Moderators: Charnwood, Bluemike
I believe KM can't win, not saying you are wrong here BW. The issues we have go deeper than those stats and they certainly don't paint an overall picture! One thing I can see is that of those 5 particular stats, 4 of them relate to offensive areas (thank God perhaps they turn a blind eye to our defensive woesBecause if they’re not bottom, they’re second bottom in almost everything – shots, shots on target, expected goals, touches in the opposition box, goals conceded. Which we’ve seen, so many errors today and errors leading to goals.
“So those stats tell you everything you need to know.”
). 
Mckenna needs to add some better coaches to his staff . Exprienced ex manager perhaps.Bluemike wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 4:19 pmThis is the very crux of the issue though Andy, Mckenna needs a plan B, if only for a few minutes now and again , this is where myself and Wilf and others have an issue.Andym wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 1:46 pmI’m glad you posted that as I would have said exactly the same if I could have been bothered to comment earlier. Assuming you can’t get to the cross (which he couldn’t) you don’t know whether to follow its course or assume that someone - attacker or defender - will get on the end of it. It always looks so bad but as a keeper you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.Ricco wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 12:15 pm
I think Muric pulled off a save or two that Hladky probably wouldn't have, and the last goal (while his fault as you have to cover the cross), is always extremely tricky, if you dive for the cross and an attacker gets their head to the ball, then you look like a complete idiot too.
I’m not defending him as a keeper, he scares me to death, but I think he’s being over criticised on that one incident.
Likewise Harry Clarke. I don’t think he’s good enough (although at the moment we’re have little alternative - God knows who will play there next week), but he was a bit unlucky yesterday. That was not an own goal. It was going in and he tried desperately to prevent it. Penalty was a tough one to take, the initial foul was outside the area and I can’t see whether it continued into the area or not. And the second yellow was underserved as he got the ball. More significantly for both those cards he was caught on the wrong side of the striker. So his positional sense at these incidents support my feeling that he isn’t good enough, but the particular consequences (own goal, penalty, red card) don’t necessarily. Likewise Muric.
I have to say I never expected us to survive and still don’t. I’ve repeatedly said that after ProMotion you have to be able to defend, and we can’t. It’s not necessarily the players (do we have any fit defenders left?) but the style of play. At 2-0 up we still kept attacking and left ourselves exposed. But would we prefer a McCarthy-style approach of defending to the point of boredom and hoping to catch the opposition on the break? There’s no guarantee it would be any more successful.
The premier league is showing itself to be everything we feared, from an uneven playing field to changed kick off times to VAR and subconsciously biased officials. I wonder if the European super league proposed a couple of years ago would have taken the super-rich away and left us with a better prem? I’m not sure.
My greatest concern at the moment isn’t relegation - I’m expecting that - but what happens afterwards. Burnley may be sitting 2nd in the championship but Luton are 22nd….
You mention the McCarthy style approach, no we don't want that as the norm but we 100% needed that approach for 5 minutes leading up to half time, had we done so we almost certainly win that game, at present Mckenna isn't capable of adjusting it when needed and we continue to go gung ho, so yes at times we do need the pragmatic approach to protect what should have been a match winning lead.
I guess I just try to be as positive as I can. It is far easier for me to wear my blue-tinted specs when I don't really outlay much money or time at all following Town. Despite being some of the most joyous years in Town's recent history, I have sadly found myself more distanced from the heart of the action! Being able to see the Leicester game next week will be fantastic.
I think when he's in the dugout wearing a Paul Lambert suit, I'll start worrying that relegation and subsequent relegations could be a possibility.AzzurroMark wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 9:16 pmI guess I just try to be as positive as I can. It is far easier for me to wear my blue-tinted specs when I don't really outlay much money or time at all following Town. Despite being some of the most joyous years in Town's recent history, I have sadly found myself more distanced from the heart of the action! Being able to see the Leicester game next week will be fantastic.
I have total respect for all of you who support Town and sacrifice a lot in your pursuit of the joy that football can bring. Whether I agree or not, I value you being akin to my eyes and ears from the terraces. You all seem rather grumpy buggers though I must say (joke) !
I am proud to be a grumpy bugger AM!AzzurroMark wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 9:16 pmI guess I just try to be as positive as I can. It is far easier for me to wear my blue-tinted specs when I don't really outlay much money or time at all following Town. Despite being some of the most joyous years in Town's recent history, I have sadly found myself more distanced from the heart of the action! Being able to see the Leicester game next week will be fantastic.
I have total respect for all of you who support Town and sacrifice a lot in your pursuit of the joy that football can bring. Whether I agree or not, I value you being akin to my eyes and ears from the terraces. You all seem rather grumpy buggers though I must say (joke) !
I was very calm and relaxed until I found football at the age of 6 (in 1968) - the rest is history of course!
I understand that "it's a process" but let's consider this. You could argue that that the process is in fact complete and that up until we joined the Prem, it worked as it was successful. Since then, we have added better players (arguably) but not changed the process one iota. Other than different personnel, we have not changed a thing... am I wrong in following that logic? I watch it on the pitch every week and I cannot see anything we are doing that differs from the past 2 seasons yet now it is not working. So... my thought process would then say that the process is no longer fit for purpose and we need to change it - maybe just modify it - a bit. But McKenna does not do that - even for 5 mins to hold a lead. Why??MasseyFerguson wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 12:38 amI got taken to task for writing the following in an earlier message:
'I think that criticising KMcK for being a one trick pony misses an essential point. He has a belief in the system he wants his team to play because he knows it works and the more consistently the team sticks to the system the better the results will be over the longer term. Do people complain that Pep Guardiola is a one trick pony? When have you seen him change his system? The same could be said for Klopp, for Slot, for Postecoglou etc.'
I was told 'But it's clearly NOT working' and 'Well it's not working now!'
With respect, I would draw attention to the part where I wrote 'the more consistently the team sticks to the system the better the results will be over the longer term.'
Of course we have made a disappointing start to the season but l think we can all agree that there have been lots of positives in most of our performances. We have come up two leagues in rapid order playing the system. It was good enough for us to wipe the floor with League One. It stuttered a little at times in the championship but was good enough for us, ultimately, to get promoted again. We are now in a league where the challenge is much greater and where the quality and depth of our squad pales in comparison to most other teams. What will, potentially, save us is the adherence to the system. It compensates for some of our deficiencies, makes us competitive, and it will, over the course of the season, see us improve and eke out significant results.
AM in his posts asks us to trust in the process. I agree. The salient point is that it is a process. That is to say, it is ongoing. The difficulties we are having now are not unexpected at this early stage. Keep the faith. It will come good.
Yes - that is the result of the lack of adaptability and flexibility right there!hallamblue wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:30 amHis processes got us thumped at Elland Rd last season, purely because he wouldn't entertain a more cautious approach for that game...."let's attack at will, be brave, be on the front foot, lets maintain our identity"....we were 3 -0 down inside 20 mins!
While I'm commenting out of place within this thread (Not that you were, to add). Did you see Downes' robust but fair challenge in the Man City v Southampton game, where he clearly got the ball but ended up getting booked unfairly (in my eyes). Likewise, Clarke didn't deserve that second yellow card on Saturday.
He got the second yellow card because Kieron McKenna is the boss. What the hell......., might as well just blame him along with everything else he's getting blamed for. Ok, complete dickish comment there, but the déjà vu that is personally happening is f**king overwhelming. Cannot believe it if I'm honest. I reckon the only explanation is that I do indeed watch waaaaaay more SPL than EPL and I'm out of touch with the sport COMPLETELY.AzzurroMark wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 10:02 amWhile I'm commenting out of place within this thread (Not that you were, to add). Did you see Downes' robust but fair challenge in the Man City v Southampton game, where he clearly got the ball but ended up getting booked unfairly (in my eyes). Likewise, Clarke didn't deserve that second yellow card on Saturday.
A very well written post, Mark, and obviously you have written it from the heart.AzzurroMark wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 7:43 pmI've not really commented since the final whistle blew on Saturday. Has been very interesting reading the various discussions on here.
I finally got to watch the MOTD and TownTV highlights and, ever trying to remain positive, I shall side more with Marko & RRangers posts.
Losing Omari late in the day will have certainly unsettled the side to a degree.
Another thing which nobody has really picked up on is the injury to Ogbene. Is it any coincidence that Brentford's first goal came down our right hand side and the player I believe Ogbene would have been picking up was heavily involved. There was just 9 minutes between Burns coming on, without a warm up and that goal. Yes it's conjecture now but I think there is more likelihood that they wouldn't have scored that goal and found a quick route back into the game.
Regardless of KM's tactics, did Burns end up leaving Clarke more isolated than Ogbene would have? We'll never know.
Of course throughout our team we are making so many mistakes leading to goals being conceded, but I think Brentford deserve a lot more credit too. They absolutely ploughed men into our box in that second half especially! At the same time the Bees, as a result possibly, were often left exposed at the back. Credit to Keiran for his starting formation there. Two players in from the cold, really caught them out stone cold with their goals. In fact that was a very different front line full stop, but it certainly worked for a time.
Muric! Well he's certainly the villain of the piece on all social media comments and even I don't quite know what he was doing for their 4th goal. What worried me the moment the ball crossed the line, was that we had 3 defenders marshalling 6 Brentford players in our box, 5 of them were closer to the goal than our next nearest player. There's a cluster of about 4-5 town players around the penalty box who are marking fresh air! So yes Muric is highly culpable, but a few others need to look at themselves.
No arguments with the penalty (I'd have been screaming for one if that was for us). As for Clarke's second yellow. From the clips I saw I feel sure that their player dived. Yes Clarke's leg went across him, but I didn't feel there was any contact. Like I say the one replay from behind was not brilliantly clear.
Am I defending KM, Muric, Clarke? Yes in ways! Are there lessons for them all to learn? Most certainly yes. However I'm sticking with my blue tinted glasses. It's very, very fine margins in the toughest of leagues! I heard enough in the commentary yesterday to STILL give me hope. Injuries are crippling us right now, when a fairly settled side, especially defensively, is what we need. I was sickened by that late loss yesterday, but for a few centimetres Delap could so easily have made it 4-4 and what a different narrative that would have been!
TRUST THE PROCESS
I did sort of offer my explanation to why we conceded the first goal (which in turn no doubt got Brentford's tails up and us on the ropes for the 2nd)....
Another thing which nobody has really picked up on is the injury to Ogbene. Is it any coincidence that Brentford's first goal came down our right hand side and the player I believe Ogbene would have been picking up was heavily involved. There was just 9 minutes between Burns coming on, without a warm up and that goal.
) has spoken about changing from the team who were hell bent on scoring again if they went behind (in the lower leagues) to a team that needed to manage the game better to stop successive goals being conceded (I guess there is an argument to the flip side of this which does give credence to your argument BM 
)... and a very well worded reply too Rossi, thank you (i mean that sincerely). You make very valid points and I can certainly see where you're coming from. I guess we all have to agree to disagree at times, but one thing is for sure, it has made this forum come alive.rossi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 10:44 am
A very well written post, Mark, and obviously you have written it from the heart.
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My problem with it is that it is full of what-ifs and supposition, wheras I prefer to look at the hard cold facts. It's all well and good having blind faith in your principles and trusting that things will come good in the end. The season has only 38 games, and I worry that trusting in the current process is just asking for time to run out. There's no guarantee it would ever work in th PL with the squad of players we have, let alone in time to avoid relegation this season.
A spider will attempt to climb up a greasy drainpipe only a few times, and fail, before he tries another route - I believe . we are at that point. Something needs to change, not next month, not next year - NOW
). “A very well worded post, but disagree with all of it” ……… so you’re just being an English schoolteacher this morning, Azzurro. Exactly - no-one has an issue with being gung ho at 0-0 or even if 2-0 down but to be 2-0 up with 5 mins to play to HT just needed some cool heads and focused defending. No-one wants KM out either despite some suggesting that's what we are asking for - it's not but he has to learn and it would appear that he is not at present. Lets hope he does and quick!Bluemike wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 11:18 amListen, I am not wanting to chastise KM, nor do I really want him moving on, BUT, not even Pep Guardiola is perfect, everyone makes mistakes and there is nothing wrong with voicing concerns when that happens. Sadly though it is the sign of a madman to not try and change the odd thing.
You Mark are correct in pointing out that our "gung ho" approach almost yielded a Third goal for Szmodics which wins the game hands down, unfortunately though it didn't and we still had the slightly precarious 2-0 to defend, at 40+ minutes it was screaming out to be more "safe" in our approach just for that short space of time, it is completely all about timing, of course we can't go safe after 30 minutes or for the entirety of the second half, but it was about timing and switching things to protect what we had, sadly we failed miserably.
Regarding the Ogbene thing, it could have been a factor, I also wonder what would have happened had we had Morsy on the pitch, he invariably sits just in front of the back Four and mops up much of what the opposition throws at us, he may just have been there to stop one or even both of those goals, we will never know but if that is correct where was One of our Two central Midfielders on the day to try and do the same ?
We were so unlucky with injury and illness at the weekend and we performed heroics for long spells, but it all counts for nothing thanks to some basic errors yet again which we seem incapable of eradicating from out game and that alone will send us down.