Brian - is he getting it wrong?

[Focher]

BM could not be anymore similar to Coppell, with tactics, mould of player, and style of play. Coppells shelf life came to an end in our relegation season, and i can see exactly the same happening here. Tbf im suprised it took this long to suss us out, and now that our wingers have been found out, we have absolutely nothing.

Things to do now:

-Take the captaincy away from McAnuff with immediate effect.
-Drop Griffin from the first team and bench
-Play Brian Howard, he is the only midfielder capable of 'creating'

I don't get het up about RFC, there's no point, but one thing really annoyed me in recent times was watching Craig Mackail Smith go to Brighton. There is no way on this earth Long was ever going to stay, and for me Mackail Smith was the closest affordable striker out there to Long, and we didnt even get a mention of being interested when he signed.

[peterroyal76]

BM could not be anymore similar to Coppell, with tactics, mould of player, and style of play. Coppells shelf life came to an end in our relegation season, and i can see exactly the same happening here. Tbf im suprised it took this long to suss us out, and now that our wingers have been found out, we have absolutely nothing.

Things to do now:

-Take the captaincy away from McAnuff with immediate effect.
-Drop Griffin from the first team and bench
-Play Brian Howard, he is the only midfielder capable of 'creating'

I don't get het up about RFC, there's no point, but one thing really annoyed me in recent times was watching Craig Mackail Smith go to Brighton. There is no way on this earth Long was ever going to stay, and for me Mackail Smith was the closest affordable striker out there to Long, and we didnt even get a mention of being interested when he signed.

+1 Agree with all of this.

[Hoop Blah]

So who gets the armband and why are they better?

Agree on being sussed out to an extent but we've played this way forever now (barring a short spell under Rodgers) and teams don't take that long to realise what's going on. The problem isn't so much being figured out as the player just not being able to do what they should. We've not got the players to cause teams enough problems and so when they do try to counter our strengths we run out of ideas.

The side needed a lift after losing 4 big players/personalities over the summer (in the same way as the fans) and we've not really had that because we decided to make do and go with what we've got.

[Friday's Legacy]

So who gets the armband and why are they better?

gorkss - proven captain.

[Focher]

So who gets the armband and why are they better?

thats half the problem, we have no natural leaders in the team, and i can't think of a suitable captain from our whole squad.

[Hoop Blah]

This is all second guessing who is and isn't a leader etc, unless you've been in that changing room and at the training ground you really can't know.

The lack of what appear to be the big characters (call it leaders if you like) does seem to be a weakness in this squad though, I wouldn't argue with that apart from saying the above, that we're just guessing and going by what we see from a distance.

For the record I see McAnuff cajoling and talking to the players and have done for a long time (he did it last season). He's not as in your face about it as your traditional skipper but that's not the be all and end all. It is a question mark against McAnuff's suitability that I don't think he's been captain elsewhere but, as a winger, you are by nature of your position destined to be on the fringes of the game.

I don't the feeling there's anyone better though.

[handbags_harris]

We need to start playing with the ball on the floor again. We need Howard or another creative midfielder to feed balls into the feet of our front two (without being given a completely free role). Then have Karacan or Leigertwood becoming more disciplined and protecting the back four.

Basically a 4-4-2 diamond

Are you serious? And leave absolutely nowhere in the side for our two most creative assets, Kebe and McAnuff? Yeah, that'll work

Where did I say about leaving them out?

Karacan OR Leigertwood would have a more defensive role.

Well please forgive me for pointing this out, but you clearly have absolutely no clue what a diamond formation is. A diamond formation is a narrow, solid unit which utilises central midfielders with differing qualities. You have a base "Makelele" player protecting the back four, you have two typical English up and down players defending and attacking, and you have an attacking midfielder at the fulcrum, just behind the front two. It is not a wide, expansive formation that looks to exploit wingers, it is a narrow formation with any width provided by forward-thinking full backs.

Your idea mirrors mine however, so at least you're thinking along the right lines

[Get Carter]

Yesterday I thought we were outfought, lacked passion, tactically naive, no quality, no desire - I think McD is getting it wrong!
Federici out McCarthy in
Griffin out Cummings in
Kebe out Tabby/Obita in
Pearce out Morrison in
Long gone - quality replacement needed

[savage 4 england]

Well please forgive me for pointing this out, but you clearly have absolutely no clue what a diamond formation is. A diamond formation is a narrow, solid unit which utilises central midfielders with differing qualities. You have a base "Makelele" player protecting the back four, you have two typical English up and down players defending and attacking, and you have an attacking midfielder at the fulcrum, just behind the front two. It is not a wide, expansive formation that looks to exploit wingers, it is a narrow formation with any width provided by forward-thinking full backs.

Your idea mirrors mine however, so at least you're thinking along the right lines

Thanks for your insightful tactical knowledge.

I was using the diamond in a loose way. I was simply emphasising the change from two box-to-box midfielders. I sincerely apologise.

[howser]

It's incredibly difficult for BMcD with him continually being deprived of our better players and them being replaced with far inferior, less talented and less experienced replacements, none or minimal blame in our present plight can be placed at his door, the blame for our fall from grace lies at Madejski's feet. His lack of knowledge and understanding of footballing ability can easilly be understood with his continual splurge of " we have a great team" we did, but no longer, as the pound signs shine brighter in his eyes than does any return to the Premiership, amongst all the furor of Wembly last season, I would guess that losing was a blessing in disguise for Madejski, as apart from possibly Long and Mills staying we would certainly not have invested in the present squad and would have faced the might of the Premiership with just about what we have now. His previous history in the Prem well and truly backs up that view.

As far as his wish to sell the club, surly he can see that the lower we sink the lower the value of the club is, so I fully expect that we will have to put up with him for a while longer yet, much to the disappointment of many supporters who can only see us spiraling downwards unless there is a massive change of direction.

[CayeneMatt]

So who gets the armband and why are they better?

gorkss - proven captain.

Won't happen - it would shoot McAnuff's confidence to shit. Doubt he'll get dropped for this reason.

Very impressed with Gorks though.

[Ian Royal]

Well please forgive me for pointing this out, but you clearly have absolutely no clue what a diamond formation is. A diamond formation is a narrow, solid unit which utilises central midfielders with differing qualities. You have a base "Makelele" player protecting the back four, you have two typical English up and down players defending and attacking, and you have an attacking midfielder at the fulcrum, just behind the front two. It is not a wide, expansive formation that looks to exploit wingers, it is a narrow formation with any width provided by forward-thinking full backs.

Your idea mirrors mine however, so at least you're thinking along the right lines

Thanks for your insightful tactical knowledge.

I was using the diamond in a loose way. I was simply emphasising the change from two box-to-box midfielders. I sincerely apologise.

Essentially what you are asking for is to have our midfield even more wide open than it is already with just one player to look after the defence and cover runners. A diamond with genuine wingers is a horrendus idea.

[Cypry]

It's incredibly difficult for BMcD with him continually being deprived of our better players and them being replaced with far inferior, less talented and less experienced replacements, none or minimal blame in our present plight can be placed at his door, the blame for our fall from grace lies at Madejski's feet. His lack of knowledge and understanding of footballing ability can easilly be understood with his continual splurge of " we have a great team" we did, but no longer, as the pound signs shine brighter in his eyes than does any return to the Premiership, amongst all the furor of Wembly last season, I would guess that losing was a blessing in disguise for Madejski, as apart from possibly Long and Mills staying we would certainly not have invested in the present squad and would have faced the might of the Premiership with just about what we have now. His previous history in the Prem well and truly backs up that view.

As far as his wish to sell the club, surly he can see that the lower we sink the lower the value of the club is, so I fully expect that we will have to put up with him for a while longer yet, much to the disappointment of many supporters who can only see us spiraling downwards unless there is a massive change of direction.

Sorry but this desire to absolve McD of all blame and put all of it onto Madejski is bonkers...

"I said to him in January that if we didn't go up, I'd do my best to find him a Premier League club"

So there you have Brian actively assisting, and you could almost say encouraging Long to consider leaving the club as early as January, in his own words....is that Madejskis work?

Ok, so you could say that Brian knew that Long was likely to go, but it also shows that he knew the likely outcome well in advance, and had plenty of time to make contingencies
.
Regarding Mills, I'll repeat, I don't believe that the club anticipated his departure at all - I suspect the plan was that Long would go, maybe a couple of cheap squad players would come in, possibly to bolster the defence, and Leigertwood would be added. As it was he let Ingi and Zurab go, then got caught completely on the hop by Leicester coming in for Mills, and the player himself deciding to go....I suspect that if the club knew this was likely then they'd have hung on to one or both of Ingi and Zurab......not really Brians fault, but certainly not Madejskis either....

I just cannot see that anyone with an ounce of common sense can put all the blame onto Madejski, and not consider that Brian must be at least partly culpable for the situation in which we find ourselves.....

[Here for the KEBE]

Weird coming from me I know but seriously, calm down everyone.

I'd love to continue my gloat about Madejski ruining the club but it's just foolish to complain so early and it's old news anyway.

We've just lost our star striker and a rock solid defender. We could have spent 20 million replacements and still get the same result as losing key players disrupts the team and new players need to gel.

Brian has proven himself beyond doubt already and results will follow.

Matt Mills rock solid?! Fair enough we're struggling but don't look back with rose-tinted spectacles on a player we all said we didn't miss a month ago. Again Long was NOT a star striker this time last season- we had exactly the same issue in the striking department

[leon]

So who gets the armband and why are they better?

gorkss - proven captain.

Won't happen - it would shoot McAnuff's confidence to shit. Doubt he'll get dropped for this reason.

Very impressed with Gorks though.

McAnuff is offering us nothing at the moment - the team is more important than an individual, and we are lacking leadership on the pitch. McAnuff needs to be dropped - the fact that he's captain shouldn't prohibit that.

[Here for the KEBE]

BM could not be anymore similar to Coppell, with tactics, mould of player, and style of play. Coppells shelf life came to an end in our relegation season, and i can see exactly the same happening here. Tbf im suprised it took this long to suss us out, and now that our wingers have been found out, we have absolutely nothing.

Things to do now:

-Take the captaincy away from McAnuff with immediate effect.
-Drop Griffin from the first team and bench
-Play Brian Howard, he is the only midfielder capable of 'creating'

I don't get het up about RFC, there's no point, but one thing really annoyed me in recent times was watching Craig Mackail Smith go to Brighton. There is no way on this earth Long was ever going to stay, and for me Mackail Smith was the closest affordable striker out there to Long, and we didnt even get a mention of being interested when he signed.

There's no reason why Le Fondre can't be as good as Mackail Smith (who didn't exactly score many in his last Championship campaign) in my opinion. Brighton's bubble will burst soon.

I agree with stripping the captaincy and would have Howard at least on the bench

[Focher]

with the style of football we play we have to have a grafter upfront to run channels and put pressure on defenders, Le Fondre is not that type of player. Thats not me saying he's a poor player, but with the way our team is set up Le Fondre will simply be a passenger for most of the season. With the current crop of strikers we have, the only player that has any chance of filling this void is Church, but unfortunately he's shit and a possible chutney ferret.

[Elmer Park]

When results are poor the Manager has to take some of the blame and after each game it is very easy to pick holes in his team selection.

However, certainly on Saturday, the players let him down. We all have views about individuals in the team and might have one or two different preferences in specific positions but at the end of the day the team McDermott fielded should have been good enough to be able to win a home game against Watford (with due respect).

The Captaincy issue is a red herring and people are becoming too obsessed with it. We don't have the sort of leader people seem to want in our team anyway and if we did they would be showing it anyway even without the armband. What's more to strip someone of the Captaincy is a pretty insulting step so it isn't going to happen, nor should it.

As for team selection, without the benefit of hindsight, McDermott has made selections so far this season which are perfectly logical. He found himself in a situation where he lost three regular members of the team from last season and felt that was upheaval enough and has tried to stick as near as possible to the rest of the regular line up that played most of the games last season which up to this early stage in the season seems perfectly logical to me.

In the last home match we created a lot of chances and two bits of sloppy defending and two penalty misses cost us the points. It's perfectly understandable that McDermott would have thought the introduction of Gorkss might eliminate the sloppy defending and that Le Fondre would be able to convert some of the chances the same midfield who played on Saturday created against Barnsley. The established players let him down so he has a right to question almost every player's place in the side now and the team selection for the Doncaster game is going to be a difficult one and a test of McDermott's management skills.

[Avon Royal]

Unfortunately when players stop playing for a manager, unless he can get them playing again quickly, it is only a matter of time before he has to go.

[Focher]

Unfortunately when players stop playing for a manager, unless he can get them playing again quickly, it is only a matter of time before he has to go.

i really don't think there is any chance of the players not wanting to play for McDermo, i think there is an air of deflation around the team as as soon as it looks like we are onto a good thing, our best players get sold and we are back to square one. We would be much better off taking serious advantage of the loan system, where players won't sulk or moan, they are here to prove something, and will get on with the job in hand.