I couldn’t disagree more.
Doyle covered every blade of grass because he constantly plugged the gaps when players pushed forward. It wasn’t necessarily about him making the tackle, he just cut out the option of a counter attack by being in the right place. He wasn’t a match winner by any stretch, but what he brought to the team in terms of his reading of the game and awareness was seldom recognised and is now badly missed.
If we’re sticking with this squad and tactics, we need to be ruthless in front of goal. It’s only the lack of the oppositions ability that this isn’t the first time we’ve conceded 3+ goals, as we’ve certainly gifted enough chances.
I think driller and KTD although having very contrasting views on Doyle both make valid points and IMO there are truths in both.
What drillerpie continues to ignore when discussing this subject is Doyle t
was more impressive, more effective and more consistent than both Reeves and JOB last season and better than Rose et al the season before. He may not have been good but he was better than all around him in central midfield.
I know it’s early in the season to be making sweeping predictions, but if there’s one thing we learned yesterday, it’s that we ain’t getting automatic promotion. Yes we were missing important players, but every team will miss important players and they 100% won’t capitulate like that. We haven’t looked convincing even when we’ve been at full strength.
To be fair I’d be delighted with a playoff place.
Having read through 15 pages last night and the rest this morning, there are so many I wanted to reply to as I agreed with them but it would have taken too long. Post match interview yesterday reminded me a lot of the last days of Ardley after IBs pre match comments about knowing exactly the sort of side they were ( just hard working and long ball ) yet being unable to stop it from happening. Also having been to 3 home games this season and watched a fair few of the games under IB last season this was the 1st time in a long time since I thought he was watching a different game to me. How he thought Rodders wasn't lucky to get sent off I don't know and no mention of their ghost goal just before half time either. IB seems to have a ' if plan A isn't working let's do plan A better ' philosophy which is all very modern but as others have said if we keep playing the same way we are going nowhere fast.This total football 10 yards outside our own box is not fooling any opposition into chasing around and supposedly tiring themselves out. They just wait and do what Woking did. Tuesday night will teach us alot.
By my reckoning we conceded 23 goals in 18 games under IB last season, and have conceded 12 from 9 this season. Not a huge difference. Hard to make a case for us missing Doyle defensively on that basis, although maybe the xg would tell a different story?
Completely agree about being ruthless in front of goal - we waste a lot of chances.
Probably, that's how football works as we saw yesterday. Glad he's got himself a club after his recent troubles/bad life choices.