The cup that cheers.. E.F.L Away to Wrexham Tues Feb 11th 7-30.

[BWFC_Insane]

I’d rather have had a quick, agile player who can get in behind or travel with the ball than a big one up front.

I liked the look of Hepburn-Murphy on Saturday. We won't be signing him but someone in that mould would be great.

26 year old journeyman with a poor goalscoring record. Everyone would’ve lost their minds if we’d signed him.

What’s the difference between him and McAtee?

[nicholaldo]

I’d rather have had a quick, agile player who can get in behind or travel with the ball than a big one up front.

I liked the look of Hepburn-Murphy on Saturday. We won't be signing him but someone in that mould would be great.

26 year old journeyman with a poor goalscoring record. Everyone would’ve lost their minds if we’d signed him.

He certainly looked to have the raw materials at the weekend. The sort a good manager would get a tune out of.

But regardless, someone capable of causing the same kind of panic in our opposing backline as he caused in our backline would improve us no end.

[The_Gun]

I’d rather have had a quick, agile player who can get in behind or travel with the ball than a big one up front.

I liked the look of Hepburn-Murphy on Saturday. We won't be signing him but someone in that mould would be great.

26 year old journeyman with a poor goalscoring record. Everyone would’ve lost their minds if we’d signed him.

What’s the difference between him and McAtee?

McAtee was one of the better players for a team at the top end of League One last season.

[nicholaldo]

I’d rather have had a quick, agile player who can get in behind or travel with the ball than a big one up front.

I liked the look of Hepburn-Murphy on Saturday. We won't be signing him but someone in that mould would be great.

26 year old journeyman with a poor goalscoring record. Everyone would’ve lost their minds if we’d signed him.

What’s the difference between him and McAtee?

About seven figures.

[BWFC_Insane]

I’d rather have had a quick, agile player who can get in behind or travel with the ball than a big one up front.

I liked the look of Hepburn-Murphy on Saturday. We won't be signing him but someone in that mould would be great.

26 year old journeyman with a poor goalscoring record. Everyone would’ve lost their minds if we’d signed him.

What’s the difference between him and McAtee?

McAtee was one of the better players for a team at the top end of League One last season.

Before that? I mean he hardly set the world alight last season. But one season of just about double figures at any sort of level is it.

[brommers95]

It felt to me that we changed to a midfield two in the second half there, either intentionally or consequentially, and Parky reacted by bringing the cavalry on and the space in the centre of the pitch was taken advantage of.

I don't think we fundamentally changed the 3421 shape until we threw on Andreucci for Forrester. What changed was that in the 2 we replaced Matete and Lolos, who are more like midfielders, with Collins and McAtee, who are more like forwards - so they emptied the box, just as Wrexham brought on better players more capable of taking advantage.

You're probably right. There were at least a couple of occasions in the first half where Matete won possession in an advanced position.

We seemed to lose control temporarily once he was brought off.

I thought the same thing. I may be misremembering but the dynamic of the game seemed to shift completely after Matete went off. I admire Shumacher for the attacking subs at 0-0, but I don't think he needed to go to the 2-1 of Collins and McAtee sitting behind Adeboyejo. In my opinion the midfield three of Sheehan, Thomason and Matete was working just fine and Collins and McAtee should have replaced Lolos and Adeboyejo.

[GhostoftheBok]

McAtee has a goal or assist for every 2 games he's started in the league.

Absolute nonsense to be going after him given the season he's walked into.

[BWFC_Insane]

McAtee has a goal or assist for every 2 games he's started in the league.

Absolute nonsense to be going after him given the season he's walked into.

He’s not very good. On a free he would be maybe an ok squad player. For the money we spent - he’s shocking.

[Mar]

It felt to me that we changed to a midfield two in the second half there, either intentionally or consequentially, and Parky reacted by bringing the cavalry on and the space in the centre of the pitch was taken advantage of.

I don't think we fundamentally changed the 3421 shape until we threw on Andreucci for Forrester. What changed was that in the 2 we replaced Matete and Lolos, who are more like midfielders, with Collins and McAtee, who are more like forwards - so they emptied the box, just as Wrexham brought on better players more capable of taking advantage.

You're probably right. There were at least a couple of occasions in the first half where Matete won possession in an advanced position.

We seemed to lose control temporarily once he was brought off.

I thought the same thing. I may be misremembering but the dynamic of the game seemed to shift completely after Matete went off. I admire Shumacher for the attacking subs at 0-0, but I don't think he needed to go to the 2-1 of Collins and McAtee sitting behind Adeboyejo. In my opinion the midfield three of Sheehan, Thomason and Matete was working just fine and Collins and McAtee should have replaced Lolos and Adeboyejo.

Totally agree. Maybe Schumacher thought the problem was getting the ball to the front two. Shifting the midfield and their subs certainly gave the game to them.

[The_Gun]

McAtee has a goal or assist for every 2 games he's started in the league.

Absolute nonsense to be going after him given the season he's walked into.

He’s not very good. On a free he would be maybe an ok squad player. For the money we spent - he’s shocking.

I agree that he appears to be a misjudged signing, but mostly because of his fit with the rest of the squad, not because he’s a bad player. I still think that he can have a big role to play in our promotion push.

More generally, I think if we can get enough service to our forwards from midfield and out wide then they’ll score plenty. The wingbacks we had out tonight clearly weren’t going to provide much.

[Harry Genshaw]

Schumacher's take on things with BWFC Pravda was quite refreshing. He's seen the same game we did and highlighted a few deficiencies. Just as well - I fear he's got a lot of work on.

[BWFC_Insane]

Schumacher's take on things with BWFC Pravda was quite refreshing. He's seen the same game we did and highlighted a few deficiencies. Just as well - I fear he's got a lot of work on.

Yeh it’s refreshing to hear a manager say what we’ve all seen rather than pretend it was great and we were just unlucky.

[Spartan2]

So glad to be out of that tin pot competition. Focus on getting in the playoffs, and you never know.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Schumacher said over the past week that Matete can play at 10 and he was definitely in advance of Sheehan and Tomo. The other thing that happened when the two 10s were replaced was that Sheehan tired badly and Tomo faded, not to mention Wrexham bringing on effective subs and thus pushing us back. It all combined to create a massive gap where our box midfield had been, to that point, perfectly functional.

[Worthy4England]

McAtee has a goal or assist for every 2 games he's started in the league.

Absolute nonsense to be going after him given the season he's walked into.

That's somewhat rounded down to make your point sound better, he's also got a goal or assist in 7 league matches and played in 28 of them? That's about 1 in 4. And if you're discounting league games he comes on as sub, then he loses 1 v Crawley and he's got a league goal or assist in 6 out of 17 starts which is pushing 1 in 3.

To give it some context Dan was on 5 out of 17 starts at Cambridge on the same basis...

[BWFC_Insane]

On McAtee I was thinking about it this morning.

If we say he’s a ‘forward’ which I very much think he is - I’ve seen nowt to suggest he should be playing in midfield whatsoever….

And we profile types of forwards who have played for us in relatively recent times…

The wide forward - Dapo, Ameobi, Clough - Yeah McAtee is not really close to these players. He won’t beat a man or get to the byline often nor is he likely to cut inside too often and put one in the top corner. He has elements of this but isn’t what you’d call a good one.

The goalscorer - Doyle, Le Fondre - Again he’s not a terrible finisher but nor is he a natural goalscorer. Nothing in his record suggests he’s about to blossom into John McGinlay, and bag 20-30 goals season on season.

The adaptable target man - Madine, Bod - I mean again he has small parts of this to his game but he’s not one. And certainly doesn’t make it stick.

The pacy harrier and chaser - Charles - He’s closest to this and works hard but doesn’t have the pace or ability to really unsettle defenders Dion had.

We can then look at other profiles we’ve not particularly had

The pacy in behind type - not seeing McAtee as this.

The channel runner - maybe but feel Vic does this better and we don’t really play this sort of game unless Darby is in charge and he preferred Vic to do it.

So that leaves us with the hybrid 9/10 and I worry that’s about what he is. A role that isn’t played too often and certainly one where most of our players who might play there have been moved into other roles by managers. It also relies on having either a decent target up front or a natural goalscorer who leads the line well enough. We have neither.

I’m beginning to think McAtee is not good enough at any element to really excel and his career thus far sort of backs that up. I fear more given Schuey seems to prefer a ‘oneish’ up top that it further limits him and I’m afraid I don’t think he is any good in that number ten from midfield role. I just don’t think he has the game for it. Oh for a Kieran Lee.

So yeah he’s not a terrible player. He grafts. I just don’t know if he’s good enough for any specific forward role we need. And the money we shelled out was clearly ridiculous. I hope it was Evatt not Markham who insisted on spending money on him but I doubt we will be seeing any of it back any time soon.

There is to an extent a pattern in our striker recruitment post Dapo sale in that we buy players who are neither one thing nor another and not quite good enough at any of the roles we might choose for them in our setup.

[TANGODANCER]

So glad to be out of that tin pot competition. Focus on getting in the playoffs, and you never know.

I never want us to lose, tin-pot or no. ; why enter otherwise? If losing is because the opposition is better, fair enough, but in our case we're losing to teams we should be beating. Division 1 is a cheats league with blatant fouling, time-wasting and poor refereeing, but we should cope with that. Yellow cards are a joke and the game has deteriorated into all-in wrestling, but que-sera to that and we need to stop being bullied and toughen up. There's no easy answer as long as the E.F.L. allows football to go to the dogs, so our barks need to be bites. Giving the opposition more space than satellites might be a start of things to address.

Amen.

[boltonboris]

The term "jack of all trades, a master of none" is perfect for a lot of our players - We seemed hell bent on one stage on buying utility players rather than specialists and we're paying for it now, with both results and finances

[Worthy4England]

The term "jack of all trades, a master of none" is perfect for a lot of our players - We seemed hell bent on one stage on buying utility players rather than specialists and we're paying for it now, with both results and finances

That's my view, too. I think over a few years, we went from promotees to nailed on top 6, which is a credit to that period. But I think to some extent, teams seemed to stop standing off, I've not noticed the last maybe 18 months as many teams (if any) digging a trench on the edge of our 18 yard area...I think that covered deficiencies, especially defensive ones...

[TANGODANCER]

The term "jack of all trades, a master of none" is perfect for a lot of our players - We seemed hell bent on one stage on buying utility players rather than specialists and we're paying for it now, with both results and finances

Pretty much sums it up B.B. What few class players we have are held up by decent, but not outstanding ones. You can't eat soup with knives or forks, neither can you cut meat with spoons; you need tools designed for the job, and preferably two teams familiar with each others play. We don't have that right now. Hopefully Mr Schumacher can sort the silver cutlery out from the
plastic.