Will Hughes Hair

Its the style he wants to play with the players he has available that concerns me. Talk of working harder when most of the squad are the wrong side of 30 and have dodgy injury profiles and don't have the legs. Over-committing players forward when we have no pace in the defensive side of our team. We are a car crash waiting to happen on the break when we lose it and it doesn't even take much quality to exploit the weakness. 

I know lots of us are taking this hard but just imagine how hard it is for the players right now, as Warne gets his guitar out and sings about how their families still love them on the free love highway. 

Very important to progress in the cup to integrate the team, get everyone fit and give a means, for those not starting, to keep fit and push for a place. Giving us competition for starting berths... 

We are ahead on the only stat that matters 

Because our manager is a fitness coach in a bobble hat whose only tactic is to run and smash the ball in, the average squad age is 76, and we’ve replaced David McGoldrick with Martyn Waghorn who’s scored one goal this decade. 
Oh, and our budget to do anything about these things is £2.50 and a bag of quavers.
But apart from that, everything’s fine. HMS piss the league and all that 

I’m pleased waggy has returned. Better fit than the  journeymen we are supposedly linked with

What his wife wrote on her instagram account …

We are short on numbers and short on strikers. Then add in his spirit -  this has to be a good signing for the group as a whole. Yes we need more pace but this will not have upset the budget one bit.
Past his prime but he is a good footballer, we need some. 

Belper? 

The main problem for me was having a CM and a RW in the AM/SS roles. It either doesn't suit them, or they aren't yet used to what is expected from them in that part of the field. I think it would work a lot better when you have players like Waghorn and Washington playing there instead.

I didn't like the 3421 over the weekend. I'd rather have two men up top through the middle and then have one number 10.
Waggy and Washington up top against Blackpool for me.

I agree with pretty much everything else in your post, but I'm not sure "dealt a dud hand" is a fair description.  He knew exactly what he was walking into here - he knew the state of the squad, the financial restrictions etc.  And likewise, we knew exactly who we were appointing - we knew the type of players he had at Rotherham, the type of football he played etc.  If he/we didn't think he could get something out of the squad he inherited (plus sensible transfers in/out), he simply shouldn't have taken/been given the job.  You can't go around giving a manager a job, with the intention that he has 2 years of free-hits to replace the entire squad, before he starts producing results.  As much as anything, if we aren't seriously challenging for promotion this season, I just don't see how he's still in the job next season.
One of my big bugbears about Warne's management is he seems to have a massive blindspot for differing types of players.  He doesn't seem to care/understand that some players can do some things and other players can't.  Players seemingly get chucked into positions at random without a thought as to whether they can actually do them or not.  Every midfielder is a box-to-box midfielder, regardless of fitness/mobility.  Every wide player is a wingback, regardless of defensive skills/crossing ability.  I do wonder if he just thought he could rock up, say "everyone run around a lot", and it would just work like it did at Rotherham.

Getting the balance right will be really hard with this squad. I’m not a Warne guy, I’ll be honest, but I think he’s been dealt a bit of a dud hand. We recruited a team of players last summer who were all really good technically for Liam, and then went and got Warne after 11 games with no money to spend for minimum 3 windows. If we really wanted him, we should have got him straight away. 
Warne wants us to condense the middle of the pitch with high energy to win the ball back, then get it out wide to a wingback who puts an early ball into the box. The problem is we have lost the midfielder most suited to the system. We now have 3 technical players who Warne wants to go sprinting around and getting stuck in for 90 minutes combined with a winger who is out of position. Our summer business never seems to have attempted to address this. 
The other issue I see is the back three. They are simply too slow and not athletic enough to play as high as they are and also overlap when needed. It leaves us really exposed to any kind of pace or movement in behind and can open up a big gap between defenders and midfield, as seen for Wigan’s first when Bradley could only really go backwards and woefully under hit the pass. It’s the third goal that we’ve conceded in this manner so far this season when pre season is included so it’s clearly an issue. 
The result is we can’t win the ball back as quickly as we would like, leaving us exposed through the middle, and when we do win it back and get it into the box, our striker is on his own vs three or four because the midfield isn’t dynamic enough to chase in, or have dropped deeper to cover the defenders. I know it’s only been one game of the season, but a lot of these problems were evident last season when our unbeaten run came to an end. 
Finally, we are bringing in predominantly older players and have a paper thin squad. It’s a symptom of our situation, but it really hinders our ability to play ‘gas out football’ to any serious level. Warne says he wants another 2 players, but I think we are really 4/5 short. With the new added time rules we are essentially playing an extra 7 games over a league season in terms of minutes and that will hit us harder than any promotion rivals. The small squad also makes it really hard to change a game tactically. We can make five subs, but we only really have 4 or 5 serious options from the bench when the squad is fully fit. I think this season will be really tough for us, and I believe a combination of the recruitment not matching what the manager ideally wants and the manager’s inability to play any other system are the major reasons for this. 

Yeah, I can understand why she didn't want to go. 

I just want to be loved.

I personally think if Waghorn had the chances that Collins had last season, he'd have scored double what Collins did.

Can hit the ball with power which we lack sometimes. Welcome back Waggy! Will always remember that game against Wednesday so please give us more of that passion please! 

Yes. As well as hesitation and deviation. I’ll give you a minute to think about that 😀

I think it’s a good addition. I know all the arguments for needing pace and younger players for the long term, however on a one year deal providing much needed depth and options across the forward line this makes sense. Welcome back Waggy 🐏 
 

We’ve been trying to replicate the gegenpress? The one that relies on relentless pressing and pace to exploit opposition mistakes?
It does explain a lot and is quite inspirational. In fact it’s inspired me to milk the neighbours cat and use it as the base ingredient for an award winning Brie. Can’t see how either me or the Warnemeister can possibly fail!

Can’t help thinking that Hogan, Jutkiewicz and Pritchard are all 30 or over and high wages.
12k a week for 2 years means you’re spending 1.2mil on each one you sign.
My argument all along has been there’s better ways of spending your money.

I presume he’s an interceptor?

We’ve been trying to replicate the gegenpress? The one that relies on relentless pressing and pace to exploit opposition mistakes?
It does explain a lot and is quite inspirational. In fact it’s inspired me to milk the neighbours cat and use it as the base ingredient for an award winning Brie. Can’t see how either me or the Warnemeister can possibly fail!

I also think Warne has painted himself into a corner on getting promoted this year.
He’s signed ready made experienced players. They’re all talking about not messing around and making memories etc.
Then he admits the squad still has the same structural issues as last year.
He might have been cut more slack if he’d brought in some youth and pace and admitted some were a gamble but that he was building the foundations for several seasons of success and growth.

Weir has gone downhill since last year. Not excited by this, but I'd go with the flow.