GRANNY SHAGGER COMES TO TOWN

[ivoralljack]

Woodman just waved two of the goals in and I know their 3rd was well struck but he never even moved. But what about their second??????? The free kick was rolled to their #3 who had ACRES of space to advance with ball and all the time in the world to cross into our box where anything can happen. And it did. You DO NOT ALLOW that sort of freedom to any player at ANY level of football. Does Cooper and his players understand that?? It was appalling defending, unprofessional and typical of the slipshod mistakes that undo any good work we do in the game. Sorry to bang on again but that is a coaching issue and, also, where are the leaders in the team? I couldn't see in the clip but was ANYONE in our team screaming, DEMANDING, that someone get out to pressure the cross. Shit!! The guy should never have been allowed to amble into that space in the first place. You couldn't make it up.

 

[CroJack]

Reading all that makes me think it's time that Woody got a warning shot across his bows, spend some time on the bench and give Mulder another chance. Woody must know that he's costing us and so will Mulder from his watching brief.

A couple of weeks ago I criticised Woodman's positioning and one-on-one play.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Watching the low-lights again, on the first goal, Lawrence came off our back line into space to get the ball, turned, had a cup of tea and shot, before anyone came remotely close to him. On the second, WTF was Woody trying to do. On the third, he was barely off his line, instead of further forward toward the edge of the 6 yard box and made no attempt whatsoever. No wonder Nordy decided to exit. Mulder must be thinking the same.

lf there are not changes, as suggested by others above, against Rangers then it’s coach’s pets only. I want to see Dhanda, Fulton and Gallagher in midfield, and Cabango alongside Rodon.

 

[CroJack]

he was barely off his line, instead of further forward toward

Woodman is often glued to the goal line both when he faces shots and when he is one-on-one with opposition attackers. He doesn't make himself bigger, as he should, to make the shootiing angle tighter, which is a criminal offence in his case - he is not tall enough.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Boggles the mind that we have/had senior pro keepers with prem league experience and we think a 19 year old is superior

 

[ivoralljack]

Some stats if you want them.......

POSSESSION: 49-51 SHOTS: 16-8 OT: 7-4 CORNERS: 3-2 FOULS: 7-16 GOALS: 2-3

Still trying to take this result in. It's the same old isn't it? When we play really well, we then contrive to give the game, and the points, away by making mistakes that wouldn't be acceptable to any coach in the LOW let alone the Championship. By our standards these are very highly paid professional footballers who seem incapable of consistently getting the basics right. And it's all very well Cooper moaning about giving the game away on a plate to the opposition but this is becoming a well worn record.

Question is, wtf is he DOING about it? Precious little it seems because we seem to be hearing the same thing every week. "We played well but......." Thing is Mr Cooper, it's YOUR job to sort out the 'buts' only it doesn't seem to be happening. If you can't coach/train/motivate the players to play to an acceptable standard for 90+ minutes then patently you are NOT doing your job properly.

Then there is team selection, which leaves a lot to be desired. Loan players have to EARN their place in the team and not be played just because of some stupid agreement with their parent club. If the loan player is not up to it, all we are doing is giving experience to some other club's player AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR OWN RESULTS!! And what happens then is that we fall away in the table, so far down that in the future other clubs will be reluctant to lend us anyone remotely decent anyway.

Which brings me to the next point. When we fail to win promotion this season we can expect the likes of Ayew, Rodon and a couple of others to be leaving the club. Losing them and the best of the loan players will leave us exactly where? Right down the crapper is where! The owners will gobble up the transfer fees and leave us with fcuk all funds to replace them. We'll be left with a misfit outfit of other teams' castaways supplemented by a few youngsters from the Unders team. Bye bye Premier League forever as we even struggle to survive in the Championship will be the reality.

Apart from disinterested, greedy grasping owners, what are the reasons for this situation? Four of them to be precise, in the form of Trevor Birch, Leon, Curt and their 'inspired' choice of manager, Steve Cooper. What on earth possessed seemingly football intelligent people to think that a totally inexperienced manager at league level, could possibly succeed in the cut throat jungle of arguably the toughest league in the world that is the Championship!!! In my opinion, we dumped on a far better manager in Cameron Toshack who helped produce and nurture some excellent young players for us: and he did this in a league environment, something that Cooper has NEVER experienced and is struggling to get to grips with.

Make no mistake, this a watershed time for our club. We know the owners, for any number of reasons, aren't up to it. Problem is, it seems that neither are the Three Musketeers and their D'Artagnan, Steve Cooper. So, you four, prove me wrong PLEASE but, so far, you're making a pigs' guts of it.

 

[CroJack]

As you can see Derby didn't create much, but they scored from their half chances.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

As you can see Derby didn't create much, but they scored from their half chances.

Helped by a complicit Woodman. We criticized Nordfeldt and Mulder enough, but they had trouble with crosses, not with shots from outside the box like this.

 

[CroJack]

Thing is Mr Cooper, it's YOUR job to sort out the 'buts' only it doesn't seem to be happening. If you can't coach/train/motivate the players to play to an acceptable standard for 90+ minutes then patently you are NOT doing your job properly.

But we played to an acceptable standard for 90+ minutes against Derby. The football I watched against Derby is the football I want us to play game in game out. And I don't care about the results. If we continue to play like this we'll win 9 out of 10 games. Cooper can't be blamed for either sloppy passes, lack of concentration or Woodman's poor positioning. You remember how much did we laugh at Bradley when he tried to teach our players how to pass the ball?

I mean, what is Cooper supposed to do? How do you coach players not to make sloppy passes? Even the best players in the world get dispossessed and make sloppy passes from time to time.

Woodman's poor positioning is the job for our goalkeeper coach. What is he doing?

I agree with you and other posters that Cabango shouldn't have been benched, and I also agree that Byers have to improve, but we didn't lose Derby game bacause of Guehi and Byers.

 

[ivoralljack]

But we played to an acceptable standard for 90+ minutes against Derby. The football I watched against Derby is the football I want us to play game in game out. And I don't care about the results. If we continue to play like this we'll win 9 out of 10 games. Cooper can't be blamed for either sloppy passes, lack of concentration or Woodman's poor positioning. You remember how much did we laugh at Bradley when he tried to teach our players how to pass the ball?

I mean, what is Cooper supposed to do? How do you coach players not to make sloppy passes? Even the best players in the world get dispossessed and make sloppy passes from time to time.

Woodman's poor positioning is job for our goalkeeper coach. What is he doing?

I agree with you and other posters that Cabango shouldn't have been benched, and I also agree that Byers have to improve, but we didn't lose Derby game bacause of Guehi and Byers.

I accept much of what you say, CJ, but still stand by my comments. As a one time qualified coach myself I see many things that upset me. Without dissecting the game again, which time and inclination prevents me doing, I refer again to that second goal following the free kick as a prime example of downright unprofessionalism. Look at the time and space their #3 had to collect the ball then line up his cross for the goal. Even then we should have cleared what was a routine cross but were guilty, as the commentators pointed out, of very sloppy play.

Then there was their first goal. Lawrence just trotted away from the edge of our box and found ALL THE SPACE he could ever ask for to drill in his shot. Every man and his dog knows that Lawrence can hit them, so why did we allow it? Why didn't any of our defenders follow him out and close him down? And the same thing again for their third where Lawrence found himself in splendid isolation to take another pot shot!! Didn't we learn from his contribution to the first goal?

These are coaching issues, CJ. It should be ingrained in every player in the team that you DO NOT ALLOW these kind of shooting opportunities. But we did. Repeatedly. Sure, I accept that we played some fine football but, as I said, that's not worth a light if the team is so lax that we keep on offering freebie attempts on our goal. We should be shedding metaphorical blood to prevent them. I totally agree with you that no manager should be held responsible for any individuals' mistakes but he is totally responsible for the mindset and tactical tradecraft of his team when they step out onto the field and, imo, Cooper, in a number of ways, falls short of what is required.

 

[Jackflash]

Some stats if you want them.......

POSSESSION: 49-51 SHOTS: 16-8 OT: 7-4 CORNERS: 3-2 FOULS: 7-16 GOALS: 2-3

Still trying to take this result in. It's the same old isn't it? When we play really well, we then contrive to give the game, and the points, away by making mistakes that wouldn't be acceptable to any coach in the LOW let alone the Championship. By our standards these are very highly paid professional footballers who seem incapable of consistently getting the basics right. And it's all very well Cooper moaning about giving the game away on a plate to the opposition but this is becoming a well worn record.

Question is, wtf is he DOING about it? Precious little it seems because we seem to be hearing the same thing every week. "We played well but......." Thing is Mr Cooper, it's YOUR job to sort out the 'buts' only it doesn't seem to be happening. If you can't coach/train/motivate the players to play to an acceptable standard for 90+ minutes then patently you are NOT doing your job properly.

Then there is team selection, which leaves a lot to be desired. Loan players have to EARN their place in the team and not be played just because of some stupid agreement with their parent club. If the loan player is not up to it, all we are doing is giving experience to some other club's player AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR OWN RESULTS!! And what happens then is that we fall away in the table, so far down that in the future other clubs will be reluctant to lend us anyone remotely decent anyway.

Which brings me to the next point. When we fail to win promotion this season we can expect the likes of Ayew, Rodon and a couple of others to be leaving the club. Losing them and the best of the loan players will leave us exactly where? Right down the crapper is where! The owners will gobble up the transfer fees and leave us with fcuk all funds to replace them. We'll be left with a misfit outfit of other teams' castaways supplemented by a few youngsters from the Unders team. Bye bye Premier League forever as we even struggle to survive in the Championship will be the reality.

Apart from disinterested, greedy grasping owners, what are the reasons for this situation? Four of them to be precise, in the form of Trevor Birch, Leon, Curt and their 'inspired' choice of manager, Steve Cooper. What on earth possessed seemingly football intelligent people to think that a totally inexperienced manager at league level, could possibly succeed in the cut throat jungle of arguably the toughest league in the world that is the Championship!!! In my opinion, we dumped on a far better manager in Cameron Toshack who helped produce and nurture some excellent young players for us: and he did this in a league environment, something that Cooper has NEVER experienced and is struggling to get to grips with.

Make no mistake, this a watershed time for our club. We know the owners, for any number of reasons, aren't up to it. Problem is, it seems that neither are the Three Musketeers and their D'Artagnan, Steve Cooper. So, you four, prove me wrong PLEASE but, so far, you're making a pigs' guts of it.

As you say Ivor, the end of this season is going to leave us with mega problems, with loanees returning to parent clubs and our better players wanting out. Yes, we are being dismembered by the absolute inexperience of a schoolboy manager,good luck to him if he was good enough to fool the three of them, but time now for the three of them to hold thre're hands up and admit sorry fans we got it wrong and pay him off, but unfortunately the yanks wouldn't see the long term benifits of that. For all Jenkins's faults I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have employed him, or had he done so he wasn't afraid to sack them if they didn't meet the clubs criteria. Birch also seems to have taken to keeping a low profile, considering on his appointment he pledged to keep the fans costantly updated on the running of the club,but it would appear we yet again have a 'yes' man to the yanks, plus the fact the ammount of time he is expected to contribute to his other business commitment pies he has his fingers in such as ours.
In my opinion our fortunes changed the day Jenkins sacked Laudrup. we hve never taken a forward step since then..

 

[Borini]

Watch the free kick goal again what was guehi doing??? Bench him now! Sad non attempt at a headed clearance.

 

[CroJack]

These are coaching issues, CJ. It should be ingrained in every player in the team that you DO NOT ALLOW these kind of shooting opportunities

Mate, even without the manager's input the players should know that. I mean, the things you are talking about are basic things.

 

[Borini]

Mate, even without the manager's input the players should know that. I mean, the things you are talking about are basic things.

That is the problem it's basic things like lack of movement and ball watching that is costing us badly.

 

[Jackflash]

Mate, even without the manager's input the players should know that. I mean, the things you are talking about are basic things.

I take your point CJ,but there are people who are unable to grasp the obvious without it being pointed out to them. being able to play football and having a footballing brain tends to have its differences. To me it's quite obvious our present manager doesn't see errors that are obvious to us as viewers who cringe at some of the play, and some 20,000 supporters in attendance who shout their disaproval. Cooper will still stand emotionless, hands in pockets, and that vacant look on his face as if he's in a different world, never is he seen shouting disapproval at some play,whereas opposition managers are alongside him jumping up and down tearing their hair out, and judging by recent results appear to work.

 

[ivoralljack]

It occurs to me that the reason Cooper is so reticent about expressing his feelings is because he is conscious that most of his team have far more experience than he does of competitive league football. He was fine with the kids as, given their age and inexperience, he was regarded automatically as a leadership figure. That clearly is not the case in his present position.

Deep down perhaps he has doubts about his being the commanding leader/figure that is essential for any manager to be. After all, he has no experience of any description as a league football player and no experience whatsoever of managing a team in this particular environment. For instance, if he spots say, Andre Ayew, doing/not doing something he's unhappy about, I can understand his reluctance to publicly call the player out during the game. After all, when you consider Ayew's top-level experience in the Premier League and at international level, whom would you consider to be the better judge of what to do or how to handle a particular situation?

And you could take that scenario into the dressing room where he might well feel not very comfortable about laying the law down to many players who have far more experience than he does at this level. Just a thought but I really believe it has some merit.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Careful @ivoralljack ... I got a lot of incoming because I focused on Andy Pandy a month back and the number of loaners we were bringing in.

Now that the transfer window has closed and our squad for the rest of this season and the start of next season is known, I am going to start a new thread to show the damage that has been done. In a nutshell, next season is looking like a cluster and we don't apparently have a penny to do anything about it.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

It's curious to me that we own a player like Dhanda, who so far this season has been making the odd start here and there, but he plays, he scores. A lot more than I can say about Celina or Byers. This is our asset, yet we sideline him and his development in favor of loaners. Gallagher is a tidy play, but he's not ours, he is however an Andy Pandy pet.

Guehi is another Andy Pandy pet. He's not ours, but Cabango is. Cabango hardly put a foot wrong during the time he was forced to step up due to the VDH injury. Big C is big, strong, and wiley for his age. He and Rodon would make a solid combination that should be allowed to develop over the balance of this season in preparation for next. But no, we have to play an AP pet.

Nothing against Guehi or Gallagher. They are fine players ,but they are not ours. They are not distinctly superior to our own assets, and our priorities are upside down. They are there to make AP feel good. Our challenge for promotion is all but dead because, regardless of which set of players we put on the field, the Shit Streak from last September continues and we lurch and stumble to the end of the season. This is not a player issue but a coaching issue. It's also an executive management issue.

 

[ivoralljack]

Careful @ivoralljack ... I got a lot of incoming because I focused on Andy Pandy a month back and the number of loaners we were bringing in.

Now that the transfer window has closed and our squad for the rest of this season and the start of next season is known, I am going to start a new thread to show the damage that has been done. In a nutshell, next season is looking like a cluster and we don't apparently have a penny to do anything about it.

I wasn't having a go at Cooper. I was merely 'voicing' an opinion about why he appears so undemonstrative on the touchline: and I have stated nothing but fact about his experience, or lack of it, which might be a reason for our below par results and in and out performances.

As it happens I have a certain amount of sympathy for the man because I like him as a person and would love to see him do well. But, being honest, I don't think he's doing well with us at the moment, which is critical because, if we don't at least make the play-offs, I think we'll have a club in complete disarray for next season as our top players will be sold and the best of our loanees will be off to more successful clubs. Which leaves us with what???

I think that Cooper is a quiet, reserved man by nature and I don't think that that sort of demeanour best suits a club in our position. The likes of Pearson, Bilic, Pulis, and maybe even Hughton in a quieter way, command respect because they are strong personalities and have solid, proven backgrounds of managing teams in league football. They KNOW what is required when they walk into a job like ours whereas I'm not at all sure that Cooper knew when he applied. How could he? It was his first job.

Every manager has to start somewhere and I hope and believe that Cooper will go on to become a good one. But the mistakes he's making with us whilst he's learning on the job, are costing us dear at a time, imo, when with the squad we have, we could have a solid tilt at promotion. I think we need a stronger manager with experience who could DRIVE us into performing at our best; a manager who knows what it takes at this level to take us up. I just sense that at this stage of his career, Cooper isn't that man. Under a proven manager, I believe that we could be at least 8/10 points better off and getting really excited about the prospects of promotion instead of aimlessly languishing where we are.

On a final note, the Three Musketeers must take most of the responsibility for this. I think they were starry-eyed at Cooper's presentation, forgetting that football is played on a field and not on a computer. I have read arguments that we took a similar chance on Martinez but I totally refute them. Martinez knew the club and enjoyed the respect of many of the players but he also had something else going for him. He KNEW what was required because he had played for many years and understood what was needed before he ever took the job. Cooper has no such background and it shows.

 

[CroJack]

Last 10 games:

Cooper 15 points

W4 D3 L3

Bilic 13 points

W3 D4 L3

Bielsa 9 points

W2 D3 L5

How come that Leeds who have a better squad than ours and are managed by the best manager in the world (according to Pep Guardiola) is currently in a relegation form? Bielsa has been a top level manager for many years and has a huge experience.

I don't think everything about our defeats this season can be explained by Cooper's inexperience. Some of it yes, but we have to take a deep look at the quality of Swans players and their performances as well. And we have had both Joe and Mike injured for a long period of time, which has definitely weakened our defence.

Now with Gallagher in the midfield, and Brewster up front, we look much better going forward. Just have a look how many chances we created against Derby. The problem with the high pressing game and many bodies up front is that you have to have an excellent defence and an excellent goalkeeper. Unfortunatelly, we have neither, and we are paying the price for the attacking football we play.