Shrimpsvoices

If the BoD had the courage that is needed then DA should be shown the door before the New Year game v Burton and appoint Baz as Caretaker manager until the end of the season.

Failing that then DA's contract is up for renewal come the end of the season and there is surely no way that we can contemplate giving him a further period in charge where his sterile and lack of attacking intent has resulted in our current position.

Even if there is a few pennies to fund some new blood in January my faith in him being able to provided that needed attacking threat is only wishful thinking.

I've done my utmost to support DA but the time has now come when i no longer have any faith in his abilities to get us out of the mire OUR club now finds itself.

The BoD need to act NOW if we have any hope of survival.....

redrobo wrote:If the BoD had the courage that is needed then DA should be shown the door before the New Year game v Burton and appoint Baz as Caretaker manager until the end of the season.

Failing that then DA's contract is up for renewal come the end of the season and there is surely no way that we can contemplate giving him a further period in charge where his sterile and lack of attacking intent has resulted in our current position.

Even if there is a few pennies to fund some new blood in January my faith in him being able to provided that needed attacking threat is only wishful thinking.

I've done my utmost to support DA but the time has now come when i no longer have any faith in his abilities to get us out of the mire OUR club now finds itself.

The BoD need to act NOW if we have any hope of survival.....

They won’t ! We are too nice on and off the pitch . If it was going to happen they would have done it by now . The only way is if DA walks and again I can’t see that happening !

Players are doing their best but they arent good enough, club cant afford to get rid of Derek etc.......

You were wishing Derek a merry Christmas yesterday but want him sacking today. Crazy world.

Christie's Carole!!!!

....and as usual concentrate on the irrelevant rather than something more serious....but true to form...

I just can’t see this happening.

Could we even afford to pay off Derek if we wanted to? Whoever the manager is will have basically no funds to do any business in January, and with the club up for sale I don’t think the BoD will want to ‘rock the boat’.

I can understand why some want him to go but unless we have an outstanding replacement lined up who we are confident will save our season without signing any players in January then I don’t think sacking Derek would achieve anything at this moment in time.

I think we are ‘strapped in’ with Derek until the end of the season and we’ll just have to assess the managerial position then - whichever league we are in.

Honestly believe that a former goalkeeper with no budget can do a better job than a guy that has many promotions to his name and is a former Scottish manager of the year?
Some of our fans are deluded

CityShrimp wrote:I just can’t see this happening.

Could we even afford to pay off Derek if we wanted to? Whoever the manager is will have basically no funds to do any business in January, and with the club up for sale I don’t think the BoD will want to ‘rock the boat’.

I can understand why some want him to go but unless we have an outstanding replacement lined up who we are confident will save our season without signing any players in January then I don’t think sacking Derek would achieve anything at this moment in time.

I think we are ‘strapped in’ with Derek until the end of the season and we’ll just have to assess the managerial position then - whichever league we are in.

I respect your post but to sit back and labour on with negative football in the hope that DA will turn it around is for me totally unacceptable. He has 6 month of his contract to run which by doing nothing is accepting our fate and after only 2 league wins all season is abysmal surely an indication of what we can expect for the rest of what has been a season of dire unattractive, negative football with relegation for the first time in our proud history looming over OUR club like the darkest of dark clouds.

Baz is the obvious choice until the season end when our BoD will be able to determine who we need to take over whichever league we are in without making a rush appointment at the moment.

DA has a proven track record but he lives and dies by his results.....enough is enough.

mrpotatohead wrote:Players are doing their best but they arent good enough, club cant afford to get rid of Derek etc.......

I don't think that they are not good enough. I just think it's D.A.s tactics, defending too deep, using defenders in midfield, and his timing for making subs ? ? ?

Hodgie1978 wrote:Honestly believe that a former goalkeeper with no budget can do a better job than a guy that has many promotions to his name and is a former Scottish manager of the year?
Some of our fans are deluded

Beyond deluded mate, there is no word for it

BerlinWaller wrote:Beyond deluded mate, there is no word for it

'Deluded' is thinking that playing six defenders will suddenly result in us winning enough games to stay up, when it has consistently failed so far. 'Deluded' is thinking that we 'played well' and deserved to win, with our one header on target, from one of our six defenders.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".
Delusional? Quite.

PS I'm not calling for Derek to go, or Baz to take over, but I really, REALLY want him to stop with the negativity and accept that we need to win games, before it is too late.

Hodgie1978 wrote:Honestly believe that a former goalkeeper with no budget can do a better job than a guy that has many promotions to his name and is a former Scottish manager of the year?
Some of our fans are deluded

Yep!

I think there has been a bit of naivety in the reaction to yesterday. This notion that we need to 'just attack' or 'have a bit of a go' is a bit wide of the mark. We clearly were trying to win yesterday and had the better of the game up until about 60 minutes. And while we were poor from that point and I do think DA should have made changes sooner, do you really think that him and the team were thinking 'ah well let's just sit back now at 1-0 down and hit them on the break'? Of course not!

Vale brought on a more experienced midfielder for a younger more attacking one and they took control in the middle of the park. I think DA needed to react faster and more strongly to this, but it wasn't a wilful giving up on attacking intent.

On the whole 'six defenders' stuff, I have to say it's getting very frustrating to read. First off - lots of teams play with wing-backs, and it's not an inherently defensive system - especially with Love and Melbourne at wing-back. If anything, I have a problem with how it exposes Rawson at RCB. Also, Gibson was playing in midfield. We all know this, and we all know we lack a sound option in defensive midfield which is why Gibson has ended up being drafted in there. Would people have the same problem if Fane played there, even though Gibson offers much more threat on the ball?

Personally think we need a proper DM who can do that Songo'o role - it's worked well in the past. Pretty clear that DA doesn't trust Fane in that role anymore, despite a successful spell there last season. Perhaps it's because we've lost the experience of Wildig in midfield?

I think it would allow the likes of Weir, Shaw and Taylor to kick on a bit further up the pitch and contribute there. They're among the most talented young midfielders about in this division, but I don't think the balance is right in our midfield to make the most of their talents going forward.

If Derek did go, I think a more experienced attacking minded manager would be better..and a couple of players a striker with a proven goal scoring record at this level or above , a defensive midfielder who doesn't mind putting his foot in..

Keith wrote:

BerlinWaller wrote:Beyond deluded mate, there is no word for it

'Deluded' is thinking that playing six defenders will suddenly result in us winning enough games to stay up, when it has consistently failed so far. 'Deluded' is thinking that we 'played well' and deserved to win, with our one header on target, from one of our six defenders.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".
Delusional? Quite.

PS I'm not calling for Derek to go, or Baz to take over, but I really, REALLY want him to stop with the negativity and accept that we need to win games, before it is too late.

You were the biggest fan of League 2 relegation football year in and year out so I am not going to take any notice of the guff you have just typed out. I sometimes think you are a parody account.

Little Shrimp wrote:

Hodgie1978 wrote:Honestly believe that a former goalkeeper with no budget can do a better job than a guy that has many promotions to his name and is a former Scottish manager of the year?
Some of our fans are deluded

Yep!

I think there has been a bit of naivety in the reaction to yesterday. This notion that we need to 'just attack' or 'have a bit of a go' is a bit wide of the mark. We clearly were trying to win yesterday and had the better of the game up until about 60 minutes. And while we were poor from that point and I do think DA should have made changes sooner, do you really think that him and the team were thinking 'ah well let's just sit back now at 1-0 down and hit them on the break'? Of course not!

Vale brought on a more experienced midfielder for a younger more attacking one and they took control in the middle of the park. I think DA needed to react faster and more strongly to this, but it wasn't a wilful giving up on attacking intent.

On the whole 'six defenders' stuff, I have to say it's getting very frustrating to read. First off - lots of teams play with wing-backs, and it's not an inherently defensive system - especially with Love and Melbourne at wing-back. If anything, I have a problem with how it exposes Rawson at RCB. Also, Gibson was playing in midfield. We all know this, and we all know we lack a sound option in defensive midfield which is why Gibson has ended up being drafted in there. Would people have the same problem if Fane played there, even though Gibson offers much more threat on the ball?

Personally think we need a proper DM who can do that Songo'o role - it's worked well in the past. Pretty clear that DA doesn't trust Fane in that role anymore, despite a successful spell there last season. Perhaps it's because we've lost the experience of Wildig in midfield?

I think it would allow the likes of Weir, Shaw and Taylor to kick on a bit further up the pitch and contribute there. They're among the most talented young midfielders about in this division, but I don't think the balance is right in our midfield to make the most of their talents going forward.

Totally agree but you lost 90% of the plonkers on here.

I said it on Twitter and I will say it on here, a percentage of our fans yesterday were out of order.

But now we can see all you anti-Jim 'stay away' fans come flooding back to take our average attendance up to 2,500 at least and a new manager taking us up to League One while playing like Brazil... I can't wait

Deluded or a man in tune with the universe? You decide.

We don’t score enough goals, we can all see that. We aren’t getting hammered, most games are close, but we still need a change in the thinking to allow us to commit more men forward.
We are always conceding, we have a talented bunch in midfield and Mayor, Phillips, Cole can cause problems, I don’t think change is affordable, but something has to be shuffled to allow us to create more in the final third.

redrobo wrote:

CityShrimp wrote:I just can’t see this happening.

Could we even afford to pay off Derek if we wanted to? Whoever the manager is will have basically no funds to do any business in January, and with the club up for sale I don’t think the BoD will want to ‘rock the boat’.

I can understand why some want him to go but unless we have an outstanding replacement lined up who we are confident will save our season without signing any players in January then I don’t think sacking Derek would achieve anything at this moment in time.

I think we are ‘strapped in’ with Derek until the end of the season and we’ll just have to assess the managerial position then - whichever league we are in.

I respect your post but to sit back and labour on with negative football in the hope that DA will turn it around is for me totally unacceptable. He has 6 month of his contract to run which by doing nothing is accepting our fate and after only 2 league wins all season is abysmal surely an indication of what we can expect for the rest of what has been a season of dire unattractive, negative football with relegation for the first time in our proud history looming over OUR club like the darkest of dark clouds.

Baz is the obvious choice until the season end when our BoD will be able to determine who we need to take over whichever league we are in without making a rush appointment at the moment.

DA has a proven track record but he lives and dies by his results.....enough is enough.

I love Baz but as others have pointed out, expecting a goalkeeping coach with no experience to save us is just not realistic. It seems like you accept that, and are talking about him being a stop gap but again, I don’t see what that would achieve - other than cost us money in paying off Derek.

If the board want to contemplate the managerial position at the end of the season then they can do that but replacing Derek with Baz now would just seem irrational and desperate.

BerlinWaller wrote:

Keith wrote:

BerlinWaller wrote:Beyond deluded mate, there is no word for it

'Deluded' is thinking that playing six defenders will suddenly result in us winning enough games to stay up, when it has consistently failed so far. 'Deluded' is thinking that we 'played well' and deserved to win, with our one header on target, from one of our six defenders.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".
Delusional? Quite.

PS I'm not calling for Derek to go, or Baz to take over, but I really, REALLY want him to stop with the negativity and accept that we need to win games, before it is too late.

You were the biggest fan of League 2 relegation football year in and year out so I am not going to take any notice of the guff you have just typed out. I sometimes think you are a parody account.

Oh, take your poster of Derek down from your bedroom wall. Instead of making personal attacks on me, which you know fine well, are nonsense, try to actually give an opinion on this season. and how we're playing. Are you happy with two wins all season? Give us your opinion on how we played yesterday. Do you agree with your idol, that we did enough to win the game, with our one shot on target?

BerlinWaller wrote:You were the biggest fan of League 2 relegation football year in and year out

PS: I wasn't a "fan of relegation football", I was a fan of not getting relegated. If we finish a point clear of relegation this season, I'll be delighted again.

Little Shrimp wrote:We clearly were trying to win yesterday and had the better of the game up until about 60 minutes. And while we were poor from that point and I do think DA should have made changes sooner, do you really think that him and the team were thinking 'ah well let's just sit back now at 1-0 down and hit them on the break'? Of course not!

I don't think we were better in the first sixty minutes. I think we saw two very poor sides, neither creating anything of substance, other than us hitting the post and them scoring on the break. We had a higher percentage of possession, but most of it was in our own half. The half-time stats said zero attempts on target for us.

Little Shrimp wrote:On the whole 'six defenders' stuff, I have to say it's getting very frustrating to read. First off - lots of teams play with wing-backs, and it's not an inherently defensive system - especially with Love and Melbourne at wing-back. If anything, I have a problem with how it exposes Rawson at RCB. Also, Gibson was playing in midfield. We all know this, and we all know we lack a sound option in defensive midfield which is why Gibson has ended up being drafted in there. Would people have the same problem if Fane played there, even though Gibson offers much more threat on the ball?

Personally think we need a proper DM who can do that Songo'o role - it's worked well in the past. Pretty clear that DA doesn't trust Fane in that role anymore, despite a successful spell there last season. Perhaps it's because we've lost the experience of Wildig in midfield?

I think it would allow the likes of Weir, Shaw and Taylor to kick on a bit further up the pitch and contribute there. They're among the most talented young midfielders about in this division, but I don't think the balance is right in our midfield to make the most of their talents going forward.

But, if as you say, we don't have the players to successfully use that system, then why persist with it? It hasn't worked all season. The proof of that pudding is us being bottom with just two wins. If we haven't got the players, then change the system to utilise the players that we have. You can add Mayor to the list of talent, so let's unleash them. Phillips is quality, but needs better supply. Plus, we have pace too. If we have players who can run at defences, set up, further up the pitch, it forces a response from the opposition. Bringing Connolly on in the 92nd minute was ridiculous.

Port Vale were rubbish, but they beat us.

Derek knows the problems.

Let's see who he and Greg bring in and also let's see who leaves.

The 4 loanees have all done well , certainly much better than some we have had in the past. I hope we can retain them all which means probably very little scope for any more than 1 loan.

Derek saved us in his first season (even though Bury and Macclesfield's financial problems would have meant no relegation) , he got us promoted in his 2nd season when we were favourites to be bottom as usual. In his 3rd part season he came in and kept us up with 3 wins against Burton , Oxford and Charlton.

I believe Derek has built up enough credit to see out the season and we can decide what our future is then.

Of course new owners may come in soon and change everything !

2 wins!

And yet we keep doing the same thing over and over again... Madness.

I'm more worried about next season, as this one has gotten away from us already. Carry on only having one shot at goal per game a return to non-league football will happen.

Keith wrote:I don't think we were better in the first sixty minutes. I think we saw two very poor sides, neither creating anything of substance, other than us hitting the post and them scoring on the break. We had a higher percentage of possession, but most of it was in our own half. The half-time stats said zero attempts on target for us.

We weren't loads better, granted, but definitely edged it. Put together some nice moves, Mayor was causing some trouble, but overall just lacked a bit of clinical edge with the final ball. Also had by far the best chance of the half with the Melbourne header. My main issue was looking a bit ropey in defensive transitions and defending against counters, which again I think a proper DM would help solve.

Keith wrote:But, if as you say, we don't have the players to successfully use that system, then why persist with it? It hasn't worked all season. The proof of that pudding is us being bottom with just two wins. If we haven't got the players, then change the system to utilise the players that we have. You can add Mayor to the list of talent, so let's unleash them. Phillips is quality, but needs better supply. Plus, we have pace too. If we have players who can run at defences, set up, further up the pitch, it forces a response from the opposition. Bringing Connolly on in the 92nd minute was ridiculous.

Port Vale were rubbish, but they beat us.

Persist with what system? What system hasn't worked all season? We've tried a number of different things. Our only two wins have actually come with a 3-5-2, but I don't really think that's the way forward overall. We've put some nice encouraging performances in with a high energy counter attacking 3-4-3 vs Derby, Ipswich and Portsmouth, but don't seem to be able to replicate it either away from home or against weaker opposition. We struggle to break down mid-table/weaker opposition, even when playing our 'hell for leather' 4-3-3 with Shaw, Taylor and Weir in midfield (vs Lincoln and Exeter). It's not simply about 'unleashing' players or just sticking all our good attackers on and hoping for the best - that's a bit of a FIFA attitude (don't worry, I mean the game not the organisation ). There needs to be balance and a plan!

At the end of the day, there is possibly a way to get more from this current squad - perhaps with a higher intensity/pressing system with the youthful bunch we've got. That said, do we really have the defenders to do that aside from Bedeau?

However, I don't really see at this point what long term good a managerial change would do. There are two options: letting Derek make the additions he wants this January (I think a trusted DM would help massively), hoping for a miracle turnaround, then letting Derek continue to build the squad he wants for whatever division we're in. Or changing manager, probably having no money for January additions after paying Derek off, hoping for a miracle turnaround and then having to go through another bloody rebuild in the summer.

Either way, we're hoping for a miracle in the second half of the season, but I'd rather let Derek keep making the squad how he wants it than get done by another big squad turnover, which has ultimately been our undoing in these past couple of seasons.