Persuaded to use an absent friend's ticket for today's match and boy do i regret it ! The gulf between the Championship and League 1 is immense but worryingly we have quickly become a poor side,even at this level. Quality in the game was near non-existent apart from a few Bristol flurries and as a spectacle it was dreadful. Recruitment in my opinion has been unsatisfactory (question marks against Mr Scott?) and I wouldn't give £50k for Ladapo,a selfish journeyman "striker" who has trawled around 15,yes 15 (mainly non-descript non-league) clubs befor a probably one-off fairly successful season at Plymouth. Wonder who did the research on this player ? This side lacks skill ,beef and committment and reflects the lily-livered approach and attitude of Warne (and his relegation specialist coach Barker) and seems destined for a season of struggle and a probable relegation battle. There were a lot of angry unhappy supporters at today's game and if this filters back to the Chairman I suspect Warne's days could well be numbered. Need to find a decent pint now !
Warne is beginning to look like a dead man walking, nothing changes week after week. Same tactics, no ability to change the game a stubborn man that because he is incapable of managing difficult situations lets two players that play championship football leave for next to nothing. As he says he is a teacher and so is barker not coaches they either need to get some experience in to help them or they will both be out of work before xmas. The good human beings crap is not for footballers, these are young men with money and little education they will be laughing behind his back.
Just read his post match response
Head in hands. You pick the team you decide the tactics you bought the players.
I was on the fence about Warne but would criticise his tactics often with the benefit of hindsight.
But he continues on the same path.
The clock is ticking I'm sorry tonsay
The stats say we had 50% of the attempts they had both on and off target we only had 6 shots all game, how can warne say we created plenty of chances. Worst thing for me this week is his comments on Lamy absolutely unreal. Saying he tries to fill his bench if he can, that being on the bench doesnt mean a player is fit enough to play ..........what the F ????? The bench is there for a reason clubs and managers wanted a big bench and 3 subs to help them make their job easier in terms of tactics, injury cover and in game management, yet our manager doesnt see it as that. The squad size and players in that squad are 100% in his control, the coaching in his control for gods sake Warne take some accountability. Very infuriating man
When your full back has the only decent half chance you are in trouble. The style of play is shocking and people are just bored and fed up of watching it. No one wants to beat a man, have a shot, cross the ball, nothing.
Fear a relegation battle with this squad which lacks character and bottle.
I echo a lot of sentiments. And like I said last week, we are robots, easy to play against, unimaginative, we constantly take the pace out of attacks in the last 20yds. The 2 strikers are nothing short of awful. Rovers deserved to win, created more 2nd half. We need to change quickly fans aren't going to put up with that much longer. Look at our goals scored excl Bolton (which doesnt count), it's not hard to see where the problem is is it?
Character & bottle correct lack of especially in midfield/up front. McDonald shocking signing. Wiles needs time out. Not a massive fan of Crooks but who else we got. Lindsay Barlaser Crooks midfield 3. Ladapo & Morris add Vassell to that not got it. Get back to 4-5-1 with Smudger lone striker.
As l have being saying we should have made the change last spring. My spelling might be rubbish but I can work things out. Football runs in cycles and Mr Warne has come to the end of his no matter what he does it will not work. The one thing he could try this is the last throw of the dice put Smith up front he could rattle a few cages but I doubt that would work.
I wish to have a little word with my friend Brad on one of your posts you spelt a word wrong you have now joined the happy band of brothers with me gwru. Don't worry worry about it I am not having a go at you just lighten up a bit. If you want to have a go at me fine I might have to tell you another joke to cheer you up. Try to have a nice Sunday the rest of you millers.
It's difficult to take many positives out of yesterday. We possibly shaded the first half but at half time most felt it was two poor sides competing with very little skill. Nothing much altered in the second half apart from our highly rated centre back getting the wrong side of their danger man and that decided the game. We lack a leader on the pitch. We lack a midfield player who can pick up the ball and make the simple pass to somebody in space. We appear to panic on the ball and resort to hoofing it up the pitch. Our main get out is to give it to Hastie who only showed the odd flashes yesterday. I am sorry to repeat myself but we are very light in the middle of the park. Wiles, Crooks and Lindsay need help and i think Wiles should be given a rest, although not blaming him for our lack of threat. We scored six goals against a makeshift team , but have scored only six in the other games. If we had played against an average first division team instead of Bolton we would be the second lowest scoring team in the division. That is my biggest worry.
Only Ipswich and Donny have let in more goals than us. A lot of people said we needed a defensive coach. In the championship they might have a point but in this division its the attack that looks lacking. Gwru believes Smith is the only striker at the club. He came on for a quarter of the game yesterday and again offered little. I am not saying Morris is a natural striker but from what i have seen this season he carries a bit more threat than Smith. Perhaps Smith should be given a couple of starts, but his past record says he will not get many goals. Derby says we have let two championship players go for next to nothing. I think he might have a point with Ajayi, but Vaulks wasn't even on the bench yesterday so i think Cardiff ought to be asking for a refund. I like Vaulks, but 2.25m going up to 3m, that's no bargain. The rest that have left are hardly featuring in teams in this division, Williams played twice, subbed at half time.!!!!
Yesterday we came up against a physical side who liked to give the ball a thump. They out fought us at times and we just didn't have the class to keep the ball and get us on the front foot. Olosunde when he came on was possibly our best threat. Warne believes Ogbene and Vassell when they return will give us some pace and fire. They might, but Vassell has still to score a league goal and Ogbene is very inexperienced.. We have to find a midfield player to play alongside Lindsay. Perhaps we should play Barlaser and tell him to do the simple things and dictate play, something he apparently did at Accrington and something Newcastle see him doing in the top division. That will not give us the leader we need. The only leader is Wood, but do you pick him when the defence is doing ok. Not at the moment.
I agree with a fair bit of what you say there Whiston.
I could be wrong but I think Derby liked Purrington and he may be one of the players he is referring to. I'm saying nothing about it - just flagging that up.
The neutral yesterday would have come away thinking they had seen two physical, direct teams slugging it out with hardly any quality football played in the entire ninety minutes. Clarke-Harris finished their goal well but as at Sunderland we totally switched off and allowed one simple ball in behind to undo us which is schoolboy stuff. After they scored I never really believed we had it in us to equalise and it looked like our players thought the same. We were very short of ideas. Hastie threatened occasionally and also Olosunde when he came on for the ineffective Jones.
Lindsay was industrious in midfield but I don't like Crooks there as one of two. For me if he is going to play he needs to play in a more advanced position. At the back end of last season he played further forward and got into a lot of good goal-scoring positions. At the moment he is having too many touches in deep areas and not really creating anything. We signed MacDonald and Barlaser to play in central midfield as 'sitting' players and I think we need to back one or other of them to get the job done. Barlaser seemed to lose confidence quickly after getting caught on the ball too often. MacDonald has only really featured as a substitute other than at Doncaster when by all accounts he did well until he took a knock. One of them needs to step up and get it done. I agree with Whiston that we need someone to dictate play a bit and get us moving.
We have a record of won three drawn three and lost three. It isn't the start we all hoped for and make no mistake we have only played well in patches, but it isn't disastrous. There were a few rumblings yesterday and no doubt they will grow if things don't improve quickly, but it is far too early to think about changing the management team. We have played fewer games than others and a couple of wins would put us in or around the top six. If we changed the manager every time we went through a spell of twelve points from nine games we would have had about sixty managers in the last ten years. That is the road to nowhere. That may or may not be a popular view, but it is what I think.
-- Edited by smiler on Sunday 29th of September 2019 10:14:39 AM
Yup, you have to start to ask questions...I'm still convinced this is a really good squad - it's the manager's job to get them into a winning formation.
Stats show 3 shots on target whole game.
We are not creating enough chances - something needs to improve very soon.
David you are correct stats say 3 shots on target and 3 off target yet the manager says in the interview we had a lot of chances, there is your problem
I watched extended highlights. I could only see one shot on target Olosunde. 1st H we got into 3 great positions but either ball in wasn't quite right or player it was meant for didn't react quick enough or didn't read it. On another day we could have got the 1st goal then could have been a different result. They apart from the goal had the clearer chances.
We were a class above at Wimbledon (who were no better than Bristol Rovers). We kept the ball superbly had movement in front, didn't kill the pace constantly in attacks, we looked like an ex Champ club wanting to get back in there. I want that back please!