burnout, lost the dressing room, disruptive players .....

[hifi]

My theory is that something has happened between the players and Pearson and now they are thinking "**** it, let's lose and get him sacked." I might be the only one to think this but I reckon the Thai's should keep Pearson and stop any sort of player power forming at the club. Then in the summer Pearson can clear out the ones who clearly don't want to be here anymore (Marshall, Drinkwater, Whitbread). We have had so many managers we can't keep sacking them. The players have to take responsibility, they can't go from playing how they did in January to now and escape the blame. That's not the managers fault. Not the managers fault at all.

Agreed.

[Zingari]

those players don't look like they are trying to lose to me.

[seenitall]

Too many crap players with no experience and no leader on the pitch - no bollocks in midfield, no game plan, no motivation from the management and too much tolerance of poor performances over the past 8 weeks from the board resulting in the season going up the swanny..........

[flowwolf]

those players don't look like they are trying to lose to me.

God knows what they would look like if they were then.

Too many crap players with no experience and no leader on the pitch - no bollocks in midfield, no game plan, no motivation from the management and too much tolerance of poor performances over the past 8 weeks from the board resulting in the season going up the swanny..........

Yes but apart from that ?

[Oxfordfox83]

Too many crap players no with no experience yes and no leader on the pitch no-but arguably more than 2 is required - no bollocks in midfield partially: we need a strong character, not an enforcer , no game plan no, no motivation from the management no and too much tolerance of poor performances over the past 8 weeks from the board tolerance as in not sacking January's manager of the month in Feb? resulting in the season going up the swanny..........

One and two half accurate points out of seven is a new high for you. Some utter crap as ever though. The players aren't crap, and the board would have been stupid to make a change post-January given our previous efforts.

We lack someone who can take the game by the scruff of the neck (we needed this even when we were winning), and we really really need some width (not Knocky, not Marshall).

It may well be that this season is the last we see of NP, a lot hinges on our run-in. There has still been no point in the season when sacking Pearson would have been a good thing to do.

For the record, I really want NP to turn us round and finish strongly so that we can keep him, but this slump is as bad as I can remember, and, on the field at least, is reminiscent of Taylor. I don't want to keep changing managers, but if we can't rally before the season ends I think he'll go, and I think that will be fair.

This doesn't mean you were right in November though...

[marbelladave]

Too many crap players with no experience and no leader on the pitch - no bollocks in midfield, no game plan, no motivation from the management and too much tolerance of poor performances over the past 8 weeks from the board resulting in the season going up the swanny..........

But these are the same leaderless, bollockless, crap players that got us top of the league back at the end of October, you do remember that don't you.......

What they needed was a manager with the bollocks to tell them to keep going and play to their strengths, freshen things up in january and keep pushing for the title.

Instead they got a manager who got scared, tried to tighten things up to 'defend our position' and when that didn't work simply tried more of the same.......

[coley1884]

My theory is that something has happened between the players and Pearson and now they are thinking "**** it, let's lose and get him sacked." I might be the only one to think this but I reckon the Thai's should keep Pearson and stop any sort of player power forming at the club. Then in the summer Pearson can clear out the ones who clearly don't want to be here anymore (Marshall, Drinkwater, Whitbread). We have had so many managers we can't keep sacking them. The players have to take responsibility, they can't go from playing how they did in January to now and escape the blame. That's not the managers fault. Not the managers fault at all.

I'm not sure that these lads 'clearly don't want to be here anymore.' I'm also far from sure it's an issue of player power or bad apples at the club. No doubt there's players with egos here, but there are at every club - some managers can deal with them, that's all. Pearson seems to fall out with anyone who doesn't agree with him. This goes some way to explaining a lack of leadership amongst the players. Anyone with an opinion and the courage to voice it is sent packing, regardless of whether they are, or could be, any good for the team.

[cc_star]

But these are the same leaderless, bollockless, crap players that got us top of the league back at the end of October, you do remember that don't you.......

What they needed was a manager with the bollocks to tell them to keep going and play to their strengths, freshen things up in january and keep pushing for the title.

Instead they got a manager who got scared, tried to tighten things up to 'defend our position' and when that didn't work simply tried more of the same.......

The free flowing, one-touch football these players played was great, it tore teams to shreds and took us to the top in October... and to the autos in Jan/Feb.

If you say the players are crap, then quite frankly you're a dick - they've proved what they're capable of over 3 quarters of the season.

Something has changed for that to stop.

I know fancy one-touch football needs confidence, which we just don't have... but a key part was playing football in the opponent's half and second half against Millwall aside we just haven't done that. It doesn't need confidence to play there, pushing up - supporting the attack in greater numbers and pressing the opposition to avoid us having to fall back to defend our own box and as a result end up tiring.

If NP was capable of getting us to revert to playing our football in the opposition half, then the confidence would come back allowing all the fancy touches that ripped team after team apart. I just don't understand this change... and it could cost him his job.

[smudgerfox]

I was unimpressed with the suggestion that Wood had fallen out with NFP round about the Peterborough game. But I am tempted to believe it now. Firstly I've heard it from someone in the club and secondly it almost exactly coincides with the slump. So here, reading between the lines is what I think.

Pearson falls out with Wood prior to Peterborough game and suspends him but decides to tell the world it's an injury.

Stringer finds out what's really happened and presses NFP on Wood's injury post Peterborough. NFP is very evasive - refusing to say what the injury is, even which part of the body it is etc. Compare this with other requests for injury information. NFP has answered these perfectly openly and perfectly politely - Konch felt his hamstring etc. So why the sensitivity? At the time I put it down to NFP knowing that this would encourage promotion rivals that one of our best players, probably our key player, had an injury. To be honest, I took it to mean that Wood had some long term problem that might need an operation that NFP didn't want to let on to. But the fact that Wood came back so soon ruled that out.

So I think the fall-out is true, the two-match ban is true. I think the squad might have felt the punishment was excessive and self-defeating (ie making it harder to win matches) and it soured relations between all the squad and NFP. They might have decided to take their foot off the gas just to signal their displeasure. And of course you cannot afford that in the Championship - especially this season. At the time they may have thought we were so good (things did look that way at the end of Jan) we could afford to drop a point or two. Crucial momentum lost. Wood now looks like a player who wants away. A player with instant ball control, a ruthless eye for the right position to take to score and a canny inventiveness, now looks like a park player with none of the above. Whether NFP can be blamed rather depends on the nature of the original offence - but it looks like we may sack a good manager because the players want to run things their way (nb once NFP is gone we'll still have the same players)

The other factor is Kane. His arrival seemed to stick two fingers up to Waghorn, Schlupp, Futacs. He displaced them but has offered no clue as to why our manager thinks him better than any of them. This too can have done no favours to dressing room harmony.

[okie fox]

Schmeichel, deLaet, Morgan and Schlupp try to make positive things happen. The rest seem to be trying hard not to make a mistake (i.e., make safe easy passes) or not trying very hard.

[z-layrex]

In the millwall game seeing Nuge desperatly look for someone to cross to, when Wood hadnt even bothered to try and get into a position to recieve the ball made me realise we're finished.

[nickm]

i dont think this is all down to nigel , something has happened since january i cant figure out.

are the younger lads suffering burnout from a long season they are not use to ...or the older ones finding it hard ie morgan who was out injured for a long time nugent is cracking on

has pearson just lost the plot and lost the dressing room as the sprit seems to have gone ...

maybe a couple of players have influenced the rest around them...

beckford came back for a while to sort out an injury, wellens returned from ipswich and st ledger has always been opinionated,then we had the wood saga was he injured or not.

just everything was going smooth with a settled team and promising future and BANG it all went pete tongue

Suffering burnout? when i was 19 i was playing saturday am for the school, mutual league saturday afternoon, hinckley and district sunday morning and county youth on sunday afternoon plus training twice a week, these knobs are doing a lot less and getting paid £10000+ a week to do it!

[dynamark]

nick I started that routine when I was 15 and I was burnt out by about 22.Fair point though plus doing a full time job.

These days the players are well looked after but they are slightly higher tuned than we were methinks

[fleckneymike]

What a load of bollocks.

The buck stops with the manager. All these Chinese whispers about supposed fallings out just distract from the major issue which is we've completely abandoned the successful style of play we had up to Jan.

We've done this to ourselves. We've broken something which didn't need fixing. We went to Huddersfield, played the reserves in midfield and attack, completely broke the momentum and its never returned.

[Babylon]

I was unimpressed with the suggestion that Wood had fallen out with NFP round about the Peterborough game. But I am tempted to believe it now. Firstly I've heard it from someone in the club and secondly it almost exactly coincides with the slump. So here, reading between the lines is what I think.

Pearson falls out with Wood prior to Peterborough game and suspends him but decides to tell the world it's an injury.

Stringer finds out what's really happened and presses NFP on Wood's injury post Peterborough. NFP is very evasive - refusing to say what the injury is, even which part of the body it is etc. Compare this with other requests for injury information. NFP has answered these perfectly openly and perfectly politely - Konch felt his hamstring etc. So why the sensitivity? At the time I put it down to NFP knowing that this would encourage promotion rivals that one of our best players, probably our key player, had an injury. To be honest, I took it to mean that Wood had some long term problem that might need an operation that NFP didn't want to let on to. But the fact that Wood came back so soon ruled that out.

So I think the fall-out is true, the two-match ban is true. I think the squad might have felt the punishment was excessive and self-defeating (ie making it harder to win matches) and it soured relations between all the squad and NFP. They might have decided to take their foot off the gas just to signal their displeasure. And of course you cannot afford that in the Championship - especially this season. At the time they may have thought we were so good (things did look that way at the end of Jan) we could afford to drop a point or two. Crucial momentum lost. Wood now looks like a player who wants away. A player with instant ball control, a ruthless eye for the right position to take to score and a canny inventiveness, now looks like a park player with none of the above. Whether NFP can be blamed rather depends on the nature of the original offence - but it looks like we may sack a good manager because the players want to run things their way (nb once NFP is gone we'll still have the same players)

The other factor is Kane. His arrival seemed to stick two fingers up to Waghorn, Schlupp, Futacs. He displaced them but has offered no clue as to why our manager thinks him better than any of them. This too can have done no favours to dressing room harmony.

And what about when we had poor runs earlier in the year, who'd he fall out with then?

[smudgerfox]

And what about when we had poor runs earlier in the year, who'd he fall out with them.

You're referring to the poor runs that left us second in the table and chasing down Cardiff at the end of January, I take it? Or were you anticipating us winning every game?

[Babylon]

People keep saying we changed style. Are you sure this was implemented by Pearson? When pressed on a change of style earlier in the season (when things were going well) Pearson was adamant that there had been no change in how he was sending the team out etc. And that the new passing attacking football was simply down to having better attacking players.

Now that's worrying in the sense that Pearson seemed to be suggesting the style was down to the players rather than himself. But could also mean he's hasn't actually set out to go defensive and that it could well be lack of confidence/belief that is the major problem. With such a young team it wouldn't be a shock either if that were the case.

[Babylon]

You're referring to the poor runs that left us second in the table and chasing down Cardiff at the end of January, I take it? Or were you anticipating us winning every game?

No I'm referring to losing 4 out of 5 between 21st August and 16th September. Winning 1 out of 6 between 20th October and 10th November. And winning 1 out of 6 between 27th November and 26th December.

The last of which left us in 6th place 7 points off second place.

[smudgerfox]

What a load of bollocks.

The buck stops with the manager. All these Chinese whispers about supposed fallings out just distract from the major issue which is we've completely abandoned the successful style of play we had up to Jan.

We've done this to ourselves. We've broken something which didn't need fixing. We went to Huddersfield, played the reserves in midfield and attack, completely broke the momentum and its never returned.

The problem with the "it all starts at Huddersfield theory" is that every other team in the top four divisions pretty much gives an outing to fringe players in the FA Cup. So why should it be so detrimental to our progress? And the players used were not plucked from the outer reaches of the U 21 and youth teams they were regular bench squad subs. The most you can say is that it showed the weakness of our bench and our over-reliance on the regulars.

[smudgerfox]

People keep saying we changed style. Are you sure this was implemented by Pearson? When pressed on a change of style earlier in the season (when things were going well) Pearson was adamant that there had been no change in how he was sending the team out etc. And that the new passing attacking football was simply down to having better attacking players.

Now that's worrying in the sense that Pearson seemed to be suggesting the style was down to the players rather than himself. But could also mean he's hasn't actually set out to go defensive and that it could well be lack of confidence/belief that is the major problem. With such a young team it wouldn't be a shock either if that were the case.

I don't see this defensiveness, I just see a team struggling to recreate fast-moving attacking play when confronted by a team determined to stop them doing just that...

[Babylon]

But second in the table, yes?

What are you talking about?

[smudgerfox]

No I'm referring to losing 4 out of 5 between 21st August and 16th September. Winning 1 out of 6 between 20th October and 10th November. And winning 1 out of 6 between 27th November and 26th December.

But second in the table, end of Jan, yes?

[theessexfox]

The problem with the "it all starts at Huddersfield theory" is that every other team in the top four divisions pretty much gives an outing to fringe players in the FA Cup. So why should it be so detrimental to our progress? And the players used were not plucked from the outer reaches of the U 21 and youth teams they were regular bench squad subs. The most you can say is that it showed the weakness of our bench and our over-reliance on the regulars.

Or that it sapped our confidence, leading into a bad run?

I was unimpressed with the suggestion that Wood had fallen out with NFP round about the Peterborough game. But I am tempted to believe it now. Firstly I've heard it from someone in the club and secondly it almost exactly coincides with the slump. So here, reading between the lines is what I think.

Pearson falls out with Wood prior to Peterborough game and suspends him but decides to tell the world it's an injury.

Stringer finds out what's really happened and presses NFP on Wood's injury post Peterborough. NFP is very evasive - refusing to say what the injury is, even which part of the body it is etc. Compare this with other requests for injury information. NFP has answered these perfectly openly and perfectly politely - Konch felt his hamstring etc. So why the sensitivity? At the time I put it down to NFP knowing that this would encourage promotion rivals that one of our best players, probably our key player, had an injury. To be honest, I took it to mean that Wood had some long term problem that might need an operation that NFP didn't want to let on to. But the fact that Wood came back so soon ruled that out.

So I think the fall-out is true, the two-match ban is true. I think the squad might have felt the punishment was excessive and self-defeating (ie making it harder to win matches) and it soured relations between all the squad and NFP. They might have decided to take their foot off the gas just to signal their displeasure. And of course you cannot afford that in the Championship - especially this season. At the time they may have thought we were so good (things did look that way at the end of Jan) we could afford to drop a point or two. Crucial momentum lost. Wood now looks like a player who wants away. A player with instant ball control, a ruthless eye for the right position to take to score and a canny inventiveness, now looks like a park player with none of the above. Whether NFP can be blamed rather depends on the nature of the original offence - but it looks like we may sack a good manager because the players want to run things their way (nb once NFP is gone we'll still have the same players)

The other factor is Kane. His arrival seemed to stick two fingers up to Waghorn, Schlupp, Futacs. He displaced them but has offered no clue as to why our manager thinks him better than any of them. This too can have done no favours to dressing room harmony.

Another conspiracy theory which doesn't appeal to me.

[Babylon]

But second in the table, end of Jan, yes?

Are you actually attempting to say at no other point in this campaign we've had a poor run of form?

I've already pointed out the dates quite clearly, the last set left us in 6th place 7 points off second. Our season has been boosted by two great runs where we won almost every game, with some very bad runs scattered inbetween.

[smudgerfox]

Are you actually attempting to say at no other point in this campaign we've had a poor run of form?

I've already pointed out the dates quite clearly, the last set left us in 6th place 7 points off second. Our season has been boosted by two great runs where we won almost each game, interspersed with some very bad runs.

No I'm not. But I am saying that our season took a decisive turn at the end of January. I offered an explanation. You disagree with that explanation. Because, you argue, that if we lost form due to a bad fall-out in the squad at the end of January, every other loss of form must have been caused by the same thing. I've never believed this team were the finished article - the thought of this squad getting promoted is truly terrifying - but the decline was nevertheless dramatic and trying to find the reason for it is a source of endless debate.