High Press is done for us

Agree. Comes down to natural selection.

 

We played the pressing game at WBA and against Swansea. But more sensibly. Like we did against Fulham. Less hyperactive, more cunning. I don't see us abandoning pressing, but the high press you mention, then yes I think that's gone with Daniel Stendel.

Unfortunately, and this harks back to nous and experience, we have errors in a handful of our players. If Diaby just boots the ball down field on Tuesday who knows. But instead he tried being clever and cost us a free kick that within seconds cost us a corner that cost us a goal. With 10 minutes to go, Sibbick doesn't follow Pereira and he has a free header. 2-2.

That undid so much that was pleasing on the night. Many won't appreciate it, but we were launching balls forward that usually we'd be trying to pass around. Instead of short kicks out to defenders, Collins was aiming for the frontline. When an opponent skipped away, one of ours stopped him by any means. When we looked stressed or tired, a player went down injured. All simplistic but missing for the last 12 months.

I suppose it's an attempt to marry the Stendel-way with some shithouse tactics. I like it.

 

Perfect Summary. We’d become a little over-complicated at times....

 

I've read recently Sibbick, Woodrow and Dougall all make reference to a more clear way of playing, of structure and bigging up Adam Murray. Woodrow even made a point of running over to Murray on Tuesday night when he scored. Maybe a change was needed?

 

Hammer, nail, head or summat. But don't tell the flouncers on here, if we stay up - bringing up those pages of the BBS abusing the owners during the Stendel sacking will be epic.

 

Stendel worked wonders in his time here and I don't mean just the promotion. I think his style got the best out of a handful of players who looked dead previously. I will never talk the man down. I'm not privy to what goes on behind the doors that aren't open, I'm not from Goldthorpe. But something has clearly gone off, and he was sacked.

The side in the last two matches didn't look a side who'd just lost their mentor. They looked reinvigorated.

Today (it's past 12) is another clue I suppose. Let's see what they do.

 

l loved the guy, l posted the thread where he came in on his bike with his BFC rucksack but he proved to be limited once he got to the championship. Remember he took on a squad that was expected to win promotion, we paid 750k for a striker in the window that only two other clubs could afford in the same division.

Whether or not the window this summer will be successful we will find out in May but he had no plan B and was reluctant to start games with more defensive formations and made bizarre decisions like playing without recognised strikers and midfielders. A caretaker manager has come in and shown what the same players can achieve with a tweak in formations and tactics and this has quietened this board down a bit.

 

Nice summary fired and I agree in full but and it’s a giant but.

Last we season we were lucky, the press worked against **** teams that don’t have the ability or fitness to play against it. To make it work in a higher league you need that same athleticism and if you aren’t as skillful as the opposition it comes unstuck. The only way to keep it going is consistency and mild changes but hard work and team cohesion, until skill just takes over.

If you then, flog the skill and restart team work then fundamentally the system fails.

if any of you have ever heard of Kaizen and lean models they teach you that the system is more important than people (the skill). Our club is poorly utilising the Kaizen model without understanding that football isn’t a production line or tech process but 11 lads trying to play a game of kick ball and the players will always be bigger than the system.

The System can help, and **** me we need help, but players and people
Win football games.

 

We haven't done it all this season really. High press, gengen pressen, whatever we want to call it, we haven't done it. It's an high intensity, but ultimately high risk strategy that has back fired because we haven't got the quality of player in this league against better opposition to perform it.

 

No way. The press is still there.

 

Up until the Swansea game, we played the high-press, except for one game - Wednesday away. For some reason, we abandoned it and tried to be a possession side and it was horrific to watch. But in every other game under Stendel, we pressed so high. Even at Preston after half time when we could all see that dropping off a bit might be an idea, we went for their throat.

In the last two games, we've waited until the opponent is in our half before engaging the press. So we still do it. But we've more men behind the ball and we're not as high up out of possession.

Common sense approach. Nothing groundbreaking. It's looked better in my opinion. But we still have errors in us.

 

When it first got mentioned i thought the Gengen press was a European wrestling move.

 

Two draws, and dead on their feet in the second half on Tuesday? I must have missed the reinvigorated bit! All opinions of course, but I think over-training and ill-discipline are going to hit the team hard if Murray carries on for long.

 

Sunderland scored 5 and got a clean sheet on Tuesday under Parkinson' and by all accounts their players loved Ross before he was sacked

The advantage Murray has is hes worked with them and learned from Stendel and can just do his "tweaks" in strategy without having to overhaul the players and formation

This anyone could have got us out of league 1 nonsense needs to stop too. Look at Sunderland again, they had Premiership quality players and spent over 2 million in Jan on their striker. Daniel achieved a lot. And if the club hadn't behaved like it has I think you'd get players acknowledging this, whilst still praising Murrays role.

 

We could shoot up the league and win the play offs it wouldn't change the fact the way the club handled the sacking was and continues to be despicable.

 

Hope you're not making Sibbick a scapegoat for the 2nd goal after all Bambo scored an own goal

 

Sibbick seems to be the go to scapegoat for some.

 

Agreed.

 

The view from the board at the time of Daniel's appointment was that the board had identified a way of playing, a pressing style, and had appointed Daniel based on the fact that he was an exponent of this approach. They were going to build a club based on a playing style.

This was a different approach to selecting a manager and wondering how they would play, this was a board defining how they wished the club to be set up.

Whatever happens to results over the next few months, how the dismal of Daniel was handled was very poor. Future results will not change that.