How impressed are you with BMcD's return to the club?

[leon]

My only beef with McD so far has been team selection but tbh I'm starting to think his hands have been tied with Vydra and that there is more to the story with Sa than we know about.

Take Vydra out of the equation and what's left upfront?

As with Blackman there's something going on with Sa. Players have no loyalty these days. We need 11 players that want to wear the hoops. Not merely be concerned with the size of their wage packets.

my gut feeling is that Sa is a bad apple. One of the egos that BM was talking about. He had a reputation at his previous club iirc.

One hattrick aside he's been a massive let down. He's a striker who's never in the box and we wonder why we don't score enough goals.

[Victor Meldrew]

I can't see how anybody could dislike Brian whereas Adkins and Clarke were not the types that you could ever warm to.
It took a while for Brian to be reappointed and my hope was that he would do some hard bargaining over transfer budgets and control of the playing side.
Early signs in those areas are not good in that Blackman was sold with undue haste (as another poster said, without any immediate replacement for our top goalscorer) and it seems (rightly or wrongly) that Piazon and Vydra (despite not being Brian-type players) have to play because of what they are costing or in the case of Piazon whatever agreement we had with Chelsea over playing him.

Having suggested last week that this season is a write-off (apart from another possible FA Cup run that could maintain the interest of fans) I would like to see us preparing now for next season and beyond as that would involve starting players who will not be out of contract at the end of the season (HRK, Gunter et al) and with relegation almost certainly out of the question I do believe the fans would get behind Brian and the club as they would see what was trying to be achieved in terms of building.

Brian still has a lot of cred from last time and most fans seem to feel that the club didn't support him properly in the transfer market during our relegation season rather than blaming him so much personally.
Adkins played some of the youngsters for a while but during the rest of his time and during Clarke's tenure that all dropped off and Cooper is only playing now because of injuries-when the youngsters did play I sensed that fans were happy to give them time and I feel that the same would happen again, giving the fans once more a better link to the club and vice versa whereas now many of us are fed up with mercenaries and players just seeing out their contracts.

[Millsy]

Neither impressed nor unimpressed.

Too early to say.

Confounded by having to let go of Blackman.

Will reserve judgement until his wheeling and dealing in this window and following couple of months.

[RoyalBlue]

My only beef with McD so far has been team selection but tbh I'm starting to think his hands have been tied with Vydra and that there is more to the story with Sa than we know about.

Take Vydra out of the equation and what's left upfront?

As with Blackman there's something going on with Sa. Players have no loyalty these days. We need 11 players that want to wear the hoops. Not merely be concerned with the size of their wage packets.

my gut feeling is that Sa is a bad apple. One of the egos that BM was talking about. He had a reputation at his previous club iirc.

One hattrick aside he's been a massive let down. He's a striker who's never in the box and we wonder why we don't score enough goals.

So he's a striker like most of the other strikers we have had in recent years - forced to work outside the box most of the time because the manager, coaches and teammates can't find a way of providing him with service when he is in the box!

[Royal_jimmy]

Somewhat underwhelmed. This bloke has his favourites again even though they are terrible.

I bet the club will offer Cox and Kanu new contracts too

[CountryRoyal]

Also does anyone else think McD comes across slightly more arrogant/cocky then he did compared to his first time here? His demeaner in interviews seems so much more self-assured and confident. Not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.

[AthleticoSpizz]

After all the shenanigans during his time at Leeds, I guess it's only natural that he has toughened up a bit.

[CountryRoyal]

After all the shenanigans during his time at Leeds, I guess it's only natural that he has toughened up a bit.

What I'm thinking.

[Royal_jimmy]

We seem to be hoofing the ball a lot more

[Lower West]

Confounded by having to let go of Blackman.

Blackman walked. Was never going to stay. SC massaged his ego.

[howser]

[quote="Royal_jimmy"]We seem to be hoofing the ball a lot more[/quote]


Now there's a surprise !

[ROWY]

It's not Brian to blame - he has been landed with to many very mediocre players, none of whom would not get in either of the promotion teams
The only current player who would get anywhere near it is Norwood, other than that possibly Quinn, possibly McShane, and that's it

[Ian Royal]

We seem to be hoofing the ball a lot more

Now there's a surprise !

According to stats, we're actually averaging 32 more short passes a game and six less long passes this season compared to last season. Our pass success is 3.5 percentage points better too. But hey, that's compiled by someone objective, without an agenda. Obviously that doesn't compare McDermott's six games to the previous 20 odd this season. But I certainly haven't seen any extra hoofing in the games I've seen under McDermott. In fact I've seen some pretty slick stuff at times.

[CountryRoyal]

I've noticed more balls down the channels but with the pace we have I'm ok with that, unfortunately too many have been over hit junk.

[Cookie]

Early days, but I just wondered how everyone viewed BMcD's return to the club?
Six League games in, we have 2 wins, 1 draw and 3 defeats!
Only 4 goals scored, 5 conceded, and 7 points.
Thoughts please!

MY THOUGHTS
As you say "Early days"
When he became manager before in his own words he "didn't have enough defenders"
And I think he feels the same now, the squad isn't composed of players he needs to succeed here.
Yann Kermogant is a Jason Roberts style addition. (if he comes here)
Meanwhile the interest in Man City's George Evans also gives a clue. (Evans can play defensive MF and CB by the way)

I say stand by for more defensive players to join the squad, and the likes of Williams joining Blackman out the door.

You've only got to look at what happened last time, we consistently found room for extra defenders and defensive MF players like . . .
Zurab
Griffin
Leigertwood
Stephen Kelly (who effectively replaced Gunter)
Gorkss
Harte
Matt Connolly
Marcus Williams (granted he didn't last long)
and the return of Nicky Shorey


We are too easy to beat at the moment and all the lovers of Norwood and Williams will hate to hear this, but our midfield just can not defend well enough.

[RoyalBlue]

We seem to be hoofing the ball a lot more

Now there's a surprise !

According to stats, we're actually averaging 32 more short passes a game and six less long passes this season compared to last season. Our pass success is 3.5 percentage points better too. But hey, that's compiled by someone objective, without an agenda. Obviously that doesn't compare McDermott's six games to the previous 20 odd this season. But I certainly haven't seen any extra hoofing in the games I've seen under McDermott. In fact I've seen some pretty slick stuff at times.

As you say, the stats don't take account of the fact that McDermott has only been in charge for six games. When Dellor took a rare moment out from criticising Vydra yesterday, he commented on the fact that we kept hitting long balls forward that were coming to nothing. If that was true then maybe the stats will change the as McDermott has more games in charge (and starts to get his message through to the players?).

[Ian Royal]

Now there's a surprise !

According to stats, we're actually averaging 32 more short passes a game and six less long passes this season compared to last season. Our pass success is 3.5 percentage points better too. But hey, that's compiled by someone objective, without an agenda. Obviously that doesn't compare McDermott's six games to the previous 20 odd this season. But I certainly haven't seen any extra hoofing in the games I've seen under McDermott. In fact I've seen some pretty slick stuff at times.

As you say, the stats don't take account of the fact that McDermott has only been in charge for six games. When Dellor took a rare moment out from criticising Vydra yesterday, he commented on the fact that we kept hitting long balls forward that were coming to nothing. If that was true then maybe the stats will change the as McDermott has more games in charge (and starts to get his message through to the players?).

Every team hits more and more poor long balls forward the worse they're playing. It's the easy safe option. It was the same under Coppell, Rodgers, Adkins and Clarke.... play badly, hit a hopeful ball forward. It's not necessarily indicative of how he wants us to play.

It's funny, it's only people who want to have a pop at McDermott who are complaining about hoofing. Almost like they see what they want to see.

[CountryRoyal]

Disagree with it being the same under Adkins. Sometimes it's what we cried out for but instead we continued to pass it side to side, then back to the defence when we were supposedly "chasing" a game.

I'm also probably alone at remembering our football quite fondly in Brian's first time in charge. At times it was a tad turgid but no more so than most teams in the division, and contrary to a lot of belief the overall quality of the league and the play has improved markably since then with an enhanced emphasis on style. We played some good stuff with a lot of exciting quick wing play.

[Cookie]

My only beef with McD so far has been team selection but tbh I'm starting to think his hands have been tied with Vydra and that there is more to the story with Sa than we know about.

Take Vydra out of the equation and what's left upfront?

As with Blackman there's something going on with Sa. Players have no loyalty these days. We need 11 players that want to wear the hoops. Not merely be concerned with the size of their wage packets.

my gut feeling is that Sa is a bad apple. One of the egos that BM was talking about. He had a reputation at his previous club iirc.

One hattrick aside he's been a massive let down. He's a striker who's never in the box and we wonder why we don't score enough goals.

A "BAD APPLE" you think?
Maybe, I thought it was a bit of a snub putting Cox on ahead of him at MK.

[Ian Royal]

Disagree with it being the same under Adkins. Sometimes it's what we cried out for but instead we continued to pass it side to side, then back to the defence when we were supposedly "chasing" a game.

I'm also probably alone at remembering our football quite fondly in Brian's first time in charge. At times it was a tad turgid but no more so than most teams in the division, and contrary to a lot of belief the overall quality of the league and the play has improved markably since then with an enhanced emphasis on style. We played some good stuff with a lot of exciting quick wing play.

There was a definite trend under Adkins to pass around the back four and a deep midfielder, but in most cases that ended in a hopeful punt upfield, because those were the safe options. T

hat's where the likes of sandman get their complaints about passing football from. Teams that are low on confidence and maybe ability, trying to play a passing game. No one up the field shows for a pass, the defence have no options to go forward accurately, so pass short between them looking nervous, run out of space and launch it hopefully. No one wants to take the risk of playing a ball through a narrow space, because they're not confident in their accuracy and don't want to be seen as giving the ball away dangerously and causing a breakaway.