Is the squad good enough for L1?

[LVFox]

Yes easily - but they’re unfit and tactically unprepared - again.

On paper (and yes, I appreciate football is way more than that), this is the strongest squad in the league.

 

However, for Martins tactics to be successful it needs really comfortable key players at GK, CB and DM. We do not have these at all.

 

If we played pretty basic attacking football with an urgency on ball recovery, and fitness to back it up, we’d be the strongest team in the division and any message other than that massively lets the manager off the hook.

[AKCJ]

We desperately lack pace and physicality but this squad should be more than good enough. We do need to get serious about a goalkeeper in January too.

[Clogger_]

Interesting question. I reckon our squad is inconsistent.

 

Strengths: *excellent* midfield options, Riis

 

Weaknesses: every other area. Technical, physical and mental/motivational weaknesses everywhere

 

Personally feel a lot of our support haven't grasped what it takes to be successful at this level (as was the case last year!) We consistently underrate our opponents. Our squad is *nowhere* near as strong as some believe. Obviously this has been compounded by appointing the worst possible manager...

[Clogger_]

9 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

We desperately lack pace and physicality but this squad should be more than good enough. We do need to get serious about a goalkeeper in January too.

*Shakes head at first sentence*

[AKCJ]

1 minute ago, Clogger_ said:

*Shakes head at first sentence*

What part of it do you disagree with?

[Clogger_]

1 minute ago, AKCJ said:

What part of it do you disagree with?

Just puzzled by it. It literally disagrees with itself!

[AKCJ]

Just now, Clogger_ said:

Just puzzled by it. It literally disagrees with itself!

.....how?

 

 

[wardyfox86]

99% of the issues are on the manager, his tactics don't work, no matter the League he's in. 

 

His league PPG over his career is 1.15, if he maintains that average we end up on 53 points, which would have us in 18th last season. 

 

Take away his abysmal top tier record of 0.57 PPG, where he is miles out of his depth, and he sits on 1.445 PPG, 66 points and 10th last season. 

 

You could go more in depth and also disregard his outlier season at Southampton and I think he sits at around 1.3 PPG, again not enough to see us out of this league. 

 

He's managed decent enough squads and been average at best, I'm certain we were the only club stupid enough to entertain him. 

[inckley fox]

On paper it's very good for the level. As some say, short on pace and maybe some physicality - uneven here and there. The biggest problem is also a potential plus, in that it was assembled by someone who doesn't appear to be up to the job. But he's done such a shoddy job of it and brought in so many players unsuited to his style that it may actually make a change of boss more viable than it otherwise would. That's how badly organised we are!

[Fox92]

Any half decent manager would have this squad top 6 without a doubt.

[Claridge]

21 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Any half decent manager would have this squad top 6 without a doubt.

Why? bar a couple of players, they all seem pretty hopeless to me with nothing about them when the going gets tough.
Hopefully you are right because Martin isn’t the answer, just don’t see it with this squad 

[funkyrobot]

2 hours ago, Mark_w said:

We're in League One, if we have CBs who are comfortable with the ball then they will either be utterly atrocious defenders or they will be gone in January. We don't need to have CBs who are good on the ball, we just need to not play completely suicidal football.

They do need some basic ability on the ball. We have a defender who is atrocious on the ball in Okoli and he is a liability even at this level and even when playing simple non risk passes. I agree that the football doesn’t need to be suicidal but you do need some ability to play in this position even at centre back.
 

One of Anstey Nomads best players is their captain and he’s a centre back that can mix the play between basic defending and an ability to play football from the back. This in a league 4 divisions below LCFC and on worse pitches. 

[funkyrobot]

1 hour ago, Chelmofox said:

Really shocks me people see it this way. The system totally exposes any mistake, and its inconcevable that you go 90 minutes without making one. Our defenders make more passes the the entire opposition, meaning each pass has to be perfect. Our backline play a horrific high line but without pace intensity (coached this way), meaning the opposition either sit tight and wait for the appropriate pass to press (Barnsley goal), or you go long to either wing and expose the space (goals 1 and 2 for Peterborough). We have CB's (Okoli) attacking in the opponents box and the whole team getting caught out on transition, and before you know it we are 2 on 2 in our own half. Our players are knackered because they have to work 3 times as hard as the oppostion to get nowhere (we make 10 passes out the back to give the ball back to the goalkeeper, whilst being pressed, and also allowing the opposition to get back into a perfect defensive position).

 

Martin is completely defensively inept. Every team he has managed has the same issues. Defenders arent defenders, they are ball playing specialists who need to make 4x as many passes as they should, need to compress the opposition on the half way and need to pelt back at speed just to cover the space thats easy to expose. The actual defending part is secondary.

 

Peterborough spend the whole warmup pinging balls to each wing. They knew EXACTLY what do do. I cant believe no-one in our management team saw this and thought that maybe playing Aluko so far up the pitch was a mistake. After 2 or 3 warning signed before the goal, i cannot believe that the manager didnt see what was happening and tweaked it. When we went 1-0 down, i cant believe the the manager is waving the back line crazily high up the pitch again, leading to the 2nd goal.

It’s not just Aluko being so far up the pitch. It’s having Cullen in front of him who didn’t track back and presumably under instruction often left his right wing to play alongside Riis. This left swathes or our right with one player covering in Aluko and a central midfield in Lundstram and BDCR way off the pace, 

[Chrysalis]

I think the youth are, the signings seem to be poor though.

 

They not good enough if they trying to emulate man city whilst in league one.  They good enough if we play to maximise every player.

[Fox92]

29 minutes ago, Claridge said:

Why? bar a couple of players, they all seem pretty hopeless to me with nothing about them when the going gets tough.
Hopefully you are right because Martin isn’t the answer, just don’t see it with this squad 

Agreed I don't rate a lot of them and their performances are getting worse. I just think Martin doesn't help and over complicates it all. I want someone who will go back to basics with them all. 

[Edingleyfox]

It seems to be a combination of the weakest back four I can remember plus the shape we play leaving an acre of space to run into on the break making them look worse than they could be. Perhaps if Jakub, Joseph and Nelson were fit it would be better. but as it stands it is barely L1 standard IMO. To make matters worse the players that Martin have brought in are generally not great passers of the ball or suited to his style with the exception of Riis.. So the midfield looks strong on paper but the new signings seemed slow there was little press, creativity or attempt to stretch the opposition it was mainly Page and Alves. Bringing Okoli back on Saturday seemed at odds with Martin's philosophy considering his poor distribution although to be fair others were poorer. It was so bad on Saturday it was almost impossible to watch and it is the first time I have left before half time.

Edited 1 hour ago by Edingleyfox

[squidsworth]

Tactics are wrong in my opinion, but is that all Martins fault? Probably not, as he is doing what he was employed to do. The problem sits higher in the command chain than just Martin. 

It's clear the hierarchy believe he is the man to make it work, to implement their philosophy. But the philosophy is completely wrong for this level. 

Even if we sacked Martin, they'd most likely just employ someone (again) who they think can make their failed philosophy work. 

And so the vicious cycle continues. That leaves two options, 1-change the philosophy and hope Martin has enough about him to adapt. 2 - Change the hierarchy - which will only happen if we sell. 

The players are stuck in the middle of it all really. They aren't good enough to implement the philosophy being asked of them. 

 

[jayfox26]

Midfield and attack yes but the defence and goalkeeper are national league. We'll need to score 2-3 goals minimum to win as we ain't keeping many clean sheets with this lot. In January we definitely need a keeper and 2 full backs but we dont have any money and im not sure if we can do anymore loans or not. 

[filbertway]

Yes. 

 

I reckon Martin's getting less than 50% of the optimal output of the players he has available.

 

Obviously they were miles behind and burned out towards the end but Rohl had Rangers back to where you'd expect them pretty quickly.

 

Winning 19  Drawing 6 and losing 5. 4 of those losses came in their last 5 games with 2 away to Hearts and Celtic.

 

Rohl's first 20 league games was 15 wins, 4 draws and a loss.

 

Martin managed 1 win, 5 draws and 1 loss in his 7 league games.

 

He is so very very very clearly the issue.

[Beachyboy]

Genuinely think if we had half of Brighton or Brentfords squad and one of their managers we'd be higher but not pissing the league, the issues run deeper than the manager or the squad. Off the field stuff always eventually affects on the field, there's easily another 10 or 12 examples of this in the top 3 leagues apart from us in the last 10 years or so, especially with FFP. 

[filbertway]

17 minutes ago, squidsworth said:

Tactics are wrong in my opinion, but is that all Martins fault? Probably not, as he is doing what he was employed to do. The problem sits higher in the command chain than just Martin. 

It's clear the hierarchy believe he is the man to make it work, to implement their philosophy. But the philosophy is completely wrong for this level. 

Even if we sacked Martin, they'd most likely just employ someone (again) who they think can make their failed philosophy work. 

And so the vicious cycle continues. That leaves two options, 1-change the philosophy and hope Martin has enough about him to adapt. 2 - Change the hierarchy - which will only happen if we sell. 

The players are stuck in the middle of it all really. They aren't good enough to implement the philosophy being asked of them. 

 

This is probably a fair point as well, if they had the humility to appoint a manager that won't ask defenders to play suicidal football (at our standard) that is designed for the elite, then I think our course would change quite quickly. 

 

It makes McCarron's interview even more terrifying when you realise he fully buys into it and refuses to see the negatives. The main issue is that the tactics look good on a board when you imagine you have have robots that can pass and position themselves perfectly. It falls apart quite quickly when you're not working with those elite players though, and even those players struggle at times.