Taxi on the way (1 Viewer)

The theme throughout this thread (which has now been suppprted with analysis) is our distance lack of creativity.

Most of us have been saying it since September (or earlier), but MR still refuses to address it.

It’s pleasing we’ve been so poor this season, yet are still in the play offs, however it’s also incredibly frustrating as it demonstrates how easy this league could be if we actually played to our potential. In order to do that MR needs to earn his wages and show flexibility and adaptability in his tactics.

I appreciate our strikers aren’t scoring, but look away from the stats and question how many times they’ve actually played as a striker, not stuck on the wing or playing 10.

We literally have no wingers in our squad, we have to stop trying to play a system heavily reliant on them.

Great_Expectations said:

Most of us have been saying it since September (or earlier), but MR still refuses to address it.

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Is it refusal or is it lack of suitable players? We've lost a couple of creative players with season long injuries which hasn't helped. Sure we could change the centre midfield so it wasn't as defensive but the flip side of that is we let more goals in.

chiefdave said:

Is it refusal or is it lack of suitable players? We've lost a couple of creative players with season long injuries which hasn't helped. Sure we could change the centre midfield so it wasn't as defensive but the flip side of that is we let more goals in.

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That works against the Lutons etc. When teams have parked the bus or go down to 10 men and are holding on their life there's no point having 2 midfielders sat back like we have done. We should be trying to go in for the kill.

If Biamou is up front then it means whip loads of crosses in etc, if McNulty / Ponticelli are up front then it;s look to thread them through.

Plenty of teams have managed to pick our defence apart, Accrington / Crawley etc with some simple passing and committing men forward. We can't do that because we never have as many in the box to get that extra man free to tap it in and when we do, we haven't laid it off.

chiefdave said:

Is it refusal or is it lack of suitable players? We've lost a couple of creative players with season long injuries which hasn't helped. Sure we could change the centre midfield so it wasn't as defensive but the flip side of that is we let more goals in.

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Losing Andreu was obviously a massive blow as I assume (based on our tactics) he was central to MR’s plans, however he’s had time to adapt and hasn’t.

Some examples of his refusal to change, both as a whole and in games:

We have a lack of wingers (which also raises a question re recruitment), yet he insists on playing a system with wingers.
We have an abundance of strikers, yet we play with one.
We have a target man who wins everything, yet when he plays nobody runs off him.
We drop the target man and then revert to playing long ball.

Even smaller things like allowing Kelly to be further forward would help creativity wise and would still leave us with 5 defensive minded players so wouldn’t necessarily mean we’re exposed.

chiefdave said:

Is it refusal or is it lack of suitable players? We've lost a couple of creative players with season long injuries which hasn't helped. Sure we could change the centre midfield so it wasn't as defensive but the flip side of that is we let more goals in.

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I don't think its refusal as such.

MR has been forced to change it recently with Kelly being out, he's been forced to make that change the centre pairing and put Stevenson in which many called for us to be more creative and hopefully put us on the front foot, many have said this was the simple answer and would work.

It simply hasn't, as Stevenson hasn't put in the performances and found the form we've seen him do before. Stevenson did well the second half v Crawley that's it. Crawley came with a negative game plan and found themselves 1-0 up at half time and soaked us up again the second half which allowed us to be more progressive and gave him room to play.

To me it's more the system which don't suit L2 or the players left with certain players not stepping up and doing the job when called upon or not yet ready for men's football.

Currently the problem is the lack of natural wide players with pace to change it till January.

He has an easy option of bringing back Reid. Now, I'm not saying KR would set the world on fire given his generally dire contributions last season and his inability to get into the current Col U team, but needs must and we need all the help we can get.

The simple fact is that our squad is as good as anything in this division and we have a couple of individuals that would probably fit in a League 2 best XI...

But I’m not sure yet another change will reap any benefits and we would probably end up with another has been...

Robins hasn’t done enough to solve the goal scoring issue and playing JP has to be a viable option going forward......

It does have a bit of a ‘If you do what you have always done you will get what you always got’ feeling with the lack of goals...

oucho said:

He has an easy option of bringing back Reid. Now, I'm not saying KR would set the world on fire given his generally dire contributions last season and his inability to get into the current Col U team, but needs must and we need all the help we can get.

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He cannot be recalled I don't think unless all parties agree to cancel his loan early.

He's burned his bridges here, and not the answer to our attacking issues.

So the solution is to replace MR, is it? With whom?

MR and Eric Black are the only two managers (maybe Nilsson too) that I always wished had more time at the club. He'll pull it together, but he needs time - we're 7th ffs, give the guy a chance.

Great_Expectations said:

Losing Andreu was obviously a massive blow as I assume (based on our tactics) he was central to MR’s plans, however he’s had time to adapt and hasn’t.

Some examples of his refusal to change, both as a whole and in games:

We have a lack of wingers (which also raises a question re recruitment), yet he insists on playing a system with wingers.
We have an abundance of strikers, yet we play with one.
We have a target man who wins everything, yet when he plays nobody runs off him.
We drop the target man and then revert to playing long ball.

Even smaller things like allowing Kelly to be further forward would help creativity wise and would still leave us with 5 defensive minded players so wouldn’t necessarily mean we’re exposed.

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Pushing Kelly forward often happens in the second half. We went through a phase of only doing that in the second half when we improved.

steve82 said:

He cannot be recalled I don't think unless all parties agree to cancel his loan early.

He's burned his bridges here, and not the answer to our attacking issues.

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I'd imagine his salary has been laid off against other resources.

Nick said:

Pushing Kelly forward often happens in the second half. We went through a phase of only doing that in the second half when we improved.

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Yep and we always look better for it. However he only does it as a last resort when we are losing as opposed to proactively enforcing the change from the start and/or during a game when it is clear the existing tactics are not working.

lifeskyblue said:

I’m uncertain about whether we give robbins the money in January ..... <snip>

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I say give him the money, but I'm not sure what ten pounds is going to buy us.
I actually think he will quit before too much longer. He's sick of the job and you can tell by his demeanour.

We should be getting about 200K from the third round FA Cup game. That’s enough to pay the wages for 6 months for two top quality forwards on short term loans. But will MR see the money? If he doesn’t I think he’ll walk because the writing is on the wall.

Believe me we are on skid row moneywise and in urgent need of cash to get through the season. Team stayed overnight for the Morecambe fixture I believe and I’m told one of the entourage paid his own digs and the other week one of the academy mini-buses broke down and couldn’t be repaired due to lack of money, no kit for tialists also and remember the Acadamy supposedly now has a sponsor. The Stoke game is a bit of a life saver where there should be a five figure gate but don’t expect any dosh from that to go on players.

Unfortunately that chimes with a similar report I heard at Stevenage which I posted in another thread. Even if it's all untrue, Sisu's history suggests they don't January sales!

rupert_bear said:

Believe me we are on skid row moneywise and in urgent need of cash to get through the season. Team stayed overnight for the Morecambe fixture I believe and I’m told one of the entourage paid his own digs and the other week one of the academy mini-buses broke down and couldn’t be repaired due to lack of money, no kit for tialists also and remember the Acadamy supposedly now has a sponsor. The Stoke game is a bit of a life saver where there should be a five figure gate but don’t expect any dosh from that to go on players.

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This is the period where good owners wanting success would inject some money to shore up deficiencies in the team.
Coventry should have one of the largest budgets in this league, if not then I think we all know who to blame (and it isn't absent fans).

singers_pore said:

We should be getting about 200K from the third round FA Cup game. That’s enough to pay the wages for 6 months for two top quality forwards on short term loans. But will MR see the money? If he doesn’t I think he’ll walk because the writing is on the wall.

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What crowd that based on? And have you factored in after costs of putting the game on are taken out, and vat, its split 45%:45% with the fa getting the other 10%? Plus you have to factor in we'd likely have made losses at the last 2 fa cup games and jpt cup games.

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Can't see MR walking - he was unemployed for 14 months before being offered our job. 15000 adults (and I think that is generous judging by many reactions) at the advanced 22 quid ticket would only bring in 148,500 at the 45% FA Cup rate, before any matchday costs are removed.

Esoterica said:

Can't see MR walking - he was unemployed for 14 months before being offered our job. 15000 adults (and I think that is generous judging by many reactions) at the advanced 22 quid ticket would only bring in 148,500 at the 45% FA Cup rate, before any matchday costs are removed.

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You really do talk a lot of sense, don't you?!?!

Home attendances are a lot lower than I thought.. nice boost for Lincoln, they're going well now.
League Two 2017/2018 - Attendance

Actually I am surprised we're up as high as 7.5k....I can only remember sub-7k attendances being read out this season.

From what I hear our finance situation is dire, but what could that mean ? I have been told would be buyers, I suppose that means Hoffman and co are bideing their time now before making another attempt, I think things could becoming desperate, and we haven’t secured anywhere to play next season yet !! All this reflects back on the team, we have obvious deficiencies with our team that need addressing and that’s without any sales and I have to ask the question can we as a business as it is currently being run afford promotion ?

rupert_bear said:

From what I hear our finance situation is dire, but what could that mean ? I have been told would be buyers, I suppose that means Hoffman and co are bideing their time now before making another attempt, I think things could becoming desperate, and we haven’t secured anywhere to play next season yet !! All this reflects back on the team, we have obvious deficiencies with our team that need addressing and that’s without any sales and I have to ask the question can we as a business as it is currently being run afford promotion ?

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Set up for another January failure then? Smells familiar.

rupert_bear said:

From what I hear our finance situation is dire, but what could that mean ? I have been told would be buyers, I suppose that means Hoffman and co are bideing their time now before making another attempt, I think things could becoming desperate, and we haven’t secured anywhere to play next season yet !! All this reflects back on the team, we have obvious deficiencies with our team that need addressing and that’s without any sales and I have to ask the question can we as a business as it is currently being run afford promotion ?

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I think we probably can “afford” promotion but money alone doesn’t automatically buy you a promotion. It’s bigger than that. The environment has to be right and that’s the issue. The manager can only do so much and anyone who thinks that the bigger picture of catastrophic decision making and failure doesn’t trickle down are fooling themselves. I’d agree it shouldn’t but the fact is it does and that’s just human nature. It also fits perfectly our pattern of decline. Every time it looks like we’ve took a step forward we inevitably take two back within six months of that and the another step back six months after that.

Has anyone been reading the SP interview in the CT? The problems he was talking about were corrected under both TM and MR, chances are the same issues will come up again under the next manager too. Seems to me as soon as a manager starts untying the knots that are keeping the club down someone or something is following behind tying them up again. That’s got to be demoralising for any manager regardless of pedigree and if the manager is demoralised it has to filter down to the dressing room. There’s a taxi due OK, in fact it’s overdue and it’s not for the manager. It’s forever who, whom or what is rocking the boat in calmer waters.

skybluetony176 said:

Has anyone been reading the SP interview in the CT? The problems he was talking about were corrected under both TM and MR, chances are the same issues will come up again under the next manager too. Seems to me as soon as a manager starts untying the knots that are keeping the club down someone or something is following behind tying them up again. That’s got to be demoralising for any manager regardless of pedigree and if the manager is demoralised it has to filter down to the dressing room. There’s a taxi due OK, in fact it’s overdue and it’s not for the manager. It’s forever who, whom or what is rocking the boat in calmer waters.

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It must be Oggy, sack him!!!!!!

oucho said:

It must be Oggy, sack him!!!!!!

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Oh for sure.

Whilst I was distinctly underwhelmed with the appointment of Robins (especially this 2nd time) ....hes just meh.....a bog-standard lower-league journeyman manager...nothing special about him......sacking him whilst in a play-off place seems overly ridiculous, even for this dumb fuckup of a club.....

jimmyhillsfanclub said:

Whilst I was distinctly underwhelmed with the appointment of Robins (especially this 2nd time) ....hes just meh.....a bog-standard lower-league journeyman manager...nothing special about him......sacking him whilst in a play-off place seems overly ridiculous, even for this dumb fuckup of a club.....

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Indeed! He is a "Mr Steady" and is what's needed at the minute but there will come a point.......

According to many on here, we are or were dead certs to be relegated to the conference next season, so MR is over achieving. I don't agree that he should be sacked and don't really believe we're under achieving especially considering the injury problems we're now faced with.

fernandopartridge said:

According to many on here, we are or were dead certs to be relegated to the conference next season, so MR is over achieving. I don't agree that he should be sacked and don't really believe we're under achieving especially considering the injury problems we're now faced with.

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I agree with sentence 2.

With sentence 1, who the frickin' hell thought were were/are dead certs to be relegated????????

oucho said:

I agree with sentence 2.

With sentence 1, who the frickin' hell thought were were/are dead certs to be relegated????????

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The amount of times I have seen people post "We'll be non league soon enough anyway blah blah"

oucho said:

He has an easy option of bringing back Reid. Now, I'm not saying KR would set the world on fire given his generally dire contributions last season and his inability to get into the current Col U team, but needs must and we need all the help we can get.

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This could be part of the answer. Reid obviously has skill in abundance for L2 if he feels like using it. Remember he will probably be unemployed in 6 months unless he can convince someone to offer him a new contract. The only way that has any realistic chance of happenning is if he puts in a few good performances between now and the summer. It seems he probably won't have that opportunity at Colchester now.

fernandopartridge said:

The amount of times I have seen people post "We'll be non league soon enough anyway blah blah"

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TBF we are in a pattern of getting hopes up, tripping up, relegation.

Going by recent history I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss anyone who’s suggesting that we’re leaving this league by relegation. History tells us that is more likely under the current owners than promotion. If we don’t go up this season I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume relegation will be a matter of when not if.

skybluetony176 said:

TBF we are in a pattern of getting hopes up, tripping up, relegation.

Going by recent history I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss anyone who’s suggesting that we’re leaving this league by relegation. History tells us that is more likely under the current owners than promotion. If we don’t go up this season I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume relegation will be a matter of when not if.

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Its been a 2 season cycle.
Look good in 1st season then fall away after January when purse strings are tightened,
Start and continue badly in 2nd season, sack manager but get relegated anyway.
Will the cycle be broken?