When will the tide turn?

[Ric Flair]

If you look at the players we have in our squad, it frustrates me so much with the football we churn out. Surely even Micky Adams can't prevent these players from playing football, it just doesn't make sense. Now I don't know whether i'm being naive here, but if you've got a squad of players such as Gareth Williams, Joey Gudjonsson, Danny Tiatto, David Connolly, Lilian Nalis, Peter Canero and a few others then there's enough talent there to play proper football. I cannot imagine Micky Adams standing on the training pitch and saying 'right what I want you to do is everytime you get the ball just hoof it' I just can't get my head around it.

Williams, Nalis and Gudjonsson are players that come from a passing style background and even though they aren't responsible for hoofing the ball around you would think they would either say something if the team is being ordered to lump the ball at every opportunity or they would go and get the ball from defence and spread it around.

I think the main problem we have is there is no confidence in the team, there's no understanding or fluency. If we can sort this out I think we have a squad of players very capable of playing some good football and I just can't see how we can carry on playing badly forever. I suppose a change of manager might be the catalyst to get the ball rolling, but I think it's more deep than that. I would love to spectate a training session there and see what Micky asks them to do. It can't just be hoof, hoof, hoof.

Infact if you watch us play at home, it's not as if we even hoof it that often. We tend to just fanny about with the ball and there's no urgency in our play. None of the players move in to space and look for the ball, we tend to either give stupid balls away or hoof it because nobody is free to receive the ball. It's horrible to watch and I think it's just a cheap shot to say all we do is hoof. No all we do, is play horrendously badly and have no understanding of each other. Our defenders see most of the ball and I think it would be a good idea to put Connolly and Williams in defence atleast they'd get involved!!!!!!!!!! But seriously something has got to change, this league is a piece of piss compared to the premiership and on paper our team looks handy. So we have no excuses, the players need to get their fingers out and be more hungry for success. Micky needs to learn from his mistakes and be open minded about certain things, us fans perhaps need to try and chill out abit but it's damn frustrating.

I don't really care who is responsible for getting us playing well and winning again, I just want it to happen. Whether it's Micky Adams, Dave Bassett, Osama Bin Laden or Trevor Benjamin i'm not bothered. Forget reputations, this club needs to merit people on form and not through their experience or their household name.

Good win last night, still feeling dubious about saturday so let's give them a good hammering.

[Scow]

I think you're right to a certain extent about the style of play. I have noticed in the home games that we do pass it about a lot, but that's usually between our back 4, with a midfielder dropping back to receive the ball, who then passes back to one of the defenders because there is no movement ahead of him.

But equally, we do hit alot of long, hopeful balls. Playing the long ball is fine if it's in to the channels for strikers to run on to, something which Dickov had to a tee. However, most of the hoofs seem to be down the centre where more often than not, Dublin loses in the air, and the opposing defence mop up.

I think the key is movement. If anyone watched the Real Mallorca pre season friendly game, our movement was excellent then. We passed the ball around really well that day and created plenty of opportunities. Ok, it was a friendly, but that could be replicated in competitive games if only we inject a bit of movement in to our play.

It would help if we had wide men who kept their width and offered us a bit of pace, like Harper. But unfortunately, there will always be soneone like Wilcox or Scowcroft taking up one of the flanks.

[Guest]

I had high hopes after the Real Mallorca game......more fool me.

[Anish]

I had high hopes after the Real Mallorca game......more fool me.

23102[/snapback]

I think we all did, which is why we have reacted so badly to the performances and results since.

[Hoof Fox]

In a way its a catch 22 situation whilst Micky is under pressure it is more likely we will resort to long ball tactics, once we get going and the pressure is eased I imagine we will then start to play football. Look at Forest in the pastthey have been slated for playing too much football and not getting results where as we have been the other way, but this season we have a squad more geared to football on the deck but as promotion favourites are also under pressure.

In some ways our own expectations have maybe helped create this situation. As you say against Mallorca we looked great and it did look very promising but we were playing without pressure and this can make a difference.

IMO as fans we have to back the team from start to finish so the players become more comfortable playing at home, it is no coincidence that we have played better and got better results away from the Walkers. We have to be paitent and support the team cos if we do it may lift someofthe pressure and encourage fast flowing posssesion football.

[Cobbo]

I had high hopes after the Real Mallorca game......more fool me.

23102[/snapback]

I think we all did, which is why we have reacted so badly to the performances and results since.

23254[/snapback]

Micky kept saying he wanted top 2, not top 6. He brought a lot of this pressure on himself.