deyres42 Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 You mean better than someone who's been consistently one of our better players all season apart from the last 2 months where he's been struggling with injuries? Ok. Hence this year, not this season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeylandLatic Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Should probably point out that what LJ says in the press might be the complete opposite of what he's actually thinking and what he is saying to the players in the dressing room. i didn't go today so I don't know if we were good, bad, average. On LP we sounded ok. I don't know why people expect him to come out and tell us exactly what he thinks, what he says to the players how many :censored:s he's had this week etc etc. No doubt if he was criticising the performances people would be complaining about how he's ruining team morale - can't win. How the manager speaks to the press is very unlikely to change whether we're relegated or not, so who gives a flying :censored:? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeylandLatic Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Hence this year, not this season. I'd prefer us to not drop our club captain and most consistent player on the back of one average performance from a loanee. When he's fit, he plays. Even when he's been off form he's been average for League One. We aren't losing games in the midfield, we're losing them down the flanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OAFC_Ryan Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Should probably point out that what LJ says in the press might be the complete opposite of what he's actually thinking and what he is saying to the players in the dressing room. i didn't go today so I don't know if we were good, bad, average. On LP we sounded ok. I don't know why people expect him to come out and tell us exactly what he thinks, what he says to the players how many :censored:s he's had this week etc etc. No doubt if he was criticising the performances people would be complaining about how he's ruining team morale - can't win. How the manager speaks to the press is very unlikely to change whether we're relegated or not, so who gives a flying :censored:? He could say it was a poor performance without naming names... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue_Guru Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 I would like him to accept the sorry state we are in though and sound like he is gearing our boys up for the battle as opposed to burying his head in the sand and sugar coating what at best sounds like a very average performance. Regardless of what he say to the team directly or not if he can't convince us fans he is up for the fight how can he inspire the players?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeylandLatic Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 He could say it was a poor performance without naming names... Why? To appease us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deyres42 Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 I'd prefer us to not drop our club captain and most consistent player on the back of one average performance from a loanee. When he's fit, he plays. Even when he's been off form he's been average for League One. We aren't losing games in the midfield, we're losing them down the flanks. We are not winning games because we have no strikers. Smith has barely passed a ball to a teammate all year, you can't just keep picking the lad on reputation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OAFC_Ryan Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Why? To appease us? No, it's called honesty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue_Guru Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 So we can acknowledge that he realises that based on current form there is a good chance he will condemn OAFC into the bottom league. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Part of his job is to lift the players' confidence. There's nobody else coming in. What we've got is what's going to have to keep us up. Many look bereft of confidence. Publicly slating them won't help that (some of his candid public comments about individual players may be part of the reason for our demise). A point isn't the end of the world. While we weren't good today Crewe were worse. Build from that. Don't undermine them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GravityGrave Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 (edited) Admittedly I missed the posh game but when has worrall performed well otherwise ? Would rather have kept petrasso . Edited March 15, 2014 by GravityGrave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeylandLatic Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 No, it's called honesty. But what does it achieve, again it's just to appease people who want to know exactly what he's thinking or have their own judgement confirmed. I very much doubt he's preparing a party for the whole team to congratulate them on our late charge into the play off picture. Unless he's completely stupid and can;t read the league table he'll be well aware of the situation we are in, why does he need to state it, I trust he can correctly interpret the league table, I don't need it confirming. So we can acknowledge that he realises that based on current form there is a good chance he will condemn OAFC into the bottom league. As above I'm sure he already acknowledges it. I would probably be more straight talking than he is being but either way it makes no difference to the situation we are in so i don't understand why this is such a major issue for some. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OAFC_Ryan Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 (edited) But what does it achieve, again it's just to appease people who want to know exactly what he's thinking or have their own judgement confirmed. I very much doubt he's preparing a party for the whole team to congratulate them on our late charge into the play off picture. Unless he's completely stupid and can;t read the league table he'll be well aware of the situation we are in, why does he need to state it, I trust he can correctly interpret the league table, I don't need it confirming. As above I'm sure he already acknowledges it. I would probably be more straight talking than he is being but either way it makes no difference to the situation we are in so i don't understand why this is such a major issue for some. It's one of the poorest games I've ever seen and he says we were excellent. How do you know he doesn't truly believe that? Edited March 15, 2014 by OAFC_Ryan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oafcmetty Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Would rather have kept petrasso . He's gone on to bigger and better things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudemedic Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Admittedly I missed the posh game but when has worrall performed well otherwise ? Would rather have kept petrasso . See my response in the Worrall thread. QPR wanted to have another look at Petrasso, and presumably thought that he might be able to go on loan to a bigger club, but come deadline day we got Stead in and were going to get Tarky in, on loan, leaving us with 6 loan players anyway, meaning signing a 7th was virtually meaningless. If we could have kept him I think we would have, but it wasn't really our decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeylandLatic Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 It's one of the poorest games I've ever seen and he says we were excellent. How do you know he doesn't truly believe that? How do you know he does believe that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_mighty_bosh Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 After watching that, I'm of the opinion that Lee Johnson deserves his own style makeover programme. The radical change in style between 1st and 2nd half of the season is quite remarkable! That was ugly. The first half especially as I can't remember a time that we've passed the ball around as badly as that in years. But it was so nearly winning ugly and probably should've been. It's fairly obvious with the way LJ set up today the we are prepared for a relegation battle with the minimal amount of niceties as possible and I have to disagree with an earlier post saying that we weren't cynical enough, because we did a lot of blatantly cynical acts today. At least the team selection was honest in that respect. Although it's still a painful reminder of the stark contrast we witnessed from the start of the season. Crewe had a 10 minute spell in the 1st half where they played some OK stuff but after that the rest of the 1st half was awful. Second half was more entertaining but it couldn't have not been. After our goal Crewe had more of the ball but we looked the more dangerous team and we held them out pretty comfortably until that sickening corner at the end. We really should've exploited them on the break more than we did. I admire Crewe's philosophy of trying to play good football with young players, but on that evidence it's going to get them relegated. They look really error prone at the back and don't have anywhere near enough cutting edge to make up for it. Make no mistake, we are much better prepared for this scrap than they are. Rachubka - not sure where he was for the goal (impeded?) but other than that he looked assured and will be unlucky if he's dropped for Crawley. Brown - Mixed. One great nutmeg in the first half but doesn't do enough attacking-wise. Defensively fairly sound although he misjudged the bouncing ball a couple of times. Lockwood - He is vital for the dogfight. No passing ability but the defence looks more organised than it did with Tarky, Grounds, Kusunga etc. Wilson - Similar to above and the partnership is a good one. One great run but apart from that his ability on the ball isn't good. He's a good sweeper though. Grounds - He may be a better centre-back but for the rest of the season he needs to play left-back. His distribution suffers in general but his defensive ability is strong and he links well with Harkins, meaning that he is not the weak link that Mellor is. He can also deal with Harkins' lack of defensive cover. Worrall - Our worst player and a big disappointment. I can't quite believe how lightweight he is and he isn't quick or skillful enough to make up for it. One thing I've learned from this season is that the negatives of League One wingers outweigh the positives and you certainly can't build a team around them. Hopefully LJ has learned his lesson too. Philliskirk - OK, wasn't really effective going forward but he worked well for the team and broke forward to support JCH at times. No doubt that he was a centre mid though. Wes - typical Wes. Byrom - poor first half with many misplaced passes. Better in the second half and helped Harkins down the left defensively. Unspectacular but will have a role to play in us staying up. Harkins - tried stuff that didn't come off in the 1st half, sheer class in the 2nd half. Lower League Matt Le Tissier. You can tell he's not a winger because we he's one-on-one with his man you know he's going to beat him. The goal hardly stood out compared to his other skills. JCH - worked very hard. The best player we have to playing a lone striker role. Bad decision making let him down. For the rest of the season the only change to that starting line up would be a straight swap of Korey Smith for Worrall. I'm certain that we'd be an incredibly disciplined unit with the odd sprinkle of quality. Smith might be out of position on the right but he would take much better care of the ball than Worrall and still be able to use his energy to full effect. Once we solidify in the 1st half then we can be more adventurous in the 2nd. If today is anything to go by LJ seems be committed to playing survival football, so why not go the whole hog? As for LJ, other than making an earlier change today he did OK and set the team up well on the defensive end. Whatever happens this season and whichever League we are in, I'd give him 2 or 3 months to show he's learned from his squad building mistakes. The next 9 games will be irrelevant to that imo. While as a fan I'm prepared to accept that we need to show an ugly side at this stage of the season, the currently way I'm feeling is that League One or Two doesn't really bother me anymore. This will be our 5th season in a row that we face a relegation battle of sorts and that (along with us spending 2/3 of my life in this league and over 80% of my time spent supporting Latics) is starting to get to me. If we survive I'll obviously be happy but relegation would no longer be a big disappointment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dec666 Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Have I just imagined that we've played pretty awful football all season? It's a real myth and it's allowed Johnson more time than he deserves! Walsall, Crewe, Tranmere, Crawley, Notts County away, even the wins against Carlisle and Swindon were scrappy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Just watched his Latics player interview. "Proud, excellent performance by the lads." Very, very worrying if they're his honest opinions. The BBC web site has a Richard Branson article on it. It included these words: Make sure that you've got the kinds of people running your companies who genuinely care about people, who look for the best in people and who praise and don't criticise. People are not that unlike flowers. If a flower is watered it flourishes and if a flower is not watered it dries up and dies and I think the same applies to people. Richard's done ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snookmeister Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 (edited) The BBC web site has a Richard Branson article on it. It included these words: Richard's done ok. He also says "I know I'm a good entrepreneur, but I'm not sure that I'd be a very good manager and there is a difference" and "I just think once I've set something up, it's better if someone else runs it. I can dive in and out and be a pain occasionally, but the day-to-day business is better for somebody else to do".... Edited March 16, 2014 by Snookmeister Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_mighty_bosh Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 After watching their goal again, Rachubka doesn't cover himself in glory but Wilson has to take the blame for losing his marker. Positioning was a strength of his so I'm surprised that he let his man get a free run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pukka Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 (edited) We were the better side yesterday (from two crap ones admittedly) Johnson cant really be blamed for us not winning. If JCH does better when we had a 3 on 1 or Wilson tracks his runner at the corner - we win the game. They had not had a decent chance before the free kick in the last few mins. Yes, MacDonald should have been on earlier, but we were set up in a way that we shoukd have won that vs the opposition we faced. That is the managers job done correctly... However, It was the spell after their goal that got me. We had a chance to break. Grounds starts walking to get the ball for the throw in. No urgency whatsoever. Happy to grt a point when Crewe have in the main been abject. It wouldnt have mattered anyway if he had've as the entire team were ambling around. They were content. That is not good enough and that attitude does come from above. Edited March 16, 2014 by pukka Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opinions4u Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 He also says "I know I'm a good entrepreneur, but I'm not sure that I'd be a very good manager and there is a difference" and "I just think once I've set something up, it's better if someone else runs it. I can dive in and out and be a pain occasionally, but the day-to-day business is better for somebody else to do".... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BP1960 Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 (edited) After watching their goal again, Rachubka doesn't cover himself in glory but Wilson has to take the blame for losing his marker. Positioning was a strength of his so I'm surprised that he let his man get a free run. Wilson made the cardinal error of facing his own goal instead of tracking the man he should have been marking, but what was Grounds doing idling beyond the far post marking no one, he should have come across and taken charge by attacking the ball ? Grounds was poor again at left back, he now looks like a centre back just doing a fill in job. Edited March 16, 2014 by BP1960 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SavageTheBeast Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 What really pisses me off about oldham and teams in general is going in the corner. There was still 10 minutes to play plus added time and we where doing it. It gets you about 10 seconds before the ref blows for a free kick against you. It's just utter pointless, we should have been going for another goal to kill them off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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