Negative Nigel - Really? Some Evidence

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I don't buy, and never see any (apart from the mystery that is Walsall away - even then it was 11 10 on Shots) evidence that, Clough's approach is negative.

Whatever went wrong on Saturday it clearly wasn't negativity. Same for plenty of other games.

Thought I'd have a look at the shots we have.

Went for:
  • games in March
  • teams in the play-offs
  • Shots as given on the BBC website

Shots Per Game (in March)

Swindon 12.1
MK Dons 10.9
United 11
Rochdale 9

The repeated accusation of negativity is one I strongly disagree with. The above is some evidence that the accusation is misplaced.
 

So we're saying having a shot every 8 minutes isn't negative when 5 out of those 7 games were at home and all bar one against teams in the bottom half. What those stats wouldn't necessarily show is that we could be well on top in a game, have 8 or 9 shots in the 1st 30 mins and then sit back.

I haven't seen us 'live' since Fleetwood at home but we huffed and puffed that day with plenty of sideways passing and despite the stats (unbelievably) showing 19 shots, their keeper had a relatively quiet game. I don't think anyone who has watched us this season can't say we tend to be negative whether it's slow starting or sitting back after going a goal up, you just need to look at the the away fans comments about us recently which only backs up what most of us have been saying all season.
 
So can you tell us how many 'shots' we had against Crewe on Saturady? And how many actually troubled their goalie?

That's not the issue. The allegation is negativity. We are having as many, or more, shots than the teams around us.

The highlights from the game. You can claim all you like that this is creative editing but I don't buy it. Whatever went wrong Saturday it wasn't negativity.

 
I don't think anyone who has watched us this season can't say we tend to be negative whether it's slow starting or sitting back after going a goal up

I've watched us plenty this season and don't think we are at all negative.

I don't see that the details of minutes per shot, when we have those shots etc are relevant: we are having as many, or more, shots per game than our closest rivals.

If we are negative then they are they are all negative too. In fact they're more negative.

Recycling possession and/or counterattacking are not negative.
 
It's negative to win possesion in your own half then spend 30 seconds passing it across the back 4 while teams drop all of their 11 players back to their 18 yard box.

It's negative to take 10 passes to get to their 18 yard box and then play 10 more passes back to our back 4 or occasionally shoot from 25 yards out.

It's negative (by his own admission vs Crewe) to take of an midfield attacker with a defensive midfielder when we are drawing at home but it suited him because that draw would equal 7 points in 9 games (although only 9 points out of 33).

It's negative to think losing 6 of our 20 home games and dropping 20 home points is mitigated by being in the mix to grab a 5/6 finish in a piss poor league with a squad of 41 and a budget / fan base to die for.

It's negative of fans to discuss expecting better than being in the third tier for a forth consecutive season.

No doubt it's negative contradicting clappers
 
I've watched us plenty this season and don't think we are at all negative.

I don't see that the details of minutes per shot, when we have those shots etc are relevant: we are having as many, or more, shots per game than our closest rivals.

If we are negative then they are they are all negative too. In fact they're more negative.

Recycling possession and/or counterattacking are not negative.

Take your points but I, and many others, are just saying it as we see it. Nigel Clough is a 1-0 manager and his teams play accordingly, great when it works but we shouldn't be looking to defend a 1-0 lead in League 1, or recycle possession and play on the counter attack as you put it.

Re Saturday, from the highlights, shocking defending and piss poor shooting doesn't help either..
 
What you don't realise is that NC is that good a manager, that he asks the players to miss when they get in a goalscoring position.
I do not know who started the phrase Negative Nigel but the guy who did is the Pied Piper with the rats following Or the others who keep terming it would score maximum points each time on WhiteHawk's Sheep game.
 
Stats on shots are really not a great benchmark of positivity, but I get your point. Three of our last opponents have been struggling sides, so again you need to look at more than just the stats. The negativity issue is frustrating as i read on another thread that we should stop the negativity and play the exciting, attacking football iLife we've done in the cups... Yet it's the cups where we play 4-5-1 and play real counter attacking football. Plus in those games we often had less possession! It's a perception.

I had a little laugh at a bloke walking out of the Kop on Saturday, he was talking to his teenage son saying "Clough has to go", he's negative and he's fed up with one up front. I don't disagree that we didn't get much out of the game on Saturday, we were shite.

However, the outfield starting line up v Crewe was exactly the same as the side that played Scunny. In that game, negativity and one up front got us a 4-0 victory against a side in a similar position to Scunny. As I (and many others on here have previously stated) people see 4-5-1 as negative, but it's a solid set up when defending, making us hard to break down. On the attack this quickly becomes 4-3-3, which we played mostly on Saturday and Tuesday.

The problem is that yet again desperation sets in when we concede, we don't go gung-ho, the build ups are patient, but we rush things In and around them box. In possession were pretty good against lower end sides, despite the pressure from Crewe we still kept the ball but they allowed us to, further out. There wasn't enough penetration in behind their back four, fullbacks weren't overlapping as usual, particularly Freeman.

Perhaps the negativity on Saturday came with allowing a tired Murphy to stay on, not gambling on Che Adams. Bringing Davies on for Flynn instead of Done, yet Davies' normal reliability in delivering the balls wasn't there. With Baxter, Flynn and Davis all there subs were said to be enforced. So perhaps the real negativity is not rotating his squad and playing some fringe players, but then playing your best 11 is arguably quite a positive...
 
It's negative to win possesion in your own half then spend 30 seconds passing it across the back 4 while teams drop all of their 11 players back to their 18 yard box.

It's negative to take 10 passes to get to their 18 yard box and then play 10 more passes back to our back 4

We recycle possession instead of charging backwards and forwards, winning and losing the ball.

This isn't negative it's patient. If the game hasn't opened up we try again. Often most effectively when we switch play quickly but sometimes eg Freeman's and Murphy's runs into the boxes, and some passing exchanges we do work our way through thanks to good accurate short passing and movement. I like to watch it.

or occasionally shoot from 25 yards out.

But that isn't what we do. We have some shots from distance Baxter v Walsall and Baxter v Crewe - some work some fail. We have some shots from inside the area. We play the ball across the box. We've even started getting opportunities from corners.

It's negative to think losing 6 of our 20 home games and dropping 20 home points is mitigated by being in the mix to grab a 5/6 finish in a piss poor league with a squad of 41 and a budget / fan base to die for.

Has Clough or anyone said this. And even if they have it might be fanciful/clutching at straws, some of it might at worst even be incompetent, but it's not negative.

We are not a negative team. And as I posted elsewhere the efforts everyone made against Port Vale in particular were positive from start to finish.
 
Stats on shots are really not a great benchmark of positivity, but I get your point. Three of our last opponents have been struggling sides, so again you need to look at more than just the stats. The negativity issue is frustrating as i read on another thread that we should stop the negativity and play the exciting, attacking football iLife we've done in the cups... Yet it's the cups where we play 4-5-1 and play real counter attacking football. Plus in those games we often had less possession! It's a perception.

One point about the stats was that they are a comparison across teams. I would say some others have played similar low-level opposition. But I agree it's not a random representative sample and for a better picture you'd have to go shots per game across the season. And even then, like you said, it's far from perfect...

But it's a crude metric to rebut a crude, and I think utterly invalid, point.

AISI we simply are not negative: there are lots of things that are really great about the club at the moment, better than they have been for years. While I've got the time and the energy I want to share some of my enthusiasm for what we are doing, and challenge what I see as negative, counterproductive, or even harmful misrepresentations.
 
That's not the issue. The allegation is negativity. We are having as many, or more, shots than the teams around us.

The highlights from the game. You can claim all you like that this is creative editing but I don't buy it. Whatever went wrong Saturday it wasn't negativity.



Hear what you say WHF and you are not responsible for the 'creative editing'. However, it doesn't show the two shots (on target) that Crewe could have increased their first half lead by. What it does show is a series of piss-poor attempts at finishing (including managing to hit the post from six yards), a low, driven cross in the first half that Done may well have reached (but not from the bench), a couple of skied shots, a foul on their goalie, a risible penalty shout and a few scuffed shots that wouldn't have troubled a five-year-old.
 
Agree with Blade56. We do seem to be negative and it seems that it is due to playing with fear. I don't agree that this is due to the fans as the fans only start to groan when the negative football begins. The players are frightened to make mistakes as they will be seemingly bombed out if they do... unless you are Coutts that is.
 
Hear what you say WHF and you are not responsible for the 'creative editing'. However, it doesn't show the two shots (on target) that Crewe could have increased their first half lead by. What it does show is a series of piss-poor attempts at finishing (including managing to hit the post from six yards), a low, driven cross in the first half that Done may well have reached (but not from the bench), a couple of skied shots, a foul on their goalie, a risible penalty shout and a few scuffed shots that wouldn't have troubled a five-year-old.

Finishing was poor - as was Bashambauer (a giant on Tuesday) diving in and getting turned for their goal. Also the defence letting their player have a free shot on goal at the end. I don't really blame Howard as the balls move around like balloons in a hurricane.

What it doesn't show is negativity ;)
 
Not sure I agree with that we are negative, however we are a poor team with no imagination at present. We have good players and Clough has yet to find the right balance in midfield yet. That is the key.

If he persists in playing 1 up top then I would play Matt Done in the Scougs/holt role. He would add a much needed energy to our midfield. Poor fucker was turned into a striker this season and we have kicked that right out of him.
 

Finishing was poor - as was Bashambauer (a giant on Tuesday) diving in and getting turned for their goal. Also the defence letting their player have a free shot on goal at the end. I don't really blame Howard as the balls move around like balloons in a hurricane.

What it doesn't show is negativity ;)

Fair play to you, from every post of yours I have read I think it's obvious to see you don't have a negative bone in your body, and fair play to you. I don't think you can offer a balanced argument, however neither can the negative Nige brigade. I do feel like people have the right to question a piss poor season considering how last season finished. If you don't ask questions, do you don't get answers.
 
Agree with Blade56. We do seem to be negative and it seems that it is due to playing with fear. I don't agree that this is due to the fans as the fans only start to groan when the negative football begins. The players are frightened to make mistakes as they will be seemingly bombed out if they do... unless you are Coutts that is.

Again I don't see any evidence of fear. In fact on Saturday, if anything, we were too adventurous: as posted above Basham dived in optimistic he could win the ball, we played 3 or 4 at least passes in midfield which were intercepted for good opportunities. We spent plenty of time in and around their box.

I think some of the fans are nervous. I don't think the players are.

Agree to some extent about Coutts. Baxter had just run 40+ yards and wasn't puffing when he was taken off. I would've brought on Doyle - but for Coutts.
 
23pts behind Bristol City and poorest GD in the top six would suggest we are first of all hoping not to concede and secondly hoping to nick a goal and hang on to it a bit like Wilson in his last season with us. The difference being Wilson had players sold from under him and never enjoyed the same sort of backing that allowed Clough to waste £1.5m+ on an average championship level full back.
 
Not sure I agree with that we are negative, however we are a poor team with no imagination at present. We have good players and Clough has yet to find the right balance in midfield yet. That is the key.

If he persists in playing 1 up top then I would play Matt Done in the Scougs/holt role. He would add a much needed energy to our midfield. Poor fucker was turned into a striker this season and we have kicked that right out of him.

Yes. I'm beginning to wonder where Done fits in now we're playing Davies up front which is not good bc he's a great asset. Not sure he could have more energy than Holt though. He was a Duracell bunny on Tuesday. A bit worn out Saturday though.
 
Mmmm. Figures can look deceiving though.
So I'm a Sheffield United player, I get the ball 35 yards out, look one way, no support, look another way no support, step forward a couple of yards, still no support. So I shoot from 30 yards, it's a tame effort and it goes 5 yards wide or the goalkeeper drops his cap on it, regardless of where the shot ends up it's still counted as a shot.
All it tells you if you analyse it was that a shot was taken because of the negativity of the play not because of the positivity of the play.
 
No doubt it's negative contradicting clappers

Why would you ruin an extremely good post with this. ?

As for the rest of your post,I think the lack of home points is more down to quality and tactics rather than negativity especially at home.

Either way thou it is down to Clough.
 
Mmmm. Figures can look deceiving though.
So I'm a Sheffield United player, I get the ball 35 yards out, look one way, no support, look another way no support, step forward a couple of yards, still no support. So I shoot from 30 yards, it's a tame effort and it goes 5 yards wide or the goalkeeper drops his cap on it, regardless of where the shot ends up it's still counted as a shot.
All it tells you if you analyse it was that a shot was taken because of the negativity of the play not because of the positivity of the play.

When other teams shoot it's because they're positive but when we shoot it's because we're negative?

I'm not going to get into a back and forth about the details of this bc istm that no amount of evidence will be sufficient. We had 14 shots to 5.

There's a strongly held view held by some that Clough and the team are negative.

This just doesn't stack up with the games as I see them.
 
When other teams shoot it's because they're positive but when we shoot it's because we're negative?

I'm not going to get into a back and forth about the details of this bc istm that no amount of evidence will be sufficient. We had 14 shots to 5.

There's a strongly held view held by some that Clough and the team are negative.

This just doesn't stack up with the games as I see them.

Hey its not on to let facts get in the way of a strongly held belief you know! We shoot its always in the stand or off the corner flag. Opposition shots are normally within 6 inches of the goal. The Clough combusts and bollocks all his players because he doesn't have a clue what he is doing.

Don't forget the best bit, Negative and Nigel both start with N. Its brilliant.
 
That's not the issue. The allegation is negativity. We are having as many, or more, shots than the teams around us.

The highlights from the game. You can claim all you like that this is creative editing but I don't buy it. Whatever went wrong Saturday it wasn't negativity.



It's not negative. We hammer teams and create lot's of chances and have lot's of shots. The problem is the end product - the final ball, the quality of the effort.

We aren't scaring teams enough.
 
I would like to see what the overall possession is for the Blades in league games this season is.

Are there any stattos who can work this out??

I've never known a team have so much play with so little end product
 
Hey its not on to let facts get in the way of a strongly held belief you know! We shoot its always in the stand or off the corner flag. Opposition shots are normally within 6 inches of the goal. The Clough combusts and bollocks all his players because he doesn't have a clue what he is doing.

Don't forget the best bit, Negative and Nigel both start with N. Its brilliant.

I'm beginning to think you might have a point mate. Seriously, the degree of repetition I read that compounds the word negative becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for some. A ball passed squarely is a negative pass, just like that dwarf Messi who did exactly the same against Real Madrid recently. And as for the nonsense (there, another word beginning with n) about Nigel being passionless, when I've sat behind him in the South Stand he's anything but passionless!

Our main problem, and this might be a bone of contention that I'm happy to (wait for it, I can feel another n begin to rear it's head) nibble away at, is that we have no killer instinct up front. So a leading scorer(s), and I'm not talking about someone who scores 12 goal per season, is conspicuous by their absence.

If there's one thing I've learnt, it's that it's the easiest thing I know of to deify or knock someone down. So what follows is that when someone goes through a rough patch they become easy prey for the noxious blame merchants amongst us. No one's denying it's sometimes been a struggle this season, but it's not exactly as if we've nothing to play for, is it? Or have the Blades who slip into negative mode far too easily already given up? Surely that can't make sense, can it?
 
Stats on shots are really not a great benchmark of positivity, but I get your point. Three of our last opponents have been struggling sides, so again you need to look at more than just the stats. The negativity issue is frustrating as i read on another thread that we should stop the negativity and play the exciting, attacking football iLife we've done in the cups... Yet it's the cups where we play 4-5-1 and play real counter attacking football. Plus in those games we often had less possession! It's a perception.

Great post Swiss..
This is exactly it and is why I feel if we do manage to go up then we will do well in the Championship. We are at our best when we are flying down the flanks on a quick counter attack as we saw vs. Spurs & Southampton and Charlton & Forest last year. We are a scary proposition for the opposition when we do counter. Look at Bristol City away.

The problem we are seeing is that teams line up with 11 behind the ball (especially at home). Blade56 mentions this above although I think he gets it 100% wrong. We are having to keep possession in defence and midfield to try and draw their players in so that we can play a killer ball. This isn't negative, this is stuff you are taught in the playground - "KEEP THE BALL!" you'd hear your teacher shout. "DON'T TRY AND FORCE IT". Some of our fans think we should go against the grain and play direct football constantly and feel that any pass backwards is a negative pass. Honestly, a lot of the people you read on here and that sit near me have clearly never played football to a decent level... Neither have I - Sunday League was as far as I got but the nonsense that comes out of some mouths suggests that they don't understand the game of football at all.

We are having to pass 10 times then go backwards and start again as they have 11 behind the ball. They don't have 11 behind the ball because we are letting them
 
It's not negative. We hammer teams and create lot's of chances and have lot's of shots. The problem is the end product - the final ball, the quality of the effort.

We aren't scaring teams enough.
By the same token I don't think we hammer teams at all. We don't put concerted pressure on anyone. We flit in and out of games as an attacking force. It always used to get me that 10 minutes to go if we were a goal down you felt the pressure building. Especially under Bassett or Warnock. Teams sat deeper and we kept them hemmed in. Whether the game has changed (which I doubt) or we can't consistently put pressure on teams (which is more likely) is a moot point but one thing is for sure, with the exception of a couple of games this season we haven't hammered anyone.
 

Agree with Blade56. We do seem to be negative and it seems that it is due to playing with fear. I don't agree that this is due to the fans as the fans only start to groan when the negative football begins. The players are frightened to make mistakes as they will be seemingly bombed out if they do... unless you are Coutts that is.

Nope. Can't agree. The fans start to moan and groan when we go a goal down.

All of the half chances created prior to Crewe's first on Saturday we greeted with "ooh's" and applause. All of the half chances created afterwards were greeted with shouts for Clough to "change it", "Where's McNulty", "What does he see in Coutts" etc. etc. bla bla bla...
 

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