nzlatic

Massively agree with this. For too long the FA has tried to copy the model of the latest winning international team. France, Spain, Germany - we're always trying to copy someone else and by the time we do anything about it the next fashion has come along. There's an English way of playing and you've summed it up pretty well. I don't see why the top coaches in the country can't come up with a way of developing this style that the fans and players are more accustomed too. Doesn't mean there has to be a lack of technical ability.

As I put the suggestion forward originally I should defend it a bit. I wasn't talking about the sort of thing you've described there, where we get the usual honest sounding platitudes, "we're all working hard", "club available to the right kind of person that can take it forward", "dressing room really positive", "turning a corner" and all those usual soundbites which like you, Harry and deyres say are fairly empty. What I was talking about was hearing each board member talk about their experience, their specific role and targets and actual evidence or plans of how they are or will achieve those goals. With specific *insert normal word here that means KPIs but not KPIs so I don't sound like a management speaking :censored:* that can be measured. This would be followed by questions from the floor - not being spoon fed by a soft host who would allow them to get away with throw away cliched answers either. The Trust representitive on the board could then keep tabs on progress and feed back regularly to fans at Trust meetings. So there is transparency and some honesty about what the board is trying to do and whether they are able to do it or not. Accountability for not carrying out their intentions would be tricky to impose obviously, but my idea was about trying to rebuild a bit of a relationship between the club and the fans. I can't see it ever happening though. A few may be content with a bit of a decent run and finishing top 10, but I think after 20 years of misery the ill feeling and apathy runs a lot deeper than that for many.

In this case they're not though. There is added pressure at home because of expectation. No one's fault - that's normal and they should be able to deal with that. The problem is that some fans are taking out 20 years of misery on this manager and current group of players. There shouldn't normally be this level of anger towards them after only a few games as a group. So atmospheres at home are bound to have a negative effect on the players. The difference in your complaint scenario is that in most other jobs you don't have someone cheering good work or booing bad work mid-job. The complaint usually comes at the end. And it's a fact that for most players support during a game will help their performance. Conversley, abuse will affect their performance negatively. There's nothing wrong with what he's saying as a individual point. It could probably have been delivered better though!

Agreed, but doesn't how that complaint is made make a difference? There's a difference between booing a bad performance at the end, and screaming abuse at the players at close range all throughout the game.

Where does Corney say the 1% is the major cause of our home form? The article actually refers to our poor home form creating the 1% not the other way round!! All he's asking for is for people to ignore that and to try and be positive as that helps the players. The only reason he shouldn't have bothered saying anything is because he should have known people can't wait to be offended by anything coming out of the club these days.

The point of this thread was to deal with one aspect of why things aren't going that well at the moment. It's up to Dunn to get the squad playing well. Whether he will or not is a matter of opinion at the moment - you don't think he will, I think he might. Personally I reckon pretty much all his signings are justified. Did Dunn sign Yeates? Didn't include him above but he's on the books as one of our players, albeit short term, and I think he does offer something. He's got experience for one. Who is he replacing in the team/squad that we should have stuck with? Eckersley, Yeates and Fuller all add much needed experience for one thing. So yeah, I think they do improve the squad, especially with Forte and Cassidy being out for the period they've signed for. Presumably by saying get our players back and getting rid of these signings you disagree then and the team would be better for it?

I disagree. That's more down to his ability to organise and motivate. On the personnel front I think we'd be worse off without these additions.

Not like that. Dunn's revolving door policy has been talked about a lot recently so I thought I'd look into it a bit further and see how bad it is. IN Vassell (1yr contract) He is "one for the future" apparently. Comes recommended and could be a useful addition to the squad. We are lacking in contracted CBs. Eckersley (short term contract) Brought in to cover the full back positions at a time when Mills was injured and we were light in that area Dummigan (loan) Brought in as light in full back areas, been a great signing so far. Not keeping out any youth teamer/squad member other than Connor Brown. Lafferty (loan) Brought in when Mills was injured. Injured himself so has gone back. Mills back in. Rasulo (loan) Jones out injured, lacking a bit of a creative spark in final 3rd anyway. Has he been brought in to take Green's place in the squad? Fulton (loan) Seemingly wants to play with narrow wingers and has been using Jones on the left. Been a good addition though. Might be extended to the full season for continuity. Fuller (short term contract) Experience up front. Probably needed. Could be a big player for us with a few games under his belt. Higdon (loan) Brought in to cover Cassidy, will probably go back once Cassidy is fit. Overall, although I'd much rather see contracted players than short term loans, can many of his decisions be questioned? Maybe Rasulo is a bit unnecessary as we have Winchester but if Jones was going to be out for a while you could understand it. Everyone else has been brought in to cover an injury or an area of the squad that was light. Would playing our own youth teamers/squad players instead have had us doing any better? Eg Brown instead of Dummigan, Truelove instead of Lafferty, Tuohy instead of Fulton, Murphy instead of Higdon? OUT Of the players who've left Murphy was starting to show promise but maybe he wanted to be back down South. Maybe he'll come back and play for us anyway. Turner should benefit from his stint in league 2 and could still come back and be a good player for us in the future. Granted the young lads have gone to a low level but if there isn't interest from a higher level then them playing together in competitive football surely has to be benefitting them more than our occasional reserve friendly or sitting on our bench? Again, I'm struggling to see that much wrong with these... Murphy (loan) Turner (loan) Truelove (loan) Tuohy (loan) Bove (loan) Edmundson (loan) Jacobs (released) Green (released) Stankevicius (returned) I reckon he's done a good and largely necessary job on the recruitment front and to be fair to the club they seem to have backed him.

The club needs to make a real effort to address the issues the fans have. My suggestion would be to use that fancy new hospitality facility (when it's finished) to have each member of the board present to as many fans as you can cram in exactly what their role is, what they hope to achieve and how they're going to do that. We've had as many new directors come in as loanees, all with impressive CVs, all to barely be heard from again. Forget the meet the manager nights - totally pointless. Let's see the vision laid out for the club by every key person involved and then open the floor to questions. If we could see some sort of plan for the future it might buy the manager and the team a bit of time to build with a bit less pressure for instant attacking winning football.

I agree. Because as soon as he does anything half decent he'll probably be poached by Blackburn. And a lot of those moaning about him now will be calling him judas for not showing the same loyalty as the fans showed him.

I usually try to defend the club where I think they deserve it but there's no getting away from 3 big mistakes in the last 12 months... Evans, no permanent manager to try and stay in the play offs and appointing Darren Kelly. Shocking decisions, all 3 of them and it's no surprise the reaction of some fans. Its a massive shame as the new stand should have been a big positive. Instead it's overshadowed by all the negativity.

There's some pretty bizarre stuff posted on here from time to time but this could be the strangest. You'll always dislike him no matter if he got us into the premiership because of how you perceive he got the job?? Wow.

Matt Smith, Rhys Turner.

Fair enough, he's only human. But he's so crucial to everything we do in defence and attack. And there's no direct replacement when he's missing. It always seems to mean a change of formation and tactics.

Agree with a lot of what you're saying there except the struggled to beat Swindon bit. If we'd taken our chances we'd have won by miles. Hardly Dunn's fault that Winchester and Higdon missed sitters. Interestingly, just watching the Chelsea game and you can see similar traits - a team on a bad run, under pressure. They started well but as the game wore on you could see the confidence draining. Especially when they went behind. After that touches got heavier, misplaced passes, falling over themselves. Obviously not comparing us directly to Chelsea but I think a team lacking in confidence is similar in any league. They're geed up by management and sent out feeling positive but the longer we go without scoring the more the confidence drains and the less likely we are to score. Then the crowd get edgy and the whole thing self perpetuates. If we could just score early, especially in a home game, we might kick start something. Here's hoping anyway.

Any game we don't lose when Kelly isn't playing is a bonus in my book.

How many replays get televised? Only 3 draws today.

Interesting article - a lot of what he says could be related to our home form. Swap Plymouth for Burton for example.

You do realise that the counter argument to your "the manager is to blame for everything" isn't "the manager is perfect"?

It's not unheard of for players to be injured in a warm up. Or to not be risked last minute as they're called up to the first team. But no, he probably just saw he was at the club on Wikipedia and took that to mean he was playing. Jesus.

Ha! True. But I've seen my fair share of games where we created :censored: all and showed no attacking intent and there's no way 11 min highlights would look like this game.

Just watched the 11 mins of highlights. Obviously they don't tell the full story but they really contradict some of the reactions on here.

Playing devils advocate Doncaster rovers were playing in front of 3 figure crowds in a crumbling waste ground when they dropped out of the league. Since then several promotions, Wembley trips, new ground etc, even winning attacking football under Dave Penney! Crowds came flooding back. They had an owner who chucked a lot of cash at it though. Without that you'd fear for the worst. It'd just be too risky for us. We have to stay up. And I think we will under Dunn.

As I said, I made the bet with myself. And if I'm going to see a counsellor for anything it'd be for my two personalities.

I think I've figured out why there are more posts when we lose. After Swindon away I put up one post about how much I enjoyed the game. What I should have done is made the same point 28 times over 7 different threads. That'd even things up a bit.