Lesson from Yesterday

[Sean Thornton]

I do think Wilder made the pitch an issue by adapting his personnel and tactics.

Thankfully this was a lesson with minor repercussions.

That said, what a disgrace that pitch was. How a professional football team in the third tier can be allowed to have that as a playing surface is a joke.

Points deduction or fine would be a suitable punishment.

Surely the pitch was an issue?

 

[PokerBlade]

Meh. The major problem with these discussions is that we're judging percentage decisions based on samples of one.

The pitch was terrible. If the team tries to stroke it around on the deck and passes run slow or loose, we keep losing possession and getting hit on the counter and lose by one of two goals, then everyone, perhaps rightly, says wtf was the manager thinking in not adapting his team to known conditions. We'd be moaning that we have "no plan B" and can't "mix it up".

It's an interesting discussion, and a fair one, but you have to acknowledge that if things didn't quite work for us yesterday in tough conditions, with some forced changes, then it isn't necessarily a tactical error. Sometimes it's luck, sometimes it's merely a bad day for key players, and mostly it's a mix of the two.

Wilder's tactics and changing up of the team before and during games is usually spot on. I think trying to play too much possession football yesterday would've potentially been an even bigger mistake.

 

[him behind you]

For me, there are a number of lessons to be learned from yesterday.

1 Wilder let the pitch pick his team for him and I think that's wrong. And to prove it, we looked an awful lot better when Coutts and Lavery came on - two players that had been left out because of the pitch. That's BIG lesson number 1 to be learned I hope. Always pick your best 11 and don't leave key players out just because you think the conditions won't suit them. Good players can play in any conditions.

2 The inclusion of Done as LWB was mystifying (to me). We should know enough about Done by now to know that he's not able to play well in that position. He's also not good enough up front either - so as I said on here many months ago now - it's a real pity but that lad has nothing to offer to this team now - he'll be gone in summer. Whether Wilder thought that it was worth saving some legs and giving him a go on the left yesterday I don't know. But I think that was a poor decision - and hopefully there's another lesson learned there. Don't waste a starting place on Done.

3 The team lacked pace and energy, especially in attack. This improved when Lavery came on but as we know that was only temporary. I thought Sharp had a poor game tbh. He was nowhere near the knockdowns that were happening all afternoon from Hanson. Has Billy become too big that we daren't take him off when he is playing poorly? It's not an insult to take someone off you know - even though they may react like it. I'd have been tempted to try Chapman or Carruthers to give them some pace to worry about.

4 Oldham's best two players, for me, were Fane and Obadeyi. Fane, a 6'4" midfielder, had a very good game in midfield - and guess what? He was passing it on the deck all the time! Something we thought wasn't possible because of the pitch. And Obadeyi ran us ragged down the flanks with his pace. The main lesson for us here goes back to what I said at number 1 above - don't change the way you play because of the pitch. We should have had ball players in there and we should have used pace.

It's good we got something out of the game. But it could have been more. Oldham played well to be fair and credit to them. But...we're better than that. Far better than that.

Agree with "almost" everything you say CB. the only bit I disagree with is Hanson won sod all in the first half - much better in the 2nd but was a step down from useless in the 1st IMO. Other than that I think you got your summary spot on mate.

 

[JJBlade]

We slipped into old and what we thought were forgotten tactics

Playing a style according to the opposition and conditions

I said on Friday that we shouldn't try to change anything

We are better than Oldham and should have just let our footballers do the talking instead of looking at the pitch and deciding footballing methods weren't going to work

 

[JJBlade]

It's difficult in those conditions but if the ball is on the floor we are better than others in this division

If the game is allowed to degenerate into a scrap it is a leveller

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Devils advocate, if we had set up with our usual formation and players would we have lost that game? I say not, no coincidence when Coutts came on we played our best football and had the chances to win it.

I don’t think we would have lost and think we might well have won. But the counter-argument is that we might have lost Coutts or Duffy to injury rather than losing Done, O’Shea and Lavery. Playing the team that we did means we should be able to name pretty much a full strength team tomorrow night.

 

[DazBlade88]

Nine teams have won at Oldham so far this season. Oldham have won four times.

Since Sheridan took over in January, they have lost 1 game out of 9 at home.

 

[Harrisblade]

Surely the pitch was an issue?

It was certainly an issue in all the media outlets, although I suppose it's always possible that none of them saw it in real life and all simply believed what CW was telling them?