hands, body or gloves….some keepers tape together a couple of fingers if they have a weakness, or a reoccurring dislocation problem, its more common than you would think, but I could see no signs of that, in fact I could see nothing that made me think otherwise even for one second.

So after discounting contractual obligations and Kelly carrying an injury, we are really only left with one thing, Williamson favours Marschall over Kelly, and that can only be through his relationship at Gateshead, and to me that feels a bit like a Dad managing his kids side, and picking his son even though deep down he knows he is shit.

But do I blame Marschall….well no I don’t, I blame Williamson, he is no stranger to a bizarre team selection, and he continues to make them on a regular basis and is as far as I can see is his only concerning trait, but I think I’m right in saying this sort of thing is becoming common place with managers these days.

Kelly should never have been dropped after a confidence boosting clean sheet against Walsall after the shit show at Stockport, that was a mistake, if MW felt confident to put Kelly back between the posts for Walsall, why change him now.

It is obvious the players have no confidence in Marschall either as rather than let him take control, as he should, they despite getting a call from the rookie keeper are deciding to just hoof it clear and I noticed that on three occasions with Marschall in front of us, and it was possibly more when the teams changed ends, appreciate we were 100 yards away so I couldn’t tell.

Williamson now has a major problem, but he only has himself to blame, stick with Marschall and risk further ridicule and more damage to a young keeper who has no confidence, or bring back Kelly and admit he was wrong to drop him, and further screw up the fragile mindset of Marschall…..what would you do?

Taking this back to Marschall’s first day, I was excited to see a raw young keeper making his way in the game, on the books of Villa, he must be half decent, and Williamson keen enough to sign him after being with him at Gateshead, what could go wrong, well basically everything, to me he doesn’t look cut out for EFL football just yet, a few more seasons at non-league are needed, as Aliramone will tell you, keepers like a good bottle of claret get better with age, at the moment Marschall feels like a bottom shelf two for one offer at B & M, and if I’m honest Kelly isn’t that much better, as I said the other week, the best of a really poor bunch of keepers this season.

While the focus will be on the Marschall and Kelly debate, there is more to this game than first meets the eye.

Firstly Wearne is not a wing back, but MW continues to try out his theory, and he likes a theory does MW as he has only just got out of his system playing MJ where Cam Norman should be playing.

Next up we have our mysterious tactics of sitting off County, I just didn’t get it, did MW not watch videos of the Swindon v County game where the Swine panicked the County defence into giving them two laughable goals, but no, we sat off them and let them play it out to the degree me and mate were discussing why Max Dean was not hounding their backline like normal, and the only conclusion we came up with was MW had told him to conserve his energy and not run round like a headless chicken like last week…..I mean….what good could come out of that.

I should though praise Dean’s goal, superb, and credit where credit is due Harrison took his two goals well and looked much better.

But this draw, and it feels like a defeat lands squarely on the shoulders of MW, I am respectful of where he has dragged this team from to where it is now, but he has a habit of making some poor calls of judgement, and this was one of them.

For what it’s worth I don’t feel confident about the playoff situation, if we go into the away tie trying to adapt how we play to the opposition we might just as well finish in 8th and not worry about it, we made that mistake away to Wycombe and got involved in a game of their liking and left ourselves a mountain to climb, personally I would rather lose playing our style and sod the opposition.

When the dust has settled at the end of the season we can write the season’s eulogy, my guess is it will contain some of the following, the appointment of Alexander, poor keeper recruitment, ending up relying on the 5th choice striker, the tactics and team selections…..feel free to add one of your own.

One last word, for one reason or another this wasn’t just solely down to team selection, but too many players went missing on the day to the degree I didn’t realise Kemp was playing, I said to my mate, when did Kemp come on, to be told he started.

We never ever got control of midfield, and to disagree with MW, County are not a good side, they are bloody awful and had lost their last 5 home games, but no matter, at times I thought we made County look half decent….we have this ability to bring out the best in any shit team you see.

Ultimately though we should not be messing about with the keepers selection at this stage of the season, that is a massive error in judgement.

See you at FGR.

WD

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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight

When we loaned Shaun Cummings from Chelsea, I'm almost certain there was an agreement in place where if he played that week then Chelsea paid his wages, if he didn't play when fit then we paid the wages.

If that’s the case, we are gambling on the clubs future based on a few grand in players wages, that is very poor in my eyes……but I’m not shocked.

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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight

This is the case. Final sum of the loan is cheaper if he plays X amount of games...

Loan agreements have these sort of clauses in all the time as a way for the loaning club to encourage the use of their players, it's not really a surprise.

That being said, unless the difference in cost between playing and not playing is significant, I think yesterday should definitely have been Marschall's final appearance for us. There's no coming back from that fan reaction.

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Cuboid of bum fluff

If that's true. then playing him was likely a Board led decision, not a Head Coach one. If so, I'd be fuming if I was MW...

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

There's definitely different degrees of clauses inserted into loans as an encouragement for them to be selected - I guess a lot depends on their age and experience as well (maybe young first time loans, like Tezgel, come with less of those than a more established loan like.Cumming).

Also, we often talk on here about how when we play the 'MK Way' we improve our reputation as a club to send players to - and how that good / bad reputation is an important thing in getting loans in. So I think there's also that type of 'unofficial' pressure applied to teams that they don't want too many loans to go badly.

While I think that definitely played a part in the selection, I think it's also likely that WellDon's suggestion that Williamson is pretty much doubling down on his mistake in the hope of Marschall finding some form and 'proving' the choice right also played some part in it. New managers almost always come in and look to bring in 'their' players, often offloading equally good / arguably better players in the process - because it's more of a suiting their style thing rather than just on ability. It was a big call by Williamson to move a senior keeper on and bring in a young loan rookie and go with a very inexperienced keeper group. That's not worked at all, especially with Marschall. But he needs to accept that and go with Kelly for the rest of the season as the best of a weak group, rather than sticking with the forlorn hope that Marschall will come good.

What he said…..that’s not a clever way to run a club.

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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight

Nah, this was an MW decision. He doesn't seem the type of manager to take such heavy direction as that.

Will see who is in goal at FGR.

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Decided to come back.

Good post...

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