by ferrarilover » 28 Dec 2012, 18:12
austrianandygull wrote:Cheers for the support Coley!
Us negative moaners better stick together otherwise we will have a site full of people that agree with each other.
Matt, you say that if Coley and myself want to see our team win every week then we should support Man Utd. That is the very trap that Nick and others fell into and i don't wish to be misunderstood my good man.
I want to watch a team that ATTEMPTS to win every week, if we did this and lost then i would find it perfectly acceptable. The entertainment value of the match itself is just as important as the victory and although i would be happy scraping wins out of nothing ( like what happened a lot last season and was dull ) i would rather see us draw or lose trying to win. Wins are not the be all and end all ( although i may not be saying that if we were in the bottom two! :~D ) but the manner in which you go about trying to achieve those wins is. Hoping to nick the odd goal here and there and further hoping that we can hang onto it is not a viable or workable tactic and Ling still hasn't worked this out yet.
Arguably for all our injuries and suspensions and loss of players over the summer we shouldn't be continuing to fill like for like just so Ling is able to continue with a game plan that is archaic, even for league 2. Like i have said before, there are times and places for drab 'see if we can nick something' games and during the course of a season we will see a few but to have that as an actual tactic each week is disturbing.
Even more disturbing is our away performances which all season have all followed a similar pattern. We won at York but had a couple of chances which we scored, they could have had a hatful with better finishing and it is the kind of sustained pressure that other teams have against US during games that i want to see reversed. I want to see US have large portions of sustained pressure and dangerous attacks but we seem to have brief spells and it fizzles out.
We do attempt to win, Andy, we just don't attempt to win by scoring hundreds of goals. That is for the likes of Port Vale and it is working well for them, but then, last year, it didn't. With the players we have (which we have because they were the best we could get taking into account all the various determining factors), we are not in a position to take the attitude that we will simply score one more than the oppo, regardless of how many that may require us to get. We haven't got a Tom Pope or, for that matter, a Jamie Cureton, we aren't a team who can pile forward and worry about defending later. Sure, that would be lovely, and it sure as hell would be more entertaining (the 4-3 over Aldershot is testament to that), but then , the tables would be turned and we would have people here saying that it's no good replying on Rene to get a hat-trick every week, because one week he won't, then we'll love 6-0, then where will we be?
In football, unless you're one of the Holy Grail who have the ability to score loads and concede none (Barcelona, Real and Man Utd, although the latter is seemingly faultering this year) you are pretty much forced to pick a method and stick to it. Northampton have chosen to buy as many giants as they can and hammer the ball long, Southend similar. Rotherham have a lot of good ball players, but they are fragile and do not like it away from home on a snowy February Tuesday. Cheltenham have chosen pace, pace and more pace. What ML has done for us is set us up to be as solid defensively as we can be and hope to win games with some careful forward play and rock solid rigidity. Sadly, this plan has its flaws just like any other and we are seeing the flaws exposed more this season than we did last.
In point of fact, it's working pretty well. I know ifs and buts are largely pointless, but had we managed to resist both NTFC and PAFC for a combined total of about 3 more minutes (just over 1.5% longer than we actually did), we would be sat now in 6th place, above big spending Rotherham and with a game in hand (perhaps 2, come 1700 Saturday) on a number of those above us. That's no disgrace for a team who, with Bodin playing, basically turns out every week with 10 men.
Coley, I am happy with how we are because I can see the realities of life. We are not going to swan about knocking 4 and 5 past teams, that's just not what I turn up expecting to see. Sure, it would be lovely, but it's not going to happen. If you're turning up on a blind date and expecting someone with the wit and charm of Bill Clinton, the smarts of Steven Fry and the looks of Taylor Swift, you're going to be sorely disappointed when you're presented with Susan Boyle*. It's the same at Plainmoor. Pitch up full in the knowledge that it won't be pretty and it won't be high scoring, but it might just be a means to an end to get us through this season unscathed and have a better run at it next year. We are presently doing a little bit of building for the future and our money is going in that direction. We now have a ground that will last as long as was planned for the Third Reich and we are soon to have a training ground to match. These things will show their true benefit three years from now, not tomorrow.
In order to be promoted from a division, a team must already be a club performing at a level of those already in the division above. Teams that go up (from anywhere to anywhere) must have in place every element to the standard of an average club in the division into which they are being promoted, otherwise they are doomed from the start. What we will have shortly is a ground and a training facility to allow us to step straight into L1. These are two of the biggest, most expensive elements of the whole thing. We already have a manager who can cut it at L1, we have a number of players who can do likewise. We need just the final few ingredients (like the training ground) and we will be ready to step up and survive. Be cool brother, we aren't going down and, right now, going up is a step too far for us. Suck up these couple of years of relative inauspiciousness (which, given the ride we've been on over the last 5 or 6 years doesn't seem quite such a hardship) and prepare for the good times to come.
Matt.
*A point of note, I wasn't sure of her name (popular culture is not my strong suit), so I Googled the phrase "Scottish singer, very ugly" and her name popped up.
[quote="austrianandygull"]Cheers for the support Coley! :-D
Us negative moaners better stick together otherwise we will have a site full of people that agree with each other. :zzz:
Matt, you say that if Coley and myself want to see our team win every week then we should support Man Utd. That is the very trap that Nick and others fell into and i don't wish to be misunderstood my good man.
I want to watch a team that ATTEMPTS to win every week, if we did this and lost then i would find it perfectly acceptable. The entertainment value of the match itself is just as important as the victory and although i would be happy scraping wins out of nothing ( like what happened a lot last season and was dull ) i would rather see us draw or lose trying to win. Wins are not the be all and end all ( although i may not be saying that if we were in the bottom two! :~D ) but the manner in which you go about trying to achieve those wins is. Hoping to nick the odd goal here and there and further hoping that we can hang onto it is not a viable or workable tactic and Ling still hasn't worked this out yet.
Arguably for all our injuries and suspensions and loss of players over the summer we shouldn't be continuing to fill like for like just so Ling is able to continue with a game plan that is archaic, even for league 2. Like i have said before, there are times and places for drab 'see if we can nick something' games and during the course of a season we will see a few but to have that as an actual tactic each week is disturbing.
Even more disturbing is our away performances which all season have all followed a similar pattern. We won at York but had a couple of chances which we scored, they could have had a hatful with better finishing and it is the kind of sustained pressure that other teams have against US during games that i want to see reversed. I want to see US have large portions of sustained pressure and dangerous attacks but we seem to have brief spells and it fizzles out.[/quote]
We do attempt to win, Andy, we just don't attempt to win by scoring hundreds of goals. That is for the likes of Port Vale and it is working well for them, but then, last year, it didn't. With the players we have (which we have because they were the best we could get taking into account all the various determining factors), we are not in a position to take the attitude that we will simply score one more than the oppo, regardless of how many that may require us to get. We haven't got a Tom Pope or, for that matter, a Jamie Cureton, we aren't a team who can pile forward and worry about defending later. Sure, that would be lovely, and it sure as hell would be more entertaining (the 4-3 over Aldershot is testament to that), but then , the tables would be turned and we would have people here saying that it's no good replying on Rene to get a hat-trick every week, because one week he won't, then we'll love 6-0, then where will we be?
In football, unless you're one of the Holy Grail who have the ability to score loads and concede none (Barcelona, Real and Man Utd, although the latter is seemingly faultering this year) you are pretty much forced to pick a method and stick to it. Northampton have chosen to buy as many giants as they can and hammer the ball long, Southend similar. Rotherham have a lot of good ball players, but they are fragile and do not like it away from home on a snowy February Tuesday. Cheltenham have chosen pace, pace and more pace. What ML has done for us is set us up to be as solid defensively as we can be and hope to win games with some careful forward play and rock solid rigidity. Sadly, this plan has its flaws just like any other and we are seeing the flaws exposed more this season than we did last.
In point of fact, it's working pretty well. I know ifs and buts are largely pointless, but had we managed to resist both NTFC and PAFC for a combined total of about 3 more minutes (just over 1.5% longer than we actually did), we would be sat now in 6th place, above big spending Rotherham and with a game in hand (perhaps 2, come 1700 Saturday) on a number of those above us. That's no disgrace for a team who, with Bodin playing, basically turns out every week with 10 men.
Coley, I am happy with how we are because I can see the realities of life. We are not going to swan about knocking 4 and 5 past teams, that's just not what I turn up expecting to see. Sure, it would be lovely, but it's not going to happen. If you're turning up on a blind date and expecting someone with the wit and charm of Bill Clinton, the smarts of Steven Fry and the looks of Taylor Swift, you're going to be sorely disappointed when you're presented with Susan Boyle*. It's the same at Plainmoor. Pitch up full in the knowledge that it won't be pretty and it won't be high scoring, but it might just be a means to an end to get us through this season unscathed and have a better run at it next year. We are presently doing a little bit of building for the future and our money is going in that direction. We now have a ground that will last as long as was planned for the Third Reich and we are soon to have a training ground to match. These things will show their true benefit three years from now, not tomorrow.
In order to be promoted from a division, a team must already be a club performing at a level of those already in the division above. Teams that go up (from anywhere to anywhere) must have in place every element to the standard of an average club in the division into which they are being promoted, otherwise they are doomed from the start. What we will have shortly is a ground and a training facility to allow us to step straight into L1. These are two of the biggest, most expensive elements of the whole thing. We already have a manager who can cut it at L1, we have a number of players who can do likewise. We need just the final few ingredients (like the training ground) and we will be ready to step up and survive. Be cool brother, we aren't going down and, right now, going up is a step too far for us. Suck up these couple of years of relative inauspiciousness (which, given the ride we've been on over the last 5 or 6 years doesn't seem quite such a hardship) and prepare for the good times to come.
Matt.
*A point of note, I wasn't sure of her name (popular culture is not my strong suit), so I Googled the phrase "Scottish singer, very ugly" and her name popped up.
