THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

That may be the case for you and others but what also matters to me is why they were useless here. Since the summer recruitment of 2021 there has only been a handful of players who have come through where I believed they would go on to have significantly better careers than with us.

Marschall is an interesting one. Was he just not ready? Was it bad coaching? Was there potentially overwhelming information regarding style that distracted him from the fundamentals? Was it the pressure of playing for a promotion favourite? Was it hearing the groans of fans? I reckon it was probably a small bit of all of them with a few other things

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but under Russ he would consistently talk about mentality, character and 'buying in' when describing both signings and players he was happy to let go. We let some players go who were pretty solid L1 players but may not have fit into what he wanted. Since then we've had so many signings come through he seems to lack that. Did our recruitment shift a bit too much to a data driven approach? Were we not focusing enough on the characters since?

Probably bored you to death and it seems some like to just say he was shit and others trying to blame us, but I do think it is really important to understand why so many signings - particularly young players on loan or players who did so well from 2020-22 - have either not performed for us or have regressed.

Confidence ?

Confidence in your own ability
Confidence and trust in the team around you
Confidence in and from your coach
Confidence from the crowd

In that order I think.

I'm still confident that Filip needs to improve a lot (compared with any of our previous keepers).

What about all the ones we got rid of that went on to still be shit? Does that prove that fans were right?

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

It is interesting as to why we have had some performers that didn't match up to their potential, I find it more interesting under Manning than Williamson - the shift in mentality seemed to plummet after a tough 3/4 games and never recover. The players were never bad enough for relegation on paper*, it seemed a hangover from the end of last season and losing 2/3 key players.

*Having said that, signing 2 players for your defence that got relegated the previous year and various others completely unproven at this level can't help.

Last year being around that fun sponge of a head coach would've sucked the life out of anyone. Any freedom to express and galvanised seemed to be gone. Even the media team and journos tried to do it for him, that'll filter to the players but they're responsible for not losing 8-1 in the playoffs once they get onto the field. Basics etc.
Marschall was stale, disconnected to what was around him and played like things would fall into place because he's told that's how it should be because of our system. But throwing and kicking balls directly to opposition footballers isn't on the manager

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Tuned in tonight to see how much he'd improved. He had NOTHING to do. Not one cross to catch or shot to save. The only shot on target for Port Vale was their goal, which in fairness was unstoppable due to a deflection.

Maybe every game is like this and he just has absolutely nothing to do all game? I am not convinced at all that he's suddenly been able to drastically improve his ability to claim a cross.

Yeah, massively unimpressed with Vale last night.

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... Not long to the Crewe game to see how much he's improved.

Normally you would expect ex-team mates to know which weaknesses to exploit when preparing for a game, but as you say anything could work.

I reckon that hassling / closing him down in the box when the ball is on the deck has to be a major winner for us ?

Wasn't it crosses that he was particularly poor at?

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

We should have had 27 shots on target today. Instead 1 shot, 1 goal ?

Agree. It should have been "shoot on sight". The guy is pap.

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"you don't seem to understand much about football" - Zeberdee