For once back the manager

[Inglorius]

27 minutes ago, Kennington Ram said:

Complete sympathies with Gary at the moment. I suspect he's tried to put some players he probably wants out "in the shop window" by playing them, hoping someone else will take a punt. Unfortunately, it's just not happening. Players like Russell, Butterfield, Johnson are on runs of poor form that are starting to stretch to the majority of their stay at the club, into the years and years. How do you get rid of deadweight like that when it was signed on for so much?

I disagree with this as well; I commented a few weeks ago that I would be gravely concerned that Rowett has had since March to assess the capabilities of his playing staff and yet he persists in playing Butterfield and Johnson. 

[Sparkle]

7 minutes ago, Inglorius said:

I disagree with this as well; I commented a few weeks ago that I would be gravely concerned that Rowett has had since March to assess the capabilities of his playing staff and yet he persists in playing Butterfield and Johnson. 

I can only believe that he wants Bryson and Thorne fit to select, Johnson could be useful offensively but Butterfield just kills the play stone dead for me so at best a place on the bench if we are 3-0 in front. I want a player who can cover the pitch with quality - where are they and can we get them?

[Kennington Ram]

27 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Don't see why not - There's been plenty of talk from the club about us being fine with FFP - I suspect that with Rowett's comments about Blackman he has probably now identified the guys who he wants out and has had words with them - The fact that Butterfield started most of the games last season and has now started the games this season suggests he's considered first choice

I don't see how a manager would come into a new season and say "I'm so convinced that we've got a squad capable of winning promotion that I'll play guys I don't want for the first few games in order to put them in the shop window"

Plus his statements about the mentality of the squad suggest they're all quite fired up - They just don't seem to be able to translate that into competitive games - I think Saturday was tactically terrible and they were asking Butterfield especially to play a role he is completely unsuited to

We took my sister's boyfriend to the game on Saturday and his comment was "They don't look like a team. They look like they've never played with each other before" - That's something which I lay at the feet of the coaching staff

He's unlikely to say they're all miserable. I think we seem to be trying to strongarm out players in positions where we have acceptable options and can therefore stomach them either sitting out of the team or a loss on their fees. We don't seem to have options to do that for our centre mids.

[Kennington Ram]

35 minutes ago, Inglorius said:

I disagree with this as well; I commented a few weeks ago that I would be gravely concerned that Rowett has had since March to assess the capabilities of his playing staff and yet he persists in playing Butterfield and Johnson. 

Maybe, but I'm just not convinced we have any options unless someone is stupid enough to take one away.

[1967Ram]

1 hour ago, cheron85 said:

I'm not calling for Rowett to go but Saturday showed a desperate amount of tactical naivete by him - Or an organisational problem which the players hadn't been drilled on - He needs to learn and learn quickly

If you're playing against a five at the back you can't leave your 1 up front so isolated - Martin spent 90% of his time up against 3 CBs - We've seen him do a job against 2 every now and then but not against 3

It became very obvious very quickly that they were playing pretty much a 5-2-2-1 in defence moving to a 3-4-3 in attack - Their 'wingers' in attack were dropping inside to defend giving them a solid and packed central midfield area - Then on attack they broke for the wings giving them 2 on 1 with our full backs who got torn to pieces - And for some reason the team was playing everything inside, relying of the fullbacks for width and trying to play through a packed CM instead of dragging them wide and playing balls into the channels

The way to defend against that is to have your CMs pull out wide to cover the oncoming wing-backs - But neither Johnson or Butterfield were doing this - To be fair Butterfield probably doesn't have the legs to attack and defend in that way - Should have played Bryson - And so our wingers were getting sucked back to try and help out - Against a back three this shouldn't happen

So that meant our wingers were too far back when defending and weren't able to find the space they needed to - There are HUGE gaps for wingers when teams play wing backs - In behind the wing back - Use your wingers to drag the LHS and RHS CBs out of position - But we couldn't - Because Wiemann and Russell were having to track back so much

Then - Substitutions - Made way too late - There seems to be some obsession amongst managers that their half time team talks are actually effective - Statistically they aren't (ref: The Numbers Game) - Should have made changes at half time - Bryson on for Butterfield was a good move - Moving Johnson on to the wing was a dreadful move - Bringing on Anya at all was the final nail in the coffin - Plus they seemed to have no idea what formation they were supposed to be playing at that point and looked totally disorganised

 

Sorry for the rant - Good to get that out of my system - British managers seem to be the slowest to react to new styles of play - And the move away from the recently popular 4-3-3 seems to have stumped them - Rowett needs to learn from this, work out what kind of players he has and how best to make use of them - And pay attention a bit more to the way these 'new' formations are going to work and which players/styles are going to be best when playing against them

Nothing to apologise for. A lot of sense written here. GR seems to need to be more tactically aware during games.

[Inglorius]

3 minutes ago, Kennington Ram said:

Maybe, but I'm just not convinced we have any options unless someone is stupid enough to take one away.

We don't have any options if you exclude a player whom is perennially injured. My expectation would be that Rowett would have come to this same conclusion way before the start of the season given he has had since March to assess his squad. 

[cheron85]

2 minutes ago, Kennington Ram said:

He's unlikely to say they're all miserable. I think we seem to be trying to strongarm out players in positions where we have acceptable options and can therefore stomach them either sitting out of the team or a loss on their fees. We don't seem to have options to do that for our centre mids.

Yet there's been little suggestion so far of Rowett wanting to sign another CM - He's quoted as saying attacking options are his priority now - We have Huddlestone, Bryson, Butterfield, Johnson and then Hanson and Elsnik potentially - Controversially I think they're good enough but aren't being played to their strengths

[Kennington Ram]

1 minute ago, Inglorius said:

We don't have any options if you exclude a player whom is perennially injured. My expectation would be that Rowett would have come to this same conclusion way before the start of the season given he has had since March to assess his squad. 

He has added to the squad though - assuming Lawrence signs, we've got in a top new CB (for me, a must), a RB most fans love, a great DM, and an attacking player who banged them in last season.

But I think he's fairly said that the squad is too big and realistically too expensive for what it is... on that basis I think this recovery job will span a couple of seasons rather than one.

[Kennington Ram]

5 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Yet there's been little suggestion so far of Rowett wanting to sign another CM - He's quoted as saying attacking options are his priority now - We have Huddlestone, Bryson, Butterfield, Johnson and then Hanson and Elsnik potentially - Controversially I think they're good enough but aren't being played to their strengths

I guess this is where we differ then.

I don't think Bryson, Butterfield or Johnson have got what we need these days, and are meant to be doing a job. Hanson can't do their jobs and isn't as good as Huddlestone, who has his own job to do, and Elsnik is growing but maybe not there yet. Wish we'd give him a chance but hey ho, I don't see him in training or the dressing room every day.

Bryson I loved but seems to be struggling to adapt his game as his physicality and fitness declines with age (Wayne Rooney Syndrome), while I think Butterfield and Johnson just seem to be in terminal decline compared to the product we signed.

[duncanjwitham]

8 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Controversially I think they're good enough but aren't being played to their strengths

I don't think there's any controversy there at all. It's blatantly obvious that's what's happening to anyone who's seen a game this season.

[cheron85]

1 minute ago, Kennington Ram said:

I guess this is where we differ then.

I don't think Bryson, Butterfield or Johnson have got what we need these days, and are meant to be doing a job. Hanson can't do their jobs and isn't as good as Huddlestone, who has his own job to do, and Elsnik is growing but maybe not there yet. Wish we'd give him a chance but hey ho, I don't see him in training or the dressing room every day.

Bryson I loved but seems to be struggling to adapt his game as his physicality and fitness declines with age (Wayne Rooney Syndrome), while I think Butterfield and Johnson just seem to be in terminal decline compared to the product we signed.

What job are the supposed to be doing? This is my major point - They're being asked to do the wrong jobs - Or being selected when the job needed is a different one

And the Brsyon point is (as far as evidence goes) nonsense - The pre-season tests showed that Bryson is fitter than ever - He just hasn't been played and when he has they're asking him to sit deep and hold position

1 minute ago, duncanjwitham said:

I don't think there's any controversy there at all. It's blatantly obvious that's what's happening to anyone who's seen a game this season.

Thanks - However I feel like it won't be the majority view

I wonder how many different roles Johnson and Butterfield have now been asked to do in their 2 years at the club? They were bought to fit into a defensive minded 4-3-3 formation under Clement - But then through Wassall, Pearson, McLaren and Rowett I reckon they've each been asked to play between 4-6 different roles each - No wonder they don't seem to look like the players they were when we bought them

[duncanjwitham]

8 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

I wonder how many different roles Johnson and Butterfield have now been asked to do in their 2 years at the club? They were bought to fit into a defensive minded 4-3-3 formation under Clement - But then through Wassall, Pearson, McLaren and Rowett I reckon they've each been asked to play between 4-6 different roles each - No wonder they don't seem to look like the players they were when we bought them

It's not even the number of roles, it's the fact that none of the roles they've been used in here have ever matched what they were doing at their previous clubs that caused us to sign them in the first place.  

[jagerbob]

They were bouught to cover Bryson and Hughes injuries as much as anything else.

We had a seemingly fit George Thorne for much of Clements tenure. So i would argue johnson and butterfield were never seen as defensive minded midfielders.

[cheron85]

52 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

It's not even the number of roles, it's the fact that none of the roles they've been used in here have ever matched what they were doing at their previous clubs that caused us to sign them in the first place.  

That's mainly Johnson I guess - Pretty much always played LM in a 4-4-2 for Leeds and Norwich - That said I think he should be able to play a marauding CM role as we've seen him do it when given a bit of freedom to do so

Butterfield I think was probably played in a midfield 2 when he was at Huddersfield - As that's where he's looked most comfortable 

[G STAR RAM]

2 hours ago, cheron85 said:

Don't see why not - There's been plenty of talk from the club about us being fine with FFP - I suspect that with Rowett's comments about Blackman he has probably now identified the guys who he wants out and has had words with them - The fact that Butterfield started most of the games last season and has now started the games this season suggests he's considered first choice

I don't see how a manager would come into a new season and say "I'm so convinced that we've got a squad capable of winning promotion that I'll play guys I don't want for the first few games in order to put them in the shop window"

Plus his statements about the mentality of the squad suggest they're all quite fired up - They just don't seem to be able to translate that into competitive games - I think Saturday was tactically terrible and they were asking Butterfield especially to play a role he is completely unsuited to

We took my sister's boyfriend to the game on Saturday and his comment was "They don't look like a team. They look like they've never played with each other before" - That's something which I lay at the feet of the coaching staff

Just to pick you up on that first paragraph, it was a while ago since we last heard the club say that.

All that has come out of the club recently would seem to indicate it is a concern these days.

[duncanjwitham]

3 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

That's mainly Johnson I guess - Pretty much always played LM in a 4-4-2 for Leeds and Norwich - That said I think he should be able to play a marauding CM role as we've seen him do it when given a bit of freedom to do so

Butterfield I think was probably played in a midfield 2 when he was at Huddersfield - As that's where he's looked most comfortable 

Johnson played on the left of a diamond for Norwich, which is pretty similar to the position he's mostly played here (the most forward midfielder in a 433), the difference is the players around him. Norwich had a mobile forward that holds the ball up and a creative midfielder pushed right up as well (Jerome and Hoolahan). Johnson could basically act as a wrecking ball in the final third, while the other forwards did all the hold up and creative work. Here, he's been expected to get involved in moving the ball around, and to get up quickly to support a striker that focuses on quick layoffs to already overlapping midfielders, not holding the ball up while midfielders catch up with play.  Neither of which he can do.

From what I saw at Huddersfield, Butterfield basically played in the hole in the middle of a 4231 - much further forward than he's played here. He doesn't have the mobility to create space for himself, so they had lots of people running off of him. His job was to receive the ball into feet, turn and pick out one of the runners in front of him.  Here, he's played much deeper, so he's having to either pick the ball up and carry it forward himself, or thread a pass through 5 defenders. Neither of which he can do regularly, so he ends up passing sideways.

If they were signed to cover for Bryson and Hughes, then it was done at the most superficial level. Yes Johnson is a box-to-box midfielder, and yes Butterfield is a passer, but they are very different players to Hughes and Bryson. Bryson's game is all about energy and running off the ball, Johnson is slow as hell. A massive part of Hughes's game is his ability to create space for himself - the quick footwork, little drops of the shoulder etc that gives him time to get his head up and pick out a pass. Butterfield has none of that.

[cheron85]

22 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Just to pick you up on that first paragraph, it was a while ago since we last heard the club say that.

All that has come out of the club recently would seem to indicate it is a concern these days.

I dunno - I feel like Rowett was saying it during pre-season and I can't imagine it's shifted significantly since then...

[G STAR RAM]

15 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

I dunno - I feel like Rowett was saying it during pre-season and I can't imagine it's shifted significantly since then...

But he's also said that we have to sell before we buy. That may be a strategic decision or down to wanting to reduce the squad but I see it as more of an indication of something else!

[cheron85]

29 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

But he's also said that we have to sell before we buy. That may be a strategic decision or down to wanting to reduce the squad but I see it as more of an indication of something else!

Oh sorry - I meant from now - We have around £10m to spend assuming we got £8m for Ince and £2.5m for Christie

[G STAR RAM]

24 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

Oh sorry - I meant from now - We have around £10m to spend assuming we got £8m for Ince and £2.5m for Christie

But that income may be covering previous years expenditure.

We already know that circa  £4.5m has been re-invested.

The rest could quite feasibly be covering this year's amortisation of the players we spanked cash on over the last 2 seasons.