Dressings rooms are quite easy to lose in football at all levels when you have defeat after defeat. I do have sympathy with the thought that professional footballers should do everything they can for the manager and club as that is what they are being paid to do but human nature kicks in. It always has to be somebody's fault. I doubt Adkins has handled problems that were not of his doing well though and all the chopping and changing reeks of desperation. Sometimes you have to make the change as leave them as they are and they become increasingly toxic.
When NA was appointed they interviewed Gunter as he had previously played for him ( at Reading I think). He sounded as if he had just been told that his mother in law was about to move in with him permanently. Just saying.
I wouldn't go as far as 'I hate footballers' but I agree that they're getting off incredibly lightly, and I really do feel sorry for Adkins. This is the first time maybe ever that I've gotten the sense that some players are semi-actively wrecking us. I won't excuse Bowyer for some of his conduct - it was disgraceful and he picked on the wrong people for the wrong reasons - and Adkins' tactical ideas haven't been perfect, have they, but it's clear that some of our players are quite capable of playing like they're in a sulk, and deliberately refusing to execute a plan.
Sadly, it's easier to replace the manager. But would they do it again?
I mentioned after the Portsmouth game that I was sitting right behind our technical area and could hear every word being said by Adkins, he was literally losing his shit at the style of play and I have no doubt that the backwards/sideways slow build up was nothing to do with what he was wanting. From what I could tell the team on the pitch were basically doing their own thing. In that case what is a Manager supposed to do ?
We keep going on about the players but how is it we manage to sign all the players with a bad attitude?
It must be great to manager a side against Cafc. Once in transition, the quick diagonal pass especially down the side where Matthews or Gunter are, or down the other side if Purrington hasn't got back quick enough, and we are toast. TBF to Leko he did sprint back to pick up the over lap, but the right footed player did want every right footed player does on the left and cuts inside. And it's 1-1 and the doubts come back and Bolton love to pass the ball and they grew in confidence.
I thought Bolton were decent going forward and once Charlton faded about the 60 to 70 minute mark, other than Davison they all have the same battery as Jonny Williams and Bolton just played the ball into the pocket, and between the lines and picked Cafc off at will. The word have got round that Charlton aren't fit as a squad and you can punish them.
We go 1 goal up and we lose, most games if we go a goal down we lose.
Nigel Adkins has tried the defensive approach against Sheff wed and don't think we had a shot on target but nicked a draw.
We have tried to create more chances but then get hit on the break as our defense have more holes than a Collendar.
Nigel Adkins has to go by 15 games(he did say he wanted as younger fitter side but ..) if we carry on being so brittle. At times when Leko or CBT are hot for periods we look good but we lose Shape and fade.
Mega problems that need a discerning manager and coaches to at least turn this squad of players into a mid table team or top 8th to 10th to give something to work on for next season when we should get rid of the injury prone and the pass their sell by date players.
Sad about big Ryan Inniss but we really have to stop getting in players with injury problems and at the end of their careers like Watson.
A new manager could get a tune out of this group but look well short of top six, though with some shape and structure we shouldn't be in the bottom half. The rot must stop now.
I have honestly believed for a couple of seasons that I could set up a team to beat us. Now that may be me being unrealistic, but the fact I even believe it possible speaks volumes. Of course it may say I have no sense of reality!
Dressings rooms are quite easy to lose in football at all levels when you have defeat after defeat. I do have sympathy with the thought that professional footballers should do everything they can for the manager and club as that is what they are being paid to do but human nature kicks in. It always has to be somebody's fault. I doubt Adkins has handled problems that were not of his doing well though and all the chopping and changing reeks of desperation. Sometimes you have to make the change as leave them as they are and they become increasingly toxic.
Not thinking he has lost the dressing room, the effort in the first 35 mins proves that, but he continues with a system that is clearly leaving our full backs wide open. The high press with players who are short of match fitness is exasperating that, reading the Bolton managers comments reinforces that view as well. Adkins when presented with all this evidence refuses to change, that being the case then the chairman must change the manager.
Even at the grass roots level I managed, we were going through a bad patch and you would catch bits of conversations you were not meant to hear, like he has his favourites, there are not enough drills in training, I have even had parents come over and yell at me to sub a player a couple of times because he is useless. Imagine all the conversations you don't catch! Bad results can empower players etc... not to follow your instructions or challenge you. I even was trying to make a point after a game about winning second balls and a parent openly disagreed with me. I spoke to him afterwards and said to him that he can disagree with me and discuss with me all he likes but not undermine me in front of the team. He did apologise, but this festers. It isn't nice to hear but these things don't happen when you are winning. Yes there will still be disgruntled players but their voice is muted due to isolation.
Players will absolutely be moaning about Adkins behind his back which makes it harder to turn things round, and sometimes, sadly, impossible. That is why making a change is needed. And in most occasions changes things positively. If by some miracle he did turn it round, he could be successful still but he is getting chance after chance and it isn't happening.
According to a player Adkins barely says a word in the dressing room before the game or at half time.
I can believe that. I think his coaching team were the tactical men and he was the Mr Motivator. In fact this has become crystal clear.
If players are doing that then they really need to stop pointing the finger.
Whoever you know J Block sounds like a whingeing bastard
"The players" didn't like Bowyer either, did they?
Sounds like they don't like anyone much. Poor lambs.
The players stopped liking Bowyer when he started calling them out in public.
The players won't play for Adkins because he has zero credibility - Adkins is laughing saying 'walking is great' but fuck all else while the players are laughing at him, not with him.
That doesn't excuse the players by the way.
The more I think about this the more it annoys me to be honest. I hate footballers. Adkins has had an absolute pig this season, he's changing formations and personnel constantly, morale seems to be low and fitness is diabolical across the squad, not just with the players who joined late, so I'm not defending his performance, but it's ridiculous that footballers get to decide the direction of the club based on their perception of 'credibility'. Adkins turned up credible, he's managed a team to promotion to the Premier League and improved a number of teams he's been at. How many of our lot have any Premier League credibility? Watson certainly can say he did, and he's one of the only ones who turns up and tries, he's just limited by age. The rest of them though, players we signed on the way down from not cutting it at Premier League academies plying their trade at L1 and L2 level, or dropping down from failure at Championship clubs, they're hardly superstars in the making. They might not like Adkins making silly little videos encouraging positive mental health in people, sure, but if you think the manager isn't credible so you ignore him to play your own way and the plan you cook up in your head is to spend every game lumping it to the big galoot up front's face then you don't need to look any further than the end of your nose to find a lack of credibility. How much better off we would all be if instead of rolling their eyes at the manager some of these actually had a look at themselves. Everyone involved is culpable for our worst ever start to the season, but it's Adkins who will be out on his ear while the rest of these continue to pick up Charlton money and then hopefully decide, if the next manager suits them, that they'll actually do as they're asked and play some football. In a fair few cases this is a lot of players who decided they couldn't be arsed under Bowyer anymore because he was too mean to them, perked up when the manager changed and lost one in 10, stuffed a team 6-0 away and beat the champions, but now a few months later they've decided they can't be arsed again because the same bloke they did well for is, what, too nice on Twitter? Fuck the lot of them, burn it all.
Taking this thought a stage further, most of the players selected for Bolton were the same players most on here were suggesting.
I looked at the marks and comments in the Players Marks thread and only 2 players avoided real criticism and all the marks were very low. Ok we lost 1-4, marks not to surprising. However players were either blowing out the backside after an hour or they were considered shite by our experts.
Players have a duty to push themselves in training to get up to the required speed if they are not. Of course there are other factors but professionalism as in good players remark sorts the chaff from the wheat so to speak.
Either we have brought in the wrong type of players or they can't be arsed it seems. Bowyer told it like it is and they supposedly didn't like it, maybe Adkins is to nice, I don't know but he has been prepared to make hard decisions dropping players not tracking back etc.
It would be interesting to see how many of these players would survive if someone like Wilder did come in. I don't imagine he takes prisoners.
Left at 3-1, dlr were cancelled.. bus to Greenwich, cab to London Bridge and now a train hitchin. Add to that I'm piss wet through and it's been a shitshow of an evening all round.
Just catching up on this thread …. that’s not the half of it !!!
The score line don’t really reflect the game .. first half we were excellent best home performance of the season .. our movement was good … then a bad mistake by the ref for their goal McG clearly had a player in an offside position in his eye line and it’s 1-1 .. totally undeserved by Bolton .. second half again end to end very even game looked like a draw .. then a deflected effort finds its way into our goal .. straight down the other end and we are centimetres from going 2-2 with Washington lob ( that goes in if your top of the league ) … Late on a third and another offside goal for the 4th …
but it far far from a poor performance and like Gillingham , Pompey we showed we can play but we need a little luck to go our way a d the right decisions made by officials
Come on then, lets have a laugh,
"then a bad mistake by the ref for their goal McG clearly had a player in an offside position in his eye line and it’s 1-1"
The player that jumps over the ball is a good yard onside, as shown below.
"deflected effort finds its way into our goal"
It's a free shot from 12 yards out. The angle on the replay showed it was heading for the other corner, so going in regardless.
"another offside goal for the 4th"
You can see from the cut of the grass, that Lavelle is playing the Bolton player onside comfortably.
I though the referee was poor, for what its worth. But not particularly in either team's favour.
All this talk of another protest smacks of a toddlers tantrum to me.
We can’t keep bloody protesting every time we get a run of bad results. It’s embarrassing on and off the pitch. Some of the drivel and venom I’ve read on Twitter is sickening. People being very abusive to TS.
As for last night I opted to save my £10 and read the match thread. Having watched the highlights it’s the basics yet again we fail to do in defence.
The middle of the park is a stroll.
The alarm bells should have rang for everyone when Morgan was given the number 10.
“All this talk”? It’s just a bloke with a meaningless Twitter handle who is so in touch with events that he doesn’t even know Rotherham is an international weekend. Laughable.
Sandgaard, of all people, knows what the fans are saying. I don’t personally see any point in giving Adkins Fleetwood, but I’d sack him regardless of the result. This structure doesn’t work - too many mistakes in the window, too many mistakes on the pitch. Results will bring it down. It’s only a question of when.
So if its the structure (and not disagreeing necessarily) - why will getting rid of NA work? Aren't you suggesting the way TS /GR/NA work is the root issue and hence until that set up changes any new manager will also fail?
Change the structure and not the manager maybe?
Change the structure AND the manager. And TS tweeting after every match..please stop! Let players play, managers manage, money men make money (and write abysmal songs) and things will improve. I was never a fan of Roddy coming in. A few people have suggested he p***ed off Bowyer. I am sure it's just another stress that the manager doesnt need.
Comments
I thought Bolton were decent going forward and once Charlton faded about the 60 to 70 minute mark, other than Davison they all have the same battery as Jonny Williams and Bolton just played the ball into the pocket, and between the lines and picked Cafc off at will. The word have got round that Charlton aren't fit as a squad and you can punish them.
We go 1 goal up and we lose, most games if we go a goal down we lose.
Nigel Adkins has tried the defensive approach against Sheff wed and don't think we had a shot on target but nicked a draw.
We have tried to create more chances but then get hit on the break as our defense have more holes than a Collendar.
Nigel Adkins has to go by 15 games(he did say he wanted as younger fitter side but ..) if we carry on being so brittle. At times when Leko or CBT are hot for periods we look good but we lose Shape and fade.
Mega problems that need a discerning manager and coaches to at least turn this squad of players into a mid table team or top 8th to 10th to give something to work on for next season when we should get rid of the injury prone and the pass their sell by date players.
Sad about big Ryan Inniss but we really have to stop getting in players with injury problems and at the end of their careers like Watson.
A new manager could get a tune out of this group but look well short of top six, though with some shape and structure we shouldn't be in the bottom half. The rot must stop now.
Players will absolutely be moaning about Adkins behind his back which makes it harder to turn things round, and sometimes, sadly, impossible. That is why making a change is needed. And in most occasions changes things positively. If by some miracle he did turn it round, he could be successful still but he is getting chance after chance and it isn't happening.
I looked at the marks and comments in the Players Marks thread and only 2 players avoided real criticism and all the marks were very low. Ok we lost 1-4, marks not to surprising. However players were either blowing out the backside after an hour or they were considered shite by our experts.
Players have a duty to push themselves in training to get up to the required speed if they are not. Of course there are other factors but professionalism as in good players remark sorts the chaff from the wheat so to speak.
Either we have brought in the wrong type of players or they can't be arsed it seems. Bowyer told it like it is and they supposedly didn't like it, maybe Adkins is to nice, I don't know but he has been prepared to make hard decisions dropping players not tracking back etc.
It would be interesting to see how many of these players would survive if someone like Wilder did come in. I don't imagine he takes prisoners.
that’s not the half of it !!!
He’s gone very quiet.