Signing Backgrounds

[TSANHO]

I agree with the posters on this thread that say its the deployment not the recruitment..
The recruitment's been pretty varied really and isn't the issue IMO.

Two points though...
The way to get out of this league is to pack the team with players who are too good for it. The way to stay is to pack the team with players who belong here (remembering it's only 1 up from 24 clubs and then the trials of the play-offs for another 1). So no to a lot more recruitment from the NL

The worst recruitment over the past ten or so years has been the old pros/bigger names at the end of their careers - Stead/Smith/Doyle/O'Brien/Turner have been the most frustrating players I've seen and they get picked time after time after time...

+1 for those saying that it’s the deployment of the tactics, not the personnel, that’s causing us most problems.

I’ve said before that some of the players look lost, or like strangers, so maybe they just don’t fully understand what the hell Ardley is on about....the manager has said himself that the players haven’t done as they’ve been told to on numerous occasions.

I can’t see it changing now but it should be simple, especially in this division....

Win the midfield early, and when you do keep your foot on the throat of the opposition and don’t let up until the game is won. Only once you have the midfield can you play your fancy football....we seem to forget this is every game we play. How many times in the last two seasons have our midfield dominated an opposition in this way? I’m honestly struggling to think of a single game. I thought this was the very basic foundations of winning a game.

[the_anticlough]

Win the midfield early, and when you do keep your foot on the throat of the opposition and don’t let up until the game is won. Only once you have the midfield can you play your fancy football....we seem to forget this is every game we play. How many times in the last two seasons have our midfield dominated an opposition in this way? I’m honestly struggling to think of a single game. I thought this was the very basic foundations of winning a game.

I think you're getting to the heart of the problem. The Kings Lynn game - the lasting impression is of a really disconnected team, the defenders struggling to use the ball from the back and the forward players starved of decent possession - it's the midfield that should be joining up the dots and connecting these parts. Ardley's system is all about his playing patterns, 'playing through the lines' from the back. When the midfield fails to do this it's going to look ugly.