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Question Was Molesley the wrong choice?

Don't also forget that, as soon as the last court hearing was deferred we knew we would start the season under an embargo. The follow on from that was that I, personally, had pretty much written off the first game of the season as unwinnable whoever the opposition.

I was hoping that HMRC would be would be paid, the embargo lifted and we could start the season properly after that match.

Firstly, it could be that I was right (although most of that is yet to be seen), and b) I'd forgotten I'd even thought that so I was just as fed up as everyone else on Saturday evening.

What I also didn't know at the time is that the first league game would actually be our third match of the season and we'd already have lost to another bunch of kids and be out of the League Cup by then!
 
I'm often amused by the view that everything about a football match revolves around our own team, whether good, indifferent or bad. For a moment consider the fact that Molesely has managed Southend United for four weeks whilst Simon Weaver has managed Harrogate Town for eleven years. Yes, you read that right, ELEVEN years. Think about the implications of that. Eleven years and finally his team are in the Football League. He must have punched the air with delight when he saw his first game was against a team relegated with only four wins and clearly in disarray. We didn't have much of a chance last Saturday but we do this Saturday at Carlisle who are just as poor as we are. COYB! Come on MM!
 
Should be was Southend the wrong choice .Or was Ron Martin the wrong choice.MM has got more to worry about than all us experts on SZ.So much depends on FF and any financial benefits, let's just hope unlike previous managers he actually sees them.
 
Don't know about the wrong manager but I don't understand the play out from the back tactics. It hasn't worked for the last two managers and we have mostly the same players so I don't see why he thinks it will work for him.
 
Don't know about the wrong manager but I don't understand the play out from the back tactics. It hasn't worked for the last two managers and we have mostly the same players so I don't see why he thinks it will work for him.
As I have said MM has my full support and he will turn it around and must be given time to do so- however there is absolutely no point sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that this tactic wasn't madness, hindsight was already there in plain view as you say, and the Harrogate manager capitalised on it with an ease that will alert every other manager in the division. So I am sure at worst the tactic will be, let's say, meaningfully adjusted...
 
Don't know about the wrong manager but I don't understand the play out from the back tactics. It hasn't worked for the last two managers and we have mostly the same players so I don't see why he thinks it will work for him.

People say these tactics won’t work with L2 players as they’re not good enough yet they worked for MM two divisions below where we are :Unsure:
 
The other option was to go with tried and failed managers in the past who move from team to team on the back of maybe an old promotion or old pals act

Give this guy two seasons at least, no one expected promotion and really honestly survival was the best to hope for, and if relegation we start again

These kids are not Man Utd quality where " You cannot win anything with kids" comment, but they will learn from defeats and I believe a manager that will need time to shape them and develop into a decent team, with an older head to guide and put an arm around them.
We have a club at least Bury fans would take that now !!
 
People say these tactics won’t work with L2 players as they’re not good enough yet they worked for MM two divisions below where we are :Unsure:

Yes this is part of my thinking too. I also don't mind playing out from the back if it is accompanied by a high tempo of passing and movement and a relatively high press, which was clearly in evidence against Gills and was very pleasing to watch. When it's not accompanied by a high tempo of passing/movement and a high press, we get what we got on Saturday which was far more akin to what we had under Bond. I doubt whether Bond instructed his players to play and move at a slow tempo and to sit back after losing possession, but either way his version of the 'play from the back' style was nowhere near as effective or as good to watch as MM's vs. Gills. If we can use how it worked against Gills as a baseline and improve it with a few signings who will fit into it and with hard work on the training ground then I'm all for it and it has my patience. But if it's executed like it was against Harrogate often and without evidence of a Plan B if we're sussed out then I think we'll be in trouble. I'd also like to see some evidence that MM's belief in 442 isn't rigid. I've been an advocate of it in the past but I'm not sure we have the players to fit it now and that something more dynamic like a 4231 might work better.

Anyway, I digress. As things stand I definitely do not think he was the wrong choice. He's young, dynamic, full of great ideas and the players seem to have taken to him really well - the importance of that CANNOT be understated after the last couple of years. He has them firmly inside at the moment, they enjoy things under his regime and they want to work hard for him. The club has been rotten to its core and he wants to out in place a new ethos and identity. It won't happen overnight and he needs us to be patient with him, which I'm happy to be.
 
People say these tactics won’t work with L2 players as they’re not good enough yet they worked for MM two divisions below where we are :Unsure:

It might have worked for him before but he had different players there.

I'm not saying you can't play that way but the last three managers have tried it with the current squad and two of them aren't here anymore so it didn't work out very well for them.
 
Of course the success and / or lack of success of any particular tactic, was entirely down to the ability levels or performance of the players and absolutely nothing to do with the oppositions ability to counter it ??

Harrogate did their homework excellently in how we play and the key players within that. To play out you need a pivot in midfield who is available to receive on the half turn and play forwards. Against Gills Dieng and particularly Hutchinson did that brilliantly. Harrogate didnt have Dieng to worry about and focussed entirely on pressing Hutchinson who struggled to find options to pass to and was swamped by up to 3 Harrogate players each time.

Our failure was simply being unable to adapt and adjust to the problem. That responsibility has to be shared by all players and the management.

The proof will be not how we employ that tactic again but more how we change it when faced with that intensity of a press again.

I said it post match. More players needed to actually want the ball and the front two need to actually run about a bit and offer themselves as an outlet.
 
It might have worked for him before but he had different players there.

I'm not saying you can't play that way but the last three managers have tried it with the current squad and two of them aren't here anymore so it didn't work out very well for them.

As we're on our sixth manager in the last 3 years, I think we're at the stage where we change the players and not the manager. The transfer embargo will hopefully be lifted soon and god knows reinforcements are needed.
 
Of course the success and / or lack of success of any particular tactic, was entirely down to the ability levels or performance of the players and absolutely nothing to do with the oppositions ability to counter it ??

Harrogate did their homework excellently in how we play and the key players within that. To play out you need a pivot in midfield who is available to receive on the half turn and play forwards. Against Gills Dieng and particularly Hutchinson did that brilliantly. Harrogate didnt have Dieng to worry about and focussed entirely on pressing Hutchinson who struggled to find options to pass to and was swamped by up to 3 Harrogate players each time.

Our failure was simply being unable to adapt and adjust to the problem. That responsibility has to be shared by all players and the management.

The proof will be not how we employ that tactic again but more how we change it when faced with that intensity of a press again.

I said it post match. More players needed to actually want the ball and the front two need to actually run about a bit and offer themselves as an outlet.

As good as I think Hutchinson is (or at least could be) I do feel that he sometimes holds on to the ball a touch too long, which in turn puts him under pressure. He wins the ball, looks up, assesses his options (all of which is admirable) but he then seems to assess his options a 2nd time. By then he has those three players you talk of swarming around him. If he could speed up his decision making I think he would improve immensely.
 
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Of course the success and / or lack of success of any particular tactic, was entirely down to the ability levels or performance of the players and absolutely nothing to do with the oppositions ability to counter it ??

Harrogate did their homework excellently in how we play and the key players within that. To play out you need a pivot in midfield who is available to receive on the half turn and play forwards. Against Gills Dieng and particularly Hutchinson did that brilliantly. Harrogate didnt have Dieng to worry about and focussed entirely on pressing Hutchinson who struggled to find options to pass to and was swamped by up to 3 Harrogate players each time.

Our failure was simply being unable to adapt and adjust to the problem. That responsibility has to be shared by all players and the management.

The proof will be not how we employ that tactic again but more how we change it when faced with that intensity of a press again.

I said it post match. More players needed to actually want the ball and the front two need to actually run about a bit and offer themselves as an outlet.

Good post.

I wanted to pick up on the final point too. The lack of outlets we had, really killed us, and goes some way to explaining why we were continually swamped and pinned in.

You’re absolutely on the money when you say our forwards need to work a bit harder. Everyone is tipping Kelman to be the next big thing, but based on that performance alone, the lad is more likely to be going down the leagues, rather than up them. I don’t want to be too harsh on him, because I like him, and think he’s a cracking prospect, but as I said in the match thread at the time, he doesn’t look fit atm.

Goodship too. According to the Weymouth lot, he was a very busy footballer, who worked very hard to help the team. I’m not sure if it’s the difference in levels, but he needs to be a lot cuter with his movement & off the ball work.

Terrell and Green need to use their pace more effectively too. If we’re getting run over in midfield, then those two need to drag their counterparts away, and force the space. You’d have thought that with those two in the same XI, we might be looking to play counter attacking football, but it just didn’t happen. For the first time, in a long time, We have genuine pace going forward, which will always frighten back lines, but if we aren’t going to use it accordingly, then we might aswell go back to having cloggers like Mantom playing on the left wing.
 
I agree completely. (London Blue - GBJs post crossed paths with mine)

I would add though is that as often as that happens, it’s also the case that we have reached the point, as a team under pressure, where nobody makes runs ahead of the ball and options to play forwards are fluctuating between limited and zero!

As an example Saturday first half where both were evident in quick succession.

He took too long after receiving the ball from Ralph I think moving towards Elvis and overrun the ball. To his credit he then won it back and looked to play up the line for a forward running the channel (like we haven’t had since Hopper left!). But Kelman was ambling along in the centre circle making no effort to get across into the channel and Goodship was the other side of the pitch in a left midfield position! Hutchinson then turned back into a player and actually we got the throw in but it looked like he’d been robbed again.

It summed up for me a lack of team effort and willingness to work off the ball as well as like you say players (Hutchinson) taking too long on it.

My point is really though about the fact no ones really giving enough credit to Harrogate, their match plan and their work ethic to sustain it....and subsequently our inability to change tactics to wrong foot them.
 
As good as I think Hutchinson is (or at least could be) I do feel that he sometimes holds on to the ball a touch too long, which in turn puts him under pressure. He wins the ball, looks up, assesses his options (all of which is admirable) but he then seems to assess his options a 2nd time. By then he has those three players you talk of swarming around him. If he could speed up his decision making I think we would improve immensely.

See my post above. It’s not just Hutchinson, but the same goes for Gard, Klass & Phillips too. All of those players can pass the ball well and create something, but if there’s nothing ahead of them to pass to, they tend to get caught, or are forced to go backwards.
 
Good post.

I wanted to pick up on the final point too. The lack of outlets we had, really killed us, and goes some way to explaining why we were continually swamped and pinned in.

You’re absolutely on the money when you say our forwards need to work a bit harder. Everyone is tipping Kelman to be the next big thing, but based on that performance alone, the lad is more likely to be going down the leagues, rather than up them. I don’t want to be too harsh on him, because I like him, and think he’s a cracking prospect, but as I said in the match thread at the time, he doesn’t look fit atm.

Goodship too. According to the Weymouth lot, he was a very busy footballer, who worked very hard to help the team. I’m not sure if it’s the difference in levels, but he needs to be a lot cuter with his movement & off the ball work.

Terrell and Green need to use their pace more effectively too. If we’re getting run over in midfield, then those two need to drag their counterparts away, and force the space. You’d have thought that with those two in the same XI, we might be looking to play counter attacking football, but it just didn’t happen. For the first time, in a long time, We have genuine pace going forward, which will always frighten back lines, but if we aren’t going to use it accordingly, then we might aswell go back to having cloggers like Mantom playing on the left wing.

I think it's confidence as much as fitness. It's one of the things that comes with playing with a losing team.
 
None of my business really of course, but from an outsiders viewpoint I think Molesley was a great choice of manager. A young succcesful manager keen to prove his worth at a higher level, (Danny Cowley comes to mind) experience in working with little money to spend, knowledge of the better players at National league level he might want to bring in, and experience working with young under 21 players at premier league level. He must have loads of contacts in the game at all levels, if he is given time and a little money to spend I am sure he will turn out to be a very astute appointment. All he needs right now is the fans and the club to be behind him, its a tough gig, but I am sure he knew that well before he arrived.
 
I think it's confidence as much as fitness. It's one of the things that comes with playing with a losing team.

Absolutely. Bond tried to address the situation and build their confidence back, but was hamstrung by several factors. Then came Sol, who actually made them regress further. And now we have MM who is trying to right all the wrongs of the past 2 years, in just a matter of weeks.

We’re desperate for some fresh faces, we’re desperate for a little run & we’re desperate for a little slice of luck, which is something we haven’t had much of in the last two years.

But make no mistakes, their fitness levels are nowhere near where they should be, which is very concerning.
 
Oh well ... its difficult situation.

It can be useful to have someone with real status in the game to take the heat off the players and maintain the status and profile of the club ..
 
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