Myth-busting, and where we go from here...

[Emerson Thome]

Losing last night to Bolton hurt. It was a poor performance, particularly after raised expectations from the Leeds game. But I think people need a reality check:

 

It is a competitive league

Bolton aren't a complete shower. Yes, they are in a relegation battle but they got automatic promotion last year with a similar record to the year we went up. They had recent games against the likes of Villa, Derby, United, and lost by a single goal when the balance of chances suggest a draw would have been a fair result. The same time we were losing to Bolton, Crystal Palace, another team bottom of their league and with no points and no goals were beating Chelsea. These things happen.

 

Why don't we see 'attacking football'?

This concept of attacking football is a baffling one. Attacking football, you would think, means scoring more goals. Under Carlos we are scoring more goals than under any manager since the days of Big Ron and Trevor Francis. We've scored 60 or more goals last year, and the year before. We are on course to do so again. Since our best team in recent memory (1990-94), and before Carlos took over, so a period of over 20 years, we only scored 60+ goals four times. This includes two promotion seasons against inferior teams in League One. A rather freakish season under Brian Laws when we finished 9th. And one season under Stuart Gray when we also conceded 65 goals.

 

You can't score goals without the ball. Under Carlos we've looked to control games, dominated possession and dictated the match in a way not seen since that 1990-94 period. So what do people mean by attacking football? I think they often mean direct football. Which brings us on to...

 

Why don't we play with wingers?

This has been an English obsession for over 50 years. Alf Ramsey was vehemently criticised for not picking wingers in 1966. In the 80s, the likes of Wimbledon and Watford were briefly successful playing a very direct style of football, with wingers and by playing long balls from defence. But they never won the league, and the teams like Liverpool, Forest and Everton won more games playing much more sophisticated football. That direct style of football now is rarely successful, teams that give the ball away cheaply rarely get it back. And while direct football might keep you in the league (e.g. West Brom) it won't win you enough games. Watch the best teams in England today and none of them play the traditional, paint-from-the-touchline wingers. They will either play with inside forwards (Hazard, De Bruyne, Rashford, Coutinho, Alli etc) or 'wrong-footed' players cutting inside (Sterling, Martial). Although the players aren't as good in the Championship the principles are the same. And you're not going to find better types of these players in the Champ than Forestieri, Wallace, Boyd and Hooper. Signing some modern day Peter Beagrie or Andy Sinton isn't going to help.

 

If anything, these days the wingers are the full backs. These are the guys who bomb down the touchline and put most crosses in. Hunt and Reach do this better than most, as evidenced by that table the other day showing Wednesday make the 2nd most crosses in the league. Crossing is still a horribly inefficient way to score goals. Man Utd under Moyes made over 80 crosses in one match without scoring from any of them recently. 

 

But what about all the money we have now?

Despite no longer being in debt, we are far from the richest club in the league. Villa, Sunderland, Hull, Middlesboro and others have come down with hefty parachute payments and have certain players on £60-£70k a week. Wolves just spent £16m on Neves and another £14m on Costa. Leeds get bigger crowds than us and have just received £15m for Wood. Again, compare this to the 20 years before Carlos. There were times we were in the Championship on a smaller budget, but never on the smallest budget. We generally under-performed. We had money the last 5 years we were in the Premier League. We wasted it. There were seasons in League One where we were pretty much the richest club in terms of wages and that didn't guarantee success (two lower-half finishes)

 

Where we stand

We are one quarter in to the season. It has been disappointing and there have been setbacks: one of our star players (Foresteri) is injured, our main new signing (Boyd), our captain and even yesterday our goalie, with our reserve goalie making the error that led to the second goal. We've suffered from a few bad decisions, a bad offside call at Burton, a marginally offside goal by Cardiff given against us, what looked (and I've only seen it once) like a clear penalty yesterday at Bolton denied. Despite all that, we are only 8 points off automatic promotion. There is 75% of the season to go. And the players and manager have a track record of improving as the season goes on. There is plenty to play for.

 

The new manager trap

Sacking a manager mid-season rarely works. The new manager who comes in can't bring in his own players and doesn't have any time on the training ground to implement new tactics. You rarely get the first-choice manager you want. It is expensive. For much of the last 20 years we've been through this poisonous cycle of hiring third-rate managers and sacking them within two seasons.

 

And some of the names we've been linked with - Pardew, Allardyce, etc. dinosaurs who can't find a club and are at the ***-end of their career. Look how Redknapp worked out for Birmingham. Someone like Redknapp could set the club back 10 years with the dross they would inevitably insist on signing. When the time comes to hire a new manager we should look for someone young, hungry and who is building their reputation up, rather than dropping down. Those kinds of managers would need persuading and careful selection.

 

My suggestion

It seems clear to me that Carlos will leave, of his own choice, if we don't get promotion this season. The players are still playing for him, by and large, the team is playing better football than at any time over the past 20 years. Sacking the manager would be expensive, destabilising and the new guy would have limited funds in January anyway. Our chance of getting promoted with a different manager this season is close to zero. We should get behind the team, the current managerial staff and show some character. Players are often accused of lacking passion. But now we need to see some passion from the fans. Lets not get back to the Chris Turner era when the atmosphere in Hillsborough was poisonous and certain players were being singled out. I think we're better than at least half the teams above us, and we still have a decent chance of promotion. Who's with me?

[McRightSide]

You lost me at Bolton aren't a complete shower.

 

Yes they are. A complete and utter shower

 

as much of a shower as has been in this league for the last 3 years

 

 

[Emerson Thome]

11 minutes ago, McRightSide said:

You lost me at Bolton aren't a complete shower.

 

Yes they are. A complete and utter shower

 

as much of a shower as has been in this league for the last 3 years

 

 

So by your rationale the Wednesday team that went up in 2011-12 are also a complete shower then?

[McRightSide]

1 minute ago, Emerson Thome said:

So by your rationale the Wednesday team that went up in 2011-12 are also a complete shower then?

 

Eh?

[Ronio]

I shall come back tomorrow and give it a proper read when I'm a bit more sober. 

[Emerson Thome]

1 minute ago, McRightSide said:

 

Eh?

This Bolton had a similar record to the last Wednesday team to get promoted. They even have two of our better players from that era. They have a similar amount, if not more Championship experience than we had then. They've made a poor start to the season. It happens. But its a team of Championship battlers. A team we should hope to beat, but we won't be the last team to get turned over there this season. A bit like when we first got promoted to this league and had to scrap for points.

[Orlando_Trustful]

More excuses. We've not beaten any of the bottom 4. There is no hiding from that when our aim is promotion.

 

I also certainly don't buy the myth that the players are playing for CC. Today showed some real apathy amongst the players and the fans. The hallmarks have been there for months. 

 

 

[kingsidney]

1 hour ago, Emerson Thome said:

Losing last night to Bolton hurt. It was a poor performance, particularly after raised expectations from the Leeds game. But I think people need a reality check:

 

It is a competitive league

Bolton aren't a complete shower. Yes, they are in a relegation battle but they got automatic promotion last year with a similar record to the year we went up. They had recent games against the likes of Villa, Derby, United, and lost by a single goal when the balance of chances suggest a draw would have been a fair result. The same time we were losing to Bolton, Crystal Palace, another team bottom of their league and with no points and no goals were beating Chelsea. These things happen.

 

Why don't we see 'attacking football'?

This concept of attacking football is a baffling one. Attacking football, you would think, means scoring more goals. Under Carlos we are scoring more goals than under any manager since the days of Big Ron and Trevor Francis. We've scored 60 or more goals last year, and the year before. We are on course to do so again. Since our best team in recent memory (1990-94), and before Carlos took over, so a period of over 20 years, we only scored 60+ goals four times. This includes two promotion seasons against inferior teams in League One. A rather freakish season under Brian Laws when we finished 9th. And one season under Stuart Gray when we also conceded 65 goals.

 

You can't score goals without the ball. Under Carlos we've looked to control games, dominated possession and dictated the match in a way not seen since that 1990-94 period. So what do people mean by attacking football? I think they often mean direct football. Which brings us on to...

 

Why don't we play with wingers?

This has been an English obsession for over 50 years. Alf Ramsey was vehemently criticised for not picking wingers in 1966. In the 80s, the likes of Wimbledon and Watford were briefly successful playing a very direct style of football, with wingers and by playing long balls from defence. But they never won the league, and the teams like Liverpool, Forest and Everton won more games playing much more sophisticated football. That direct style of football now is rarely successful, teams that give the ball away cheaply rarely get it back. And while direct football might keep you in the league (e.g. West Brom) it won't win you enough games. Watch the best teams in England today and none of them play the traditional, paint-from-the-touchline wingers. They will either play with inside forwards (Hazard, De Bruyne, Rashford, Coutinho, Alli etc) or 'wrong-footed' players cutting inside (Sterling, Martial). Although the players aren't as good in the Championship the principles are the same. And you're not going to find better types of these players in the Champ than Forestieri, Wallace, Boyd and Hooper. Signing some modern day Peter Beagrie or Andy Sinton isn't going to help.

 

If anything, these days the wingers are the full backs. These are the guys who bomb down the touchline and put most crosses in. Hunt and Reach do this better than most, as evidenced by that table the other day showing Wednesday make the 2nd most crosses in the league. Crossing is still a horribly inefficient way to score goals. Man Utd under Moyes made over 80 crosses in one match without scoring from any of them recently. 

 

But what about all the money we have now?

Despite no longer being in debt, we are far from the richest club in the league. Villa, Sunderland, Hull, Middlesboro and others have come down with hefty parachute payments and have certain players on £60-£70k a week. Wolves just spent £16m on Neves and another £14m on Costa. Leeds get bigger crowds than us and have just received £15m for Wood. Again, compare this to the 20 years before Carlos. There were times we were in the Championship on a smaller budget, but never on the smallest budget. We generally under-performed. We had money the last 5 years we were in the Premier League. We wasted it. There were seasons in League One where we were pretty much the richest club in terms of wages and that didn't guarantee success (two lower-half finishes)

 

Where we stand

We are one quarter in to the season. It has been disappointing and there have been setbacks: one of our star players (Foresteri) is injured, our main new signing (Boyd), our captain and even yesterday our goalie, with our reserve goalie making the error that led to the second goal. We've suffered from a few bad decisions, a bad offside call at Burton, a marginally offside goal by Cardiff given against us, what looked (and I've only seen it once) like a clear penalty yesterday at Bolton denied. Despite all that, we are only 8 points off automatic promotion. There is 75% of the season to go. And the players and manager have a track record of improving as the season goes on. There is plenty to play for.

 

The new manager trap

Sacking a manager mid-season rarely works. The new manager who comes in can't bring in his own players and doesn't have any time on the training ground to implement new tactics. You rarely get the first-choice manager you want. It is expensive. For much of the last 20 years we've been through this poisonous cycle of hiring third-rate managers and sacking them within two seasons.

 

And some of the names we've been linked with - Pardew, Allardyce, etc. dinosaurs who can't find a club and are at the ***-end of their career. Look how Redknapp worked out for Birmingham. Someone like Redknapp could set the club back 10 years with the dross they would inevitably insist on signing. When the time comes to hire a new manager we should look for someone young, hungry and who is building their reputation up, rather than dropping down. Those kinds of managers would need persuading and careful selection.

 

My suggestion

It seems clear to me that Carlos will leave, of his own choice, if we don't get promotion this season. The players are still playing for him, by and large, the team is playing better football than at any time over the past 20 years. Sacking the manager would be expensive, destabilising and the new guy would have limited funds in January anyway. Our chance of getting promoted with a different manager this season is close to zero. We should get behind the team, the current managerial staff and show some character. Players are often accused of lacking passion. But now we need to see some passion from the fans. Lets not get back to the Chris Turner era when the atmosphere in Hillsborough was poisonous and certain players were being singled out. I think we're better than at least half the teams above us, and we still have a decent chance of promotion. Who's with me?

 

 

Think again 

[McRightSide]

39 minutes ago, Emerson Thome said:

This Bolton had a similar record to the last Wednesday team to get promoted. They even have two of our better players from that era. They have a similar amount, if not more Championship experience than we had then. They've made a poor start to the season. It happens. But its a team of Championship battlers. A team we should hope to beat, but we won't be the last team to get turned over there this season. A bit like when we first got promoted to this league and had to scrap for points.

 

Not comparable 

 

So many variables 

[Ginger b*stard]

Waffle

[owlinexile]

Bolton literally haven't scored a goal since they last played us in the cup.

 

Bet they wish they could play us every week.

[greyowl]

Stop kicking Carlos, we all have bad days !

[RUMBELOWS91]

4 hours ago, McRightSide said:

You lost me at Bolton aren't a complete shower.

 

Yes they are. A complete and utter shower

 

as much of a shower as has been in this league for the last 3 years

 

 

Yep, same here.

 

Bolton are where they are because they are a basket case of a club who couldn't even sign any players until well after the season was well and truly underway, and had one of the worst starts to a season imaginable.

 

And yet they've beaten us.

 

Twice.

[Holmowl]

Good OP, though I don't agree with much of it.

[Owls2k]

It's simple, this is a team that cannot handle pressure and expectation. 

 

Every time we're expected to win we struggle with the games, both on the pitch by how little space we're given by the opposition and by the pressure from the stands. This comes from the manager and the lack of true leaders on the pitch. No offence but if Tom Lees is your captain then its pretty clear that you're lacking leaders within the squad. 

[Ronnie Starling]

Talk about defending the indefensible. The clappers keep telling us that Carlos can get us promoted but just wonder how realistic that is when we can't beat the poor teams.

 

We should be scoring more goals when you consider how much we have spent in the striker department under Carlos compared to the scraps the other managers had.

 

As for wingers Man Utd dominated under Ferguson playing two wingers so that kicks that myth into touch.

 

A lot of effort put into a post by the OP that in conclusion Carlos is not fit for purpose.

[Roy Of The Roasters]

5 hours ago, Emerson Thome said:

Losing last night to Bolton hurt. It was a poor performance, particularly after raised expectations from the Leeds game. But I think people need a reality check:

 

OK, I'm not going to copy the whole message, but you make some valid and well argued points.

 

What you've not done, though, is explain a) why we're so dreadfully inconsistent, b) why, after two and a quarter seasons under Carlos there's been not one iota of improvement in our consistency, or c) what Carlos is doing about it.

 

At the end of the day, surely our objective is to get promoted. If not this season then certainly within the next few. But if we continue to repeatedly throw away points against beatable teams in poor form then it's never going to happen. And if its never going to happen then maybe we have to question whether we have the right man as Head Coach. Because others in the Championship seem to have sorted their issues and turned their teams around in far less time than Carlos has been given.

[doubleo]

It's not just one bad performance against Bolton though is it ?

[alanharper]

1 minute ago, Holmowl said:

Good OP, though I don't agree with much of it.

 

I can't believe he typed all that at 3:30am

 

First paragraph set the tone, bigging up an awful Bolton side. Barring Rotherham last year they're the worst team in the Championship that I can remember.  Then he says well Palace beat Chelsea so these things happen - well I bet Chelsea don't fail to beat all of the bottom four like us.

 

Then after all that waffle we get "our chance of getting promoted this season with a different manager is close to zero". Well I say that's a higher chance than under Carlos at the moment... 

[Buggleskellie.]

STOP

WINGING

 

JESuS SupeRStAR.