Brum comes to town

[Yankee_Jack]

The Brum match coming after this past week was a microcosm of almost all of the issues and concerns we have been talking about for months and in some cases since Martin arrived. It all got packaged up into one loss and covered the spectrum from lack of fitness and stamina to play Martin-ball for 90, specific positional weaknesses, to individual responsibility, to match management, to you name it. This was a watershed match.

I could write volumes but I'd just be repeating what I and others have written about copiously on this thread and dozens of previous threads. At this point, I don't have the energy.

I just ask you all to look at the match highlights and also match videos posted by individual YouTubers that show different viewpoints of the last two goals. There are a couple that are most revealing. I don't understand what our #6 was trying to accomplish on the last two goals. Martin needs to take a careful look at the squad and sort the chaff from the wheat.

 

[Behindthegoal]

Not for the first time I feel sorry for the guy. He was let down by his squad of professional footballers. Surely they know what to do when up in the match but down to 10 men?
Im assuming he was let down by his bosses, in the transfer window especially, unless hello tells porkies for fun.
He has certainly learned a few hard lessons. I hope he will continue here to profit from them.
BTW why when I type he does predictive text assume I mean hello ?Can I do anything about it?

 

[KVetch]

Not for the first time I feel sorry for the guy. He was let down by his squad of professional footballers. Surely they know what to do when up in the match but down to 10 men?
Im assuming he was let down by his bosses, in the transfer window especially, unless hello tells porkies for fun.
He has certainly learned a few hard lessons. I hope he will continue here to profit from them.
BTW why when I type he does predictive text assume I mean hello ?Can I do anything about it?

You can delete hello from the predictive dictionary, that usually fixes it.

A lot went wrong in that match, the first half was excellent, we missed a couple early chances that could have avoided this result. It was the most gutting loss in recent memory. Martin should have used his substitutions better so we don't end up playing with 10. Can't lay the loss on any one mistake because there were a lot. They have to get past this and face a very tough opponent in Sheffield now.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

When you have lot of problems bobbing up and down like waves, sometimes they cancel each other out, but sooner or later there is a negative superposition and it all comes together. Brum was just this. It was in many respect the perfect storm.

We force teams to defend deep so they expend minimal energy. We don't have the stamina to play anywhere close to 90. Some players clock off a lot sooner and go anonymous. Bad match management. Weaker players have their weak moments under circumstance where they can't be bailed out. And lo' and behold we lose a match that should never have been lost under normal circumstances under an average manager.

 

[ivoralljack]

I still find it difficult to believe just how downright awful our defending was. Does anyone coach defence at our club? And as for our so-called set piece guru, I wonder how much he's stealing from the club in wages because I fail to see any evidence of any improvement. Some stats:

POSSESSION: 71-29 SHOTS: 14-14 OT: 6-6 CORNERS: 1-3 FOULS: 7-12 GOALS: 3-4

Can anyone explain to me how a team with just 29% possession can get off the same number of shots as us, with as many on target as us and get 3 corners to our one?????????????????????? And this after said team had lost FIVE games on the bounce. Are we crap or are we crap?

For me this is more proof positive that Martinball is grossly inefficient. We faff about playing sideways, backwards, retaining possession in our half of the pitch then delude ourselves that we are a passing team playing good football. Martin doesn't seem to realise that other teams are more than happy to let us have the ball in areas of the pitch where we aren't remotely a threat to their goal.

The Welsh rugby team have been openly accused in the media by pundits, journos, ex-players and fans alike, of lacking strength, grunt, physicality and character. Looks to me like the Swans suffer from an identical malaise. But at least Wales rugby have a top coach who will put things right. Can we say the same?

 

[Yankee_Jack]

It’s not about coaching defense, when individual players do things that are just mind boggling. I urge everybody to look at Darling in the last two goals. You can’t coach stupid out of a player, you just don’t play them.

In the 3rd goal, the ball was on the right side of our box. The forward that scored was entering our box mid-goal moving on an angle towards the ball. Darling had his back to the ball, was looking at the forward, and therefore could have absolutely no idea what was going on and how the play was shaping up. The only defensive move he had available was to block the forward and at best give away an indirect free kick. Darling didn’t turn and face the ball until the forward had gone past him, which meant Darling was already beaten and had no chance to get to the ball first. Who does that? Who defends like that at any level of the game? What was going through his head? This is a player that must have been in organized football from an early age and been in the top 5% (?) or better of the players at every level to progress this far.

On the 4th goal, he is positioned mid-goal on the edge of the 6 yard box marking nobody. Meanwhile Grimes gets himself paired up with the scorer, one of the their tallest players, obvious mis-match when we have 3 CBs on the field. Darling has to see the flight of the ball from the corner kick. It’s coming into a space just a couple of yards short from where he is. If he moved early he could easily be first to the ball. He should have been first to the ball. He should taken responsibility for clearing that ball the moment it was kicked. But, instead of having an eye on the ball he was slow to react and was beaten to the ball by the scorer and Grimes who he interfered with.

He’s playing like he fell off the back of a turnip truck yesterday.

Go back a dozen plus years and we had Monk and Williams. Williams progressed and grew into every level he played at. Monk topped out at championship level and was replaced by 18 year old Caulker on loan when we were promoted. But dear god, did anything like that happen with either of those two. Going back further to L1 and L2, did Monk and Tate, Monk and KOL, Monk and whomever, ever defend like that. I don think so. And we paid good money for Darling. And more frustratingly we push Brad Cooper out on loan and the reason Cooper goes out on loan is that Martin doesn’t rate him ahead of Cabango, Wood and Darling. There has to be another Caulker somewhere that we can loan in. One thing is for sure Darling is never going to make us a profit.

 

[jackodiamonds]

Darling looks increasingly like the Championship version of latter-days Harry Maguire, but at least Maguire had many good early years. Agree with you @Yankee_Jack , it's going to be hard to turn a profit on that investment. I still think his best (and only?) chance at developing his game to Championship level and possibly above is to retrain in midfield. He can dribble, he can pass well enough, and his long-range shooting isn't bad, as much as I hate long-range shooting. At least in midfield his errors could be picked up by actual defenders instead of selling the goalkeeper short.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Perhaps he started in midfield and dropped to a CB because he couldn't cut it in midfield and he grew a few inches.

Best option for Darling, at 23, is to loan him out to a L1 club. Let him play a ton of matches under a manager that will have him focus on solid CB skills instead of delusional emulations of Bobby Moore.

And recall Brad Cooper ... who at least has solid CB skills.

BTW: while at Cambridge United (before joining MKD) - having previously bounced around the minor leagues on loan - he played for Cambridge against us in the EFL Aug 28, 2019. We were 5-0 up at half-time, won 6-0.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Watch #16 for Cambridge ... dog slow and loves to mark nobody