JoeP

11 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

He should be, he's seems pretty astute at wasting others money and with that I'd expect some pressure or at least some assurances it can be put right.

Can someone summarise what happened with Royle at Wigan? Did he come out of that whole thing well? 

18 minutes ago, AndyB2 said:

I’d get rid of mellon. To make zero progress over more than 30 games is criminal. 

He needs the summer to put his own stamp on the team...

Like many others were for ages with Unsworth, I think we should stick with him, but wouldn't be arsed if he left...

31 minutes ago, League one forever said:

1 win in 11.
 

 

On the plus side - we’ve beaten last seasons points tally with 3 games to go- if that isn’t a sign of progress I don’t know what is. 

#incrementalimprovement

That is a seriously depressing stat for the season.  "On the verge of the play-offs" for a lot of it, but in reality no better than last year's failure.

Whistle goes.  2 seconds later their player has a shot.  No booking.

Terrible.

Another side who play better football than we do..

14 minutes ago, simplythemostimportantkick said:

Convinced the officials in this league are actually cheating. There’s no other explanation! 

It's like it's their big day at Boundary Park too..

16 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Ah, it’s a being a bully to demand high standards these days. My bad. 
 

He and the clubs he has played for have done fine with this bullying. 

If he thought he was going to be surrounded by players with high standards, he really did make a mistake dropping to the National League.

Still in spite of that, I'm sure he's rolled his sleeves up, got on with it, encouraged his lesser team-mates and been a good senior player to have around the place... 

58 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Yet Norwood is the issue according to some! He’s the only one with a goal in him within the whole squad. 

He is an issue if he's being "a bully" (Latics phone-in, Wednesday) and we're spunking a significant amount of our budget on a player, rather than a team...

Just now, pcassist said:

Where's the commentary gone?

Shhh!  Don't tell anyone or it might come back!

The ref keeping the standard going...

11 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

Here's one for you all going in to today's game.

 

Todays defence have scored 1 goal from 132 combined appearances this season.

 

Todays midfield and forwards bar Norwood have scored 5 from 95 combined appearances this season.

 

That's 6 from 227.

 

Only three scorers in the line up.

 

Average age of the outfield players is just short of 29, what a fucking charity case we are.

 

I think we need our own "Statsbomb"...

If stats are so important, why are we ignoring them as soon as they sign for us?

1 hour ago, kowenicki said:

Dreading this. 

Got absolutely no strong opinion.  I can't be arsed driving to it, so am opting for NLTV and saving the 2 hours round trip.

Got equally neutral opinion about Rochdale.  They're like the second cousin twice removed who lives up the road, has had a rough ride of things and you feel a bit sorry for but wouldn't make any other effort to engage with other than a nod if you saw them in the street...

16 hours ago, GlossopLatic said:

Hes Scottish he's naturally dour alot of dour Scots become good football managers.

I like Mellon, but I do remember thinking something similar about Graeme Sharp...

11 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Aye, fair point. But Irrespective of the football, I don’t want any manager who is just picking up his money. 

He's definitely putting the graft in, I reckon - to what benefit, I'm not sure! He can only use the hand he's dealt..

19 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Yeah, he just looks beaten with it . . which is disturbing given he’s only been here 6 months. There’s more and more little digs coming out- I wonder whether there’s some friction between him and the board about how many are tied down and how much movement he has. 
 

All just feels, ‘it’s shit and we can’t change it.’ 

He might be right for the moment. 

He must've known what he was taking on and the contacts that had been handed out, but mustn't have known much about the players and be disappointed with what he's got. 

Again, it comes back to players. They've failed under two managers. I don't think the dressing room's right. 

I hope we don't do anything rash with Mellon. Barring a few signings, he's been at the club the least time than the players and board, yet seems to be target number one for responsibility..

5 minutes ago, oafc1955 said:

His interviews are getting more and more depressing, inspirational he is not!! That’s a seriously worrying presser…..He’s got about 12 out of contract in June, if he can’t get a RB, a couple of wingers and a CM in and get a competitive team ready for August he shouldn’t be here!!

The way things are heading, I honestly can’t see him surviving beyond Christmas!!

Is any manager inspirational in an interview?

Every manager and footballer probably thinks media interviews are a complete and utter ball-ache.

Did you see Cole Palmer's interview after his hattrick last night?  All respect to the lad, but he was clearly uncomfortable being asked the same question over again, just phrased slightly differently..

18 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Does anyone think Mellon has lost interest and is going through the motions? 

Not sure he's lost interest, but he certainly looks knackered by it all.

I think it's a much bigger challenge than he was expecting and isn't sure what his next move is, if he's pretty much dealing with the same players next season.  I'm not sure any manager could solve that issue, though..

31 minutes ago, diggleblue said:

He seems very down. Uses the word "hope" rather a lot. If the players are as lack lustre as Mellon tomorrow, will see us losing.Don't think the players are in the Derby mode. Rochdale are playing well and we need 101% effort .

 

Like me, they probably think it's ridiculous that a game against fucking Rochdale is considered a derby for us....

I feel sorry for Mellon.  He looks like he needs a holiday.  The biggest thing I took out of that interview is how badly he tried to hide the fact he's disappointed that he'd got to deal with a lot of these players next year!

14 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

No sensible club is paying a fee for him.

Even if he's scored 30% of our goals??

9 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Considering he’s scores about 30% of our total goals, we would be fucked without him. 

Only if he scores 30% of our goals next year again and isn't having a negative effect in the changing room..

11 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

Sort of blows the myth out of the water that he's a model pro, I've heard several stories doing the rounds about him and let's just say he's not my cup of tea.

 

He's desperate to get away in the summer as he somehow thinks he's still got what it takes to operate in the Championship, he'd be the first I'd have out of the door if I we have any interest in building a team. When Mellon came in he went on a bit of a run in front of goal but we are winless in his last nine games and he's bagged one goal, against Chesterfield in the only game he looked arsed. Scored 11 in 15 when Mellon was appointed.

 

Coincidence?.

 

Nope...personally think the evidence was there from quite early-on, but let's not go down that rabbit-hole.

Get a fee for him over the summer, and it'd work out well all round.

Storm Kathleen this weekend. 

I reckon we'll kick off, lay it back to Hudson who'll hoof it and it won't come down again...

0-0.

34 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

There is/was no mess to mop up, it is a squad full of previous promotion winners.

So we can't judge the manager on what he did elsewhere, but we can judge the players? 

29 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

The only reason people seem to have for keeping him is based on what he did elsewhere some time ago.

 

Open your eyes to the here and now and the absolute dogs dinner he has made of it.

But he is - still - mopping up the mess left by Unsworth/the "recruitment team".  A new manager isn't suddenly going to make an over-inflated, over-paid and overrated squad suddenly disappear..

It's disappointing the way this season is turning out, but the plan to give Mellon a decent chance to sort us out should still stand.

For me he still gets at least as long as Unsworth got...