need for next season......

[Highgate]

One of the few predictable things in football, is fans of all clubs seem to bemoan their own team's lack of consistency.  By consistency they all seem to mean wishing their team to perform at or near their maximum potential every week, rather than being bang average or worse every week.  Variability in the levels of performance are a fact of life in football for all teams. 

What i do hope Pearson brings is the constant desire to seek 3 points every match, and never settle for a point.  In that, at least, a team can be consistent. 

[Van der MoodHoover]

I think Nigel said it himself in the interview. 

We need to have a clear unified identity that strives for flair,  but which values the gaining of points above all others.

All players have to line up behind the vision.

[jono]

1 hour ago, reveldevil said:

He's a good player, we just need to decide if we can play to his strengths and get the best out of him, without hampering the rest of the team.

I've never thought him lazy, or indifferent but he does seem to need everything to go his way to produce a performance.

It may be a coincidence that his best games have seem to come when Martin wasn't playing, if Pearson can find a way to get the best out of both at the same time, we'll be laughing.

If, and it's a big if, we go 2 up top I'd give him and Martin a chance to establish themselves before we even looked at the likes of Kodjia and Wells, he's better than the pair of them.

You might just have hit a nail on the head there. I am a big Ince fan but it is true that in many games he seems to be doing his own thing which works when other team members are on the same wavelength. They were sometimes, but not instinctively. He didn't score the goals he's scored or look dangerous with the ball by being anything other than a b good player but I think there were times when he was looking for Martin to react to what he was doing and at the same time Martin was trying to be the more static provider ( rather than reacting to what Ince was doing ) not a criticism of either of them but an observation that to a certain extent their styles are not naturally complimentary. Thing is our 433 works for 60% of the time. The trick for a manager is knowing against which teams it doesn't and then to try for example a diamond with Ince behind say Bent or someone more mobile than Martin .. But that's the managers skill because you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. 

[cannable]

52 minutes ago, HantsRam said:

I think Nigel said it himself in the interview. 

We need to have a clear unified identity that strives for flair,  but which values the gaining of points above all others.

All players have to line up behind the vision.

Does this not contradict the vision however of performances above all else as results will naturally follow anyway?

[Leicester Ram]

1 hour ago, cannable said:

Does this not contradict the vision however of performances above all else as results will naturally follow anyway?

I'd argue it isn't contradictory, more of a rephrasing that's less open to ridicule than "The Derby Way", which was such a blindingly bad PR move from DCFC. I doubt he'd ever admit it but I suspect Mel Morris would take back some of what he's said in the past 12 months regarding style.

The football we had under McClaren was winning football but towards the end we threw winning out the window to continue our style, sticking with the 4-3-3 despite having no recognisable CDM available and no striker available to effectively do Martin's job. It became mindless attacking and continuation with the system despite how inaffective it had become. Performance>result.

Contrastingly, Clement ignored the Derby way almost completely towards the end. He was mindlessly just trying to grind out wins with no flair, completely result>performance.

Basically, I think that quote is Pearson's way of saying he's going to always play "the Derby Way" but won't be mindless about it, the closest out of the three managers to performance=result.

This philosophy blends with Mel's as it aims to go into every game planning to win it through flair and attacking, better known as the Derby Way. In that regard we are prioritising the performance and placing faith in that style to get us a result

but are not doing so in the face of impending defeat/failure, as happened with McClaren in 14/15 or showing no faith in the philosophy of prioritising performance, like Clement did by abandoning the style completely for something he deemed more likely 3 points, promotion and ultimately get him a better job. Pearson may resort to playing defensively to hold onto a lead but won't go into a match with that intention.

[Van der MoodHoover]

6 hours ago, cannable said:

Does this not contradict the vision however of performances above all else as results will naturally follow anyway?

I took it to mean a sense of realism that no matter how much you focus on your own performance there will be occasions -hopefully not often- where one of 2 things happen. 

A) something is a bit off in that not all players can hit the heights all of the time.

B) the opposition have raised their game and are as good as or better than us. 

We need to be able to quickly identify if either of the above are occurring and react in a way that at least avoids defeat and even better nicks a win.

Perhaps this is just a long winded way of saying we need a plan B.

[archied]

Balance , balance , balance, results without performance in the modern game is probably the lesser of the two evils but ultimately gets you the sack . Look at mohrinio first time round , Billy'd can't get a job for love nor money , van ghall just got outed as negative and boring ( interesting to see Jose fill the criteria) ,, performance without results is no good in the end either , it gets you the sack in fact performance can often be the hiding place for managers not quite getting it right ,, yes there are times you can see performances improving and with patience can feel results will follow but it only buys so much time ,, yes you want a settled playing style but you have to be able to change it up when needed , you have to be able to scrap it out as well as the pretty stuff ,,, there's a school of thought that Martin won't / can't fit into a Pearson two up system when needed wel I'm going to be interested to see what Pearson does with Martin ,,, he s a bloody good cf at this level he has a good football brain , now if Pearson can get inside his head he could well give Martin the extra that takes him up a level ? Get rid of that sulky crap when things not going so well , get off your arse and win the ball back mentality instilled in him could be the making of him ,,, if there's one thing that runs through the whole team since the last few games of mclaren era and the clement time it's that all to often heads drop , we've lost that feeling that a games never over ,, we had it for a spell under Mac that even if we were down we believed we would turn it round ,,, that tells me these player have it in them ,,, ffs we've seen it enough times,, they have just lost their way for some reason,me personal y I believe it's because they don't have a leader / boss they fully believe in ,trust and will run through walls ,, it started when after getting players to commit to Derby when they could have got good moves away from the club , because we were building something , maclaren then showed clearly he was perhaps not as committed to the project as he had convinced our players to be ,, then clement a rookie who whether it was behind the scenes goings on or football stuff or a mix of both never got us firing properly even though we managed a spell at the top of table , then wass who let us play with freedom but also made some rookie rickets , hence shacks telling him to F off , Bryson reaction to substitution hull away in play offs , we have a proper manager committed to the job now my hope is these players will reinvest now but it's a sure thing that any who don't will be gone quick smart and replaced by ones who will invest , performance? The first thing I want to see is players with a never say die attitude busting a gut to get results ,, the rest will follow

[jono]

Archied .. Brilliant thoughtful post. Mental resilience when things get tough, playing to the last minute, and playing together.

sort those out and this team has more than enough to win the league especially if Pearson can fire up certain individuals so they can fulfill their potential. 

Blimey it's only June and I'm getting all excited 

[angieram]

3 hours ago, HantsRam said:

I took it to mean a sense of realism that no matter how much you focus on your own performance there will be occasions -hopefully not often- where one of 2 things happen. 

A) something is a bit off in that not all players can hit the heights all of the time.

B) the opposition have raised their game and are as good as or better than us. 

We need to be able to quickly identify if either of the above are occurring and react in a way that at least avoids defeat and even better nicks a win.

Perhaps this is just a long winded way of saying we need a plan B.

I think the opposition was the key factor in some of our more disappointing results against teams we 'should have beaten' last season. Our expectations as fans and players versus their determination to raise their game and stop us. 

So firstly Pearson needs to get the players focused on busting a gut in every game, secondly to recognise and react quickly if it is not happening on the pitch.

Reflecting on MK Dons away, we were rubbish but made good substitutions in plenty of time to try something different with players fighting for their place in the team.

I hope that is the difference that Pearson can bring because, as many have already said, all our players are good enough if we get the tactics right.

[ColonelBlimp]

1 hour ago, archied said:

Balance , balance , balance, results without performance in the modern game is probably the lesser of the two evils but ultimately gets you the sack . Look at mohrinio first time round , Billy'd can't get a job for love nor money , van ghall just got outed as negative and boring ( interesting to see Jose fill the criteria) ,, performance without results is no good in the end either , it gets you the sack in fact performance can often be the hiding place for managers not quite getting it right ,, yes there are times you can see performances improving and with patience can feel results will follow but it only buys so much time ,, yes you want a settled playing style but you have to be able to change it up when needed , you have to be able to scrap it out as well as the pretty stuff ,,, there's a school of thought that Martin won't / can't fit into a Pearson two up system when needed wel I'm going to be interested to see what Pearson does with Martin ,,, he s a bloody good cf at this level he has a good football brain , now if Pearson can get inside his head he could well give Martin the extra that takes him up a level ? Get rid of that sulky crap when things not going so well , get off your arse and win the ball back mentality instilled in him could be the making of him ,,, if there's one thing that runs through the whole team since the last few games of mclaren era and the clement time it's that all to often heads drop , we've lost that feeling that a games never over ,, we had it for a spell under Mac that even if we were down we believed we would turn it round ,,, that tells me these player have it in them ,,, ffs we've seen it enough times,, they have just lost their way for some reason,me personal y I believe it's because they don't have a leader / boss they fully believe in ,trust and will run through walls ,, it started when after getting players to commit to Derby when they could have got good moves away from the club , because we were building something , maclaren then showed clearly he was perhaps not as committed to the project as he had convinced our players to be ,, then clement a rookie who whether it was behind the scenes goings on or football stuff or a mix of both never got us firing properly even though we managed a spell at the top of table , then wass who let us play with freedom but also made some rookie rickets , hence shacks telling him to F off , Bryson reaction to substitution hull away in play offs , we have a proper manager committed to the job now my hope is these players will reinvest now but it's a sure thing that any who don't will be gone quick smart and replaced by ones who will invest , performance? The first thing I want to see is players with a never say die attitude busting a gut to get results ,, the rest will follow

Great content, lousy presentation.

See Eddie after school.

[tomsdubs]

18 hours ago, TroyDyer said:

In response to who would come here, do you feel our back four is the best in the league? If no, then surely there must be players who are better. Pearsons job is to find them. 

Well I said that we could afford, when you look at the individuals at the other top teams you are hardly blown away. It's the team and tactics overall that matter just as much. But you know for everyone saying how woeful we are at the back and our defenders are poor we ain't done bad have we. 19 clean sheets as well.

 

[tomsdubs]

.

[GaryDCFC]

This may have been brought up before, I can't remember, but I thought it would be apt for this strand. I went to the "Night with the Lads" with the likes of Big Mac, Barks, Johnson etc.

One thing that struck me was Mac saying "What is the major attraction of bringing substitutes on within the last ten minutes of a match when you're winning?" He rightly mentioned that in the two seasons we won the first division title we used a grand total of 15 players all season. They made substitutions only when things weren't going their way or when a player went down injured. If a team is playing well, why change anything? 

Barks mentioned it's now more of a squad game and players need resting for the following games etc. He mentioned that when players in the squad aren't playing they get frustrated and upset.

What does everyone else think? Should we have more consistency in our team? Should we have a smaller squad so there are less players to make happy? Should we tweak the team when we are playing well and winning games to save some of the players legs? Or are they paid enough to give 100% for 90+ minutes? 

Is this potentially a cause for our lack of consistently good performances?

[We'll be back in 81]

A right back and a new leader.

[Rampage]

8 hours ago, ColonelBlimp said:

Great content, lousy presentation.

See Eddie after school.

Very good post, archied.

[archied]

? I don't do punctuation ,, it's handy for readers but interrupts writing I find

[Van der MoodHoover]

14 hours ago, angieram said:

I think the opposition was the key factor in some of our more disappointing results against teams we 'should have beaten' last season. Our expectations as fans and players versus their determination to raise their game and stop us. 

So firstly Pearson needs to get the players focused on busting a gut in every game, secondly to recognise and react quickly if it is not happening on the pitch.

Reflecting on MK Dons away, we were rubbish but made good substitutions in plenty of time to try something different with players fighting for their place in the team.

I hope that is the difference that Pearson can bring because, as many have already said, all our players are good enough if we get the tactics right.

I quite enjoyed MK Dons-one of the better awaydays I saw. 

But you're right -if we can rise in adversity as opposed to either capitulating or going to suicidal attack mode we will do much better 

[eddie]

11 hours ago, archied said:

? I don't do punctuation ,, it's handy for readers but interrupts writing I find

Personally,Idon'tmindpunctuation-butthespacebarisapain.

[archied]

Spacebar?

[rynny]

50 minutes ago, archied said:

Spacebar?