Chris Lines

[Guest totemowl]

Yep we get promoted on the back of a fantastic unbeaten run. Instead of adding to what we had like Southampton and Norwich did we rip the team apart and go backwards. The more DJ has changed the squad, the worse the results have been. Only one player of that unbeaten team started on Saturday. Our better results this season were when we had the nucleus of last season's team playing.... coincidence?

It appears to many that DJ has ripped the cohesion and team spirit out of the team. His job is to get the best out of the players under him as well as adding new 'better' ones. So far he is failing on that score. He'll either change or pay the price.

I wouldn't say it's being ripped apart. I dont think any of the permies who left were good enough for this division. We've got 8 players from last season who I think will compete (bywater, buxton, Reda, Llera, JJ, Semedo, Antonio, Madine). 2 injured, 2 off form and 4 playing or on the fringe.

Not sure about Lines. He needs to prove himself, but hankering after Lines when we have McCabe and Barkley in there is strange. Hankering after COG is even stranger.

[Dagmeister]

I wouldn't say it's being ripped apart. I dont think any of the permies who left were good enough for this division. We've got 8 players from last season who I think will compete (bywater, buxton, Reda, Llera, JJ, Semedo, Antonio, Madine). 2 injured, 2 off form and 4 playing or on the fringe.

Not sure about Lines. He needs to prove himself, but hankering after Lines when we have McCabe and Barkley in there is strange. Hankering after COG is even stranger.

I'm all for introducing new players in a process of evolution. Players however should be selected on form. Gradual introduction, coming off the bench preferably. They should earn the shirt rather than just be allowed to turn in inferior performances to those they've replaced, as much for team spirit as anything. Whatever we think of the merits of individual players, surely it is clear that DJ is currently not getting the best out of the current group at his disposal?

I hope that there is method in DJ's current madness and that all those questioning him now including me end up eating humble pie..... I hope.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Dagmeister

[DJMortimer]

No, absolutely not. That was tongue in cheek. I do think there's an X Factor element to some of these comments tho. The talent that's been brought in is being ignored in favour of 'personalities' with more limited abilities.

I said elsewhere Lines did well in League 1 at times but I don't think he's got the quality etc to win us a second promotion.

It's easy being a supporter isn't it? We can shout our mouths off with all sorts of reactionary nonsense, safe in the knowledge that it isn't our money being spent, our neck on the block if it goes wrong, our name against it in the paper as a damning indictment. And if we are proven wrong at any time, hardly anyone remembers for more than five minutes so we can pretend we actually called it right all along and believe in something that only yesterday we were decrying as total nonsense. And if anyone disagrees with us we can call them pr*cks and tw*ts and earnestly tell them that they 'don't understand the game' as if it was as simple and predictable as noughts and crosses.

Players who were out of their depth and being shown the door like Beevers and O'Grady are the answers to our problems, the excitement at Bothroyd and Barkley signing has become a clamour to drop them, Jones has gone from genius to imbecile and promotion hopes have become relegation fears. All in the space of a month.

Edited September 24, 2012 by DJMortimer

[dorian gray]

Lines adds calmness to midfield. Puts his foot on the ball and looks up before passing, plays the right balls. I like him.

Another excellent Megson signing.

he did in the THIRD DIVISION at times...

[Dagmeister]

It's easy being a supporter isn't it? We can shout our mouths off with all sorts of reactionary nonsense, safe in the knowledge that it isn't our money being spent, our neck on the block if it goes wrong, our name against it in the paper as a damning indictment. And if we are proven wrong at any time, hardly anyone remembers for more than five minutes so we can pretend we actually called it right all along and believe in something that only yesterday we were decrying as total nonsense. And if anyone disagrees with us we can call them pr*cks and tw*ts and earnestly tell them that they 'don't understand the game' as if it was as simple and predictable as noughts and crosses.

Players who were out of their depth and being shown the door like Beevers and O'Grady are the answers to our problems, the excitement at Bothroyd and Barkley signing has become a clamour to drop them, Jones has gone from genius to imbecile and promotion hopes have become relegation fears. All in the space of a month.

Jones did a great job adding a little bit extra to Megson's team, team spirit and fitness. He will now be quite rightly judged on his own team. I just believe that it would have served him better (and us) to follow a more gradual route to his team.

[Dagmeister]

he did in the THIRD DIVISION at times...

Hopefully he'll soon get the opportunity to show what he can do in the second division.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Dagmeister

[DJMortimer]

Jones did a great job adding a little bit extra to Megson's team, team spirit and fitness. He will now be quite rightly judged on his own team. I just believe that it would have served him better (and us) to follow a more gradual route to his team.

Most new managers' first priority seems to be to get rid of as much of the team he inherits as possible so that any credit is his alone and the shadow of his predecessor is quickly banished. Even when we were skint and could barely afford such comprehensive rebuilding this would happen regularly. Sometimes perhaps it would do the boss good if he relaxed his ego a bit and built more slowly?

But like most things in the game I would argue that it is unpredictable. Sometimes a mass rebuilding pays off and sometimes it doesn't. Who can say in advance which it is to be?

[Dagmeister]

Most new managers' first priority seems to be to get rid of as much of the team he inherits as possible so that any credit is his alone and the shadow of his predecessor is quickly banished. Even when we were skint and could barely afford such comprehensive rebuilding this would happen regularly. Sometimes perhaps it would do the boss good if he relaxed his ego a bit and built more slowly?

But like most things in the game I would argue that it is unpredictable. Sometimes a mass rebuilding pays off and sometimes it doesn't. Who can say in advance which it is to be?

Agree with that but the unbeaten run last season and to some extent the style with which it was achieved might suggest that a more circumspect approach might have been prudent rather than rushing headlong into demolition/rebuilding. Consistently successful managers have a knack of working with what they have and improving on it. Jones did that last season.

Mind you we don't know what his brief from Milan is. You'd think we'd have learned something from the mass signings in January 2010.

[SiJ]

Most new managers' first priority seems to be to get rid of as much of the team he inherits as possible so that any credit is his alone and the shadow of his predecessor is quickly banished. Even when we were skint and could barely afford such comprehensive rebuilding this would happen regularly. Sometimes perhaps it would do the boss good if he relaxed his ego a bit and built more slowly?

For me the change has been implemented too quickly and it has disrupted any momentum that we were carrying.

Looking at the bigger picture it will hopefully just be a case of teething problems and this new side will come together.

Edited September 24, 2012 by SiJ

[Dagmeister]

For me the change has been implemented too quickly and it has disrupted any momentum that we were carrying.

Looking at the bigger picture it will hopefully just be a case of teething problems and this new side will come together.

That's my hope too but I believe that DJ will need to revert back to a more even mix of old and new.

[DJMortimer]

For me the change has been implemented too quickly and it has disrupted any momentum that we were carrying.

Looking at the bigger picture it will hopefully just be a case of teething problems and this new side will come together.

That certainly appears to be the case at the moment. But it could change.

But for all those complaining now that we are in a mess, how many of them were urging caution when the signings started in the summer? All I remember is the the usual clamour for more and bigger signings. Hindsight is easy to have.

[SiJ]

But for all those complaining now that we are in a mess, how many of them were urging caution when the signings started in the summer? All I remember is the the usual clamour for more and bigger signings. Hindsight is easy to have.

I was saying this to a few people on Saturday pre-match.

I distinctly remember someone starting a thread after the civil ceremony titled "who isn't good enough?" and it basically consisted of a load of our resident "experts" ripping apart last season's squad and writing a large percentage of them off.

Now we have loads of people clamoring for "last seasons team to come back", yet I'd hazard a guess that a fair few of those were the same people going batshit mad over all our summer recruits.

In our first few games we seemed to have struck a nice balance between the old and the new players, yet now we've ended up going pretty much in just one direction.

[Dagmeister]

That certainly appears to be the case at the moment. But it could change.

But for all those complaining now that we are in a mess, how many of them were urging caution when the signings started in the summer? All I remember is the the usual clamour for more and bigger signings. Hindsight is easy to have.

You can't knock signings until you've seen them play for us. Doubt that many saw the current selection pinsticking happening. I'd have preferred new signings to earn their places regardless of name.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Dagmeister

[StockyBoy]

Pathetic init..

We get promotion, we overhaul a relatively weak squad to prepare for Another promotion, improving just about every position...

...and we get all these chavs wanting to play the League 1 players, even the ones who often failed to impress.

It's like flipping X Factor.

Div

[StockyBoy]

No, absolutely not. That was tongue in cheek. I do think there's an X Factor element to some of these comments tho. The talent that's been brought in is being ignored in favour of 'personalities' with more limited abilities.

I said elsewhere Lines did well in League 1 at times but I don't think he's got the quality etc to win us a second promotion.

And your basis for this is what? What you and other X-factor viewers have forgotten is football is a TEAM game and writing off individuals as “not good enough” gets you where exactly?

[TheBoyBeevers]

I was saying this to a few people on Saturday pre-match.

I distinctly remember someone starting a thread after the civil ceremony titled "who isn't good enough?" and it basically consisted of a load of our resident "experts" ripping apart last season's squad and writing a large percentage of them off.

Now we have loads of people clamoring for "last seasons team to come back", yet I'd hazard a guess that a fair few of those were the same people going batshit mad over all our summer recruits.

In our first few games we seemed to have struck a nice balance between the old and the new players, yet now we've ended up going pretty much in just one direction.

That's a very good post SiJ.

In general, I trusted Megson and I trust Dave Jones as excellent football managers.

Megson said that the squad would need gutting were we to get promoted, and Jones has made a lot of changes and binned a lot of players, replacing them with almost a whole new squad of bigger and better reputations.

Those reputations are, at the moment, proving to be just that- reputations. However I'm convinced, in time, that the team will gel and perform to levels far beyond what last season's team was capable of.

There is definitely an element of 'the grass always being greener' with regards to last season's team from Wednesday fans- Lines is a big miss for us IMO, but apart from that, does anybody REALLY think that Rob Jones, Mike Jones, Ryan Lowe and co. would have been ripping this league up?

I think, had we made very few changes, we'd be in an almost identical position to where we are now- a struggling start. The difference though, would be that the current squad has the potential to be better than lower Championship team. The promotion winning squad did not have that scope for improvement i don't think.

Dave Jones and the players need time. We'll get there with the new crop of players, and be stronger for it.

[Dagmeister]

That's a very good post SiJ.

In general, I trusted Megson and I trust Dave Jones as excellent football managers.

Megson said that the squad would need gutting were we to get promoted, and Jones has made a lot of changes and binned a lot of players, replacing them with almost a whole new squad of bigger and better reputations.

Those reputations are, at the moment, proving to be just that- reputations. However I'm convinced, in time, that the team will gel and perform to levels far beyond what last season's team was capable of.

There is definitely an element of 'the grass always being greener' with regards to last season's team from Wednesday fans- Lines is a big miss for us IMO, but apart from that, does anybody REALLY think that Rob Jones, Mike Jones, Ryan Lowe and co. would have been ripping this league up?

I think, had we made very few changes, we'd be in an almost identical position to where we are now- a struggling start. The difference though, would be that the current squad has the potential to be better than lower Championship team. The promotion winning squad did not have that scope for improvement i don't think.

Dave Jones and the players need time. We'll get there with the new crop of players, and be stronger for it.

I hope that you're right. I just think that DJ has given himself a bigger hill to climb than he needed though.

[Guest totemowl]

And your basis for this is what? What you and other X-factor viewers have forgotten is football is a TEAM game and writing off individuals as “not good enough” gets you where exactly?

Don't worry. I totally agree that football is a team game and get fed up with the scapegoating that goes on here. I don't think any of those players on Saturday deserved it. It was the team who played badly as far as I'm concerned.

At the same time I'm astonished that some of our new recruits are being written off so quickly. Especially when the answer appears to be to play those who are unproven in the Championship, and sometimes struggled in L1.

For me Lines is unproven in the Championship but likely to be a good backup. He's yet to prove that he's good enough to help us get promotion again though.

I'm not writing him off yet, but in answer to your last point there's no benefit in taking players with us if they aren't going to be good enough.

[Lee A]

he did in the THIRD DIVISION at times...

Doesn't always follow though, the Championship and league 1 are very different in terms of how the game is played,

Jose Semedo for example is ideally suited to league 1 football where there is very limited technical ability, but the league is physical and scrappy, now look at him in the Championship, the game is just happening around him.

Lines on the other hand has a good first touch, decent range of passing and is fairly mobile, he's also capable of moving confidently with the ball, I'm not certain that it will, but the style of play in this division might just suit him better,

He has ability, it's up to him to prove how good he is, but until he's fit enough to be given a chance, we can't write him off just yet.

[malek]

Ok so put simply Lines is a much better player than McCabe ? No rogering chance. Unless we are gonna play a central midfield of 3 then forget it. Lines is a decent player but has not got the same class as McCabe for a start.

He aint, but right now he could help us more in that CM position then Semedo.