duncanjwitham

We’re going to run around more than they do, obviously… ?

Ooooh, I reckon I know this! Is it because we're not running around enough?

Ooooh, I reckon I know this! Is it because we're not running around enough?

Ooooh, I reckon I know this! Is it because we're not running around enough?

The thing Rice does very well is win the ball back and play it simply to one of his team mates. And that's fine, you want somebody doing that.  The problem is, we've spent most of the time playing him alongside Kalvin Phillips who by and large does the exact same thing, so you just end up with Rice and Phillips passing sideways to each other.  One of those guys passing it to the likes of Mount and Bellingham would be much more effective IMO.  But Southgate seems so worried about his centre halves making mistakes, that he seems to want to play an extra centre half and 2 sitters in front of them.

That's a big part of it IMO, along with forcing the ball forwards too often meaning we struggle to keep it.
The pen against Torquay all comes because the midfield 2 getting dragged out of position, chasing the ball.  Hourihane is off chasing their left back down, and when he breaks past him Bird gets dragged over to close him down, leaving a spare man in the middle of the pitch. When the ball is passed to him, he has all the time to do whatever he wants, and he picks out a pass to the guy Cashin fouls.  
Obviously that doesn't completely excuse Cashin fouling the guy, and it doesn't explain the moment-of-madness handballs etc, but at least half of the penalties are ultimately due to us allowing opposing players to dribble at us, in our box.  If you keep forcing the ball forwards you'll give it away more.  And if you have your midfield chasing all over the place, there will be times when they get bypassed, and that results in players getting free run to dribble/pass into our box.  And if that happens often enough, you'll give penalties away.  And while some of the refereeing decisions are clearly bad, if you keep having to make last ditch tackles on guys in your box, you're making the ref make decisions.

Missed the edit time...
3-4 chances per game on average would work out at 138-184 across a whole season.
There's simply no way anyone's pratting about at the back has presented the opposition that many good chances!
I'd be very surprised if the real average was even at one per game tbh.

Pratting about with it at the back seems to be a common criticism of the style under Rosenior but I don’t recall us conceding many goals doing it, maybe Cashin trying to control a high ball leading to Plymouth’s winner?
However, under Warne we’ve conceded doing it against Port Vale and Ipswich. Under Rosenior, Wildsmith’s position used to be a decent mitigation for it as he was always high up as an extra option and ready to sweep up if needed, but that was often criticised too. If he’d been higher up against Ipswich their goal would’ve probably been avoided. 

Most of them.
How many other teams have been on the end of 7,8,9 such decisions by the same group of refs in the space of 10-12 games?
If your answer is 'none, but the refs are targeting Derby ' the you're  barking up the wrong tree.
I fully expect the issue to resolve itself in one or a  few month's time, at which point people will just say 'see, it wasn't our fault!" and pretend that there haven't been any changes at all.
 

The number of 'crazy goals we've given away poncing around the back' over a whole season (and more) has already been eclipsed by the number of penalties given away and times our defence have been left one on one with an attacker on the breakaway 
It's really odd that one is almost excused and the other vilified.

That was alright bar the finishing, should have taken the dub home as Morecambe were probably the worst team we've played this season IMO and we had ample opportunity to take the lead. 
I thought NML, Bird, Sibley and Wildsmith all had good games. Cashin got better as the game went on after a shaky first 20. Dobbin, Roberts and Collins in the ok column. Fozzy, Smith and McGoldrick in the poor/disjointed/tired descriptors. Oulsa should have bagged. Tommo had two standout moments for the wrong reasons. 
I'll put my head above the parapet and say I don't agree with the Dobbin MOTM call, I find him the most frustrating player on the team and here's why. He had two pretty amazing runs in the first half which deserve credit but I thought his final ball, finishing and general play when in really good positions was a real let down tonight, as it has been all season. He reminds me a bit of Theo Robinson, does the hard things well but the easy things terribly. Obviously still young and learning on the job so I'm not writing him off, just thought there were more bad/frustrating things than good things on show. Maybe harsh when he's won us a penalty and has an 'assist' in the stats too but there we go. 
 

I suspect it depends what type of game it turns into. If they’re camped on the edge of their box with us trying to break them down for 90 minutes, then Sibley is as good as anyone at pulling a goal out of nowhere. If it turns into a midfield battle, then I’m less convinced.  And if we end up dealing with a lot of breakaways, then I’m concerned.

I suspect it depends what type of game it turns into. If they’re camped on the edge of their box with us trying to break them down for 90 minutes, then Sibley is as good as anyone at pulling a goal out of nowhere. If it turns into a midfield battle, then I’m less convinced.  And if we end up dealing with a lot of breakaways, then I’m concerned.

I’ll keep it simple then, if words bother you that much. We made significantly more tackles and interceptions against Exeter than we did against Bristol (24 vs 14 tackles and 13 vs 3 interceptions, stats from whoscored). The effort was similar, the application was night and day. 

Not denying that mentality matters, but the switch to 442/4231 was a massive part of the change in how we pressed on Saturday.  The 2 wide players having fullback cover in behind them gives them so much more freedom to go and press aggressively.  If NML was playing as a wingback, rather than a winger, he really shouldn't be chasing loose balls just outside their area, and we probably don't score that first goal.  We were basically pressing with 4 players, rather than 2.
And Bristol Rovers came and tried to play out from the back against us, which played right into our hands.  I'd be very surprised if Morecombe do that anywhere near as much tonight, or if many other teams try it at Pride Park.  So we probably won't be winning possession high up the pitch anywhere near as often, regardless of mentality.

Not denying that mentality matters, but the switch to 442/4231 was a massive part of the change in how we pressed on Saturday.  The 2 wide players having fullback cover in behind them gives them so much more freedom to go and press aggressively.  If NML was playing as a wingback, rather than a winger, he really shouldn't be chasing loose balls just outside their area, and we probably don't score that first goal.  We were basically pressing with 4 players, rather than 2.
And Bristol Rovers came and tried to play out from the back against us, which played right into our hands.  I'd be very surprised if Morecombe do that anywhere near as much tonight, or if many other teams try it at Pride Park.  So we probably won't be winning possession high up the pitch anywhere near as often, regardless of mentality.

Not denying that mentality matters, but the switch to 442/4231 was a massive part of the change in how we pressed on Saturday.  The 2 wide players having fullback cover in behind them gives them so much more freedom to go and press aggressively.  If NML was playing as a wingback, rather than a winger, he really shouldn't be chasing loose balls just outside their area, and we probably don't score that first goal.  We were basically pressing with 4 players, rather than 2.
And Bristol Rovers came and tried to play out from the back against us, which played right into our hands.  I'd be very surprised if Morecombe do that anywhere near as much tonight, or if many other teams try it at Pride Park.  So we probably won't be winning possession high up the pitch anywhere near as often, regardless of mentality.

Honestly, it’s not really changed my opinion.  The improved performance was down to 2 things, the change in formation meaning we had a lot more players playing in positions they are comfortable in, and Bristol being utterly dreadful. I would give credit to Warne if I thought he had made a conscious decision to change the formation to suit the players, rather than injuries forcing it, but he actively went out of his way post-match to make it clear he pretty much picks formations at random to squeeze in the players he wants, so no credit there.  And I have no faith in him sticking with the formation when everyone is fit again. Plus it’s hard to judge how much of the result was down to us playing well and them playing badly, especially when 3 of the goals were absolute defensive howlers from them.
I still think he’s a very limited manager, that has one trick to win games, and if it doesn’t work he’s clueless. And I don’t like the way he wants his football played.  But I said elsewhere in this thread that if he’d come in and taken Rosenior’s system and just put his own twist on it, then he’d have gotten a lot more slack from fans.  And I think that’s basically what we saw today. That 4231/422 system we played was close to how we were lining up for most of Rosenior’s games, but we just moved the ball forward a lot more aggressively.  He made a rod for his own back by trying to tear everything up and just re-run his Rotherham system with a completely different bunch of players.
 

We pressed quite aggressively from the front under Rosenior too.  We just had to do it less often because we didn’t give the ball away so much.  A quick skim through the highlights from this season gives this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbx3yzflKlkt%3D1&t=87
 
At 1m27 an opposing defender plays a square ball that NML nips onto first, resulting in a shot on goal. And the the next highlight, McGoldrick harries a defender, nicks the ball off him and squares it for Collins to score.  There are loads of other examples of it too.
Like I said, I think the biggest change in performance was down to the change in formation. Almost every player was played in a position they were comfortable in, and you could see that both in how they played on the ball, and their understanding of their jobs re when to press etc.  if Warne had come out and said he’d made that change because players weren’t adapting well to the back 3, then I would have given him some credit. But he basically came out and said he didn’t think the formation mattered. So if he can’t see what it was that made the result so different yesterday, I don’t believe he will be able to replicate it.

We pressed quite aggressively from the front under Rosenior too.  We just had to do it less often because we didn’t give the ball away so much.  A quick skim through the highlights from this season gives this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbx3yzflKlkt%3D1&t=87
 
At 1m27 an opposing defender plays a square ball that NML nips onto first, resulting in a shot on goal. And the the next highlight, McGoldrick harries a defender, nicks the ball off him and squares it for Collins to score.  There are loads of other examples of it too.
Like I said, I think the biggest change in performance was down to the change in formation. Almost every player was played in a position they were comfortable in, and you could see that both in how they played on the ball, and their understanding of their jobs re when to press etc.  if Warne had come out and said he’d made that change because players weren’t adapting well to the back 3, then I would have given him some credit. But he basically came out and said he didn’t think the formation mattered. So if he can’t see what it was that made the result so different yesterday, I don’t believe he will be able to replicate it.

Honestly, it’s not really changed my opinion.  The improved performance was down to 2 things, the change in formation meaning we had a lot more players playing in positions they are comfortable in, and Bristol being utterly dreadful. I would give credit to Warne if I thought he had made a conscious decision to change the formation to suit the players, rather than injuries forcing it, but he actively went out of his way post-match to make it clear he pretty much picks formations at random to squeeze in the players he wants, so no credit there.  And I have no faith in him sticking with the formation when everyone is fit again. Plus it’s hard to judge how much of the result was down to us playing well and them playing badly, especially when 3 of the goals were absolute defensive howlers from them.
I still think he’s a very limited manager, that has one trick to win games, and if it doesn’t work he’s clueless. And I don’t like the way he wants his football played.  But I said elsewhere in this thread that if he’d come in and taken Rosenior’s system and just put his own twist on it, then he’d have gotten a lot more slack from fans.  And I think that’s basically what we saw today. That 4231/422 system we played was close to how we were lining up for most of Rosenior’s games, but we just moved the ball forward a lot more aggressively.  He made a rod for his own back by trying to tear everything up and just re-run his Rotherham system with a completely different bunch of players.
 

Honestly, it’s not really changed my opinion.  The improved performance was down to 2 things, the change in formation meaning we had a lot more players playing in positions they are comfortable in, and Bristol being utterly dreadful. I would give credit to Warne if I thought he had made a conscious decision to change the formation to suit the players, rather than injuries forcing it, but he actively went out of his way post-match to make it clear he pretty much picks formations at random to squeeze in the players he wants, so no credit there.  And I have no faith in him sticking with the formation when everyone is fit again. Plus it’s hard to judge how much of the result was down to us playing well and them playing badly, especially when 3 of the goals were absolute defensive howlers from them.
I still think he’s a very limited manager, that has one trick to win games, and if it doesn’t work he’s clueless. And I don’t like the way he wants his football played.  But I said elsewhere in this thread that if he’d come in and taken Rosenior’s system and just put his own twist on it, then he’d have gotten a lot more slack from fans.  And I think that’s basically what we saw today. That 4231/422 system we played was close to how we were lining up for most of Rosenior’s games, but we just moved the ball forward a lot more aggressively.  He made a rod for his own back by trying to tear everything up and just re-run his Rotherham system with a completely different bunch of players.
 

Honestly, it’s not really changed my opinion.  The improved performance was down to 2 things, the change in formation meaning we had a lot more players playing in positions they are comfortable in, and Bristol being utterly dreadful. I would give credit to Warne if I thought he had made a conscious decision to change the formation to suit the players, rather than injuries forcing it, but he actively went out of his way post-match to make it clear he pretty much picks formations at random to squeeze in the players he wants, so no credit there.  And I have no faith in him sticking with the formation when everyone is fit again. Plus it’s hard to judge how much of the result was down to us playing well and them playing badly, especially when 3 of the goals were absolute defensive howlers from them.
I still think he’s a very limited manager, that has one trick to win games, and if it doesn’t work he’s clueless. And I don’t like the way he wants his football played.  But I said elsewhere in this thread that if he’d come in and taken Rosenior’s system and just put his own twist on it, then he’d have gotten a lot more slack from fans.  And I think that’s basically what we saw today. That 4231/422 system we played was close to how we were lining up for most of Rosenior’s games, but we just moved the ball forward a lot more aggressively.  He made a rod for his own back by trying to tear everything up and just re-run his Rotherham system with a completely different bunch of players.
 

Honestly, it’s not really changed my opinion.  The improved performance was down to 2 things, the change in formation meaning we had a lot more players playing in positions they are comfortable in, and Bristol being utterly dreadful. I would give credit to Warne if I thought he had made a conscious decision to change the formation to suit the players, rather than injuries forcing it, but he actively went out of his way post-match to make it clear he pretty much picks formations at random to squeeze in the players he wants, so no credit there.  And I have no faith in him sticking with the formation when everyone is fit again. Plus it’s hard to judge how much of the result was down to us playing well and them playing badly, especially when 3 of the goals were absolute defensive howlers from them.
I still think he’s a very limited manager, that has one trick to win games, and if it doesn’t work he’s clueless. And I don’t like the way he wants his football played.  But I said elsewhere in this thread that if he’d come in and taken Rosenior’s system and just put his own twist on it, then he’d have gotten a lot more slack from fans.  And I think that’s basically what we saw today. That 4231/422 system we played was close to how we were lining up for most of Rosenior’s games, but we just moved the ball forward a lot more aggressively.  He made a rod for his own back by trying to tear everything up and just re-run his Rotherham system with a completely different bunch of players.
 

We pressed quite aggressively from the front under Rosenior too.  We just had to do it less often because we didn’t give the ball away so much.  A quick skim through the highlights from this season gives this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbx3yzflKlkt%3D1&t=87
 
At 1m27 an opposing defender plays a square ball that NML nips onto first, resulting in a shot on goal. And the the next highlight, McGoldrick harries a defender, nicks the ball off him and squares it for Collins to score.  There are loads of other examples of it too.
Like I said, I think the biggest change in performance was down to the change in formation. Almost every player was played in a position they were comfortable in, and you could see that both in how they played on the ball, and their understanding of their jobs re when to press etc.  if Warne had come out and said he’d made that change because players weren’t adapting well to the back 3, then I would have given him some credit. But he basically came out and said he didn’t think the formation mattered. So if he can’t see what it was that made the result so different yesterday, I don’t believe he will be able to replicate it.