Quote Originally Posted by LaxtonLad View Post
I think it's rather unfair to single out players who are having a bad game here and there. They might be playing to a "style" dictated to them by a manager who's having a bad game almost every game. All of our first team have more good games than bad but SM is having the opposite. Therefore his effect is a negative one if he's experimenting with different formations that don't work, as in shifting Macca to the left and Jones to the oppsite wing, but will he learn? Results so far would show he isn't learning now, apart from two games won where he changed the team for the next game, it showed too in the somewhat mystifying lack of cohesion inasmuch as we sank in both without trace.

Witness yesterday's instructions in a game where we saw a bewildered Slocombe wondering which of our marked players he should kick the ball out to, was it their fault also for wondering where they should stand, as lively as the Terracotta Army? It was plain for all to see that he was going to pass it to Camaron who would look round, walk left, then right, still looking round, thinking he was visiting Madam Tussauds, before passing it back to an advancing Slocombe who then booted the ball upfield - that really foxed Salford! But was he and the rest of the the team following orders from a man totally out of his depth?
I think Maynard has less faith in the available players playing out from the back, therefore the tactic is to get Slocombe 25 to 30 yards downfield before he launches it. This tactic relies on sharp, strong aggressive midfielders to anticipate and win the second ball and thats not really our strength. We seem to be a team uncertain of its identity since Williams departure and more than anything lack leaders on the pitch.