I was under the impression jackson's contract was a guaranteed 18 months & then reviewed every season after that.
Have I got that wrong?
Jackson's deal will renew automatically at the end of each of the next two seasons based on on-field success.
Wonder what is meant by success? This season is obviously (another) write-off, but will promotion be the goal for next season, or would a top half finish be enough as far as JJ's contract is concerned? 🤷♂️
The proof of the pudding is, to use the saying correctly, in the eating.
So this isn't a top six squad because we're 14th but I gave what I feel are the reasons for that.
I still think this set of players have underperformed.
I think you are right, Henry. Underperformed, as in not playing up to their true potential. As you suggested in your previous post, there can be all sorts of contributing factors.
Others make claims of players not caring, not trying, stealing a living, etc. etc. but I can't bring myself to go along with all that.
In fact, I have to assume that those making such accusations have never played the game.
You get picked, you get the shirt, the ref blows the whistle and you do the best you can on the day.
This sounds right to me too. I've been able to watch a lot more matches this season thanks to the streaming, and while there seem to be problems all over the pitch, players 'not trying' just sounds like lazy terrace talk. The difference between our run from Sunderland to Cambridge, and the horrible dip in form from Cambridge on to me looks like a lot of contributing factors, but does anyone think that Jacko is sat on the bench watching the games, seeing a player or three just going through the motions and letting it slide?
One thing that has struck me is that a lot of times going forward, our players seem to lack options to release the ball, and seem to take a couple of touches too many before they do so, allowing opponents to close down the gaps. It also means the only options tend to be backwards which often means we have the ball back with the defenders on or around the halfway line while the oppostion have all got back into position and can start pressuring us so the ball eventually goes back to the keeper, who hoofs it. Why this is ongoing is beyond me - I imagine the management team see it too, and try to correct it. So I can only think maybe we have the wrong set of players to do this well.
I also wonder about the lack of Stockley up front, as Washington looks less effective without him, and Aneke (particularly at Hartlepool) never seemed to get any service from the midfield. I am also struggling to spot what Lee currently brings to the set up, as his trickery never seems to have an end product any more, and I can only imagine after him, the creative options are even less creative. Ideally, you hope for wingers and forwards to be making runs, and recieving early balls, but the number of times I've watched Jayesimi or Blackett Taylor make a run into space, only for the ball to go back into the centre for Lee to pfaff around, is excruciating. Eventually, the players stop making the runs, which doesn't help, as every time they do so, they drag defenders out of place.
Ideally, in the middle, I always want to see a player who can brreak up play (Dobson, and no cover if he's injured) and at least one player who can split a defence with a pass (hmmm...) but our midfeiled seems to contain a lot of similar players who can pass sideways and occasionally beat someone but ru into another defender, or lay off a problematic pass to someone jammed out on the wing.
In short, it looks like an average team going nowhere, and that is how the table looks. Reality bites.
I keep seeing Pearce’s name being thrown about about with likes of Matthews, Gunter, and Watson which I think is quite unfair. 1) central defence has not been a particular weak spot for us, particularly compared to full back, 2) Pearce has not really let us down in my opinion, 3) he’s only played as much as he has not only because Innis has been injured but also because Lavelle has been injured.
He’s got the same reputation Jacko used to have - it feels like he should be this over the hill liability, but when he plays the inconvenient truth is he’s still half decent. Promotion winning first choice quality? Probably not these days, but that’s not what he’s at the club to be - he’s here as a reliable backup player who won’t be disruptive and in fact is likely still a positive influence even when he’s not playing. It’s a good job we’ve had him because with Innis and Lavelle missing we’ve needed him.
I certainly would not say that Matthews, Gunter, or Watson have been in anyway reliable and certainly far less so than Pearce has been.
The risk with Pearce is we keep him a season too long in a role where he’s still playing fairly regularly. That feels a likely scenario if we give Inniss and Pearce another deal.
We saw that with Gary Doherty, he helped Norwich win the L1 title but he was on the decline and not good enough for what we needed.
The same eventually happened with Jackson, it got to the point where he couldn’t contribute enough on the pitch.
Do we want to risk that happening with Pearce? It’s probably more about who the CBs are ahead of him and how many we have. If we’re playing a back 3 I wouldn’t feel comfortable if we had 4 genuine CBs including Pearce and Inniss for example.
To my view, the recruitment over the past couple of years has been fine. You are never going to hit on every signing, but in general the players we have brought in under TS are amongst our best players and would be immediately taken from us by any other team in the division other than maybe two or three.
Even in an exceptional year in League One, I believe that if it was just based on recruitment, we would be in the play-offs at least.
I am not having a go at Jacko, everyone has to learn and I am sure he will grow, but I just cannot see how this is some systemic club issue: the players do not look particularly tired or unfit to me, they look disorganised and lacking in confidence. They look like they do not understand their roles in the system, and they seem to be lacking a 'default option' of how they are going to play if they can't think of anything else.
The system is also incredibly reliant on wing-backs that we just do not have - even DJ, who had made a better fist of it than any of the others just does not make the long runs with the ball that a wing-back needs to make. His close control talents are wasted in the role and, as I say, he is the best suited to it of anyone in the squad.
For me, the problem comes down to the manager, but I am very confident that he can grow into the job and I certainly want him to be given time to do so. (And, if the worst does have to happen, please can we have a manager with fresh ideas from outside the club.)
The proof of the pudding is, to use the saying correctly, in the eating.
So this isn't a top six squad because we're 14th but I gave what I feel are the reasons for that.
I still think this set of players have underperformed.
I think you are right, Henry. Underperformed, as in not playing up to their true potential. As you suggested in your previous post, there can be all sorts of contributing factors.
Others make claims of players not caring, not trying, stealing a living, etc. etc. but I can't bring myself to go along with all that.
In fact, I have to assume that those making such accusations have never played the game.
You get picked, you get the shirt, the ref blows the whistle and you do the best you can on the day.
This sounds right to me too. I've been able to watch a lot more matches this season thanks to the streaming, and while there seem to be problems all over the pitch, players 'not trying' just sounds like lazy terrace talk. The difference between our run from Sunderland to Cambridge, and the horrible dip in form from Cambridge on to me looks like a lot of contributing factors, but does anyone think that Jacko is sat on the bench watching the games, seeing a player or three just going through the motions and letting it slide?
One thing that has struck me is that a lot of times going forward, our players seem to lack options to release the ball, and seem to take a couple of touches too many before they do so, allowing opponents to close down the gaps. It also means the only options tend to be backwards which often means we have the ball back with the defenders on or around the halfway line while the oppostion have all got back into position and can start pressuring us so the ball eventually goes back to the keeper, who hoofs it. Why this is ongoing is beyond me - I imagine the management team see it too, and try to correct it. So I can only think maybe we have the wrong set of players to do this well.
I also wonder about the lack of Stockley up front, as Washington looks less effective without him, and Aneke (particularly at Hartlepool) never seemed to get any service from the midfield. I am also struggling to spot what Lee currently brings to the set up, as his trickery never seems to have an end product any more, and I can only imagine after hi, the creative options are even less creative. Ideally, you hope for wingers and forwards to be making runs, and recieving early balls, but the number of times I've watched Jayesimi or Blackett Taylor make a run into space, only for the ball to go back into the centre for Lee to pfaff around, is excruciating. Eventually, the players stop making the runs, which doesn't help, as every time they do so, they drag defenders out of place.
Ideally, in the middle, I always want to see a player who can brreak up play (Dobson, and no cover if he's injured) and at least one player who can split a defence with a pass (hmmm...) but our midfeiled seems to contain a lot of similar players who can pass sideways and occasionally beat someone but ru into another defender, or lay off a problematic pass to someone jammed out on the wing.
In short, it looks like an average team going nowhere, and that is how the table looks. Reality bites.
Excellent post.
Hate to harp on (actually I quite enjoy it) but there's a measure of mental gymnastics going on from our fans. The mental gymnastics that lead many of them to think Player X is our 'best midfielder' and would be able to play Championship, but (and this time more correctly) that progressive midfield is our weakness.
The proof of the pudding is, to use the saying correctly, in the eating.
So this isn't a top six squad because we're 14th but I gave what I feel are the reasons for that.
I still think this set of players have underperformed.
I think you are right, Henry. Underperformed, as in not playing up to their true potential. As you suggested in your previous post, there can be all sorts of contributing factors.
Others make claims of players not caring, not trying, stealing a living, etc. etc. but I can't bring myself to go along with all that.
In fact, I have to assume that those making such accusations have never played the game.
You get picked, you get the shirt, the ref blows the whistle and you do the best you can on the day.
I would love to believe that.
There are 3 or 4 players in our squad that aren't good enough or clearly don't fit in. I can, as frustrating as it is, almost accept that. Both our last 2 promotion squads did as well.
I can accept that even our better players have limitations, they are league 1 players for a reason.
The ones that really boil my piss are the ones that aren't over the hill, aren't injury prone and have proved in the past they are better than some of the absolute dross we have seen in the last 18 months. Most of the main culprits played against Hartlepool and Sunderland and Ipswich and at the end of last season.
That's got to be more than ability that's got to be some sort of effort or commitment issue?
I am always interested in this line of thinking, because as I have mentioned previously you speak to any section of football fans of any under performing team and this is more often than not the line that is thrown out.
Now I am not naive to think there are not certain players that do coast, or don’t put the yards on the pitch in, but with the data analytics performed each match they do tend to get found out eventually. And if the fans were to be believed there would be a plague of footballers who never cared, were stealing a living, and Charlton appeared to sign many of them.
Be interested in your thoughts on who you think is not giving the required effort and commitment, and what are they doing to not to give it. Any specific examples etc, as I’m not really seeing it. I’m seeing an underperforming team playing one dimensional football, which is sometimes effective and sometimes not, but I just don’t see that reason being because the players are not trying.
Not matching the intensity of Jackson’s caretaker stint is certainly something to point towards, but I honestly believe across any sport, nevermind one where you play once or twice a week like in football, that was never going to be sustainable.
Truth is I think Henry is closest to the issue, in as much as the issue is a bit of everything really. I think if TS wants to be the owner to take us forward, and JJ is the manager to do that, then we need a complete change of many of the processes both on and off the pitch.
Henry is right as in there is a lot of things. I have always said that sacking Adkins wasn't a silver bullet and I was actually really surprised how much of a bounce Jackson got.
If I was being really cynical I would suggest they got Adkins the sack so their mate could get the job. They will get him the sack as well if they aren't careful.
When I say lack of effort/commitment I am not suggesting they are walking around with their hands on their hips. It's the commitment to everything. Passing, pressing, tackling, closing down, making you self avalible for a pass.
Desire to get on the end of things, following shots into the box to get the tap ins.
You want examples of players? IMO the two biggest culprits, with the least excuses, are Purrington and Matthews but they aren't the only ones.
The proof of the pudding is, to use the saying correctly, in the eating.
So this isn't a top six squad because we're 14th but I gave what I feel are the reasons for that.
I still think this set of players have underperformed.
I think you are right, Henry. Underperformed, as in not playing up to their true potential. As you suggested in your previous post, there can be all sorts of contributing factors.
Others make claims of players not caring, not trying, stealing a living, etc. etc. but I can't bring myself to go along with all that.
In fact, I have to assume that those making such accusations have never played the game.
You get picked, you get the shirt, the ref blows the whistle and you do the best you can on the day.
This sounds right to me too. I've been able to watch a lot more matches this season thanks to the streaming, and while there seem to be problems all over the pitch, players 'not trying' just sounds like lazy terrace talk. The difference between our run from Sunderland to Cambridge, and the horrible dip in form from Cambridge on to me looks like a lot of contributing factors, but does anyone think that Jacko is sat on the bench watching the games, seeing a player or three just going through the motions and letting it slide?
One thing that has struck me is that a lot of times going forward, our players seem to lack options to release the ball, and seem to take a couple of touches too many before they do so, allowing opponents to close down the gaps. It also means the only options tend to be backwards which often means we have the ball back with the defenders on or around the halfway line while the oppostion have all got back into position and can start pressuring us so the ball eventually goes back to the keeper, who hoofs it. Why this is ongoing is beyond me - I imagine the management team see it too, and try to correct it. So I can only think maybe we have the wrong set of players to do this well.
I also wonder about the lack of Stockley up front, as Washington looks less effective without him, and Aneke (particularly at Hartlepool) never seemed to get any service from the midfield. I am also struggling to spot what Lee currently brings to the set up, as his trickery never seems to have an end product any more, and I can only imagine after hi, the creative options are even less creative. Ideally, you hope for wingers and forwards to be making runs, and recieving early balls, but the number of times I've watched Jayesimi or Blackett Taylor make a run into space, only for the ball to go back into the centre for Lee to pfaff around, is excruciating. Eventually, the players stop making the runs, which doesn't help, as every time they do so, they drag defenders out of place.
Ideally, in the middle, I always want to see a player who can brreak up play (Dobson, and no cover if he's injured) and at least one player who can split a defence with a pass (hmmm...) but our midfeiled seems to contain a lot of similar players who can pass sideways and occasionally beat someone but ru into another defender, or lay off a problematic pass to someone jammed out on the wing.
In short, it looks like an average team going nowhere, and that is how the table looks. Reality bites.
Excellent post.
Hate to harp on (actually I quite enjoy it) but there's a measure of mental gymnastics going on from our fans. The mental gymnastics that lead many of them to think Player X is our 'best midfielder' and would be able to play Championship, but (and this time more correctly) that progressive midfield is our weakness.
They can't both be true.
None of our midfield (or squad even) are good enough for the Championship, apart from Kirk apparently who's on his way there without us.
Many are criticising our recent recruitment, but I think we should put it into the context of having to bring in so many players and more significantly, within a budget.
In an ideal world you would be buying just one player a year to upgrade your weakest position and maybe a youth player for the future.
We are nowhere near that but we are at least moving forward towards having a squad of players that are actually ours, but like all areas of our club, it had been ripped apart and cut to the bone. I hope we can be competitive enough next season to get near the playoffs, but there is still a fair bit to be done to achieve that IMO. The brightest light looking ahead is our youth players. As they move into the squad it should give us the depth we will need to sustain the team through injury and suspensions.
We do need to have a star striker who can score 20 goals next season if we really are going to compete IMO, if not, top six will be a stretching target.
Not even the best run team in the football league does this.
We not at the dead-seaosn stage where youths can get a go at first-team football? We're really not going to be relegated; our home form will see to that
The proof of the pudding is, to use the saying correctly, in the eating.
So this isn't a top six squad because we're 14th but I gave what I feel are the reasons for that.
I still think this set of players have underperformed.
I’n not entirely sure it’s a top 6 squad. Could maybe say been unlucky (yet again) losing Lavelle and Inniss at the back. But we still lack a decent CM and did lack cover up top before Aneke returned.
I think your post was pretty spot on and despite fair criticism of the players, we are definitely underperforming by at least around 8 places.
The proof of the pudding is, to use the saying correctly, in the eating.
So this isn't a top six squad because we're 14th but I gave what I feel are the reasons for that.
I still think this set of players have underperformed.
I think you are right, Henry. Underperformed, as in not playing up to their true potential. As you suggested in your previous post, there can be all sorts of contributing factors.
Others make claims of players not caring, not trying, stealing a living, etc. etc. but I can't bring myself to go along with all that.
In fact, I have to assume that those making such accusations have never played the game.
You get picked, you get the shirt, the ref blows the whistle and you do the best you can on the day.
This sounds right to me too. I've been able to watch a lot more matches this season thanks to the streaming, and while there seem to be problems all over the pitch, players 'not trying' just sounds like lazy terrace talk. The difference between our run from Sunderland to Cambridge, and the horrible dip in form from Cambridge on to me looks like a lot of contributing factors, but does anyone think that Jacko is sat on the bench watching the games, seeing a player or three just going through the motions and letting it slide?
One thing that has struck me is that a lot of times going forward, our players seem to lack options to release the ball, and seem to take a couple of touches too many before they do so, allowing opponents to close down the gaps. It also means the only options tend to be backwards which often means we have the ball back with the defenders on or around the halfway line while the oppostion have all got back into position and can start pressuring us so the ball eventually goes back to the keeper, who hoofs it. Why this is ongoing is beyond me - I imagine the management team see it too, and try to correct it. So I can only think maybe we have the wrong set of players to do this well.
I also wonder about the lack of Stockley up front, as Washington looks less effective without him, and Aneke (particularly at Hartlepool) never seemed to get any service from the midfield. I am also struggling to spot what Lee currently brings to the set up, as his trickery never seems to have an end product any more, and I can only imagine after hi, the creative options are even less creative. Ideally, you hope for wingers and forwards to be making runs, and recieving early balls, but the number of times I've watched Jayesimi or Blackett Taylor make a run into space, only for the ball to go back into the centre for Lee to pfaff around, is excruciating. Eventually, the players stop making the runs, which doesn't help, as every time they do so, they drag defenders out of place.
Ideally, in the middle, I always want to see a player who can brreak up play (Dobson, and no cover if he's injured) and at least one player who can split a defence with a pass (hmmm...) but our midfeiled seems to contain a lot of similar players who can pass sideways and occasionally beat someone but ru into another defender, or lay off a problematic pass to someone jammed out on the wing.
In short, it looks like an average team going nowhere, and that is how the table looks. Reality bites.
Exactly what I meant by we are relying too much on Stockley.
Stockley gives our defenders and midfielders an out ball and so we can advance 20 or 30 yards up the pitch. That means that DJ and Leko are getting the ball in the final third where they can hurt teams and that Washington's very clever runs can be picked out.
Opposition teams are also wary of giving Stockley too much time or space which creates more of both for Washington and any runners from midfield.
Aneke is a different type of player and Davison just not as good, Leko is a winger and Burstow still very young and plays more on the shoulder to use his speed.
Because the plan under Atkins was to play just one central striker (Stockley) it was going to be hard to recruit a similar player to sit on the bench especially given our budget and the 22 squad limit. Piggot is probably the closest we came to someone who can play a similar role (that we know we were interested in, there might have been others).
The machine was working well, then we took a vital part out of it and it didn't work so well. And remember Stockley was carrying his injury before he stopped playing.
I also think that the poor start has left the squad low in confidence. As soon as games started to go against us we started being cautious and inviting pressure.
We saw v Fleetwood that we started badly but once we scored every player looked 10% better, winning tackles, attempting more risky forward passes, making runs. Morgan is almost a text book example of this
That's not them "not trying" or "giving up" before, that's IMHO, fragile confidence.
How is that resolved? That's down to the players and the coaches but it's not, I don't think anyway, that they don't care or are lazy.
Some managers would change formation to react to situations of key players out.
From interviews it seems JJ wants to adopt a football philosophy throughout the club based upon 3-5-2 which is fine if the he has the squad and personal to do that which he clearly doesn't. So you buy into it and give it time, what you cant keep doing is chopping and changing philosophy every time there is a sticky patch. Write this season off get those available in now great, but this season is just prep for next season now
Comments
I think the on field success renewal kicks in at the end of next season.
That's my understanding anyway. I could be wrong
One thing that has struck me is that a lot of times going forward, our players seem to lack options to release the ball, and seem to take a couple of touches too many before they do so, allowing opponents to close down the gaps. It also means the only options tend to be backwards which often means we have the ball back with the defenders on or around the halfway line while the oppostion have all got back into position and can start pressuring us so the ball eventually goes back to the keeper, who hoofs it. Why this is ongoing is beyond me - I imagine the management team see it too, and try to correct it. So I can only think maybe we have the wrong set of players to do this well.
I also wonder about the lack of Stockley up front, as Washington looks less effective without him, and Aneke (particularly at Hartlepool) never seemed to get any service from the midfield. I am also struggling to spot what Lee currently brings to the set up, as his trickery never seems to have an end product any more, and I can only imagine after him, the creative options are even less creative. Ideally, you hope for wingers and forwards to be making runs, and recieving early balls, but the number of times I've watched Jayesimi or Blackett Taylor make a run into space, only for the ball to go back into the centre for Lee to pfaff around, is excruciating. Eventually, the players stop making the runs, which doesn't help, as every time they do so, they drag defenders out of place.
Ideally, in the middle, I always want to see a player who can brreak up play (Dobson, and no cover if he's injured) and at least one player who can split a defence with a pass (hmmm...) but our midfeiled seems to contain a lot of similar players who can pass sideways and occasionally beat someone but ru into another defender, or lay off a problematic pass to someone jammed out on the wing.
In short, it looks like an average team going nowhere, and that is how the table looks. Reality bites.
We saw that with Gary Doherty, he helped Norwich win the L1 title but he was on the decline and not good enough for what we needed.
The same eventually happened with Jackson, it got to the point where he couldn’t contribute enough on the pitch.
Do we want to risk that happening with Pearce? It’s probably more about who the CBs are ahead of him and how many we have. If we’re playing a back 3 I wouldn’t feel comfortable if we had 4 genuine CBs including Pearce and Inniss for example.
Hate to harp on (actually I quite enjoy it) but there's a measure of mental gymnastics going on from our fans. The mental gymnastics that lead many of them to think Player X is our 'best midfielder' and would be able to play Championship, but (and this time more correctly) that progressive midfield is our weakness.
They can't both be true.
If I was being really cynical I would suggest they got Adkins the sack so their mate could get the job. They will get him the sack as well if they aren't careful.
When I say lack of effort/commitment I am not suggesting they are walking around with their hands on their hips. It's the commitment to everything. Passing, pressing, tackling, closing down, making you self avalible for a pass.
Desire to get on the end of things, following shots into the box to get the tap ins.
You want examples of players? IMO the two biggest culprits, with the least excuses, are Purrington and Matthews but they aren't the only ones.
Stockley gives our defenders and midfielders an out ball and so we can advance 20 or 30 yards up the pitch. That means that DJ and Leko are getting the ball in the final third where they can hurt teams and that Washington's very clever runs can be picked out.
Opposition teams are also wary of giving Stockley too much time or space which creates more of both for Washington and any runners from midfield.
Aneke is a different type of player and Davison just not as good, Leko is a winger and Burstow still very young and plays more on the shoulder to use his speed.
Because the plan under Atkins was to play just one central striker (Stockley) it was going to be hard to recruit a similar player to sit on the bench especially given our budget and the 22 squad limit. Piggot is probably the closest we came to someone who can play a similar role (that we know we were interested in, there might have been others).
The machine was working well, then we took a vital part out of it and it didn't work so well. And remember Stockley was carrying his injury before he stopped playing.
I also think that the poor start has left the squad low in confidence. As soon as games started to go against us we started being cautious and inviting pressure.
We saw v Fleetwood that we started badly but once we scored every player looked 10% better, winning tackles, attempting more risky forward passes, making runs. Morgan is almost a text book example of this
That's not them "not trying" or "giving up" before, that's IMHO, fragile confidence.
How is that resolved? That's down to the players and the coaches but it's not, I don't think anyway, that they don't care or are lazy.
If only we had Levitt and Vennings bossing our midfield this season eh?
😉
Would love to sign him based on what I've seen
From interviews it seems JJ wants to adopt a football philosophy throughout the club based upon 3-5-2 which is fine if the he has the squad and personal to do that which he clearly doesn't. So you buy into it and give it time, what you cant keep doing is chopping and changing philosophy every time there is a sticky patch. Write this season off get those available in now great, but this season is just prep for next season now