Minority Report 2019/20 v Luton Town

Most weeks, Minority Report will be mainly about tactics. Today it is not. I do not know what it is about, but it certainly is not about tactics. I am going to try to read Daniel Stendel’s mind, and that involves asking a few well aimed questions.

Why did he start the game with 3 wide midfield players and no recognised forward?

Why did he bring on a fourth wide midfield player at the start of the second half and play him at right full back?

Why was he at no stage tempted to bring on a forward player (there was Chaplin and Schmidt on the bench)?


That must sound like I am blaming the Coach for that debacle of a first half, but there are a great many others also in the queue. I am starting with the Coach just as an excuse for having somewhere to start. My guess is that his logic was, we need to keep a clean sheet in the first half, and if we are level after an hour, then I will bring on two forwards for the final half hour. Two goals against in the first 5 minutes tends to knock the stuffing out of that sort of plan, and a later injury to our only remaining centre back from the starting line-up kyboshed it completely. By half time, we were 3 down and lucky it wasn’t 6. Of course there were individual errors, Pinillos for the first, and Radlinger for the second, but the whole team looked disjointed and out of sorts. It was like the men of Luton against the boys of Barnsley and I was bound to ask at half-time if the players had no confidence in the team that the Coach had picked.


After the first day win over Fulham, I tried to play down expectations. The performance in the first half today was much nearer to my expectations of the Fulham game, and frankly, it is that game that is the odd one out, and not all the rest. That game simply raised expectations amongst the fans, only to cruelly dash them again. You see, you cannot lose most of your defence from last season and replace it with kids and expect everything to be fine. You cannot lose your target man up front and replace him with a different type of player and expect the team to adapt seamlessly. Building understanding, creating team ethic and bonding all take time. It is something that can be faked, but 90 minutes on a Saturday will find you out eventually.


Coaches are under huge pressure to win games, and that pressure drives them to look for new formulae, new ways of winning with the same set of players, but often the Coach must be stronger and keep the team the same, sometimes in spite of results. Only in that way will the players bond into a team and become one with each other. There will be those who will say that we played better in the second half, that the changes that Stendel made at half time got us playing better. They did not. The main reason that we got back into the game after half time was Luton took their foot off the gas.


It is important that we do not draw too many conclusions from games like todays. It is important that decisions are put off until tempers have cooled and proper analysis has been done to determine exactly what happened and why. It is important that no players are blamed and their careers written off prematurely. It is the time for a steady hand on the tiller. I know that the BBS is not noted for that sort of thing, but you will not read about it in Minority Report.


Having said all of that, I worry sometimes that our Chief Coach always wants to be on the front foot, no matter what he has in his team, nor what the match situation. As a person, my first reaction is opposite to that of Daniel Stendel. If difficulties are placed in my path, I tend to back off. DS tends to go on the attack and hope that the back door will look after itself. However, after a string of poor results, the team now needs to consolidate. It must shut and bolt the back door or risk a damaging thrashing. Midfield needs to offer better protection to the centre of our defence than it is doing at the minute. Bahre must be replaced by a defensive midfield player. We must become harder to score against, and that will make us harder to beat.


Once again, it must seem like I am blaming Stendel for everything, but there is one crucial aspect of this thing that he is totally innocent of. There is not enough experience in either defence or central midfield. The second thing is the lack of a tall target man up front. Like Jay, I thought the statement by Paul Conway after the transfer window closed was badly timed. It was good ol’ American bull, and we all know how that smells. My overpowering feeling at the end of that first half was pity. I was sorry for the players (particularly Thiam) who had been asked to perform when so far outside their comfort zones. I was sorry for Daniel Stendel, who had to pick a team from inadequate resources, and then say nothing of his true feelings on the matter in press interviews afterwards. I was sorry for the fans who had to witness the whole sorry mess.

I was not sorry for Paul Conway.



Rookie Watch


Radlinger was badly at fault for the second goal, though he did make an excellent stop with his trailling foot later in the half.


Sibbick was once again targeted by the cynics in the crowd. He was not great in the first half, but had a much more comfortable second half when he moved to centre back and Luton eased off.


Diaby was again pulled about all over the place by a mobile front line. He was injured in the second half and it looked a bad one.


Andersen has gone from one extreme to the other. After a from promising start to his Barnsley career, he has now had the ignominy of a half time withdrawal to save him from further punishment


Thomas continues to frustrate me. He looks to have talent, but he disappears from the action for long spells.


Mallik Wilks He played the first quarter on the left, the second quarter on the right and the second half down the middle. He was not particularly effective anywhere, but he did score the Barnsley goal. He needs to control his temper or he will see red soon.


Aapo Halme came on for Bambo Diaby late in the game. Luton had packed in for the afternoon by then, so he was not really tested.




Player of the Match


No-one who played in the first half can possibly be considered, which limits my choice to Jordan Green and Ben Williams. I have gone for Ben Williams.

 

We do need a defensive midfield player but we haven't got one. Well, we've got one but he's injured. We've got one striker and he's injured. We've got one decent centre half and he's injured. I think you make good points about Stendel's mind set but by far and away the biggest limiting factor is that he simply doesn't have the tools to do the job.

 

Agreed.

 

The best Minority Report so far, in my humble opinion. An excellent summary, Red Rain. I will share my thoughts on more sober reflection, in so far as anyone wants to hear them!

 

please!

 

Lots of good points but I don’t think there’s an out & out striker at the club apart from Woodrow who’s injured.

From what I’ve seen / read Schmidt’s meant to be more of a wide forward. Chaplin’s not an out & out striker, if he plays up top it needs to be in a front 2. He’s more of a second striker like Wilks or Thiam can be.

One thing I’m not comfortable with is criticising Stendel for not playing a natural striker when he hasn’t got one available.

We’ve left ourselves incredibly short up top, we’ve not got anyone that can bring others into play or even challenge a centre back.

Even when Woodrow’s back fit I think we’ll really struggle up top

 

I think this analysis is broadly right, and particularly agree that Bahre should be the man to give way in search of more solidity. Not sure if there is anyone still out of contact who we could bring in - they are obviously likely to be lacking match fitness should we do so.

 

I very rarely have time to read your posts such as the length of them. And I've been nicknamed Tolstoy

But this is bang on.

 

I do like this particular Minority Report. Despite us debating the relative importance of systems/formations v confidence and motivation this week, the MR this weekend has had to look at the latter issues more, and in particular the mindset of DS. Ironically though, system and formation looked also to raise many questions yesterday!

I see one or two of the issues slightly differently. The first thing I would comment on is Radlinger's culpability for the second goal. True, his positioning and decisiveness were poor, but he has Anderson and Diaby either side of him complicating matters and getting in his way (Diaby in particular) whilst not making any decisive intervention. Not exactly a shock when your two centre backs and goalkeeper are all freshmen. For both the first and third goals we actually had six men behind the ball, but no-one reading the play regarding backup players running in from behind Luton's front line. That's a lack of basic reading of the game at Championship level, or lack of experience, to put it another way. The irony of it is that most of us on here (but sadly not Daniel or his team) know only too well how good Jacob Butterfield is at that sort of thing. Incidentally, Butterfield was impressive yesterday. He looked fitter than when I last saw him play, but he uses his long experience at this level to make the most of his energy levels and to make his contributions telling.

I'm not sure I see the 'front foot' theory quite the same either. I have a feeling that the most telling point of our season so far was conceding in the first minute at Hillsbrough. It feels to me like a lot of the confidence we had during and after the Fulham game seemed to evaporate from then on. We pressed very high and very early against Fulham - less so it seems to me in the games since. Carlisle was another shock to the system. So we end up playing against Charlton and Birmingham with rather more fear, and not confidently pressing as hard and as fast as in the opening match. For me, we appeared to set our stall out quite negatively at Birmingham, with the first and paramount aim being not to concede. It seemed that DS wanted us to attack on the break if we were able to, but our passes were too slow and too square, with the result that we managed just six attempts on goal and only one on target. Yesterday too we had no out and out striker (which can't have done much for the confidence of Chaplin or Schmidt). And those six players behind the ball - even in the opening minute - suggest that the players had been warned not to concede. But as I hinted above, at Championship level players have to do more than just be behind the ball. They have to be reading the game, and looking out for danger coming from behind the opposition front line.

The squad looks problematic. True, there have been lots of incomings, but there have been rather more outgoings in crucial areas than we would have liked. When you take out the new signings that are clearly not ready, then it looks for now that we have at best stood still on the transfer front, however Mr Conway tries to spin it. As I said last week though, I do think Anderson and Diaby have great promise. But the squad rewind means that the development of key players is having to take place in competitive Championship matches, which is an unforgiving environment. And we have little spare capacity to rotate players and take them out of the firing line. Woodrow's fitness, or lack thereof could be a crucial factor to our chances of survival. Thiam, even after three years still looks a work in progress and is no replacement for Woodrow. I also think Cavare is greatly missed from that Fulham lineup, but clearly something has happened there which is not common knowledge.

All in all it seems to me that our best hopes are to try to regain the attacking spirit and verve of that Fulham performance. Becoming even slightly more fearful and cautious has been disastrous for us. Of course that will mean that we will be likely to be on the end of some thumpings, but we would undoubtedly take some teams by surprise if we revert to that way of playing. And the win points would hopefully outnumber anything gained from labouring to draws here and there. We must be mindful that it is early days, and that the likes of Hourihane, Winnall, Scowen and Watkins took time to reach their potential. The worry is that we could be down among the dead men by the time that happens. And 'Rock bottom to Heckingbottom' occurred in League One, not the Championship!

Still, you'd be more worried if you were a fan of Stoke or Huddersfield, wouldn't you?

 

What Lee Johnson went through, what Hecky/Morais went through were no different to what Stendel is going to go through. The cyclical nature of our performances is basically caused by the policy that operates at Oakwell, the policy of 'buy young, improve and sell on'. The problem is, I do not see any alternative to that policy. Whether we as fans like it or not, someone has to find finance for a different policy and if the owners do not want to do that, this is the only viable policy. During the early part of his tenure, Patrick Cryne thought that there might be a different way. It cost him a lot of money to find the answer, and in the end he arrived at the best solution, the one that remains today. The only difference this time is that our new American owner has tried to bull his way through the problem... treat the fans like they are idiots. Jay does not like it, and I am not far behind him. I also think that his strategy for creating additional revenue is a drop in the ocean. More American presentation over effect. More papering over the cracks. More the good ol' USA has the answer. Yesterday showed that nothing has changed. Nothing is different. We, the fans, still have to go through the same 18 months of pain before things begin to get better... and six months after that, the club will sell again.

The way that the Coach handles that transitioning period. The way that he tries to cover the deficiencies in his team, will vary from Coach to Coach. It will be a tough and frustrating time for the fans, whatever method we use because there are going to be days like yesterday whatever the Coach does. Currently, our team is not balanced, and all this post-match discussion is about, is how the Coach should deal with that imbalance. Yesterday, it was far too hot for a high press, and on my walk to the game, I was wondering how the Coach would try to deal with the heat. The problem with the team structure was that there was no coherent overall strategy yesterday. For whatever reason, he left his strikers sitting on the bench and he elected to leave the back 4 unprotected by a midfield defensive shield. Now that is how I would have played it, but I can see that Stendel's mindset is different. The way that I would tackle the problem keeps us in games, but it does not mean that we score. There is still a problem. It just creates more of an illusion that we are in games. The same problem is still there whatever way we try to solve it, and the problem is the learning curve and the current lack of balance in the team.

By January, the players have had half a season together. They are starting to come together as a team, but they have taken a lot of punishment mentally. Their confidence is shot and the team's league position is almost hopeless. The board has a second chance in the transfer market to get the balance right, but how do we attract to right players to the club now, in our current parlous state. Who decent, and made of the right stuff wants to be associated with a relegation and a reduction in pay next season as a result. That is why we ended up with Brek Shea and Emmanuel Frimpong that season. Look, I am a big boy. I know all these things and I still keep coming back every season. The team is in my blood, and it will be there until I take my very last breath. But, I am a realist, and I know that there is no magic bullet for teams like mine, and yet I still make my bi-weekly sojourn for my football fix. My problem is that listening to an attempted con by some American wide boy is just too much to bear. I do not like these Americans, and I do not like their American ways of doing things. I will not walk away, but I fear that many more will walk away when they work out that it is all an empty con. They are not here to invest. They are here to make money and move on, and let no-one be confused by their motives.

 

Great read that Orsen.
After a week of debating whether tactics ate as important as motivation and confidence I think we have proof from yesterday that what mattered most in that horrendous opening 15 minutes was a lack of confidence.
cor some bizarre reason the team came ou and showed no aggression. the attitude was all wrong. Lutin didn't take a 2 / 3 goal lead due to their tactical superiority. it was their mental approach which overwhelmed us. Aggressive and in yer face. Just like us against Fulham.

 

Pinillos for me wasn’t entirely to blame for their first goal yes he made the mistake to let in the winger but the marking of runners was appealing from the whole team.

 

Agree. Luton had three unmarked runners on the edge of our box. How on earth can that happen in the second minute of a game?
Frightening.....

 

The bitterness I’m currently feeling is related to the foolishness of me believing that things might somehow be different under these new owners.

 

Yes, that’s where I am. I know this goes against the grain for the majority, but I was delighted when Patrick Cryne sold the club, for which there are admittedly personal reasons, but mainly because while the strategy had its merits he and his team had adopted a weird, extreme version of it where they had effectively banned themselves buying anyone over 24. It was like the strategy had been adopted by someone who could only understand a rules based strategy with no exceptions, a kind of plan with Asperger’s syndrome.

I also thought, (as reading between the lines a lot of people including Red Rain do now of the current board), that the strategy was a very thinly veiled ‘Emperors New Clothes’ way of exiting with a lot of money - in Cryne’s case we will likely never know how much money he made out of the club through the sale proceeds less the money he injected in the early days, but it does appear history is destined to repeat itself in that respect.

The difference is that, as you can see from Red Rains post above, fans will not be so tolerant of American owners as they were of someone perceived to be a lifelong fan and ‘one of our own’ who had, I accept, made significant early financial sacrifices at the start of his tenure.

I genuinely thought these guys would use their wealth to augment the strategy, and their business and sports nous to understand that sometimes there will need to be exceptions made where there are particularly extreme opportunities or needs in the squad. Or that they may in some cases need to be patient when cashing in on the players they had, or tough on want away players. They’ve done none of this, and as RR and Jay have rightly said, attempted to cover this with a couple of laughably brash and ludicrous statements that are now likely to be constantly used as a stick to beat them with.

It’s like we’ve gone from one extremist strategy to another even more extremist version of that same strategy. :-(

 

Inevitably a performance like yesterday's first half is going to result in lots of anguish and gnashing of teeth. it was truly woeful but not quite as bad as that against Carlisle, in my opinion.
The shock of those first two goals stunned the players and affected the rest of the first half.....badly. Confidence was shot and there was no leadership on the field to grab the game by the scruff of the neck. Bahre is not a leader.
In talking tactics it seemed clear to me that DS set the team up as is his usual wont...4231 with Cameron and Alex as CM in front of the back four. The problem was that the players were shell shocked after those opening goals. I've played in games like that and quite literally you lose all sense of where you are and you dont know how to cope with what's coming at you. We needed a captain and no one showed themselves capable of stepping up. More experience needed!!??
At half time I was most keen to talk about how to put the horror show behind us and focus on the second half. As usual our group of pundits offered varying views but changes were clearly necessary.
As it turned out we were better. We won the second half with a better performance and the attitude and approach to the game had clearly changed. I don't hold with the "Yeah but Luton took their foot off the pedal" theory. They came out to get more goals and we prevented that.
I'm trying to pick out something positive from the ashes of a truly awful defeat, and in an attempt to retain some realistic optimism, I still believe that with this Manager and this young group we can make good and survive this season. I do agree that we're crying out for some experience......particularly in that midfield area. Butterfield would have done nicely.
Some will accuse me of naivety but I do think we have recruited well. Whatever was done in the week before the Fulham game needs to be recreated. The group needs to review and re-find its pine. We have the international break coming up and even a draw at Wigan would be a step in the right direction.
Patience is key and there is a big rebuilding job to be done.
I don't agree with the anti American jingoism by the way. Patrick saw fit to hand over the club to these people and I am trusting that that was the right decision. We appear to be running a tight ship so hopefully we won't be doing a Bury or Bolton any time soon. The Plan requires patience clearly but it is a route to steady survival and hopefully progression.
Whether American, Arab, Russian or Irish, I don't really mind where our Owners come from ad long as they continue to develop us in the way PC intended.
Not all Americans are like Donald Trump.

 

The problem with "the plan" in the championship is that you just dont have the time to settle 12 new young, inexperienced players and most of the other teams gave recruited more wisely.
At the moment "the plan" seems ideally suited to league one.
I do agree with red rain in that we need to set up or try to, set up differently to mitigate the other teams and hit them on the break.
I would also implore us to use our set pieces to more effect, they will get us goals......we dont look like we going to score many this season, at the moment.

 

In my case it’s definitely not jingoism. I just feel badly let down. No-one will be more delighted if you are right and I am wrong though.

 

The perceived and celebrated ‘improvement’ in the plan by the new owners (selling the players now rather than January to increase the revenue received off the field) will, I also feel have a detrimental effect on the field. In 2016/17 we sold Winnall Hourihane and Bree in January (probably for less than if we had sold them preseason) and we had a had good first half of the season with them still in the team, the second half after they were sold was poor but we survived due to the points gained pre-sales - and were then relegated the following season.

This time around we have sold early, to increase revenue, but lo and behold we are looking like having the second half of the season performance from 16/17 from the start of this season.

It seems to be a £ v performance decision?/gamble? call it what you will but I’m surprised the owners are surprised at the outcome. (If they are).

A phrase Jay used earlier in the week hit home and leaves me with most worry - to paraphrase “football club/team or a business that trades players”

 

I have no idea why we elected to pick an eleven with no striker included.
Looking at the opposition and their previous matches they’d faced stern opposition and yet had dominated every time in terms of possession but lost by a single goal in the most recent three games.
Worryingly they didn’t try and outplay us on the ball yesterday.
They hit the ball quickly over our defenders, usually the full backs and caused us chaos.
Basically they had done their homework.
It’s how Wednesday and Charlton got their joy against us.
Yet when they were on the ball they used it better than we did.
Butterfield ran the first half from deep and came out of the match not only with a goal but with more successful tackles and interceptions than anyone else on the pitch.
The number 11 Shinnie was afforded too much time and space to operate and he was very dangerous.
LuaLua and Cornick terrorised our full backs who had no help from their wingers.
That first half showing was one of the hardest I’ve ever watched and make no mistake we were very fortunate it wasn’t 6-0 at half time.
Luton clearly eased off second half and we therefore looked better ourselves but yesterday’s game will go down as one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a BFC team at this level.
I will not however look to kick any cats today or use that display to criticise every area of our club.
It’s still early days and I reckon we have a decent squad.
They should improve and grow together and hopefully at a speed that sees us survive the drop this year.
We are in a good place but have much to improve on also.
I will be at Wigan supporting the coach and players hoping to see us get to seven points which is roughly where I’d expected.