RibeyeTotally agree.
Back to basics means a side made up of cloggers like Gary Gardner and Marc Roberts.
Hope Rooney sticks to the task. It'll come good given time.
It doesn't mean that at all. But that's not the point anyway. As far as I can see all he has tried to change is the formation (narrow) and to get us playing a high press. This hasn't worked because we don't have the players to do it well. Other than that he is using the wrong players in the wrong positions. Long and Bielek being left out for example. As I see it,he doesn't really have much in the way of ideas or motivation and the players either can't see what he wants or can't do it. Or both. He's just a poor coach.
David XavisI want him to live or die by what we were promised. If we go back to basics what was the point?
You could also say if we carry on doing what we are, what is the point!
We are conceeding at an average of more than 2 per game and scoring at less than one.
Living or dieing by what we were promised could see us down by easter
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I like Bielik - if Rooney can get him playing there and he's not expected to fly around the pitch then all well and good. They appeared to have words when Bielik came off in one game, hopefully that was just heat of the moment stuff.
I don't have a problem with the new style but it has been rolled out too quickly. I think high press is the way footbal strategy is going. But you need a large squad of players (So you can rest and rotate). You also need players who retain possesion so you are not going to the be knackered after 60 minutes. Unfortunatly we have neither of these and therefore are struggling.
I agree, its the evolution v revolution thing.
And, without wishing to make it worse, there is a bit of Zola coming in, but here Rooney has instead dropped Long, whereas Zola tried to get Morrison (a very good centre half) to turn into Franz Beckenbauer.
I think we have the basis of a team that could play as he wants. I also think he might need to be pragmatic until he can get a whole squad who can do what he wants.
Back to basics to me means...shit aint working lets teach em how to play footy again. Remind them how to pass etc.
Its panic time. When your plan isnt working and b2b is your option you're out of ideas.
Monk didnt. We were losing but could see we had been unlucky for the most part. But we stuck at it and it came off.
There is nothing about this that suggests sticking to it will reap any rewards. It stinks of zola. Sorry.
There is a reason fans said it at the time and most laughed it off as " this is different".
It's not. Weve divided the fanbase overnight. Clearly unsettled the players and basically the seasons hope is gone.
The only difference here is some people actually through zola might work. We didnt have the luxury of hindsight. Now we do and it feels the same to me.
The only saving grace is we have owners who wont wait till were 4 games from relegation still clinging on to a rooney win ".
Well as far as Rooney is concerned, for him the Blues job is last chance saloon. If he dosen't succeed here he's finished in football management. He's only been here a month so he needs lots more time to achieve any success. Either you are a Bluenose or a Rooney hater, you can't be both. He and the team need our support.
I agree that to "hate" Rooney. to the point that you may want Blues to lose. is ridiculous - and by definition to want the team to lose ANY match is a disqualification to being a proper fan.
But there's nothing wrong with questioning, or keeping an open mind, whilst still giving vocal backing at matches.
PS ... no "proper" BLues fan would ever refer to "blues fans" as "Bluenoses" - we may accept it, and not object to it from others, we may at times take ownership of it.
But to refer to us as Bluenoses when you are speaking to other Blues fans is completely out of order
The start of the 18/19 season under Monk was probably the only time I can recall (certainly in recent years) where we weren't getting the results but no-one really lost faith, as the performances were there.
That season we won once in the first 11 games. However, some of the performances were so good. I rememeber Swansea (0-0) and Baggies at home (1-1) in particular, where we absolutely killed both of them, but just didn't take our chances. Both had just come down from the PL to.
In fairness we only lost twice in those 11 games to, so whilst we weren't winning games, we weren't really getting beat either, which does help.
The point is though, was that despite being in a lowly league position up until October, we could see the performances were there and it was only a matter of time before we put a run together, which we did.
At the moment we're on a bad run and the performances are just not there, so not many can see any positives and many are losing faith. Yesterday we looked like we may concede everytime Sunderland went forward, there is no structure or encouraging patterns of play. I think we're at the point where we have to do what is necessary to get results, we just need to pick up some wins to calm the nerves.
I don't think we're at that point yet personally. We absolutely need to start picking up some results but if we revert back to hoofball, that would make me more worried about the future than if we stuck to it and lost.
The sort of change the owners want takes time. There are plenty of examples of teams who took 10 or so games to get used to a new style and then went on to do well. That's not to say that this will happen at Blues or that Rooney is trying to get them to play in a way that will eventually work (I don't know...) but it's way too early to just throw everything in the bin and give up. I hate all this "no fear" bollocks but at the very base level, it at least means believing in your plan and seeing it through.
My view was always that these 5 games were tough so I was willing to let Rooney effectively have a pre-season with the players. We've now got 2 weeks where they can work hard on the training pitch, we can get some of our injured players back and we then go into some matches we should be winning. We won't be the finished article yet but I expect to see a very clear improvement when we next play.
I think aside from a spell after we scored yesterday, we were pretty dire yesterday. It is true we could have scored a couple in that spell, but we could have also been 3-0 down before we got the equaliser.
More worryingly, 4 of the 5 matches we’ve been well beaten and not been in the games at all. At Ipswich, I thought we played well, but threw away what should have been a decent win because we couldn’t defend.
As others have said, we just don’t simply score enough goals or create enough clear cut chances to play so open defensively.
I don't think we're at that point yet personally. We absolutely need to start picking up some results but if we revert back to hoofball, that would make me more worried about the future than if we stuck to it and lost.
The sort of change the owners want takes time. There are plenty of examples of teams who took 10 or so games to get used to a new style and then went on to do well. That's not to say that this will happen at Blues or that Rooney is trying to get them to play in a way that will eventually work (I don't know...) but it's way too early to just throw everything in the bin and give up. I hate all this "no fear" bollocks but at the very base level, it at least means believing in your plan and seeing it through.
My view was always that these 5 games were tough so I was willing to let Rooney effectively have a pre-season with the players. We've now got 2 weeks where they can work hard on the training pitch, we can get some of our injured players back and we then go into some matches we should be winning. We won't be the finished article yet but I expect to see a very clear improvement when we next play.
The problem is with monk we saw glimpses. We saw changes but we saw he knew what we had to work with.
Pinging juke crosses all day. It worked. The problem is this time weven gone from something that was working quite well and had us in a decent position with momentum building with the fans on board/ feel good factor. To division and uncertainty and every area of the pitch we look worse. Not better.
Yes that's fair regarding sticking to what we're trying to do and how things can turn after a poor run. Rooney has had 3 really tough away games and played the only team that have kept pace with Leicester at home.
However, yesterday did leave me concerned, I thought it was quite alarming how poor we were defensively.
There are worrying paralells with Zola, which a lot are finding hard to let go, and that is causing the panic (panic relative to football).
I just want 6 points from the next two home games by hook or by crook.
BluestainesRibeyeTotally agree.
Back to basics means a side made up of cloggers like Gary Gardner and Marc Roberts.
Hope Rooney sticks to the task. It'll come good given time.
It doesn't mean that at all. But that's not the point anyway. As far as I can see all he has tried to change is the formation (narrow) and to get us playing a high press. This hasn't worked because we don't have the players to do it well. Other than that he is using the wrong players in the wrong positions. Long and Bielek being left out for example. As I see it,he doesn't really have much in the way of ideas or motivation and the players either can't see what he wants or can't do it. Or both. He's just a poor coach.
In my mind Eustace was also trying to implement a high press both at times last season and certainly this season. Maybe Rooney is amplifying this tactic more but i don’t see that this is alien to the team.
We were also playing without width as well pre Rooney. Or certainly our desire to cross the ball in was vastly reduced, probably because we have a great footballer in Stansfield but otherwise very little physical presence.
I just don’t see stylistically much difference except the players are playing worse than they were AND we have lost Buchanan which screws up the back line
I agree, half time was conflicting, I felt like we should've been winning, but that we also could've been 3-0 down after 25 minutes.
We were having a go and created a few decent openings, but it all felt very chaotic and at no point did we have control of the game.
We just looked so open and weak defensively. As soon as the chances dried up which they did after half time, it just felt really miserable to watch. We played alright in the last 10 minutes, but anyone can play when they're 3-1 down.
David XavisBit I struggle with is how we transform this in January to give him the tools he needs, I’m not actually sure what he needs!
It would appear we need players that can run at 100 MPH for 90 mins plus. Defenders that can attack and defend and goal keeper that can pass like Beckham