In defence of Darren Moore

[Willie Henderson]

14 minutes ago, nethertonowl said:

 

His press conferences are an embarrassment , Be honest does he inspire you?

 

I think that's a good point, yes we've lost a lot of players, and yes we've not lost many games and are just outside the play-offs, but at the end of the day he inspires no confidence whatsoever, talks in riddles without saying anything and makes some damn strange decisions. And I assume that this lack of inspiration affects the players as well as us, so there's a bit of a vicious circle going on.

[FreshOwl]

It shows how easily pleased some of our fans are, when they say they now can see Moores style of play 

 

Tactically & attacking wise he basically has us performing at our absolute minimum, with the foundations any football team should have
 

Are we now saying simple things like triangle passes and getting the ball out to the wide players is some managerial achievement?

 

Its taken him months to even get us close to playing like a proper football team! 

[A47Owl]

I misread the title. 

I thought it said

"In defence... Darren Moore" 

As we only have 2 fit defenders, could he do a job? If it gets him out of the managers role then get him a shirt. 

[marshy]

1 hour ago, davetherivelinowl said:

I've read through much of the reaction to the Plymouth game and tbh can't bear to read any more.  Even if DM is doing a poor job he doesn't deserve some of the bile being poured out here.

 

So many people have made up their minds about DM that it just needed a result and performance like this to give them their excuse to let rip.

 

But haven't we just gone 10 games unbeaten - only lost once in 13 games? Didn't we have 9 shots on target in our last game? It seemed to me that we had turned a corner AND found a system that suited us (admittedly after loads of tinkering which made us seem rudderless). Then last night happened and almost everyone is agreed that Moore is useless.

 

Doesn't anyone accept that there might be mitigating circumstances?

 

'He plays square pegs in round holes - like Paterson at centre-half'

Well, when Iorfa Hutchinson Gibson and Brennan are all out injured, what better option was there?

'Why didn't we sign more defenders in the summer?'

A club usually plans to have cover for every position. At centre-half we had Hutchinson and Iorfa with Dunkley and Gibson as cover and Brennan and Palmer able to fill in. That should be ample. But not when 4 of them are injured and two full-backs (Hunt and Johnson) are injured too.

'We're hopeless up front' Well, our first choice strikers, Windass and Gregory are both injured, our next option Paterson was needed in defence so we were left with Kamberi and Berahino. One of these tries hard but really neither of them are good enough and we didn't really have other options (Though I am now so cheesed off with Berahino that I'd have tried either Sow up front or even Adedoyin - unless he's injured too).

'Why didn't we play a back 4?'

Eh? When we've only got 2 fit defenders, why is it better to play 4 at the back?

'Every club has injuries'

Of course but our current situation is extraordinary. Our 6 highest-rated players on whoscored.com have played only 61 league games between them (out of 102). Hutch, Gregory and Iorfa will be missing the next game too. If you add in Windass who hasn't played at all, we've had, on average, 3-4 of our best 7 players unavailable for each match. I'll be amazed if any other club is suffering to that extent. Even more amazed if they've just gone 10 games unbeaten.

'We'll never get promoted with this clown'

Despite all these injuries (we've been missing Luongo and Byers for ages too) we're only 2 points off the play-offs. I imagine we're now going to struggle for a while until we get some players back so we could well fall away from the chasing pack. If we don't fall away despite these injuries I'll be delighted/amazed. If we do then we'll revert to what I expected of this season - consolidation. Jeez I was fearing much worse.

 

It's taken Darren Moore several months to work out what to do with this squad but, now he's found a system, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it could work when he has more like a complete squad to work with. Imagine playing like we did against Gillingham but with Gregory and Windass up front. Imagine not having to have Paterson in the back three. Imagine having Luongo back in midfield. 

 

If those players come back and we're still rubbish then let's call for DM's head. But lets not pour bile on him in these extraordinary circumstances.

There's several points which I can agree with you on. We didn't however have this many injuries at the beginning of the season yet we were still treading water.

The bit I highlighted is the point I want to make which IMHO IS his fault. You don't get in a shed load of players THEN decide what to do with them. He should have had an idea how he wants to play, and recruit accordingly. Not recruit a shed load of wingers and play 3,5,2 and, play them one week and not the next. Players do need a run and if no better change it, but not the week after.

[Lincs Owl]

1 hour ago, Blue and white said:

Stopped reading at I've  read through.

I stopped at 'stopped'.   

[Eightace]

Has he ever been a good manager?

If you think about what he did at westbrom and doncaster you could argue it was just an ok job he did.

I'm starting to doubt he is. That interview after the Plymouth game just came across as, um ahh um i don't really know how to get these players playing.

He doesn't know his best 11 at this stage of the season and i think we are definitely capable of better with this squad. 

Its ok giving people time and saying who else but where do you draw the line.

 

[onlyonedavidhirst]

1 hour ago, davetherivelinowl said:

I've read through much of the reaction to the Plymouth game and tbh can't bear to read any more.  Even if DM is doing a poor job he doesn't deserve some of the bile being poured out here.

 

So many people have made up their minds about DM that it just needed a result and performance like this to give them their excuse to let rip.

 

But haven't we just gone 10 games unbeaten - only lost once in 13 games? Didn't we have 9 shots on target in our last game? It seemed to me that we had turned a corner AND found a system that suited us (admittedly after loads of tinkering which made us seem rudderless). Then last night happened and almost everyone is agreed that Moore is useless.

 

Doesn't anyone accept that there might be mitigating circumstances?

 

'He plays square pegs in round holes - like Paterson at centre-half'

Well, when Iorfa Hutchinson Gibson and Brennan are all out injured, what better option was there?

'Why didn't we sign more defenders in the summer?'

A club usually plans to have cover for every position. At centre-half we had Hutchinson and Iorfa with Dunkley and Gibson as cover and Brennan and Palmer able to fill in. That should be ample. But not when 4 of them are injured and two full-backs (Hunt and Johnson) are injured too.

'We're hopeless up front' Well, our first choice strikers, Windass and Gregory are both injured, our next option Paterson was needed in defence so we were left with Kamberi and Berahino. One of these tries hard but really neither of them are good enough and we didn't really have other options (Though I am now so cheesed off with Berahino that I'd have tried either Sow up front or even Adedoyin - unless he's injured too).

'Why didn't we play a back 4?'

Eh? When we've only got 2 fit defenders, why is it better to play 4 at the back?

'Every club has injuries'

Of course but our current situation is extraordinary. Our 6 highest-rated players on whoscored.com have played only 61 league games between them (out of 102). Hutch, Gregory and Iorfa will be missing the next game too. If you add in Windass who hasn't played at all, we've had, on average, 3-4 of our best 7 players unavailable for each match. I'll be amazed if any other club is suffering to that extent. Even more amazed if they've just gone 10 games unbeaten.

'We'll never get promoted with this clown'

Despite all these injuries (we've been missing Luongo and Byers for ages too) we're only 2 points off the play-offs. I imagine we're now going to struggle for a while until we get some players back so we could well fall away from the chasing pack. If we don't fall away despite these injuries I'll be delighted/amazed. If we do then we'll revert to what I expected of this season - consolidation. Jeez I was fearing much worse.

 

It's taken Darren Moore several months to work out what to do with this squad but, now he's found a system, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it could work when he has more like a complete squad to work with. Imagine playing like we did against Gillingham but with Gregory and Windass up front. Imagine not having to have Paterson in the back three. Imagine having Luongo back in midfield. 

 

If those players come back and we're still rubbish then let's call for DM's head. But lets not pour bile on him in these extraordinary circumstances.

A few of the replies have answered some of your points. I’ll add - 

Why wasn’t Brennan or even Agbontahoma starting or on the bench. If we are down to 1 fit CH what’s his priority, the league or the Cup. I’d have started Brennan, I’ve not seen him let us down. On the whole CH issue, if he’s banished Hutch and/or Iorfa then why? He knew their characters at the start of the season.

Why didn’t he start with Luongo to get more game time into his legs? 
On the 4-4-2 point it’s clear Moore refuses to play it, out of principle I would suspect. I half understand that if he’s trying to develop a culture, but last night he could have played 4-4-2 with a player in their natural position instead of 4/5 playing in a role they are less used to. 
Wildsmith - Palmer, Brennan, Dunkley, Brown - Theo, Bannan, Luongo, Shodipo - Sow, Kamberi for example. 
We might be 2 points off 6th but 5 of the 7 teams above us have games in hand. Our form is predominantly made up of draws and the players and manager told us 2nd this season isn’t good enough. They wanted and expected top spot. 
Part of why we will struggle now is that Moore didn’t fix the imbalance in the squad that he identified. He talked about needing leaders, adding pace and that we had gaps that he would fill and yet we’ve gone into this season without a left back that he is happy to play there and we face a further season with no target man. Signings like Byers, Berahino, Sow look like a waste and they appear to be no different to what we already had,when those wages could have perhaps been used on something different.

I won’t completely discredit his signings as he did ok overall, but he’s brought 14 I think to the club and few are what fans would consider guaranteed starters and even more, how many would we want at the club if we went back up?

I agree he doesn’t deserve the bile and maybe we should give him longer, but my optimism levels are less than 5% right now
 

[davetherivelinowl]

10 minutes ago, marshy said:

There's several points which I can agree with you on. We didn't however have this many injuries at the beginning of the season yet we were still treading water.

The bit I highlighted is the point I want to make which IMHO IS his fault. You don't get in a shed load of players THEN decide what to do with them. He should have had an idea how he wants to play, and recruit accordingly. Not recruit a shed load of wingers and play 3,5,2 and, play them one week and not the next. Players do need a run and if no better change it, but not the week after.

I think he DID have a plan for how he wanted to play (and brought in players for that system) and I think it was 4-2-3-1 with Wing and 2 wingers behind a central striker. But it didn't work. The striker was too isolated so we couldn't hold the ball up front and didn't have enough goal attempts. What should he have done - persevered with a system that wasn't working? Or try other things - which he did until he chanced upon a system that had recently worked well.

[Beauchief Owl]

Lost twice to  Plymouth by three goals, what defence can there be for Darren Moore? 

 

[Tewkesbury]

1 minute ago, davetherivelinowl said:

I think he DID have a plan for how he wanted to play (and brought in players for that system) and I think it was 4-2-3-1 with Wing and 2 wingers behind a central striker. But it didn't work. The striker was too isolated so we couldn't hold the ball up front and didn't have enough goal attempts. What should he have done - persevered with a system that wasn't working? Or try other things - which he did until he chanced upon a system that had recently worked well.

We could have tried changing the striker, the one piece that didn't fit, instead of keeping him and changing everything else.

[S72 Owl]

7 minutes ago, onlyonedavidhirst said:

A few of the replies have answered some of your points. I’ll add - 

Why wasn’t Brennan or even Agbontahoma starting or on the bench. If we are down to 1 fit CH what’s his priority, the league or the Cup. I’d have started Brennan, I’ve not seen him let us down. On the whole CH issue, if he’s banished Hutch and/or Iorfa then why? He knew their characters at the start of the season.

Why didn’t he start with Luongo to get more game time into his legs? 
On the 4-4-2 point it’s clear Moore refuses to play it, out of principle I would suspect. I half understand that if he’s trying to develop a culture, but last night he could have played 4-4-2 with a player in their natural position instead of 4/5 playing in a role they are less used to. 
Wildsmith - Palmer, Brennan, Dunkley, Brown - Theo, Bannan, Luongo, Shodipo - Sow, Kamberi for example. 
We might be 2 points off 6th but 5 of the 7 teams above us have games in hand. Our form is predominantly made up of draws and the players and manager told us 2nd this season isn’t good enough. They wanted and expected top spot. 
Part of why we will struggle now is that Moore didn’t fix the imbalance in the squad that he identified. He talked about needing leaders, adding pace and that we had gaps that he would fill and yet we’ve gone into this season without a left back that he is happy to play there and we face a further season with no target man. Signings like Byers, Berahino, Sow look like a waste and they appear to be no different to what we already had,when those wages could have perhaps been used on something different.

I won’t completely discredit his signings as he did ok overall, but he’s brought 14 I think to the club and few are what fans would consider guaranteed starters and even more, how many would we want at the club if we went back up?

I agree he doesn’t deserve the bile and maybe we should give him longer, but my optimism levels are less than 5% right now
 

You’d play Brennan even though he was cup tied?

[davetherivelinowl]

4 minutes ago, onlyonedavidhirst said:

A few of the replies have answered some of your points. I’ll add - 

Why wasn’t Brennan or even Agbontahoma starting or on the bench. If we are down to 1 fit CH what’s his priority, the league or the Cup. I’d have started Brennan, I’ve not seen him let us down. On the whole CH issue, if he’s banished Hutch and/or Iorfa then why? He knew their characters at the start of the season.

Why didn’t he start with Luongo to get more game time into his legs? 
On the 4-4-2 point it’s clear Moore refuses to play it, out of principle I would suspect. I half understand that if he’s trying to develop a culture, but last night he could have played 4-4-2 with a player in their natural position instead of 4/5 playing in a role they are less used to. 
Wildsmith - Palmer, Brennan, Dunkley, Brown - Theo, Bannan, Luongo, Shodipo - Sow, Kamberi for example. 
We might be 2 points off 6th but 5 of the 7 teams above us have games in hand. Our form is predominantly made up of draws and the players and manager told us 2nd this season isn’t good enough. They wanted and expected top spot. 
Part of why we will struggle now is that Moore didn’t fix the imbalance in the squad that he identified. He talked about needing leaders, adding pace and that we had gaps that he would fill and yet we’ve gone into this season without a left back that he is happy to play there and we face a further season with no target man. Signings like Byers, Berahino, Sow look like a waste and they appear to be no different to what we already had,when those wages could have perhaps been used on something different.

I won’t completely discredit his signings as he did ok overall, but he’s brought 14 I think to the club and few are what fans would consider guaranteed starters and even more, how many would we want at the club if we went back up?

I agree he doesn’t deserve the bile and maybe we should give him longer, but my optimism levels are less than 5% right now
 

Thanks for the considered response.

I assume Brennan wasn't fit last night otherwise he'd have been on the subs bench like v Gillingham. I don't think Agbontahoma is up to this level and maybe DM doesn't either.

4-4-2 is very popular amongst owlstalkers but I'll be surprised if any team plays it, even in this league, unless the two wide players tuck in (like Danny Wilson used to do). With two touchline huggers like Theo and Shodipo, the two midfielders in the middle would just get over-run.

Yes we signed some dross. Yes we needed to sign players with more leadership and bottle, and a better left back than Brown but times were tough and maybe we couldn't pick and choose. I was just delighted to be signing anyone as that seemed unlikely at one point.

[davetherivelinowl]

5 minutes ago, S72 Owl said:

You’d play Brennan even though he was cup tied?

Ah, I'd missed that. I assumed he must be injured. Oh good, that means he can play at the weekend, Paterson can play up front and we don't have to pick Berahino 

[Supersiggi2]

2 hours ago, zorbatheowl said:

I am not anti Moore far from it. But why persist with 3 centre backs when we only have 1 fit one available? This results in a minimum of 4 playing out of position. 2 CB and 2 WB

 

Playing 3 centre halves is commonly the option defensive managers use when they don't have two good ones.

 

 

[zorbatheowl]

12 minutes ago, Supersiggi2 said:

 

Playing 3 centre halves is commonly the option defensive managers use when they don't have two good ones.

 

 

Fine if you have 3 bad bad ones. Suicide when you only have 1 though

[Owls Loyal]

A 4-4-2 formation is popular on here because it suits our squad, I would argue.

 

Big Ron always played 4-4-2 but one of the wide midfieliders was always more defensive, e.g. Wilson or Harkes.

 

At SWFC Adeniran of FDB could take a wide midfield role.

[Supersiggi2]

1 minute ago, zorbatheowl said:

Fine if you have 3 bad bad ones. Suicide when you only have 1 though

 

 Who would you play in a back 4 with who we've got available?

[Daniele Giovanni]

2 hours ago, davetherivelinowl said:

I just had a look at how many games the top 7 Plymouth players have had this season (for comparison with my figures above) and they've missed 8 games BETWEEN THEM. In fact, of their top 12 players on whoscored, only one of them has played less than 10 games (and he played 9). And we wonder why they look more like a 'team'. Would Ryan Lowe still look such a good manager if each of his top 7 players had missed, on average, half the season?

Yes

[zorbatheowl]

2 minutes ago, Supersiggi2 said:

 

 Who would you play in a back 4 with who we've got available?

a RB CB CB LB preferably in that order

[Daniele Giovanni]

37 minutes ago, davetherivelinowl said:

Thanks for the considered response.

I assume Brennan wasn't fit last night otherwise he'd have been on the subs bench like v Gillingham. I don't think Agbontahoma is up to this level and maybe DM doesn't either.

4-4-2 is very popular amongst owlstalkers but I'll be surprised if any team plays it, even in this league, unless the two wide players tuck in (like Danny Wilson used to do). With two touchline huggers like Theo and Shodipo, the two midfielders in the middle would just get over-run.

Yes we signed some dross. Yes we needed to sign players with more leadership and bottle, and a better left back than Brown but times were tough and maybe we couldn't pick and choose. I was just delighted to be signing anyone as that seemed unlikely at one point.

Are you judging Agbontahoma on the strength of 1 game? He could be our answer