Kevin McDonald

[blader]

Sorry if I sound like a bit of a broken record, but if ever we required more evidence that Kev McDonald is the best and most important player in our squad it was shown yesterday. Everyone says he hasn't met last season's standards, which may be true to an extent, but 1 shot on target in each half yesterday shows that we just do not have a replacement who is even close to his ability.

On a side note: Williams. Why? Danny, Why?

 

[DazBlade88]

I don't think Williams is as bad as people make out. However, we shouldn't be playing him on the left wing if he plays.

For me, the midfield selection was wrong on Saturday. We 3 players out of position and that for me is a recipe for disaster. Blackman as a makeshift winger has been better than he was up front in my opinion, but you can't justify playing three quarters of your midfield out of position.

We have the likes of McAllister on the bench, so it's frustrating when we're playing people out of position when we have the options available. I know McAllister isn't the best but at least he's a natural central midfield player.

 

[Baildon Blade]

I don't think Williams is as bad as people make out.

Believe me, he is.
In 45 years of watching the blades I've not seen too many worse. No ball control, no creativity, no positional sense etc etc .
If he is the answer - what the f##k is the question?

 

[Balham]

In 45 years of watching the blades I've not seen too many worse. No ball control, no creativity, no positional sense etc etc .
If he is the answer - what the f##k is the question?

To be fair to DazBlade88 he's quite clear that he doesn't think Williams is any good on the left wing. I agree: I'd also add that I think that Hill is out of position at left back, meaning we had 4/11 players not in their natural position on Saturday.

 

[Robbie]

To be fair to DazBlade88 he's quite clear that he doesn't think Williams is any good on the left wing. I agree: I'd also add that I think that Hill is out of position at left back, meaning we had 4/11 players not in their natural position on Saturday.

With Porter up front, I'd say that 5/11 were out of position

 

[Hodgyman]

We hopefully won't have too long to wait for his return. I saw him walking along Cherry Street before Saturday's match seemingly without too much trouble. This is considerably better than we were led to believe.

News of another injury might put off potential purchases though, fingers crossed.

 

[JohnDenver]

With Porter up front, I'd say that 5/11 were out of position

A random prediction:- Miller's scoring rate when playing alongside someone other than Porter will drop by 1/3 to 1/2.

**stands back and waits to look silly**

 

[Houso]

A random prediction:- Miller's scoring rate when playing alongside someone other than Porter will drop by 1/3 to 1/2.

**stands back and waits to look silly**

I'd say you may look silly, but only due to Kitson being able to do as good a job as Porter.

I think the latter has played fairly well and unselfishly for Miller, but Kitson has that height, strength and experience too. Plus, he'll score goals of his own; which is something that Porter struggles with.

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

I don't think McDonald would have made much difference Saturday with respect to him. We have the same problems every time we play a good organised and committed outfit (they're usually the ones at the top).

They had more fire in their bellies and worked a lot harder than us in key areas. We're too soft at times imo and are not prepared to force the issue enough. We want to over play it when we should be applying more pressure and making runs into those areas defenders don't like.

Too rigid, too predictable. Would have been the same with KMac.

 

[Kenilworth]

I'd say you may look silly, but only due to Kitson being able to do as good a job as Porter. I think the latter has played fairly well and unselfishly for Miller, but Kitson has that height, strength and experience too. Plus, he'll score goals of his own; which is something that Porter struggles with.

All strikers need a source of supply, even Kitson but particularly strikers like Porter. Whereas Kitson has the class to do the out of the ordinary and get a goal out of seemingly nothing, I believe that Porter suffers cos we use him as a target man to get knock downs for his strike partner or to hold it up for midfielders to join in the action (which they rarely do in time). We are not putting quality balls in to Porter for him to finish - by that I mean the sort of goal he scored in the play off semi against Stevenage last year. He needs this sort of service and he will score more goals. Starved of it, the best he can do is hold it up and flick it on - then it's up to the others to exploit that situation. The conservative approach we are adopting, tactically, makes it almost impossible for this sort of service to be delivered.

 

[Bergen Blade]

If he is the answer - what the f##k is the question?

If you ask our management I think they'll say "How can we make sure Tranmere don't create many chances down our left hand side?"

 

[Foxy]

I think the latter has played fairly well and unselfishly for Miller, but Kitson has that height, strength and experience too. Plus, he'll score goals of his own; which is something that Porter struggles with.

I think the difference between the two is that Kitson is capable of crafting a goal out of nothing.

Porter will score for fun if we create him the chances, we just don't do it.

 

[Fiery Blade]

I think the difference between the two is that Kitson is capable of crafting a goal out of nothing.

Porter will score for fun if we create him the chances, we just don't do it.

No he won't !

 

[Foxy]

No he won't !

Perhaps "for fun" is a little strong, but create him chances and he'll give us a decent return.

It's not like he's missing hat fulls is it?

 

[true99blade]

just imagine if we still had quinn and played him and macca in the middle.... i'm pretty sure we would be doing a lot better, and if williams never existed

 

[s10blade]

"They had more fire in their bellies and worked a lot harder than us in key areas. We're too soft at times imo and are not prepared to force the issue enough"

Absolutely. One Journo commented on Twitter about Spurs-Swansea something along the lines of "Pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-shit cross/shot. Start again". We're very similar (minus the obvious quality gap) but it can be so predictable. Players need to mix it up and play the occasional ball into the box. Any half decent league one side could quite easily pick up a point at BDTBL at the minute.

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

Absolutely. One Journo commented on Twitter about Spurs-Swansea something along the lines of "Pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-pass-shit cross/shot. Start again". We're very similar (minus the obvious quality gap) but it can be so predictable. Players need to mix it up and play the occasional ball into the box. Any half decent league one side could quite easily pick up a point at BDTBL at the minute.

I'm glad someone else can see it. It's not just the passing either, pass pass pass is fine as long as you're prepared to go a bit more direct when an opportunity presents itself and make those driving runs into dangerous areas. As a team we have no inclination to do so and as a result do not put enough pressure on the opposition. I'm not sure whether its tactics or the lack of suitable personnel for that purpose.....possibly a bit of both.

Where's Bergen when you need him? I'm sure he could find some examples of what we're talking about. Football, no matter how you choose to play, is all about pulling the opposition players out of position and exploiting the space. If you never force the defending team to close down the space you will never get in behind them, very simple. They will just form up and deal with you all day long.

 

[s10blade]

I'm glad someone else can see it. It's not just the passing either, pass pass pass is fine as long as you're prepared to go a bit more direct when an opportunity presents itself and make those driving runs into dangerous areas. As a team we have no inclination to do so and as a result do not put enough pressure on the opposition. I'm not sure whether its tactics or the lack of suitable personnel for that purpose.....possibly a bit of both.

Where's Bergen when you need him? I'm sure he could find some examples of what we're talking about. Football, no matter how you choose to play, is all about pulling the opposition players out of position and exploiting the space. If you never force the defending team to close down the space you will never get in behind them, very simple. They will just form up and deal with you all day long.

Most people I speak to can see it. It's not a criticism in particular - any style needs an end product and I'm 100% behind Wilson. Obviously we're lacking quality and that won't change but regardless of whether we try and do an Arsenal and walk it in or try and do a Stoke and pump it long - we need to finish teams off

 

[Bergen Blade]

I'm glad someone else can see it. It's not just the passing either, pass pass pass is fine as long as you're prepared to go a bit more direct when an opportunity presents itself and make those driving runs into dangerous areas. As a team we have no inclination to do so and as a result do not put enough pressure on the opposition. I'm not sure whether its tactics or the lack of suitable personnel for that purpose.....possibly a bit of both.

Where's Bergen when you need him? I'm sure he could find some examples of what we're talking about. Football, no matter how you choose to play, is all about pulling the opposition players out of position and exploiting the space. If you never force the defending team to close down the space you will never get in behind them, very simple. They will just form up and deal with you all day long.

Quite busy since the arrival of my daughter a month ago!

Some would say hoofball's back this season, others think we pass it too much. In my opinion we've only occasionally fielded teams with enough attacking threats to create many chances. We've held back too much and often opted for defensive solutions when players have been missing. It's not really surprising when a team that contains static full backs and three from Flynn, Williams and McAllister in the wide positions struggle to find attacking rythm. I think this is a bigger problem than our playing style, which can't be properly assessed unless the team is well balanced. We need good attacking contributions from all positions if we want to be more like we were last season.

With all available, our most attacking/entertaining team would probably be something like:

Long​

Westlake Maguire Collins Jean-Francois​

Blackman McDonald Doyle Flynn​

Kitson Miller​

If we dared to make that selection our first choice while making it our priority to use the youngsters as much as we could I think we'd score a lot more goals and gradually improve. We'd probably concede more as well, but overall I could see us dominating games more, and teams often struggling to cope with us as there would be attacking contributions from every player.

 

[JohnDenver]

Ha! Congrats Bergen. See you in about 18 years.

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

Congrats Bergs.....great news.

Also I agree that starting XI would be our best at the moment from an attacking perspective. It's the side I would pick when everyone is fit and available.

 

[blader]

Here's a midfield selection that hasn't been thought of yet.

K-Mac and D-Mac in the middle?

If DM is the 'box-to-box' midfielder that Wilson says he is, can he do a worse job tha Doyle? I think Doyle has been below par (by his standards) in the last half a dozen game. Could it be worth a go? I don't think DM is brilliant but he might just offer something slightly different to Doyle, with slightly more creativity!

 

[Bladesway]

Football, no matter how you choose to play, is all about pulling the opposition players out of position and exploiting the space. If you never force the defending team to close down the space you will never get in behind them, very simple. They will just form up and deal with you all day long.

No it isn't its about scoring more goals than the opposition. How you choose to get there is up to you. Oddly enough there are usually 11 blokes in the way to complicate things. Pulling well organised teams out of position etc etc is strangely difficult.

I know everyone is an expert but in actuality none of us know jack shit compared to those doing the job.

 

[Grecian2000]

Quite busy since the arrival of my daughter a month ago!

Hearty congrats Bergs.

Is Ryan a common girls name in your neck of the woods?

 

[Grecian2000]

Quite busy since the arrival of my daughter a month ago!

Make that double congrats due to another duplicate.

 

[Patrick Suffaux]

No it isn't its about scoring more goals than the opposition. How you choose to get there is up to you. Oddly enough there are usually 11 blokes in the way to complicate things. Pulling well organised teams out of position etc etc is strangely difficult.

I know everyone is an expert but in actuality none of us know jack shit compared to those doing the job.

Yes it is. I appreciate that ultimately it's about scoring more goals than the opposition. I'm talking about the mechanics of actually creating the chances to do so. No matter how you play, be it pass-pass-pass, long ball, playing it into channels, using wingers etc. etc. Every single style is designed to exploit space in some way, whether that's in between defenders or getting behind them. That's not to say the art of creating and exploiting space isn't difficult, I never said it wasn't but I want to see our players doing the right things in order to make it happen. All we tend to do is pass sideways and into players who have their backs to goal.....defenders love it.

You'll find some of us (mere supporters) do know a bit about football. Not everyone is an RS plonker phoning up without a clue. You don't have to be a paid professional to understand the basics of the game.

 

[raul]

Congrats Mr and Mrs Bergs, but I'm now stuck with the mental image of you sitting down with freeze frame images of the birth asking pointed questions of Jnr's use of space etc etc

 

[Balham]

Bergen Blade hearty congratulations and the best of luck.

With it being a girl, you may have some explaining to do when she turns round and asks "Daddy, who's Ryan Shawcross?"

 

[Bladesway]

You'll find some of us (mere supporters) do know a bit about football. Not everyone is an RS plonker phoning up without a clue. You don't have to be a paid professional to understand the basics of the game.

Basics maybe, on occasion. Its ridiculous to say that because you watch your team once a week you have a clue about anything more than a passing knowledge of the game. Christ knows how many games I have played/watched but I don't profess to know any better than anyone managing/coaching.

Sky Sports have a lot to answer for. As does the internet and Talk Spurt.

 

[Pinchy]

A few random observations.

Anyone who wants to know how football should be played need only have watched Arsenal demolish Reading last night. Passing with purpose is the appropriate mantra. Hoof is dead and no-one should mourn its passing (subtle play on words deliberate - all 'likes' gratefully accepted).

Disposing of the ball in a manner that leaves to chance whether the next touch will be that of a team-mate or an opponent is patently and Blackwellianly daft. It really is time, even for the prehistoric monsters amongst us, to hold this truth to be self-evident.

We were clueless against a Tranmere team that will not finish in the top six. Fit and functioning K-Mac and Kitson (who is a couple of classes above both Porter and Cresswell) are essential to our prospects of success, so too is an injection of trickery and pace in the wide positions. Anyone who thinks that can come from within the present squad is kidding themselves; recruitment is vital.

We need to strengthen in central midfield as well. Doyle is an average player; an improvement on his non-footballing predecessor but that's nothing to the point. Younger, more talented athletes, more nimble of foot and quicker in thought, are running through him in much the same way as they left The Maestro shadow-chasing. It's a problem that needs addressing.

The fact that he is not popular should not prevent us from acknowledging that McMahon was one of the best players on the pitch on Saturday. He was flawless defensively and came closer than anyone to scoring a goal, incongruous though it would have been in relation to the spectacle as a whole.

The present standard of football is tolerable for a strictly limited period only. DW was brought in on a footballing ticket as a welcome antidote to the grotesque hoof-horror of Semi-Pro and Quickfix. Neither he nor the Chairman should forget it. His job is infinitely more difficult than some of us are prepared to acknowledge, but proper football is part of the job description and must not be shelved for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

I still expect us to get automatic promotion come May. Then we can recruit some proper footballers and take the Championship apart, Barcelona style.