LeylandLatic

To be fair, i'm not sure I'd be too enthusiastic about giving a round of applause to a few hundred people shouting ':censored: off' at me.

I get the feeling he is not the sort to admit he isn't up to something.

How long is Dunn's contract?

You've gone a bit left field on the spelling but up boat for use of the word gumption.

Wa wa wa why can't it be 1990 again Get over it, boring :censored:ers.

With jones, forte and cassidy I would think so.

I would if I lived nearby. I don't v think we were that terrible in the second half, even entertaining for short periods with Fulton getting on the ball. We actually have the players to be a top half side and entertaining to watch but the mentality and the way we set up is so wrong.

Have to say I agree. Fulton was good on the ball and got us into some good positions, Higdon made a real difference even if nobody seems to be able to read his knock downs (despite them being bloody obvious). First half was complete trash, Poleon looked thoroughly demoralised chasing nothing balls and being blocked off by two defenders who were twice his size. Tactics were non-existent or bafflingly naive. Philliskirk I'm generally a fan off, consistently tidy on the ball and good in front of goal but he looked unfit, lazy or both in the first half. The attack where he wouldn't overlap Dummigan and just jogged along behind him offering no option whatsoever was particularly frustrating. Better in the 2nd half but needs to be a bit more willing to make runs to drag the defence around instead of his preference which is to drop off and ask for it to feet. I'm not someone who is inherently against a 4-5-1 at home, but you have to play it correctly. I don't subscribe to the 4-5-1 is a 4-3-3 in possession thinking either but from today I would assume Dunn is. To me a 4-5-1 can be effective home or away but it relies on dominating in midfield - you support the forward by being able to win possession in the middle through pressing and maintain it in the opposition half meaning you don't need to resort to any percentage crap. Problem is we aren't quick enough closing down when they have the ball (I would expect us to be pressing very high up the pitch with a 4-5-1 at home) and we aren't making use of our extra man in the middle when we have the ball. Where's the game plan? Second half much better, Fulton was good, Higdon made the ball stick. Worries me that Poleon doesn't read his flicks or knock downs although he may well have just given up after the first half shambles where he was given nothing to work with. Would also add, as much as I am against the never ending conveyor belt of short term loans, Dummigan and Fulton looked in a different league to any of our own players.

Don't ruin it for them.

Possibly the same as Kieran Lee who many regarded as the best player at the club when he'd only played about 4 games in his first season, it was just obvious he had class.

So much so, his name has changed!

Agreed.

Gregan, Eyres and Taylor are the only ones that really stand out. You could obviously add Kieran Lee, Baxter, Wellens and Eardley to that in terms of quality but I don't really have any sentimental thought to them. Harkins disqualified on only being here a matter of months.

I think this falls into the 'taking it too seriously' category.

Add to that Vale, Gillingham, Chesterfield, Fleetwood.

The club have been stumbling from one disaster to another for the last year butthey got this absolutist right though - a really good idea. Nice to hear they had such great time.

Not sure I would agree, Dunn lost the ball 30 yards out and they broke from there. The most disappointing thing for me was Dunn's substitutions. Bringing himself on was a big mistake, I'm yet to see any of the flair or football brain that he should be bringing to the team due to his criminal lack of fitness, however it's clear to me given that fact he needs to play as part of a midfield 3. As a two, we get overrun with Dunn on the pitch. If he was coming on he should have gone 3-5-2 and had us try to play high up the pitch with two water carriers for him to just find space and play with the ball. It was a naive substitution fuelled by his desire to get on and change the game which I can understand but it did us no favours. The defence were atrocious, it's going to be a very difficult season for us. It's rare that we lose and I genuinely think the other team were relegation fodder but today Scunthorpe were awful yet scored 4 and in truth could have had a couple more in the first half. Brown is actually not that terrible a footballer (ability wise) but he is so unintelligent with his positioning and the way he uses the ball he should be nowhere near the first team. Organisation at the back was non existent, Burns and Wilson worry me as they often stand off giving time and space to the forwards which almost cost us a few times in the first half. The great mystery of Dieng rolls on. A better midfielder than Danny P, a better full back than Brown by a long way, a better centre back than Burns and a better partner for Wilson - still sits on the bench. Not quite the Kieran Lee saga but still rather puzzling. I thought Higdon looked decent in the first half, Poleon is a bit headless but can cause a threat but the real issues are at the back and in midfield. I don't feel you really need to worry too much about the wingers, if you're controlling the game in the centre you'll naturally create space on the wings. Philiskirk offers very little in there, Jones should replace him or Dieng. At the moment we're carrying too many under performing players.

So I read up the comments and realise other people have already spied his ample jib.

I like the cut of this guys jib.

To be fair, whilst I don't really rate Connor brown, a majority thought matt smith was :censored:e, same for O'Grady. You could probably argue Eardley was maligned by most.

This whole football as a science thing is one of the most retarded things ever conceived, amazing so many chairman eat that :censored: right up. Unfortunately it's a fair reflection of employment to most major companies, mindless professional buzzword ridden waffle is a key skill to 'get ahead'.

Which is why I would be hesitant to involve him.

To be fair I think we had a plan with LJ. The club had a different feel to it, a young ambitious manager who was building a decent team even if results were somewhat inconsistent. A new stand on the way. The loss of LJ was a big blow regardless of whether people think he was a good manager or not. We lost Conroy (=LJ on predictive text?!??!) and were forced to start over again. If stories are true that SC made it happen and LJ wasn't pushing for the move it was a major error. Continuity is the key to building something and finding a new manager should be a careful and considered process that probably shouldn't include Barry. SC should have TP involved in the interview process instead. There's no point to to have Barry help pick a manager, he's just a fan playing director, one who in my experience knows very little about football. It would be nice if we had an external consultant we could bring in also but the only person who fits the bill would be Joe royle, maybe that's the way to go.

All this bollocks about getting ex managers back is the most depressing part of it all. We as a group of fans are so lacking in creativity or forethought that the best we can come up with is John Sheridan. In 2006 John Sheridan enjoyed great fortune with the youth setup, Chris Taylor and Neil Eardley both coming through at the same time two players that would comfortably make the step up to a higher level. We had players that today would walk in to our current team, Wellens, Gregan, Porter, Pogs, Liddell, even Stefan Stam and Paul Warne it could be argued. Was the football that great? Not as I remember but it had its moments, potentially the memories of Shez are tinted by the dark days of Ronnie Moore and later Dave Penney. Sheridan was lucky with what he inherited and blessed with a decent budget, even so we didnt get promoted and in fact we werent anywhere near it. We were trounced by Blackpool in the play offs. The quality dropped off from there, our points tallies were 75, 67, 65 over his three years in charge, moving further and further adrift of the play off spots. In his final year we had Kieran Lee not even making the bench most of the time, with 7 appearances in total. Anybody who has ever seen any level of football for even a single moment could see that Kieran Lee was a decent footballer from the brief time he got on the pitch. Players with a football brain stand out. Anyway, we ignored our best plyer for an entire season and persevered with Kevin Maher, Danny Whittiker and Mark Allot in midfield instead. I understand that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but a number of people were saying it then and youd expect someone who had the ability of John Sheridan would notice these things, seeing them every day in training. Either he somehow missed it (which I find hard to believe, although Dangerous Dave seemed to do the same until striking lucky) or as rumoured this was a Corney signing and Sheridan was being stubborn. In any case, it reflects pretty badly. So he was sacked following some scandal I can barely remember involving some dogs and Charles Manson. We brought back Joe Royle God in the eyes of many, at the end of the 2009 season as interim manager. He won 1 in 9. Yet somehow, bringing back an old manager is going to equal guaranteed success. We had Greame Sharp as manager after Joe Royles first period in charge, he was a disaster. We had Andy Ritchie as manager after Neil Warnock, stayed up on the last day of the season to avoid L2 albeit with a tiny budget. He hasnt been a success anywhere he has been. Dean Holden is an ex-player, although not the right sort of ex-player cos hes not from 20 years ago. Are ex-players really the way forward, will we have our Oldham back when are in L2 booing Roger Palmer for his failed attempt at management?

1. Joe Royle 2. Roger Palmer 3. Andy Ritchie 4. Neil Redfearn 5. Some other ex player/manager we can all have a nostalgic circle jerk over. If it's none of the above I'm going to throw that season ticket I don't have at SC cos he lacks ambition and nostalgia but also nostalgia.