Le ModTo me we look like we have less of a plan of how to attack, it's like the players have been chucked on the pitch and asked to play off the cuff, there are no patterns of play or plans beyond winning the ball in the opponents half, our attacking set pieces are awful and I can't recall a single header we've won from any of them. We've now ditched our best attacking outlet, and played 5 styles in 5 game
I don't think we've been exciting, 45 mins against Ipswich aside, where the ball winning plan worked really well
On the flip side, we are also far worse as a defensive unit, teams play through us, play around us, have loads of shots and chances, we look very bad on defensive set pieces, and we generally look badly coached and chaotic.
I'll caveat all of the above by saying that he should get time to do what he needs to do, and we need to give him a chance, but there hasn't been a single positive for me so far, I think we look worse in every department
I agree. What concerns me is that whoever is actually making the decisions A) didn't apparently see this coming, whatsoever and B) presumeably thought that it would be the exact opposite, a roaring success from the off (they must have thought this, otherwise they would have avoided the terrible timing of the implementation). It's getting harder and harder to avoid concluding that whoever decided this doesn't have a clue about Birmingham City, the current playing staff and the nature of championship football. Even the neutral fans out there (on the whole) predicted that this was a terrible idea which was destined to blowback in our faces. How did our decision makers have no clue when it was obvious to so many others?
WR BlueStechyBluePeople keep making these observations. "I've seen signs. He needs time. The players aren't good enough and we're over achieving, under Eustace".
Quite frankly they piss me off. It's like opinions change to suit what's happening.
You mean like confirmation bias?
StechyBluethis might be an unpopular opinion
It will be with a certain clique and you'll probably (ironically) be told that your negative opinion of the situation is down to your bias.
If you're having a dig at me, nice one - but you're wrong.
I think we have to give Rooney time - a month / five games is ridiculous. We're in the same or deeper trouble by Christmas... then yeah, I think maybe something will happen. However, I'm far from convinced that "anything is better" and I think the upheaval from say sacking Cook would be horrific.
That's called being pragmatic.
Le ModI just don't see this at all, I'll be honest
To me we look like we have less of a plan of how to attack, it's like the players have been chucked on the pitch and asked to play off the cuff, there are no patterns of play or plans beyond winning the ball in the opponents half, our attacking set pieces are awful and I can't recall a single header we've won from any of them. We've now ditched our best attacking outlet, and played 5 styles in 5 game
I don't think we've been exciting, 45 mins against Ipswich aside, where the ball winning plan worked really well
On the flip side, we are also far worse as a defensive unit, teams play through us, play around us, have loads of shots and chances, we look very bad on defensive set pieces, and we generally look badly coached and chaotic.
I'll caveat all of the above by saying that he should get time to do what he needs to do, and we need to give him a chance, but there hasn't been a single positive for me so far, I think we look worse in every department
This is what is worrying me, and it’s not improving. I really thought Ipswich was a turning point, but we’ve moved backwards. I just don’t know what they’re working on over the last few weeks, defensively we’re now all over the place and attacking we haven’t improved at all.
Personally i think it was a mistake to lob a grenade in to the footballing side of things quite so soon , you want your man in charge great , but how about you actually give him a chance to succeed ?
If you want Rooney in then why not organise it a bit better , tell him its his job , ask him which players he would like and get it all organised for next season , in the meanwhile leave JE doing what he was doing , what was the worst that could happen , he goes on a bad run and you fire him anyway and Rooney is there to take over as the saviour , or he has a decent season and we are there or there abouts and he falls short , fire him for falling short and everybody understands , and if by some miracle he got promotion , jobs a good un
in my view all they have done is unsettle the players and give rooney a hospital pass while splitting the fanbase , just when it looked like we were making some progress
Maybe I'll get battered for this but I'm definitely someone who has seen positive signs of what Rooney's trying to do - in attack. In defence however, we look a complete shambles and it seriously needs sorting.
I'll try to articulate my thoughts on improvements in attack. It's been patchy of course. I'll use my thoughts on us attacking under Eustace to begin as a baseline - I felt we too quickly reverted to launching the ball aimlessly up the pitch, often towards Scott Hogan who is rarely going to win anything in the air, or to Jutkiewicz who would often flick the ball on and we'd lose the second ball. We certainly looked more successful when we tried to play with the ball on the deck and progress up the pitch more methodically through the midfield, and this is what I've seen more of under Rooney than I did Eustace. I believe Rooney is trying or at least did try to empower the players to take risks on the ball when building from the back - there was something I think on the Keep Right On podcast where Curtis Davies (if I'm remembering correctly) spoke about how Rooney told his players at Derby he'd rather them make a mistake trying to play the way he wants to play, instead of panicking and going direct. The idea being, if you can bait a team into pressing you and you play out of their press, you have a numerical player advantage when attacking. Obviously, this leads to a few times when you lose the ball at the back, but this happens across most teams that play this way, only the very elite teams make basically no mistakes, and that's why they're the elite (think Arsenal, City).
On occasions, this has worked, and over time I expect it to work more and more frequently. There were a couple of occasions vs Boro, a couple vs Hull, Southampton we certainly reverted to hitting the ball long to Jutkiewicz, and then it was somewhere in the middle for Ipswich and Sunderland. I honestly feel like I've seen us use this build up play to get into good positions enough times to say it's working vs the alternative of going long to a lone striker. Our issue has been we've gotten in good positions only for Dembele to run into his man, or Bacuna to take a shot when there's a pass on, or Burke to mis-control the ball and kill the attack. Especially in the last 2 games, I think it's been down to individual players making the wrong decisions moreso than being tactically set up wrong.
The issue is we look terrible defensively when we're not pressing high. And I don't think it's necessarily caused by our change in attacking style - we haven't conceded on a quick transition where we've committed bodies up the pitch that I can remember. But the set piece defending has been shocking, I panicked every time Sunderland got a corner on Saturday. And we gave Sunderland far, far too much space in front of our defence. It was like we didn't have a midfield on the pitch, and it lead to an absolute tonne of chances. This seriously does need working on over the next 2 weeks, both tactical and technical defending. My concern is that we've got our 2 high profile coaches that are former top class defenders away on international duty during that time. Having said this, when we do press high, we're looking increasingly successful especially in the last 2 games. When we had our periods of dominance against both Ipswich and Sunderland, it was because we were continuously winning the ball back from them higher up the pitch. Our goal vs Sunderland came from that scenario. But we do really need to work on the other defensive scenarios rather than just being effective on the front foot.
That's my thoughts on how we're setting up. I'm hoping that we get an early goal against Wednesday and the players have the confidence to kick on from there. I just want the crowd to be behind them. I don't berate anybody for venting their frustrations at full time or if we're losing by multiple goals, but during the game we need to support them, regardless of your opinion on Rooney/Cook etc. A lack of support can only harm the players' performance.
I'm not sure what you're saying I'm wrong about, except that you might not accuse Stechy of bias now that I've called it.
I don't claim to have the answer to the mess that they've created and I'm not sure who you're quoting with 'anything is better'. What grieves me about this mess is that whoever planned it out should have considered that due to the timing and other factors which were under their control, if it were to turn out like it has so far (which was reasonably predictable) then it was needlessly primed to backfire badly and it's very difficult to remedy this situation without a lot of further pain and carnage (as you rightly point out regarding sackings.)
They should have been aware of the risk factors and done things very differently, that's my beef - it was an idiotic decision carried out in an idiotic manner. Now that it's done, I have no idea what they can do to fix it (primarily due to the problem with buying and settling in almost a whole team of new players who are able to play their new style), but the biggest problem is not that the fans are split, but that those running the club have needlessly and illogically damaged their own credibility just at the point when they were deservedly riding high.
How do they rebuild trust and rectify this when they have created a slow-motion train-wreck, which as you have pointed out cannot be easily stopped? On top, they attracted the footballing world's attention to this just as they fired up the train. We are in for months of unnecessary suffering, our enemies are smirking and goading us and the neutrals are pointing and laughing at the club heirarchy for such a catastrophic own goal.
Tha Project OBEI think people should be more realistic about the last 5 fixtures we have just played. Middlesborough,Southampton and Sunderland away Hull and Ipswich at home. At most we would have expected 4-5 points out of those run of fixtures under Eustace playing "hard to beat" football. During these games we have had periods where we have caused the opposition problems and created plenty of chances which with better choices being made in the final third could have better results. That has left us more exposed at the back especially on the flanks but in my opinion we are playing a more exciting brand of football already under Rooney. It will be interesting to see how much we improve after this break but I think we will have a much better overall picture after Christmas.
You’re making me giddy, Doug…well said.
Not well said at all, all that Christmas will bring is steps closer to the bottom 3.
Prove it
WR BlueI'm not sure what you're saying I'm wrong about, except that you might not accuse Stechy of bias now that I've primed it.
I don't claim to have the answer to the mess that they've created and I'm not sure who you're quoting with 'anything is better'. What grieves me about this mess is that whoever planned it out should have considered that due to the timing and other factors which were under their control, if it turns out like it has so far (which was reasonably predictable) then it was needlessly primed to backfire badly and it's very difficult to remedy this situation without a lot of further pain and carnage (as you rightly point out regarding sackings.)
They should have been aware of the risk factors and done things very differently, that's my beef - it was an idiotic decision carried out in an idiotic manner. Now that it's done, I have no idea what they can do to fix it (primarily due to the problem with buying a whole team of new players to fit their new style), but the biggest problem is not that the fans are split, but that those running the club have needlessly and illogically dmaged their own credibility just at the point when they were deservedly riding high.
How do they rebuild trust and rectify this when they have created a slow-motion train-wreck, which as you have pointed out cannot be easily stopped. On top, they attracted the footballing world's attention to this just as they fired up the train.
That's all fair comment, I agree largely with all of that.
The "anything is better" is more an attitude than a direct quote, and is based on what I've seen from a large number of fans on social media. It frankly scares me how hyperbolic people can get in their opinions.
The next move has to be much more thoughtful and cannot be an over reaction to a small sample of games.
Le ModTo me we look like we have less of a plan of how to attack, it's like the players have been chucked on the pitch and asked to play off the cuff, there are no patterns of play or plans beyond winning the ball in the opponents half, our attacking set pieces are awful and I can't recall a single header we've won from any of them. We've now ditched our best attacking outlet, and played 5 styles in 5 game
I don't think we've been exciting, 45 mins against Ipswich aside, where the ball winning plan worked really well
On the flip side, we are also far worse as a defensive unit, teams play through us, play around us, have loads of shots and chances, we look very bad on defensive set pieces, and we generally look badly coached and chaotic.
I'll caveat all of the above by saying that he should get time to do what he needs to do, and we need to give him a chance, but there hasn't been a single positive for me so far, I think we look worse in every department
I agree. What concerns me is that whoever is actually making the decisions A) didn't apparently see this coming, whatsoever and B) presumeably thought that it would be the exact opposite, a roaring success from the off (they must have thought this, otherwise they would have avoided the terrible timing of the implementation). It's getting harder and harder to avoid concluding that whoever decided this doesn't have a clue about Birmingham City, the current playing staff and the nature of championship football. Even the neutral fans out there (on the whole) predicted that this was a terrible idea which was destined to blowback in our faces. How did our decision makers have no clue when it was obvious to so many others?
Point A is ridiculous. You can see that can’t you?
WR BlueLe ModTo me we look like we have less of a plan of how to attack, it's like the players have been chucked on the pitch and asked to play off the cuff, there are no patterns of play or plans beyond winning the ball in the opponents half, our attacking set pieces are awful and I can't recall a single header we've won from any of them. We've now ditched our best attacking outlet, and played 5 styles in 5 game
I don't think we've been exciting, 45 mins against Ipswich aside, where the ball winning plan worked really well
On the flip side, we are also far worse as a defensive unit, teams play through us, play around us, have loads of shots and chances, we look very bad on defensive set pieces, and we generally look badly coached and chaotic.
I'll caveat all of the above by saying that he should get time to do what he needs to do, and we need to give him a chance, but there hasn't been a single positive for me so far, I think we look worse in every department
I agree. What concerns me is that whoever is actually making the decisions A) didn't apparently see this coming, whatsoever and B) presumeably thought that it would be the exact opposite, a roaring success from the off (they must have thought this, otherwise they would have avoided the terrible timing of the implementation). It's getting harder and harder to avoid concluding that whoever decided this doesn't have a clue about Birmingham City, the current playing staff and the nature of championship football. Even the neutral fans out there (on the whole) predicted that this was a terrible idea which was destined to blowback in our faces. How did our decision makers have no clue when it was obvious to so many others?
did they expect a transformation of playing style and culture to be embedded within 5 games?
or are they taking a long term view that it will take time and their man will need the backing in transfer windows and a pre season to really stamp his mark on a new side/squad
they probably factored in a very tricky start to his reign and concluded its not about the first 5 games but the first 50
what they saw in Rooney to counter the feeling that he is a very average manager that had many neutral fans laughing at us for appointing remains to be seen
Tha Project OBEPoint A is ridiculous. You can see that can’t you?
Feel free to elaborate on your counter-opinion on that point.
Personally i think it was a mistake to lob a grenade in to the footballing side of things quite so soon , you want your man in charge great , but how about you actually give him a chance to succeed ?
If you want Rooney in then why not organise it a bit better , tell him its his job , ask him which players he would like and get it all organised for next season , in the meanwhile leave JE doing what he was doing , what was the worst that could happen , he goes on a bad run and you fire him anyway and Rooney is there to take over as the saviour , or he has a decent season and we are there or there abouts and he falls short , fire him for falling short and everybody understands , and if by some miracle he got promotion , jobs a good un
in my view all they have done is unsettle the players and give rooney a hospital pass while splitting the fanbase , just when it looked like we were making some progress
but everything you say makes sense .... until you look at it from a different perspective ... "they" clearly expected immediate improvement under Rooney
- because if they didn't then your take on it is spot on and unarguable and only a complete dick would have looked at it differently
RagsPersonally i think it was a mistake to lob a grenade in to the footballing side of things quite so soon , you want your man in charge great , but how about you actually give him a chance to succeed ?
If you want Rooney in then why not organise it a bit better , tell him its his job , ask him which players he would like and get it all organised for next season , in the meanwhile leave JE doing what he was doing , what was the worst that could happen , he goes on a bad run and you fire him anyway and Rooney is there to take over as the saviour , or he has a decent season and we are there or there abouts and he falls short , fire him for falling short and everybody understands , and if by some miracle he got promotion , jobs a good un
in my view all they have done is unsettle the players and give rooney a hospital pass while splitting the fanbase , just when it looked like we were making some progress
but everything you say makes sense .... until you look at it from a different perspective ... "they" clearly expected immediate improvement under Rooney
- because if they didn't then your take on it is spot on and unarguable and only a complete dick would have looked at it differently
I don't think they did - assuming you mean results on the pitch as a metric for improvement. This is where it's completely fair to say "we were 6th - it would be unrealistic to expect us to push higher up the table".
They got Rooney in because they wanted him and the timing worked with him leaving DC. You can't offer a job to a man a year in advance and say "it's yours if we don't get promoted" and expect him to stick around waiting for it.
I didn't expect top 6 at any point this season, so for me, as long as we don't go down, we're just giving Rooney time to properly work with and assess the squad and the improvements required over the next 2 windows, and that's okay. If we brought him in next season, he wouldn't have that time. The worry is that we go down this year - whereas before I would've accepted that if it meant we got sold and could rebuild, now, a relegation would be a disaster. But I still don't think we'll go down, I'm holding judgment on that until I've seen more than 5 games.
NouCampthey probably factored in a very tricky start to his reign and concluded its not about the first 5 games but the first 50
You make some good points. On the one above, if they did factor in a possibly very tricky start, did they not also consider -
1) the deja-vu repeating Zola factor and the associated fan 'trauma' of the bad times repeating themselves under new owners
2) the nature of the league table - a bad start and we've transformed from playoffs to a relegation battle - this is also traumatic on a deja-vu basis for Blues fans, but add to this that if this bad start is due to the new manager looking clueless, the team looking demoralised, confused etc - then this factor is multiplied because all freshly manufactured hope gets lost and relegation becomes a real possibility in the minds of both fans and players
3) the nature of the statements made whilst sacking Eustace and the day after in the 'letter to fans' EG 'world class professionals in every position' - did nobody consider that some of us don't consider Rooney to be a world class manager and would feel let down/deceived?
4) the fact that Coleen was about to make headlines in the tabloids on a repetitive basis with her book/Disney thing, using Wayne as the lead story RE his drinking, drink-driving, womanising etc
5) knowing that making Rooney the manager would get worldwide headlines, then on top of that priming the media with statements about 'no fear' football, a new winning mentality and all of the other stuff - did they not for a moment consider how this all has the potential to backfire badly if the first five games turn out like they have?
They didn't need to be this ambitious with their plans and public statements - did nobody reealise this? Did they think there was no possibility of failure? And if they did consider 50 games of struggle did nobody create a plan regarding how to deal with all of the associated issues? If so, where is it?
I think Rooney needs time - It will become obvious during that time whether it was a crazy appointment such as Zola or not. We still have that time this season so lets bear with it.
What i can't fathom though is the talk about giving him transfer windows, and having his own players. We have just had an almighty overhaul of the squad, we know there are still some more players we would want to switch but we virtually signed a new team. If we are using the Technical Director signs the players logic, which i thought was what commonly accepted is what we are doing, why does Rooney get his own players ? and what difference would it make ? Again it seems to be commonly accepted that Eustace wasn't going to last so surely the players signed were for the new manager / ethos of the team. If they weren't then what the hell were Cook/Gardner playing at ? We have seen the benefits of constant change (none) so we surely aren't going down that route again too ?