Pragmatism vs Perseverance

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How do you want to see the manager respond to iffy results?

Pragmatism
7
32%
Perseverance
15
68%
 
Total votes: 22

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Worthy4England
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Worthy4England » Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:40 am

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:47 am
Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:41 am
You seem to have gone all "internet binary" on this one Ghost - At one end of the spectrum there is "the Evatt way" which produces an attractive end product for investors, sponsors and fans.

The only other option is someone who's delivering unattractive "hoofball".

I don't think those are the options. Nor do I think that it necessarily incorporates some sort of "rebranding". Nor do I think they have to drop an entire business plan.
Mick McCarthy's name cropped up in a thread earlier. There are quite a few fans online who are becoming vocal about "four four bloody two" and "gerrit to a big lad."

I'm not suggesting that sacking Evatt would have to see us go to hoofball, I am actually saying the opposite - that if we sacked Evatt the guy coming in probably wouldn't look to fix the issues in the way some people assume it has to be fixed.

You can sack Evatt and stick to the brand they are looking to build, but you can't do it with Mick McCarthy or similar.
A little bit of me died too, at the mention of Mick McCarthy. 4-4-2 can pass from the back, get wide or hoof it from keeper to man up top. The formation isn't important the execution of it is.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Harry Genshaw » Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:03 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:40 am
A little bit of me died too, at the mention of Mick McCarthy. 4-4-2 can pass from the back, get wide or hoof it from keeper to man up top. The formation isn't important the execution of it is.
I wish I'd never mentioned him! :D . For the record, I wasn't suggesting that we hire him!

The best footy I've seen from us in my lifetime was that 96/97 season. Exciting, free scoring, fast flowing football with no lack of steel in there. Those kind of years only come along once in a blue moon for the likes of us. Sigh. Certainly, I cant ever recall a Mick McCarthy side ever playing like that!
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:56 pm

Harry Genshaw wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:03 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:40 am
A little bit of me died too, at the mention of Mick McCarthy. 4-4-2 can pass from the back, get wide or hoof it from keeper to man up top. The formation isn't important the execution of it is.
I wish I'd never mentioned him! :D . For the record, I wasn't suggesting that we hire him!

The best footy I've seen from us in my lifetime was that 96/97 season. Exciting, free scoring, fast flowing football with no lack of steel in there. Those kind of years only come along once in a blue moon for the likes of us. Sigh. Certainly, I cant ever recall a Mick McCarthy side ever playing like that!
Heh. Couldn't agree more on 96/97. What a time to be alive. One day I'll write a book...

On MickMac. It's the sort of binary thing that predates the internet. In the pub or at work it's much more attention-grabbing to say "what we need is a total and utter change" - to suggest revolution rather than evolution. Nobody ever grabbed hold of the bright red ball of conversational urgency by suggesting minor tweaks.

It's also the old trick of trying to win arguments with suggestions that are unprovable in their absence. So if we lose with a Madine target man we'd definitely have done better with an ALF poacher, but if we play with an ALF we'd have done better with a Madine. It's a house-safe bet that many of those now insisting we'd be better playing 4-2-3-1 would, if it hadn't worked by half-time, insist we need two up top.

And as Worthy points out, formations (and selections) aren't as important as execution and intent. I think our intent is right, but our execution is wrong. I don't know how to fix it, but I'm fairly sure it's neither Kick It Long, The Players Don't Care nor Hire A Has-Been.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Bruce Rioja » Thu Nov 05, 2020 2:05 pm

Harry Genshaw wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:03 pm

The best footy I've seen from us in my lifetime was that 96/97 season. Exciting, free scoring, fast flowing football with no lack of steel in there.
Seeing Jamie Pollock managing to play on the wing made me realise that nobody has a decent excuse for not taking up some form of physical exercise :)
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by nelson66 » Thu Nov 05, 2020 2:20 pm

I think we have only 6 or 7 good players at this level
Once January comes we have the chance to get rid of some of the dead wood, sign a new goalie, and move on.
It was a hell of an ask to employ a manager with no experience of this league, and for him to sign a new team of players and then go on to rip up the league.
Evatt knows what a good national league player looks like, but would have little idea what a good league 2 player looks like.
It all takes time
I'm happy to stick with the Ian Evatt project for now - and see what changes he can effect in the new year.
Don't forget, we have lost only 2 of our last 7 games - at least we are scrapping and not submitting
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by BWFC_Insane » Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:41 pm

The_Gun wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:15 am
What you seem to be overlooking, BWFCI, is that Evatt successfully built a team at Barrow without finding outstanding talent in their youth set-up, or spending lots in the transfer market. So by your logic, their success must be down to him being an exceptional manager.
But its over such a short period in non league and perhaps, given the limited sample size - he did stumble across some outstanding talent?

Dougie Freedman did the same at Palace took a club that had been down and out through financial ruin and turned them into surprised promotion contenders on the back of Zaha (and Bolasie IIRC) and he had a certain way of playing and clearly sounded like he would make a very good manager. But he came here and it all fell apart a bit. Whilst Holloway took Palace up - I'd argue that had very very little to do with Holloway who is far from a good manager.

So the thing with all of this is bad or average managers can do really well in certain circumstances or certain situations and certain clubs. We've seen that. Nobody could doubt the job Coyle did at Burnley - or the job Eddie How did at Bournemouth (and ironically couldn't replicate at Burnley). But Coyle was a disaster here because the circumstances and situation were not anywhere near the same. The positivity was more sustainable at Burnley than Bolton where in reality we were on a downwards curve and therefore he became a liability. And has been ever since. He's a bad manager who for whatever mix of reasons worked miracles at Burnley - but again perhaps he just had by chance the right blend of a club that had struggled for a long time and managed to get the right group of players.

There are shades of grey here I'm saying good/bad/average manager but the reality probably is a curve of ability and different skills. Mourinho for example the best at a certain type of management I've seen - he's translated his ability to most major leagues and won remarkable things doing it. But probably doesn't translate into every situation as he found at Man Utd. But yeah - my broad point is that its easy saying we want to play this style, its easy to know how you do it, but much, much harder to implement it. Barrow there was no pressure, no expectation and no problem I imagine with recruiting cheap players on short deals and getting rid if it didn't work (as Evatt did there). But here its more difficult, there is pressure and financial pressure too. I'd like to think Evatt has something about him because listening to him speak is impressive and I did think he was a good fit for where we were. And he may well still be. But you can clearly see the skills missing in terms of bringing the spirit and finding the group motivation and possibly in man management and all those things that may come with experience but we don't know to what extent he'll ever really possess those. Some people have it, some don't. Tactically he knows what he wants to do, but does he know how to change it to manage the short term if necessary - again I don't really see it. Pep can afford to an extent to be rigid (even though it does cost City at times) but at Bolton in L2 - I'm not sure you've got that luxury.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by GhostoftheBok » Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:34 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:40 am
A little bit of me died too, at the mention of Mick McCarthy. 4-4-2 can pass from the back, get wide or hoof it from keeper to man up top. The formation isn't important the execution of it is.
I disagree that formation isn't important, but I think I agree generally with your point. There are loads of ways to win football matches and loads of ways to play football that is good to watch. The trouble is that there's a certain section of football fans who see anything other than 4-4-2 and "getting it in the mixer" as trying to be too clever or somehow playing "fancy" football. Then there are other fans who just want to throw out terms like "tiki-taka" and insist there's only one way to play "beautiful" football. There exist players who don't suit certain formations for various reasons (Spearing in a 4-4-2 still gives me nightmares....his little legs spinning as he goes nowhere fast) and what matters is putting players into a role where they can make the best of whatever qualities they have. Evatt is clearly not doing that for certain players right now.

I honestly don't care how we win, but I would like it to be a pleasure to go to the match when we can get back. It has been a chore for too long.

Regardless, this squad can't play the 96/97 way. We have built a squad with a system in mind, the trouble is that a lot of the players are not very good (or if they are good they're not showing it) and Evatt is failing to get them to execute his ideas on match day. If we are honest none of us know how much of that falls on the manager and how much on the players. Ultimately if he continues to lose he will get sacked, but fans will then do the same thing with the next guy and expect us to charge up the table. A new manager might do better (it'd be hard to do much worse at the minute), but he's unlikely to make a profound difference before January when we can address a couple of glaring issues we have with the squad. I don't think we are a million miles off, but we do have some dross and Evatt is trying to hammer a couple of square pegs into round holes.

To give him credit, he is doing other players a favour. Santos is increasingly looking like a find, but I'd not want to see him getting turned in a two-man partnership at the back. Evatt intended him for the right side but realised he needed to be in the middle and got that change right. Crawford is getting into the positions and spaces he needs to, because of the role Evatt handed him - he's just letting himself down with his execution. Sarce is scoring goals. It's not universal failure.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by boltonpepper » Sun Nov 08, 2020 5:58 am

Pragmatism it is ;)

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Nov 26, 2020 11:10 am

Seems to be working, at least recently.

Notable perhaps that Scunny was the last in a run of five Tuesday games in six: from Saturday's Southend game, we've now got just two midweekers in the next eight weeks, a run of 11 games in 57 days through to late January. I mention this as our high-energy pressing game is both draining and an injury risk, but mostly playing once a week gives us ample recovery time - plus more training-ground time for Evatt to drill moves into a squad that's beginning to see the benefits.

By the time that run ends the squad will hopefully have been improved with some new players in, some disappointments shipped out and the glaring holes filled.

Opponents over that next two-month spell, with their current league positions first:

24 - Sat 28 Nov Southend H
11 – Sat 5 Dec Port Vale H
16 – Sat 12 Dec Walsall A
02 – Tue 15 Dec Cheltenham A
09 – Sat 19 Dec Tranmere H
06 – Sat 26 Dec Carlisle A
14 – Tue 29 Dec Morecambe A
15 – Sat 2 Jan Crawley H
05 – Sat 9 Jan Exeter A
02 – Sat 16 Jan Cheltenham H
09 – Sat 23 Jan Tranmere A

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by officer_dibble » Thu Nov 26, 2020 11:15 am

Quick turn around v the bin dippers. Be nice to be back in the ground for the home game.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by brommers95 » Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:16 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Thu Nov 26, 2020 11:10 am
Seems to be working, at least recently.

Notable perhaps that Scunny was the last in a run of five Tuesday games in six: from Saturday's Southend game, we've now got just two midweekers in the next eight weeks, a run of 11 games in 57 days through to late January. I mention this as our high-energy pressing game is both draining and an injury risk, but mostly playing once a week gives us ample recovery time - plus more training-ground time for Evatt to drill moves into a squad that's beginning to see the benefits.

By the time that run ends the squad will hopefully have been improved with some new players in, some disappointments shipped out and the glaring holes filled.

Opponents over that next two-month spell, with their current league positions first:

24 - Sat 28 Nov Southend H
11 – Sat 5 Dec Port Vale H
16 – Sat 12 Dec Walsall A
02 – Tue 15 Dec Cheltenham A
09 – Sat 19 Dec Tranmere H
06 – Sat 26 Dec Carlisle A

14 – Tue 29 Dec Morecambe A
15 – Sat 2 Jan Crawley H
05 – Sat 9 Jan Exeter A
02 – Sat 16 Jan Cheltenham H
09 – Sat 23 Jan Tranmere A
That three game run will be a good gauge of where we actually are. The Salford win excluded, playing Stevenage, Scunthorpe and Southend isn't exactly the strongest of litmus tests.

Port Vale and Walsall definitely a step up but they're not going great guns at the minute either. Cheltenham, Tranmere and Carlisle have been playing well recently and I would expect them to be up there come the end of the season.

Tranmere especially worry me with their attacking talent - hopefully Keith can confuse them enough with his talk of building blocks and root vegetables to end their good form.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:36 pm

Yeah, I hear you, but it's worked out nicely. The win over Salford has given us the confidence to start a run against some lower teams, then we can build up through mid-tablers to the thereaboutsers.

Tranmere worries me because I hate losing to them but i don't mind a team having attacking intent against us. To some extent I prefer that because I now believe we can counter against teams or even nick it up the pitch with a high press - and if they've gone forward there's fewer to pick through.

As I say, the two goals at Stevenage (acknowledging the caveats about the quality of opponent) might just sum up the options for the rest of our season. The first was patient but probing, with Sarce's shot – parried by the keeper for Doyle to score – coming at the end of at least a seven-pass move: they haven't released the full replay yet but the extended highlights start with Baptiste passing to Kioso, then it's back to Sarcevic, vertical daisy-cutter to Delfouneso, laid inside to Crawford, out to Baptiste underlapping the wingback, thence to Kioso, cross for Sarce to shoot. The second was a clever counter with plenty of runners and options, and we're also less shy of the longer ball now than we were in September and early October. If they sit deep, we probe; if they come at us, we strike.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by The_Gun » Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:11 pm

Those games at the end of next month would only be a worry for me from a fitness perspective. If we're going to be playing the same XI every single game, even taking into account DSB's good point about not having the midweeks, then I would be surprised if we hadn't picked up one or two knocks by then. With a fit and healthy squad we should be a match for any of those sides.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Nov 26, 2020 5:12 pm

More on midweekers: it's not just the next two months. Our hyperefficiency at being knocked out of cups has given us a relatively clear run to the end of the season, considering the COVID compression. We've got two midweekers in Dec, one in Jan, one in Feb (Scunny again, after playing Stevenage again), two in Mar, two in Apr – but nothing like the run of fixtures we've just had. Obviously that benefits everybody (although already a third of the division has extra games to catch up on) but I think it will be particularly important for our style.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:09 pm

officer_dibble wrote:
Thu Nov 26, 2020 11:15 am
Quick turn around v the bin dippers. Be nice to be back in the ground for the home game.
As it's on Sat 19 Dec, Bolton is in Tier 3, tier-3 places aren't allowed fans and there isn't a tier review scheduled until Wed 16 Dec, it's very unlikely unless rates drop fast and far enough to prompt a review ahead of schedule. Even if Bolton is allowed up to tier 2 on Wed 16, unless the club acts very quickly indeed, I don't know whether we could turn round the logistics (lottery ticket allocation, ticket distribution, plus stuff like police and stwewards) in that space of time.

Speaking of which, someone has tweeted the tiers of each team in each division:
. .
Fans are allowed back in from Wed 2 Dec but we're at home on Sat 5 Dec and at Walsall (tier 3) on Sat 12, so as it stands Cheltenham away (Tue 15 Dec) will be the team's first game in front of actual spectators - home only. It will also be the first of four successive trips (also Carlisle, Exeter and... Tranmere) where the home club will be allowed spectators - again, as the tiers currently stand.

Bit of a diversion from the title topic, but I hope people don't mind for the moment.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by TonyDomingos » Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:19 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:09 pm
officer_dibble wrote:
Thu Nov 26, 2020 11:15 am
Quick turn around v the bin dippers. Be nice to be back in the ground for the home game.
As it's on Sat 19 Dec, Bolton is in Tier 3, tier-3 places aren't allowed fans and there isn't a tier review scheduled until Wed 16 Dec, it's very unlikely unless rates drop fast and far enough to prompt a review ahead of schedule. Even if Bolton is allowed up to tier 2 on Wed 16, unless the club acts very quickly indeed, I don't know whether we could turn round the logistics (lottery ticket allocation, ticket distribution, plus stuff like police and stwewards) in that space of time.

Speaking of which, someone has tweeted the tiers of each team in each division:
. .
Fans are allowed back in from Wed 2 Dec but we're at home on Sat 5 Dec and at Walsall (tier 3) on Sat 12, so as it stands Cheltenham away (Tue 15 Dec) will be the team's first game in front of actual spectators - home only. It will also be the first of four successive trips (also Carlisle, Exeter and... Tranmere) where the home club will be allowed spectators - again, as the tiers currently stand.

Bit of a diversion from the title topic, but I hope people don't mind for the moment.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by officer_dibble » Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:44 pm

Bah I read it as home game in Jan, Apols. So that’s Tranmere with a regular home crowd of yokels then.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:27 am

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Thu Nov 26, 2020 5:12 pm
More on midweekers: it's not just the next two months. Our hyperefficiency at being knocked out of cups has given us a relatively clear run to the end of the season, considering the COVID compression. We've got two midweekers in Dec, one in Jan, one in Feb (Scunny again, after playing Stevenage again), two in Mar, two in Apr – but nothing like the run of fixtures we've just had. Obviously that benefits everybody (although already a third of the division has extra games to catch up on) but I think it will be particularly important for our style.
Just a little amend to this, for accuracy's sake. Being of lowly stock, we have league games scheduled for FA Cup weekends from the Third Round onwards (it was Second Round last weekend but we mutually agreed with Southend to bring forward our game from tonight).

Our opponents on Third Round day, Jan 9, are Exeter and they're still in the cup - home to Sheffield Wednesday; Fourth Round day (Jan 23) league opponents Tranmere are still in as we speak – they play at Barnsley in the Third Round. (The Fifth Round is in a blank midweek, our Sixth Round day and semi-final day opponents Walsall and Grimsby are out.)

So we will have at least one more midweek game, possibly two; we'll have a free weekend or two instead, but it will crank up the three-game-week total.(It's possible Exeter will lose while Tranmere win and we'll play Exeter on the Tranmere day instead.)

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sat Jan 02, 2021 5:17 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:11 pm
officer_dibble wrote:
Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:47 pm
Fantasy football has until Harrogate for me. We will get dicked at Colchester but if we are propping up the table after games against Newport and Harrogate I’d seriously be questioning this whole episode. Including Phoenix and his championship manager settings (pace >15, etc).
Nah, the manager needs to get proper time to build. It’s pointless switching to a pragmatic old head because we’ve got this squad to work with. And frankly we know it will only take you so far if anywhere at all. We had the ultimate in pragmatic lower league managers and people didn’t want him. So stick with this, regardless for the next couple of years and see how it develops.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by truewhite15 » Sat Jan 02, 2021 5:22 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 5:17 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:11 pm
officer_dibble wrote:
Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:47 pm
Fantasy football has until Harrogate for me. We will get dicked at Colchester but if we are propping up the table after games against Newport and Harrogate I’d seriously be questioning this whole episode. Including Phoenix and his championship manager settings (pace >15, etc).
Nah, the manager needs to get proper time to build. It’s pointless switching to a pragmatic old head because we’ve got this squad to work with. And frankly we know it will only take you so far if anywhere at all. We had the ultimate in pragmatic lower league managers and people didn’t want him. So stick with this, regardless for the next couple of years and see how it develops.
:lol:

Hyperbolic w*nker.

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