Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by LeverEnd » Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:31 pm

Prufrock wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:28 pm
Someone get looking through Dixon's tweets.
:lol:
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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by LeverEnd » Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:32 pm

nicholaldo wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:31 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 8:52 pm
For all the Brand Evatt nonsense the football we play is incredibly boring and painful to watch at times. It’s certainly not edge of the seat stuff.

Needs rethinking as this style is absolutely holding us back.

Too often I feel as if we're playing with a straitjacket on. For me, our most entertaining performances have come from matches where the play had a natural to and fro, providing us with space and goalscorong opportunities we otherwise probably wouldn't have created.
For you, and every opposition scout! So predictable and naive.
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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:35 pm

Bertie Wooster wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:26 pm
Worthy, apologies I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was just adding to your comments.

As Ghost says Evatt seemingly doesn't like coaching set pieces and doesn't think 'keepers matter. which could cost him his job. For me I actually can't see what Evatt is doing in regards to coaching, we get worse game by game - our passing is slower, tempo slower, the tippy tappy fcuking about at the back gets worse.

He comes across as a bit of a stubbon, know it all cnut does Evatt - the fans have been going on for months now about how shite our set pieces are and he does nothing about it, many fans (including me) think Dixon is as bad as Crellin and a vocal, commanding keeper should be a priority in this window as are a couple of midfield leaders, there is still time for these but I'm not sure that Evatt will listen as he will think that the fans know nothing.

For me tactically we are poor all over the pitch and Evatt and his coaches need to step up big time before he loses the fans.
Nowt to apologise for Bertie, think we were agreeing with each other :-)

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:37 pm

Prufrock wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:28 pm
Someone get looking through Dixon's tweets.
The worrying thing is we’ve no back up. If something good could come out of tonight it would be us adding a new keeper to the shopping list. Along with a left back, two Centre mids and a Centre half.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:42 pm

Mar wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:24 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:17 pm
I'm with you in terms of the Competition's importance, Bertie, but Evatt clearly put as strong a team out as he could.

Having 64% (or whatever it ended up as) unimportant possession wins nowt.

They did more with their 30. Worked our keeper more than we worked theirs. No merit in Dapo beating three and hitting the corner flag.
Evatt's putting out teams with the intention of winning and seeing the same problem happen time and time again.

Can't account for mistakes like Dixon's made and won't hold that against Evatt, but the fact that we're not creating enough goalscoring opportunities off set pieces and in general play is ridiculous.

The live website's stats have us as 18 shots with 9 blocked and 4 on target. It's clear to see we're letting the opposition settle and then struggling to break them down. We are lacking impetus. We had 10 crosses today and I don't recall a single one being threatening, i'll make a point of noting that it wasn't hit against the first man but it was consistently wasted. 10 crosses should be seeing a well trained outfit score a goal.

Fossey possibly the only positive to take away from that match and even then that was gone in the 2nd half.

officer_dibble wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:19 pm
What’s the target for Evatt now? He clearly wanted to win this, and we’ve fecked it up. I’ll confirm I would be happy to finish anywhere higher than 20th now but that doesn’t mean it should be a target.
I suspect survival and midtable mediocrity. We've got excuses lined up.
By the same count, mate, they had more shots on target than us. Despite only having 1 corner and 35% possession.

Off target shots count for feck all...

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by GhostoftheBok » Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:53 pm

Let's be clear - a midfield of Delf, Thommo and Williams isn't offering you much of anything. It's a good holding player, a kid and as striker in the most important part of the pitch. That's not to excuse this result, it's a travesty (I will wait to watch the game to pass real judgement); but I didn't expect today to be roses.

People can go back and forth about what Evatt should and shouldn't do, I have my own opinions. Simple fact, we have seen enough of Evatt as a manager for over 3 years now to know what he will do. If he's to turn this around he needs those midfielders in....fast.

I have a picture in my head of what that game looked like I'll be fascinated to see if reality meets expectations.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:00 pm

We were reasonable first half, Hartlepool handled our right hand side much better after the break. Kachunga going off a big negative change, Baka offered feck all other than more of an aerial threat (but our passing threat was long gone by the time we realised this). Declan John was shit. Crossing piss poor, passing off and had a chance he should of done better with as well. Two Centre halves were fine as was MJ - it’s not their fault the movement in front was non existent after half time. Delf went into hiding and Thomason was crap. Thought Charles was ok, looked short on practice but he will offer quicker and different movement to Doyle. We ran out of ideas and probably steam on about 70 minutes and the result was inevitable.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by BWFC_Insane » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:03 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 9:53 pm
Let's be clear - a midfield of Delf, Thommo and Williams isn't offering you much of anything. It's a good holding player, a kid and as striker in the most important part of the pitch. That's not to excuse this result, it's a travesty (I will wait to watch the game to pass real judgement); but I didn't expect today to be roses.

People can go back and forth about what Evatt should and shouldn't do, I have my own opinions. Simple fact, we have seen enough of Evatt as a manager for over 3 years now to know what he will do. If he's to turn this around he needs those midfielders in....fast.

I have a picture in my head of what that game looked like I'll be fascinated to see if reality meets expectations.
He needs to get us playing forwards quickly with tempo. It’s awful how we play. I can’t remember a more boring team to watch. And it’s now openly being discussed. Evatt can’t rely on the goodwill forever. There are two paths from here. Owen Coyle stubbornness and obscurity or he genuinely goes and speaks to some of the true great managers learns and adapts. It’s up to him.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:13 pm

A midfield of Delf, Thommo and Williams should be good enough for a team in 15th, one division down. Sure, not optimal, we can't keep rolling out them "it's not our perfect first XI". Not unreasonable to say we were sub-optimal on Saturday v League leaders...not buying it for this game

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by GhostoftheBok » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:14 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:03 pm
He needs to get us playing forwards quickly with tempo.
The way I think you mean it, it's not happening. More tempo, sure. He's not going more direct. You know that.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by GhostoftheBok » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:17 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:13 pm
A midfield of Delf, Thommo and Williams should be good enough for a team in 15th, one division down.
Why? Williams is good. Thommo is patchy at best and Delf isn't a mid in a million years. If Wigan played against Villa and they put Danny Ings at right back I'd not be saying "that back four should be good enough against Wigan."

The whole team we put out should have been good enough to beat theirs, I totally get that - but that midfield 3 shouldn't be "good enough" to beat many league sides. As I say, there's only one reliable mid in there.

It's not an excuse. I said the result is a shocker. However, it won't get better if we keep putting out midfields like that. He needs players in.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:20 pm

It’s a shame Ameachi and Darcy didn’t get a chance tonight. How the feck neither were registered is a disgrace!

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by nicholaldo » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:28 pm

officer_dibble wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:20 pm
It’s a shame Ameachi and Darcy didn’t get a chance tonight. How the feck neither were registered is a disgrace!

I agree, it's ridiculous. What can the hold up be?

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by BWFC_Insane » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:48 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:14 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:03 pm
He needs to get us playing forwards quickly with tempo.
The way I think you mean it, it's not happening. More tempo, sure. He's not going more direct. You know that.
What do you mean by direct? We need to move the ball forwards quicker. Use the channels. We need to stop passing sideways. That’s not a debate. He’s killing football right now with this obsession of keeping the ball and doing nothing with it. It’s horrid. We’ve got players who can hurt teams if we get them one on one. We need to do it more often and quicker. And get the full backs forward quickly.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:50 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:17 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:13 pm
A midfield of Delf, Thommo and Williams should be good enough for a team in 15th, one division down.
Why? Williams is good. Thommo is patchy at best and Delf isn't a mid in a million years. If Wigan played against Villa and they put Danny Ings at right back I'd not be saying "that back four should be good enough against Wigan."

The whole team we put out should have been good enough to beat theirs, I totally get that - but that midfield 3 shouldn't be "good enough" to beat many league sides. As I say, there's only one reliable mid in there.

It's not an excuse. I said the result is a shocker. However, it won't get better if we keep putting out midfields like that. He needs players in.
Well they probably got enough from back to front, for us to have got more shots on target and work the keeper harder. Yes, we can point to them maybe creating less space in the attacking third and no it's not ideal...but obvs you'll make your mind up when you've watched it...

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by nicholaldo » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:54 pm

Indeed. Direct doesn't have to mean going long and I doubt anyone on here would think we should do that.

But the very best teams in the world are the most direct of all. Whether it's Pep, Klopp or whoever, they get it forward very quickly.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:56 pm

It's yet another zero in the goals-for, coupled with yet another shit-stained sheet at the other end. We also have an unchallenged goalkeeper who, to my mind, is not nearly good enough as a goalkeeper in this tier, even if he is clearly very comfortable with the ball at his feet... too f**king comfortable for the goal. (For the record, I like a ball-playing goalkeeper, but they also have to be good at the main job, which is collecting clean sheets.)

But, for all that, the main problem as I saw it tonight was midfield. The usual complaint, growing understandably louder and harder to dispute, is that we pass it around at the back "too much". That, to me, is because we aren't progressing it through midfield. Soooo many times we popped it along the back, it came out to Declan or (the promising) Fossey and they had to turn back because they didn't have the open options to pass the ball forward, or those little 10-yard diagonals with which the best teams progress up the pitch. I don't dislike any of our players but Delf should not be within a mile of a midfield three. MJ is a good lad but doesn't drive the team forward (again, fine, his strengths are elsewhere and vital). Thomason has promise but has been asked to do far too much this season.

This wasn't table-topping Rotherham, it was Hartlepool Reserves. Yet too many of our players lacked the confidence and nous to pass past them. Pools dug in and did well, no problem there, but far far too often we made their job easy for them. I have no major problem with Evattball, and I find it hard to imagine a world in which the manager will be gone before the summer, but he needs players with balls. I'm not talking here about the cojones to kick a player up in the air or to scream like Stuart Pearce, but Evattball balls: to demand the ball, to use it well, to progress it. Put another way: I don't think Evatt wants timid tiki-taka (originally a derisive term) among the back lads. He wants the ball moving forward - not in a Whack It At Madine way, but in a Beat Your Man By Passing way. Tonight, his team let him down. He needs to ask why.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Tue Jan 04, 2022 11:09 pm

nicholaldo wrote:
Tue Jan 04, 2022 10:54 pm
Indeed. Direct doesn't have to mean going long and I doubt anyone on here would think we should do that.

But the very best teams in the world are the most direct of all. Whether it's Pep, Klopp or whoever, they get it forward very quickly.
Agreed - they move the ball through the thirds with stunning pace. That's the difference between possession and "field tilt", which directly compares a team's number of final-third passes with their opposition's. Last season, City topped it with 70.3% and Liverpool were second with 67.4% - nobody else in the top flight was above 60%. Tottenham, for instance, had plenty of ball (51.3% possession) but their field tilt of 45.7% was barely higher than Burnley's 45.5% (from 43.5% possession).

TBF to Evatt, his recent tactical "2.0" comments have been all about more pace, more directness - not as in long-ball but a tacit move away from Death By Pointless Possession.

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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Tue Jan 04, 2022 11:25 pm

Evatt.
I'm furious, absolutely furious. They're not in the game. We controlled the entire game apart from the first five to 10 minutes and we haven’t scored in the first half, which is typical of us, creating lots and lots and just not been ruthless enough.

We then just gifted them the game. They didn’t do anything to win it themselves, we just went ‘there we go, have it’. I'm furious and speechless to be honest that we have given them a game when we controlled the majority of it.

We lacked belief, confidence, composure, execution, everything. This type of night, cold, wind, bumpy pitch, it is always going to be one goal in it and you have to score and take your chances. To lose a game like that is absolutely infuriating. With the ball we did a lot right without scoring but that last 10 minutes was unforgivable.

I think we have missed an unbelievable opportunity to get to Wembley. We have just gifted it to the opposition. There are lots of things we could say and lots of debris I can sift through but right now that hurts. We have beaten ourselves and that has happened too often this season.

He [Dixon] has to take it on the chin. When you are a footballer you will make mistakes like that, we all do, and when you do you have to own up to them. Yes, Joel cost us the game with the mistake but we had enough chances to have been out of sight. We all need accountability.

We are all working tirelessly to turn it around. The debutants did well and the other players who have been suffering with Covid will get better but there is no way anyone here tonight can accept we should have lost that game.
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Re: Couldn’t give a monkeys - Hartlepool away 4th Jan at 7pm on the dot

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Jan 04, 2022 11:40 pm

See, this is where I get a bit lost. Evatt clearly thinks despite the merits or otherwise of the MF that we had enough control to have won it...

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