Great Expectations

[Rev]

As far as I can see, the expectation has come from Clement himself, no one else within the club has publicly said automatic promotion is the aim this season.

Mel's own words to the forum members who visited Moor Farm were he expects the manager to improve the individual members of the squad, and achieving that aim would be how he was measured.

Promotion would be a by-product of such improvement, rather than the overall goal, a viewpoint he's expressed in interviews since.

Only PC has bought up the prospect of autos, and stated it as his aim,while I admire his confidence it would maybe have been smarter to dampen down expectations in his 1st senior position.

Frankly, of the players he inherited only Keogh and Christie have improved since last season, while Martin, Russell, and Ince all look to have gone backwards. 

The rest, either similar performances to before or haven't seen enough to know!

 

[Warren Hobhead]

So we've lost a couple of games and now people reckon we miss Bryson? I understand the Hughes stuff, I get it, he's top notch for this level of football. But Bryson? Better than Butterfield? You're having a laugh. Harsh too when Butters is the lad getting messed around, which for me has been a massive reason for this current malaise. Taken off at Boro whilst 0-0, comes off the bench to rescue us at Hartlepool, gets played as a holding player against Reading, then dropped against Birmingham. I'd be a bit peeved if I was him. 

Now I appreciate Johnson has been way off his game for weeks now. Can't understand why he seems the undroppable midfielder of the bunch at our disposal. But he's been effective in many other games and I really like him. When he's effective. We've had terrible wing play near enough all season and our main striker stopped scoring goals about three months back. I've even seen the midfield blamed for that too. 

 

It's a shame we can't just heal Will tomorrow, and pick him and Bryson and test this theory out. That they're the reasons we're only third and well in the hunt for promotion. FGS. The overreaction on here has kept me away for a week. I knew it'd be like this. Of course I'm disappointed with our recent run of form, and yes there are issues that are up for debate. But anyone would think we'd dropped into the bottom three the way some react. 

We have some terrific footballers here. And of the midfielders, I'm not sure there's many better than Johnson, Thorne, Hendrick, Bryson and Butterfield to choose from at this level. Pick three, regularly, get some cognition going on and only change if necessary/fair to do so. I think it's a good thing we're away on Monday though. Where the supporters will be backing the team. There's an awful stench of immediate expectation at the iPro this season. We could learn something from the Boro supporters. Get behind them. 

 

 

 

I will now disappear again until Monday, when hopefully we get a result and common sense returns to the forum. 

[bcnram]

9 minutes ago, Warren Hobhead said:

So we've lost a couple of games and now people reckon we miss Bryson? I understand the Hughes stuff, I get it, he's top notch for this level of football. But Bryson? Better than Butterfield? You're having a laugh. Harsh too when Butters is the lad getting messed around, which for me has been a massive reason for this current malaise. Taken off at Boro whilst 0-0, comes off the bench to rescue us at Hartlepool, gets played as a holding player against Reading, then dropped against Birmingham. I'd be a bit peeved if I was him. 

Now I appreciate Johnson has been way off his game for weeks now. Can't understand why he seems the undroppable midfielder of the bunch at our disposal. But he's been effective in many other games and I really like him. When he's effective. We've had terrible wing play near enough all season and our main striker stopped scoring goals about three months back. I've even seen the midfield blamed for that too. 

 

It's a shame we can't just heal Will tomorrow, and pick him and Bryson and test this theory out. That they're the reasons we're only third and well in the hunt for promotion. FGS. The overreaction on here has kept me away for a week. I knew it'd be like this. Of course I'm disappointed with our recent run of form, and yes there are issues that are up for debate. But anyone would think we'd dropped into the bottom three the way some react. 

We have some terrific footballers here. And of the midfielders, I'm not sure there's many better than Johnson, Thorne, Hendrick, Bryson and Butterfield to choose from at this level. Pick three, regularly, get some cognition going on and only change if necessary/fair to do so. I think it's a good thing we're away on Monday though. Where the supporters will be backing the team. There's an awful stench of immediate expectation at the iPro this season. We could learn something from the Boro supporters. Get behind them. 

 

 

 

I will now disappear again until Monday, when hopefully we get a result and common sense returns to the forum. 

I wasn't suggesting that Bryson is better than Butterfield individually, what I am meaning is that Bryson is better suited to what we need. We are missing Hughes control of a game and Bryson's ability to drive forward. We did the right thing in trying to replace them, but it has not improved midfield (in my correct opinion). It is however still a fairly competitive championship midfield.

 

[robglosta]

If you listen to Paul Clement, promotion is the objective and he is the sort of character that will view anything less as a failure. 

[Rev]

9 minutes ago, robglosta said:

If you listen to Paul Clement, promotion is the objective and he is the sort of character that will view anything less as a failure. 

Do you not think that's bringing unnecessary pressure on himself though, seeing as no one else within the club has stated that?

[Ninos]

I appreciate PCs high expectations of autos. I don't think PC cares about bringing unnecessary expectation on himself - and that's the sign of a winner in my book. You only get what you aim for (regardless of what you say publicly). 

For us to view the imports as a success they need to deliver - Johnson butterfield have delivered so far (in spite of form dips) - and Blackman and camara will need to do the same. The problem isn't so much the new players it's the old ones - who are offering very little going forward at this point. (Ince Johnson shacks Christie Russell Martin have all had big form dips). On top of that lots of players appear to have no role at all - Bent Weimann Shotton Baird Hanson ... None of those can be very happy.  And that's a problem if Mel is measuring PC on improving the existing crop of players. He needs to look at and possibly meet with all of them, tell them where they stand, sort out their attitude, expectations, and show them how to get to where he wants them to be: Reinforce the team spirit and belief player by player. 

[toddy]

7 hours ago, reveldevil said:

Do you not think that's bringing unnecessary pressure on himself though, seeing as no one else within the club has stated that?

I reckon behind the scenes Mel would have said we need promotion this year as a priority, £100 plus million  available next year in the prem and hence him throwing money at the club this season, plus his allegedly rant after the Reading game.

Publicly it will be a different face on it, as this sort off takes away fans pressure.

This is probably why Paul has mentioned promotion in interviews during the last few months.

We have a squad good enough to get out of this league there is no doubt about that, its a matter of playing as a team and not a punch of individuals.

It is now down to Paul to get this team back on track.................. COYR   

[jono]

18 hours ago, TheHomunculusLives said:

I do think there's an element of long term thinking with Clement by the hierarchy at the club; a willingness to accept he will need to learn the ropes as a head coach after years as a number two.  I think they are banking on him being able to take the club to the next level in time (i.e. an established Premier League club) once he has found his feet.

A more established Championship/lower Premier League manager like Warnock might make a better fist of getting us up quickly but what then?

Even understanding the above though, I still think even on a learning curve Clement should be aiming to get us up automatically with all the backing he's been given.

I think that is a very accurate summary and a really good point. There are those managers out their who have done the journey. I think "The Derby Way" that Mel Morris has been highlighting is to create something more durable than a yoyo top championship club. I feel his intention is get there and stay there. If that takes a season or two then so be it..... Still it would be lurveley to go up in the autos. <grin>

[Warren Hobhead]

15 hours ago, bcnram said:

I wasn't suggesting that Bryson is better than Butterfield individually, what I am meaning is that Bryson is better suited to what we need. We are missing Hughes control of a game and Bryson's ability to drive forward. We did the right thing in trying to replace them, but it has not improved midfield (in my correct opinion). It is however still a fairly competitive championship midfield.

 

Thar's fair enough then, I get that. I like Bryson too. But not at the expense of Butters. He drives us forward. He just lacks options. I remember freezing my nipples off at Elland Road and watching him do the attacking midfield job, the box to box job AND the wingers work for them too. He's the one who always looks to play quickly, like he knows the pass/decision before doing it. But you look around the team at times and they're statue-esque. So little movement. I'm not sure Bryson would affect that much. He certainly didn't at Hartlepool where he did a good impression of a holding midfielder, just passing safe and sideways. It's time people looked at the reasons for all this, the style of football. Who coaches them? Who instructs them? 

 

I'm not questioning PC's talent nor his position. But this group of players is better than last seasons squad and all are capable of playing a much more fluent attacking game. Look at them at their previous clubs. It's my belief that we're stifling them with safety first tactics. 

PC doesn't help himself though by selecting out of form players over in-form players, or signing players we just didn't require. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

The comparison really is Hughes/Butterfield and then Hendrick/Bryson/Johnson. For me, Hughes will grow to a higher level than Butters, but Butters is a very good championship player with room to improve himself. The Bryso/Hendrick/oh Brad one is interesting as they all have the same kind of role in the team as the press forward midfielder but are all very different. I personally like Bryson a lot but he's not been in form for a long time and is coming back from a nasty knee injury, Johnson is simply in bad form and Hendrick can be awesome and awful within minutes in the same match. And no, I don't think we should buy another midfielder. Expectation, when you have ahand as good as Clement has been dealt, its inevitable. I'm sure if we get out of this dip it'll turn out sunny even if we don't go up. 

[Alph]

In that first Mac season we had a proper team midfield. A defender, an all rounder and an attacker. 

They would support each other but essentially Eustace/Thorne were the defenders, Hughes just wherever he was needed to take the ball and feed someone in a good position. And Bryson, Hendrick to get up to Martin and in Bryson's case past Martin. This gave Martin an opportunity to get defenders off his back so he wasn't a typical target man (which is what he is now). Also the speed Bryson would get forwards would mean Martin wasn't battling all the time. Hughes workrate is up there too so he was never far from the action

Now you've got a defender, an all rounder and well, another defender because that left half of the team is so limited at quick, aggressive football. Butterfield is fine as a Hughes. Johnson can't get forward anywhere near enough because between him, Shackell, Warnock and Russell you have the most predictable, slow pedestrian passing you will see. 

Johnson has been impressive on the whole defensively. But it's come at a cost. The midfield isn't as well rounded. 

I don't think Bryson better than Butterfield or Johnson. He's a hard working, very short range passer. Get him in the final third and he's as reliable on the ball as anyone. That translates as pressure.

And forget pace, what defenders don't like is the ball keep shifting 20 yards out from their goal where they aren't sure what's sneaking down their flanks and through their lines. Lose half a yard on your man and you're in trouble at that range

Somehow we either need to get Johnson forward by surrounding him with fast, aggressive footballers. That means Shackell and Russell need to move or improve massively (Russell is a dribbler and dribbling for 30 yards into a corner is harmless). 

Or Johnson needs to move and we sacrifice some defensive, ball winning talent in favour of someone who will be given the freedom to go off past Butterfield and sometimes past Martin. 

It's what I don't like about our transfer strategy. We're buying good players that we haven't got a role for and they don't have the qualities we're short of.

Either way the ball needs to move faster. Stop casually rolling it. Too easy and too much time for a defending team to cover any yards they may have lost on their man. 

Pretty soon players get fed up of trying to shake off their man and what you end up with is Derby v Reading/Brum/Sheff Wednesday. Slow passing and zero options. Just a matter of time before we are forced to hoof.

 

[Chris Mills]

Speaking of expectations would you look at that. Hull top of the league just 3 games after Boro defeated us and they were going to "run away with it now" 

two losses on the trot. Crisis at Boro now right guys? 

[Zag zig]

1 minute ago, Chris Mills said:

Speaking of expectations would you look at that. Hull top of the league just 3 games after Boro defeated us and they were going to "run away with it now" 

two losses on the trot. Crisis at Boro now right guys? 

Expect their forums will be in meltdown when Burnley narrow the gap even further on Monday night

[toddy]

30 minutes ago, Chris Mills said:

Speaking of expectations would you look at that. Hull top of the league just 3 games after Boro defeated us and they were going to "run away with it now" 

two losses on the trot. Crisis at Boro now right guys? 

They still have a game in hand.

[Chris Mills]

6 minutes ago, toddy said:

They still have a game in hand.

So? They're in crisis, probably won't even finish in the playoffs. 

[Bris Vegas]

Mac's first season was so good because expectations were so low. We'd been accustomed to pretty drab performances/results for five years so one sniff of the playoffs and it was great.

Expectations are a killer. The more you expect, the more likely to become disillusioned with matters the moment something doesn't quite work out. 

The top two expectations of the past two years have meant routine home wins have become less enjoyable, away wins are easily criticised and even big wins are a bit meh.

I'd love to be a Sheffield Wednesday or Birmingham fan right now. They're basically like us in the 2013/14 season where it's all a bit new. They may be over-the-top deluded, but I guess that's normal.

I'm trying not to care as much about Derby at the moment. i know that sounds odd, but building them up and constantly looking at the table when we're top two will only lead to disappointment if we finish 4th or so.

Best to just let it be.

[Inverurie Ram]

42 minutes ago, Chris Mills said:

Speaking of expectations would you look at that. Hull top of the league just 3 games after Boro defeated us and they were going to "run away with it now" 

two losses on the trot. Crisis at Boro now right guys? 

It's the story of the modern day football fan. They've learnt all their football knowledge from playing Football Manager, listened to the likes of Kevin Kilbane on the BBC an extremely very ordinary football player, Ian Wright on ITV etc and soaked up all the over hyped Sky TV nonsense for far too many years to create there so called football education. Then they come on these forums and twitter and the like telling us how it is. They must be all millionaires because they clearly know who's going to win any division and know all the reasons why........tell them all to get on their bikes and keep peddling!

 

 

[twinkletoes]

promotion.

[StockholmRam]

On 21 Jan 2016 at 18:07, uttoxram75 said:

What the dickens is this about?

Hard times at bleak house for our mutual friends...

[Zag zig]

Yeah we may find 2 Pip us to auto's