It's not the results that bother me, it's the performance. It's the lack of tactical response from Hecky with late subs.
Against Man City they had 15 shots in the first half after putting us under non-stop pressure. Before they scored in the 63rd minute they'd already racked up another 12 shots. Changes should've been made prior to this as it was inevitable that they were going to score. Hecky did nothing. He saw it as "while it's 0-0 I don't need to do anything." Funnily enough they scored.
Against Spurs it was exactly the same. His first sub came in the 70th minute and only made two more in the 80th minute.
Against Newcastle he naively swapped to a back four, putting players out of position. Even then most of his subs didn't come until after we were 5-0 down when it was too late.
Against West Ham it was yet another battering. After the match he said they recognised that their height was a threat and they knew they needed to make changes to counter that. He made his first change in the 76th minute. Why did it take so long to counter what he knew would be an issue before a ball was kicked.
I have no faith in Hecky turning this around as he is not of his depth, tactically clueless, reacts too slowly and normally after the inevitable goal has been conceded, instead of before to stop it. He keeps picking the same players no matter how error prone they have been.
The funny thing is that the wanting signs were there last season when we went on that long winless streak where Boro nearly caught us. Often in games he made no tactical changes, just late baffling subs that had no impact.
Do I think sacking Hecky will save us from relegation? No. Do I think sacking him might improve these lifeless, turgid, limp performances that we've been seeing and actually see us defend set pieces and string two passes together? Yes.
Pretty much nails it.
However of course with the new (5 subs from a registered 7 subs) subs rule, then squad quality becomes as important as first 11 quality.
We can just about scratch together 11 players who potentially can compete in the PL but in reality you need 20 players of PL quality.
Think our results have been half decent.....losing by 1 goal in many matches is respectable, can't really complain, especially against decent teams.
However my issue is possibly the results are masking the reality of how bad we are.
The tactics seem to be based on "damage limitation", let's defend for our lives and just hope we can knick a goal from a corner or long throw-in.
That's how a league 1 team would approach a game when playing PL opposition on the cup. Neither Luton or Burnley have adopted them tactics.
Based on the players we are (at worse) an upper level Championship team...so I expected us to have a more ambitious game plan and at least have a few attacks.
Also what is really concerning is the recent lack of effort and almost acceptance that we're going to lose as though confidence has gone.
Appreciate it's difficult, made worse due to our lack of preparation with the last minute signings, so agree that Hecky deserves some slack, also he's likeable which helps give him time but ultimately it's the managers responsibility to get a tune out of his players, design a strategy/game plan to compete giving us a chance.
I know we were promoted last season but those stood around me on the Kop, all calm, non reactionary 50's age group, weren't entirely convinced.
At times (short spells in every match) we couldn't string 3 passes together last season but had the luxury of relying on N'diaye to get us out of jail.
Post match I'd be expected a realistic appraisal of our positives and negatives but Hecky was almost always positive after a win.
I'm thinking, get the players in practicing keep possession, pass and move exercises. Our defence was often excellent but very overworked most matches
in the Championship as though we had no defensive midfield, this was never mentioned in post match interviews either.
We hardly played the ball...building up through midfield, we tended to pass to Norwood who would try the long/ direct pass.
So it's no surprise really that without N'Diaye we look a bit lost with no structure.
Also the alarm bells rang when Hecky said if he had his way he'd love to take Sharp, Fleck, Stevens, Basham, Osborn etc into the PL when they all clearly struggled at Championship level, so maybe he's too nice to his players? Lowe didn't look Championship standard last season and played like he wasn't even trying.
My fear is this team would be mid table at best, in the Championship because we're basically starting afresh with little plan or structure.
Hope Hecky proves me wrong and it's a valid point that we have our own league when we play Luton, Everton, Burnley, Bournmouth and Wolves
but I think we have a 0% chance of staying up with Hecky and might even challenge the record low points total.
Where as with another manger we have a 25% chance of staying, guaranteed to be more competitive and won't be anywhere near Derby's record.
