Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 0-1 AFC Wimbledon

[fbm]

I don't think anyone is saying that we haven't got the players to get us out of trouble, they are saying that the selections and systems are constantly wrong.

A new manager or even one of our own staff who took over would galvanise the team and maybe get them back on the front foot.

Over the years, we have made decisions to let managers go who are getting stale and brought in someone to change things around with the same players as the trap door has loomed. Fry, Thompson and the like have done that with the same players the previous manager was failing to get the best out of.

Something needs to change and it's not coming from the dour and depressing rhetoric of the current incumbents.

As did Powell last season, to incredible effect.

I agree something needs to change, I'm just not sure whether it's the manager. Yet.

I think we need 4 wins to stay up. I have said that I think the next 6 games will sort our season. Whatever happens I think it will be resolved by the time Sunderland come to town.

And to think some of us thought that would be a title/play off decider for us...

 

[wiggy]

Ox 9 fault Turner 1

 

[Jay_SUFC]

I was under the impression that we played 532/352 yesterday making it a fluid system. Bunn looked like he was playing up with or just behind Cox leaving Hyam Dieng and Macca in the middle with Demi and Hart supporting when we attacked.

I guess Bunn was the option nearest to a striker as he had played there before

I have never blamed anything on the younger players but there comes a point when you have to remove them from the cauldron. That time has come

I would say your view is the one that suits your agenda to get rid of Powell

You think it was fluid yesterday do you; we don't have the players to play a fluid 5 at the back and I certainly don't recall JD supporting the attacks that often?

There was one point when Cox got the ball out wide and there was NO-ONE in the middle - where was the attacking fluidity then?

Why have another 2 defenders on the bench?

I didn't say you blaimed the youngsters (and some of these guys are 20, we're not throwing 16 years olds in!!); I said CP does - it many interviews he's used the excuse of having to play so many youngsters - that's a blaim game.

I want CP to succeed (as I did with PB) but yesterday was as negative a squad as you could get, bar leaving Cox out and playing Kightly up front! This isn't the first time this season either and I'm just fed up with it.

As soon as I saw the teamsheet yesterday, I really didn't want to bother, but I was hoping I would be proved wrong (I don't want us to lose, just to prove I'm right!).

 

[fbm]

Just as well.I never played in goal.

I see you've ducked the question as to who was more responsible for the goal-Oxley or Turner?

Both.

However, Turner really had lots of time to play the ball back to Oxley to clear. Unless he had a call of course... we'll never know. But Oxley started to come and stopped.

It was just a complete hash.

 

[RHB]

I really don't agree that Powell blames the youngsters. I haven't seen him say this in public once. I see it more that he respects their development rather than throwing them to the wolves each week.

To counter that though, the team is better when youngsters HAVE played. Sounds like we gained nothing from wheeling out the old guard yesterday.

Yeah @NZamba Legend , that happened to Napoleon as well!

 

[Trav]

I did use to play football a bit and I knew the game today was going to be completely dominated
by the conditions - and would be a terrible game.



All the Mister Angries on here with the Powell Out shouting don't seem to have a sensible answer between them

Well yes,...they do...
1 No More Turner
2 Actually attack, at least at home, and partner Cox with a real striker that won't poop themselves when they get a decent chance (no offence to Bunn and Macca, who are wingers)
3 No more Kightly
4 No more Dieng until he wants to earn his shirt back by actually running from time to time
5 More Yearwood
6 Stop picking players on their 'talent' if they aren't running for you
7 Actually look like you are watching a game that you care about instead of casually slumping yourself on the back wall as it unfolds

 

[wiggy]

As did Powell last season, to incredible effect.

I agree something needs to change, I'm just not sure whether it's the manager. Yet.

I think we need 4 wins to stay up. I have said that I think the next 6 games will sort our season. Whatever happens I think it will be resolved by the time Sunderland come to town.

And to think some of us thought that would be a title/play off decider for us...

.....so did the Racing Post.....tipped us up to win the League with Sunderland runners up.

 

[AndyT]

Ox 9 fault Turner 1

Only 9, wiggy. You're going soft!

 

[OldBlueLady]

.....so did the Racing Post.....tipped us up to win the League with Sunderland runners up.

Honestly thought we'd be in with a decent shot at promotion myself!

 

[fbm]

Well yes,...they do...
1 No More Turner
2 Actually attack, at least at home, and partner Cox with a real striker that won't poop themselves when they get a decent chance (no offence to Bunn and Macca, who are wingers)
3 No more Kightly
4 No more Dieng until he wants to earn his shirt back by actually running from time to time
5 More Yearwood
6 Stop picking players on their 'talent' if they aren't running for you
7 Actually look like you are watching a game that you care about instead of casually slumping yourself on the back wall as it unfolds

1 - Agreed
2 - We don't have a senior "real" fit striker and when Kelman or Wabo have been on it hasn't worked.
3 - Agreed
4 - Dieng needs to be in his proper position when he is a real asset
5 - That may be more to do with the player himself who has been apologetic for his performances and may not be mentally 100% up for it at the moment
6 - I'm not sure he is
7 - His touchline demeanour makes no difference. There are plenty of very successful managers who are calm, just like Powell.

 

[OldBlueLady]

6 - I'm not sure he is

Mantom? Kightly? Turner?

 

[Stuart W]

As did Powell last season, to incredible effect.

I agree something needs to change, I'm just not sure whether it's the manager. Yet.

I think we need 4 wins to stay up. I have said that I think the next 6 games will sort our season. Whatever happens I think it will be resolved by the time Sunderland come to town.

And to think some of us thought that would be a title/play off decider for us...

So you are basically saying we need 4 wins in 7 games (you are expecting the Sunderland game to be irrelevant).
We have won ZERO games in the last 10.
I have two questions for you. If you are not sure whether the manager should go yet, what do you expect him now to do differently to save us? And secondly, how late would you leave it before you wanted him gone?

 

[AndyT]

Kelman started at Blackpool and we were 2-1 up when he went off.

It's not just playing a second striker, it's about showing intent to be on the front foot and make the oppo think about us and to pin them back.

Kelman is more than capable of starting a game and then swap him for Norm maybe after 60 minutes if needs be.

If we are going down then at least give it a go at the oppo!

 

[Grapevine]

So - was I happy with the line up? On the way to the game, my mate and I play a game; he knows the team (having seen it) and I try and guess it. Only once this season have I got it right. But yesterday I added a twist; First of all, I told him the time I would have selected before guessing what SCP would have picked. My team (4-4-2) would have been -

Oxley
Demetriou
Hart
Lennon
Turner
McLaughlin
Dieng
Yearwood
Bunn
Cox
Kelman

As for the actual selection, I questioned Turner in a back 3 at home, but that on it's own isn't negative. The wing backs push on and actually gives you more attacking impetus... as long as the rest of the team is set up right. Also, Turner is the only real height in the team.

I applauded the decision to leave the skipper out which is always a tough call for a manager, He is not so much a midfielder as a shrinking violet at the moment. In there is a battling, decent player who is our third highest scorer and I have said for a while that the captaincy is weighing heavy on him. He is not a leader.

We didn't need Dieng AND Hyam. Both in my opinion are at their best in that holding position; Dieng better than Hyam. Neither are bossing midfielders and as a result Wordsworth and co absolutely dominated the middle of the park.

Bunn is a wide player, not a striker and playing 2 wide men with Cox up front on his own doesn't work.

So to answer your question as to whether I was happy with the line up, no, not really. But hey - the manager sees the team every day and knows how he wants to play. If his mindset is too defensive then I agree, that's an issue but at the moment it doesn't seem to matter how we play, nothing is working. Because of the defensive issues we have suffered all season I think he has had to focus more on that side of the game (and of course he was a defender as a player) and who can blame him? There has also been way too much reliance on the kids - it's good to blood them and bring them through, but this is League 1 and when you have four of them in one team it's a recipe for disaster - and we have lost to injury our experienced players who AREN'T coming to the end of their careers for large chunks of the season. The balance is starting to come back now... it's a question of whether we get it back completely before the end of the season. Kids don't have the experience to get you out of a hole at this level. Under normal circumstances, players like Elvis, Hutchinson, Bishop, Kelman, Wabo, Clifford and Howard would be barely near the first team squad, let alone in the team regularly or on the bench. They are kids, they are learning and their treatment under SCP has been better than they could have ever imagined. I doubt any of them are bemoaning their fate; they have got a taste of something much earlier than they could expect, have been on TV (some of them) but it's come to the business end of the season and it's time for the senior players to step up.

The kids have done their best and it will stand us in good stead for the next couple of seasons. But I have no problem with them being nowhere near the match day squad at the moment, as long as the men are doing their bit.

Good post that.

The only point I’d make in response would be to say although I agree that the kids (some of them anyway) have had their chance way earlier than any of them would’ve expected or hoped for, I genuinely believe that they are better than some of the other more experienced options and offer more enthusiasm fight and energy than many.....

It’s no surprise or fluke that some of our better performances - and results - of late have come when they have played.....

Like I have said before I can see why Oxley was brought back in but it was extremely harsh and the writing was on the wall last week when CP publicly let everyone, inc Bishop, know that Ox was back training the following week....surprise surprise Bishop, under pressure, cost us one maybe two goals midweek.....for me he didn’t need to do that and it let everyone know that Ox would replace Bishop as soon as fit.....highly demotivating.

Klass is a better player than Mantom and Dieng....and possibly Hyam.....although I concede there needs to be a mix and all of those offer more ball winning ability (however absent of late). With more faith Klass is only getting better and better....

Hutchinson in all his game time and with whatever inconsistency we’ve seen, has offered more in terms of ability and enthusiasm and work rate than Macca and Kightly combined....

I said it at the time and I’ll say it again now.....8 games to go may not be the time to play them (Hutch and Klass) but 10-12 games ago was, and by now we’d be seeing the fruits of that trust....Gillingham, Charlton, Portsmouth, Accrington they both or either played a good part...however Plymouth (Hutchinson) and Barnsley (Klass) they were the sacrificial lambs for poor team results while the same culprits performed as poorly or worse for the umpteenth time in a row.....

Elvis needed a break I agree but easing JD back in while having Elvis starting or coming on was much more deserving of his performances as opposed to complete abstination.

Kelman has had chances and is a possible impact sub - for me he’s the least ready of them all but has been burdened with the most expectation!

Wabo has three years on him and has more goals at a better level yet you can’t even conform to me whether he’s good enough or not due to his lack of involvement....

Ultimately do what's needed to be done but to exclude these players (not even mentioned Dru!!!) on the basis of age or experience is t right unless they are way off the levels of the current players starting.....

 

[Andy_S]

As I've stated many times on here over the years, my season ticket is just a couple of seats along from our bench and therefore I always feel very much immersed in what is going on in our dugout. The manager's demeanour has very much changed over the last couple of months and it has exactly the same feel now as just before Brown left. There's almost an air of acceptance and a feeling of a lack of control over the situation. If I were a player, desperately low on confidence, and looking over to my bench for some inspiration then I certainly wouldn't get it from our coaching team. There lies a massive problem. As soon as the goal went in Powell literally hid from the situation, as he stepped back up against the dugout, almost out of view to most and did not appear again. You'd have thought a manager supposedly fighting for his job and for his team's future in the league would be out there desperately trying to resurrect the situation, not stood back allowing things to unravel whilst looking clinically depressed. Something (to me anyway) which really summed everything up was the second half when we were into the wind. Every single one of Oxley's goal kicks either flew out of play or didn't reach the halfway line. Surely common sense sets in and you realise that you either need to throw a ball or two out or play it short, but as our players didn't seem to want to take control of this and make the decision, you'd at least expect one of our FOUR coaching staff sat in the dugout to go and say - come on lads, that's clearly an issue with this wind, let's try something different. But nope, they all just sat there and on a couple of occasions literally had to duck out of the way of an errant goal kick.

But anyway, enough of my uneducated body language reading. Lets be honest, lining up with five defenders at home to the bottom of the table side when you really need to win, was always going lead to a struggle. What was also apparent was that when we didn't have the ball it was literally five across the back, something which I'm not sure I'd seen before. At least when we'd played wing backs before, they were always slightly higher than the centre halves, but not yesterday. With Dieng and Hyam then being so deep themselves it meant players were continually getting in each others way, many times with two going for the same ball and then if we did get possession it was all so tight that we had zero options. All incredibly frustrating.

Game in and game out we generally have three or four shots on target and that simply isn't good enough to stay up. Especially when more often than not they're token efforts which haven't stretched the opposition keeper. We had ONE clear cut opportunity yesterday. ONE!



Oxley - For me he should've taken charge of the situation. I haven't watched it back as I can't stomach it, but he can see everything in front of him, he can see where Pigott is, so he either barks at Turner what to do or comes out and launches the ball away and unfortunately he appeared to do neither. He doesn't seem the same keeper as last season, but he's going to need to find that form from somewhere for the rest of the season as he's going to be vitally important.

Demetriou - Hugely subdued. Didn't look fully fit to me and wasn't himself. Very rarely got forward and seemed stuck in a crowd for most of the game.

Kiernan - One of the very few positives from yesterday. He wasn't overly troubled in the second half, but during the first the ball seemed to be drawn to him and he dealt with it far better than any of our centre backs tend to. Vocal throughout.

Turner - He's looked shaky recently and that continued yesterday.

Lennon - I liked everything about him other than his distribution which was too often John White-esque. Looked up for the battle and put himself into challenges, but if he's got yet another injury then it's almost laughable.

Hart - He's certainly improved and settled since his early performances.

Hyam - He ran around a bit and he passed side to side a bit, but he didn't add much more.

Dieng - Another game where he coasted through.

McLaughlin - Missed our one clear chance and failed to create much, but you still feel each game that he might whip something in or fire in a shot out of nothing.

Cox - Didn't seem himself. Perhaps he's got fed up with what is continually going on around him. At one point in the second half, rather than Bunn play a fairly simple 15 yard ball to him, he absolutely belted it over Cox's head towards the corner flag, to which Cox fairly slowly turned round and jogged towards the direction of the ball whilst exclaiming "for f***s sake."

Bunn - Made a couple of very good runs with the ball and was probably the only player willing to take them on. Did well to create McLaughlin's chance, but on the whole looked a tad confused as to where he was playing.

 

[AndyT]

This might sound odd, but the catalyst for me was a 3-0 win against Southampton U21's.

We sat on that for 70 minutes, despite needing 5 goals to get a home tie and Kelman came on for 2 minutes at the end while we watched McClumsy fanny about, as usual.

It's this lack of a killer instinct and energy that has resulted in so many bereft performances that unless we keep a clean sheet we get nothing out of any match in the main.

 

[fbm]

So you are basically saying we need 4 wins in 7 games (you are expecting the Sunderland game to be irrelevant).
We have won ZERO games in the last 10.
I have two questions for you. If you are not sure whether the manager should go yet, what do you expect him now to do differently to save us? And secondly, how late would you leave it before you wanted him gone?

Yes, I know. Mad. But I think we will win 4 out of 7. Peterborough, Walsall and Rochdale away, and I think we will win one of our home games.

I don't think he should go this season at all. But if we scrape a few draws and need a dead cat bounce with 4 games left, then there's an argument for doing it then.

And I don't think he'll do anything necessarily different; what will change will be the return of Humphrys and the improving fitness of Oxley, Demitriou, Lennon and Kiernan. Mantom might start enjoying NOT being the captain and give us the battling qualities he showed earlier in the season plus Yearwood might get his act together. Now, a new person in charge may have a beneficial effect on the latter two and may even encourage Kightley and McLaughlin a bit more. But with Kightly his age is against him and Macca had a fantastic game yesterday until he was subbed (he limped off a bit, so I'm guessing he was injured).

So I'm still keeping the faith with SCP.

 

[AndyT]

I think we'll beat Shrewsbury as we always win when we go in the Centre Circle Lounge!

 

[GBJ]

Can anyone who believes Powell should stay in the job please answer the following questions :-

1. Why has the players that have had to step in whilst the injured players were out been dumped from the squad.?
2. Why does Powell persist in playing with 1 striker at home?
3. What does Turner bring to the team that Moore doesn't?
4. Why does Powel feel the need to make at least 2 changes each match even if players are not injured?

I could go on but can someone who still supports the management style of our manager please answer the above?

I answered this for you the other day.

You ignored it then, and I’ve no doubt you’ll ignore it now, which is fine, it just seems a bit odd, keep asking the same question

 

[fbm]

Good post that.

The only point I’d make in response would be to say although I agree that the kids (some of them anyway) have had their chance way earlier than any of them would’ve expected or hoped for, I genuinely believe that they are better than some of the other more experienced options and offer more enthusiasm fight and energy than many.....

It’s no surprise or fluke that some of our better performances - and results - of late have come when they have played.....

Like I have said before I can see why Oxley was brought back in but it was extremely harsh and the writing was on the wall last week when CP publicly let everyone, inc Bishop, know that Ox was back training the following week....surprise surprise Bishop, under pressure, cost us one maybe two goals midweek.....for me he didn’t need to do that and it let everyone know that Ox would replace Bishop as soon as fit.....highly demotivating.

To be fair, there is also another reason - Bishop may well be missing next week anyway as he might be on England duty.

Klass is a better player than Mantom and Dieng....and possibly Hyam.....although I concede there needs to be a mix and all of those offer more ball winning ability (however absent of late). With more faith Klass is only getting better and better....

Not sure about that. He is pedestrian and was appalling against Barnsley.

Hutchinson in all his game time and with whatever inconsistency we’ve seen, has offered more in terms of ability and enthusiasm and work rate than Macca and Kightly combined....

Agree re Kightly. Macca can do so much better but aside from his cameo v Cambridge in the Checkatrade I haven't seen Hutchinson as a player that can dominate a full back at L1 level, which is what he needs to do to be better than the other two.

I said it at the time and I’ll say it again now.....8 games to go may not be the time to play them (Hutch and Klass) but 10-12 games ago was, and by now we’d be seeing the fruits of that trust....Gillingham, Charlton, Portsmouth, Accrington they both or either played a good part...however Plymouth (Hutchinson) and Barnsley (Klass) they were the sacrificial lambs for poor team results while the same culprits performed as poorly or worse for the umpteenth time in a row.....

But we didn't and we are where we are.

Elvis needed a break I agree but easing JD back in while having Elvis starting or coming on was much more deserving of his performances as opposed to complete abstination.

Elvis's confidence was visibly shot to pieces. Demitriou has been an immense upgrade. But he'll presumably be missing next week with Cyprus so maybe he'll have another chance, although I suspect he'll go with John White.

Kelman has had chances and is a possible impact sub - for me he’s the least ready of them all but has been burdened with the most expectation!

Agreed.

Wabo has three years on him and has more goals at a better level yet you can’t even conform to me whether he’s good enough or not due to his lack of involvement....

I don't think Wabo has made any impact in the pro game, either with his tiny cameos with us or when he has been out on loan. If you can't make an impact 2 or 3 divisions down, then you ain't gonna cut it in L1!

Ultimately do what's needed to be done but to exclude these players (not even mentioned Dru!!!) on the basis of age or experience is t right unless they are way off the levels of the current players starting.....

I think at this stage of the season it's perfectly ok to exclude on both age AND experience unless the youngster - like Dru was last season - is performing brilliantly on the pitch. None of them have done that. They've come in and done a job, but not excelled and we are in the state we are now.