Our players who are league 2 standard

[Togtastic]

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.

[Old_pie]

We seem to be a team uncertain of its identity since Williams departure and more than anything lack leaders on the pitch.

And there lies in a large part the crux of the problem. The philosophy was for us not to change identity with a change in management and now we don't seem to know who we are.

Did LW take some magic beans away with him?

[1955pie]

And there lies in a large part the crux of the problem. The philosophy was for us not to change identity with a change in management and now we don't seem to know who we are.

Did LW take some magic beans away with him?

When LW replaced IB the identity did change.
When SM replaced LW the identity changed again.
Suggests that you can’t change a manager without changing the identity of the club.
There may be a many possession based managers on Radars’ list. Fewer who are able/prepared to work with what they’ve got and with little input on who comes in. Now we and the club know they also have to bring the right identity with them.

[Old_pie]

When LW replaced IB the identity did change.

Changed or improved in the same direction?

When SM replaced LW the identity changed again.

Seems to me to have been lost rather than changed

Suggests that you can’t change a manager without changing the identity of the club.
There may be a many possession based managers on Radars’ list. Fewer who are able/prepared to work with what they’ve got and with little input on who comes in. Now we and the club know they also have to bring the right identity with them.

Well it will be interesting as I'm sure the Bros thought SM was bringing in the right identity.

What I wonder is if they will accept a different style? The more I think about it the more credit to LW, who clearly is a coach way above NL level, that he was able to counter a weak defence by a strong attack and get more out of NL players than most coaches would at this sort of level. Whenever have we been successful without a good goalkeeper and back four?

[upthemaggies]

I do have to laugh when people talk about our "identity" as if we're West Ham. It's a bit late now, over 150 years into this story, to define ourselves by a very contemporary style of play.

I was listening to an interview with Jah Wobble recently (Pil bass player), a big Spurs fan, and he made the observation that the Premier League often now resembles Junior School football with players charging at the ball and doing what we as kids were told not to do and that in another 20 years or so's time, we'll look back at the 2020s as an insane era of football that we'll all laugh at.

For certain, the game does continue to change, both on and off the pitch, often in ways nobody could foresee. What worked for Brighton and Brentford a decade ago from their starting position of L1 may not work in 2024 for a club way back in the NL.

[Togtastic]

I'm more interested who can play a level above L2. Of course its unrealistic to expect the entire squad who got promoted last season to be at that level but our only purchases should have been on players capable of making it at the next level up from L2. Crowley has been a success as have Robertson and Macari but beyond that i am not sure if anyone else brought in has. I appreciate the loyalty of the owners to certain players but they are going to have to be much more hard nosed this summer if they want to keep progressing.
Just as it was evident to everyone but the recruitment team that the defense last season would struggle, it is now evident we lack physicality and energy, particularly as we now have less possession and have more to do off the ball.

[LeftPeg_Pie]

Macari
Baldwin
Cameron - Undeserving of a decent portion of stick he’s getting.
Nemane
Jones
Robertson
Bostock
Palmer
Crowley
Langstaff
McGoldrick

All capable of playing well in L2, although I expect Jones and Macca to be gone this summer, at least. It’s early days for Jatta but I think he’s more than capable of being highly successful in L2.

Sam Austin is a bit of a sticking point. Good squad player, versatile and gives it his all. Probably worth another year.

It’s a shame Scott and Bajrami have been injured so the jury is out on them.

Everyone else can go for me. I like a lot of them; Brindley, Connell, Chicksen, TAR, JOB and Slocombe. But it’s a purely down to the decency bias of them being the guys that got us up.

[marky]

It's a shocking indictment on the recruitment that Notts have so few players up to the level they're playing in which isn't even that good anyway.

[Lullapie]

I do have to laugh when people talk about our "identity" as if we're West Ham. It's a bit late now, over 150 years into this story, to define ourselves by a very contemporary style of play.

I was listening to an interview with Jah Wobble recently (Pil bass player), a big Spurs fan, and he made the observation that the Premier League often now resembles Junior School football with players charging at the ball and doing what we as kids were told not to do and that in another 20 years or so's time, we'll look back at the 2020s as an insane era of football that we'll all laugh at.

For certain, the game does continue to change, both on and off the pitch, often in ways nobody could foresee. What worked for Brighton and Brentford a decade ago from their starting position of L1 may not work in 2024 for a club way back in the NL.

Great points. As I keep seeing on NCM, there's some Notts fans who seem to believe that the rest of the world considers us as the last bastions of pure football. We're a struggling League 2 team, with a manager who is out of his depth. I look around other League 2 clubs and they don't seem to have the same managerial crisis that we are currently experiencing.