nzlatic

Repeat of the altrincham 2nd half. Decent possession, pressing the ball, moving it round quite well. But get near the box and it all breaks down because the ball is at the feet of someone not capable of creating anything or someone who is but is lacking confidence/form. We desperately need a huge slice of luck or something just to try to spark things before these last 3 games.

400th overhit cross of the game

The ref seems to have just given a free kick to Rochdale because 2 of their players collided with each other.

Good half in terms of passing it around and getting forward. Again missing a creative spark on the edge of the box and a brain fart set piece goal conceded. Should be comfortably ahead.

Is there footage of that? I haven't seen anything of it. Hard to see how it could have been a more clear cut appeal that Fondop's though.

Before we start hiding his shoelaces have a look at his interview after a 1-4 away win at Barnet. He barely cracks a smile… https://www.oldhamathletic.co.uk/news/2023/november/23112023-mellon-post-barnet-a/

Quite. Seems reasonable to think it’d be worth keeping him based on what he’s done when given time in the past. You seem to think there’s not much chance of that happening so I wondered if that was because you thought he wasn’t capable of success with us or as a manager in general.

Do you think he’s finished as a manager?

We won 4 league games in a row under Mellon end of Dec/early Jan. Feels a long time ago now.

Chesterfield pretty much had that exact run last season which took them out of the automatic promotion race. Probably at a similar time of the season too. Cook also had a very average first 20 games in charge the season before when he took over a team at the top and clung onto 7th by the end. They kicked on this season though and didn’t have those sort of runs. That’s what we need to do next season.

I did mean that we should have let him go out on loan even if just for a percentage of his wages, rather than keep him and pay 100%! Saying that, I am a little puzzled as to why he's been totally frozen out. I can understand some of the other decisions... Reid - discipline, Nuttall and Willoughby - wanted different types of strikers. Shelton struggled but given midfield and rwb have been such massive problems I'm surprised he's not been considered at all.

xR (expected reducers) stat needed urgently.

Do you know this for sure BP? My query on stats at this level would be do they offer enough depth? With a million camera angles and data tracking options teams at the top must have, you could track anything. But other than player GPS and camera shots that spend most of the time waving around looking at the stand and the sky, I can't imagine the data recording is at the same level. It would be useful to have someone who knows the systems explain more about how they could be used by clubs at this level. Without that we're all guessing.

Cheers. Seems a strange one if that's the case. We're paying his wages in full if he stays so may as well get something back and let the lad play.

Shelts. Seriously though, does anyone know what has happened to him? I think he's the only player we've heard nothing from or about for months. It's like he's just vanished with no obvious reason why.

With the stats thing, it just boils down to how it's used. It doesn't mean it's wrong to have it. Royle introduced it which should in theory be a good thing, if it's not being used correctly then that's a human problem. Which is the recruitment team, whoever that is. If you filled the gym with all the best equipment then had a trainer telling people the wrong way to use it, it's not the equipment that's at fault.

No harm having it in the mix. It all depends how it's implemented.

You literally referred back to the previous regime and the situation they inherited in your post and inferred that protests hampered a promotion push. Why mention that unless you think the fans are letting this ownership off lightly by not doing similar? What this ownership and board have done off the pitch is very relevant when discussing their performance so far. Funnily enough I was browsing #oafc on twitter earlier. There was someone on there banging on about club communication, plans and statements as well. As for Corney, that was also a bad era for the club under his ownership and the senior club director Barry Owen.

Can you list the areas of the club that improved under the ownership of Abdallah Lemsagam, the sporting directorship of Mo Lemsagam and their senior advisor/club director Barry Owen? For example, what infrastructure, staffing or playing department areas of the business were left in a better state than what they inherited?

I don’t want to keep dragging this out, but I suppose to summarise my position I do agree that there have been issues with our recruitment of course. I just won’t point fingers when I don’t have facts. Eg stats bomb - we simply don’t know how extensively it’s been used or how influential it has been or how much at fault it is for the recruitment that hasn’t gone well. Plus as with most tech systems, it’s only as good as the people operating it! I will be a lot more concerned if we’re still seeing similar issues 2 months into next season.

I’m not going to pull your post apart because you’ve just done the same again, made assumptions to fit your position and tried to pass it off as evidence you’re right. I will pull you up on the bit I’ve highlighted though as it’s simply not true. I just hold off on making absolute judgements about failure/success unless I have the facts of a situation. Or unless I think sufficient time has passed to judge something properly. So far, the weight of evidence is that those running the club are doing really well (infrastructure, plans for future development, paying the fucking bills! etc) and have the right intentions. Based on that, I’m happy to give more time and benefit of the doubt when it comes to that filtering through to what’s happening on the pitch.

Us signing 2 players and them not working out is not criminal/pathetic. Especially when we don’t know the reasons they’ve not worked out nor do we know who else was available. It is frustrating though and obviously needs resolving. It also bridges 2 management/recruitment teams, the second of which hasn’t had a summer to deal with it.

If only Frank hadn’t wasted so much money on sorting a water supply, fixing the floodlights, renovating all the pitches, paying bills and salaries, sorting out a fans bar and a whole host of other infrastructure work then we’d easily be able to afford another Queensy Menig.

We’ve signed 2 they just haven’t worked out. Freeman - played at a much higher level. Looked decent at times. Then just disappeared. Fitness? Personal reasons? Sachdev - looks dodgy on occasion, looked good on occasion. Seemingly out of favour now. Not sure why. It’s a position that we can’t get wrong this summer.

There's quite a bit of speculation in here. Comments above. I'm not saying he's done a great job. But I'm not saying he's done a bad job. For starters I don't know for sure exactly what his remit is and on what criteria to judge him. But also, he's been in the role for less than 2 seasons. Recruitment should have been better, particularly last summer. But it might be that this summer is where a lot of it will be addressed. Again, too early and not enough info to judge that he "shouldn't be anywhere near important footballing decisions".