Chorlton_Latic

Probably because they had no feckin idea what most of it actually means!! Spellbound by the jargon and nice colours. I've got an interview on Wednesday - :censored: all to do with football, but I'm taking this with me - I'll be nailed on. I was genuinely convinced it was knocked up Day Today-esque parody. I love how individual brilliance is listed - so simple, why the hell has no one thought of that before?!?!

Maybe we did a CRB check and it came back clean. That's Completely against our policy.

Let us rejoice and dissect 'Inverting the Pyramid' at length to celebrate your conversion!

Don't get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to see that , but what's the reason hardly any manager can successfully implement it? Is it as simple as we want to make it out to be? Is there simply too much at risk for them? It's a curious one. Also, Sheridan, at least for us in his latter years, used to play in a 3 quite a lot didn't he? Stitch used to play wingbacks a fair bit. He was paired with Innes and Dux, Dux & Carss - even Dux and Orlygsson when we beat City at Maine Rd!!

A lot of call for 4-4-2 on here. Am I the only one who thinks a switch to 4-4-2 would just not be wise at all? I get that it’s the most traditional formation, and we ourselves used to muller teams of the park with it in the glory years. But does there come a point where we have to acknowledge that in the last few years, even at the lower levels, the game has got so muddled up in tactical puzzles and stifling, that we have to accept that 4-4-2 becomes more counterproductive to the ‘attacking’ style we all want to see? At any level, it takes an insane amount of energy, as you’re already fighting a losing battle in midfield if a team chooses to have an extra man than you in there, which let’s face it, pretty much every away team does. You think David Dunn looks shagged after 60 mins now, imagine if he was chasing more of the ball without the extra man in there!! If it’s not done well, and it seldom is with the players on offer at our level, it becomes predictable, easy to outwit, and the extra man up front becomes completely moot, because no service gets to him. Unless you start hoofing it up and bypassing midfield, which I think we can safely say most our fans absolutely detest, to the point where they’ve threatened to stop attending, or in some cases, have stopped attending. The amount of times we played 4 across the middle under Dickov and Johnson, only for a ‘lesser’ team to come and pack the midfield with 5, and completely strangle the life out of us is too many to count. I’d hazard a guess that most of those ended up with us having 0 in the scoreline and barely troubling the opposition keeper. The best football under Dickov was arguably when we played the kind of 4-2-3-1, with Kuqi supported by Simpson, Taylor etc and under Johnson, we were similarly bullied all over the shop until we switched to 5 in midfield. It’s not just an English thing either, the only high profile team in European football at the moment that I can think of off the top of my head that play 4-4-2 regularly and are remotely successful is Atletico Madrid, and that’s because all their players, to a man buy in to the managers philosophy, are absolute warriors and must be high on something. There’s a lot of accusations of narcissism leveled at managers now – especially young ones - ‘trying to be clever’, solely relying on their ‘coaching manuals’ and trying to play their fancy formations, but at the end of the day, there’s no other reason they’d play a certain way except they just don’t want to lose the game. As long as it’s fluid and flexible and can become a 4-3-3, I have no issue with 1 up front with fast wingers-cum-forwards and an extra man in midfield supporting. I agree we need something to break the mould, but immediately handing the control and initiative to <insert cloggers here> in every game is not going to be it. It's not to say our current tactics don't need some serious tweaking, but I’d much rather go man on man and give the undoubted quality of our central midfield the chance to dominate than revisit past failures again and again because it worked 25 years ago. Bloody modern football, eh?!

I'm not necessarily saying it's my view of successful, and as you rightly point out, it's clearly not yet a winning style, but for a new manager coming in to the management gig who sees 3 fairly strong away performances at some tricky places, and 4 points from 2 home games, with performances that, while clearly in need of improvement, have elements which can be built on, I can't see why he'll change it radically, despite what we ideally want to see. How else can he measure his success? He doesnt seem the type to be satisfied with draws, but if his media persona is anything to go by, he'll relentlessly look for positives and see that if it weren't for a horrendous error v Shrewsbury, and a more clinical finishing at Bury they may have 4 points extra. Yes, it's ifs and buts, but from his pov, I get the feeling he won't see much reason to change things too much, with the belief we've not been that far away from what he's wanted. To put it another way, are we really surprised that a recently retired former lower league defender with the most middling of careers doesn't favour an expansive, open style of free flowing football?

All this talk of promises... I genuinely can't believe any football fan would take a burgeoning young manager at his word over 'expansive, attacking football', much less hold him to task over it when it hasn't been implemented 7 games into his career!! What did you expect him to say? 'I can assure our fans we will base our game around a solid defence, we'll squeeze that midfield together so tightly that they'll end up with one bollock between the 5/6/7 (delete as applicable) of them, we'll pass sideways and backwards most of the game, and when we do break, we'll be relying on 1 runner from deep in addition to the 1 forward we play up top who most think is a winger anyway. Oh, and that runner will be a centre back, because the 1 other 'striker' on the pitch is being played in defensive midfield'. Generic media fluff and nothing more. It's about results, and unless you've got money to throw at it, at the merest whiff of pressure, even the most honest of managers will quickly figure out the 'with style' part of 'winning with style' is hopelessly idealistic and revert to the most pragmatic way to find points. We've been pretty dull to watch, but at the end of the day, we've not been beaten yet. Plus, it's hardly a new revelation with managers cutting their teeth. The early days under Dickov were pretty swashbuckling until we got a few tonkings, and more recently, under Johnson, we went from back to back cavalier defeats to PNE & Rovrum to sitting back & grimly hanging onto a 1-0 lead at home to Carlisle in a matter of weeks, because needs must. The theme is too recurrent for it to be coincidence. At least he's not luring us into a false sense of security with some initially schexy football which then falls by the whey side I've only been to Fleetwood & Shrewsbury so far, neither of which filled me with massive confidence, but it's early days. I hope he proves me wrong as he finds his feet and does implement his style, but I'm not getting my hopes up. In Kelly's defence, he previously brought in Croft, and then Yeates to add to the 'expansive' part of our game, but with the latter, some of the same people who moaned about the narrow style moaned about this signing and said we didn't need another midfielder.

LJ didn't eat Bambi, but I heard he tweeted that the hunter who shot Bambi's mum is a legend.

He'll be fine, until he skies one from 6 yards, then he becomes 'Islam missed'

I think my most hated from my ever increasing list of :censored:ty, generic, vapid commentary phrases is ‘using his experience’ I.e ‘X player.. uses his experience there to draw a clever foul’ Translation – ‘He’s fallen over like a massive tart under minimal pressure and held onto the ball until the ref blew for a foul’ Also applies to teams, but only if the narrative pits a super duper EPL bestest league ever side grinding out a result against some plucky lower league chancers – when Tottenham were drawing 2-2 at Bramall Lane in the league cup semi 2nd leg, with 2 mins to go, the BBC sagely advised us Spurs were ‘using their Premier League Experience’ to see out the game. That’s right, their ‘Premier League Experience’ couldn’t stop them going 2-1 down, but they know how to stand in the corner and fall over when they’re scraping a draw against a side 2 divisions below them. #experience

So, David Dunn 'join's as a player (for now)' and all of a sudden there's a vacancy for a coaching spot? Might as well. Could give him the 'vital experience' he needs for when he replaces Kelly in about 2 weeks...

He's been given squad number 17!!! Uh oh

On holiday for 2nd half of July and actually a tiny bit gutted I'll be missing the Trafford game. Saw them beat Alty in an FA Cup qualifier a couple of years back when Latics were away at Crawley, and it's a cracking little set up in quite an idyllic location. The ground backs onto a golf course and they have tiny pavilion like stand with a few seats, a shed end and an open end, and there's also a little club house to grab a drink. It's also easy walking distance from Flixton, Urmston or Chassen Rd stations, all which go direct from Oxford Rd or Deansgate. Would recommend it for anyone who wants to knock off a local non league ground, especially if it's a nice eve. Although I think it's widely assumed that their emergence also helped lead to Flixton FC's sad demise (they were only getting an average attendance of 41 when they resgined from the NWC league), so boo, hiss to that!

From what everyone's favourite Rarely wrong paper have reported, I'm not sure we should be assuming that Gunning is the 'imminent signing' that's been mooted. If it is him, we've gone from imminent, to playing in a friendly 'with a possible deal in the offing' which seems a bit of a step down? Does this mean we've backtracked on our original stance? Or perhaps we've been misreported? (by the Chron? Sacre bleu!) Or is the 'imminent signing' A.N other, and Gunning a possible addition? Kelly has said he was in for 2 centre backs, so maybe. So many theories...

Don't you worry, he earns his crust.

Snap. That, and anyone who's been mental enough to be there early enough for the 'This is a test of the Boundary Park alert system' announcement.

Judging by LJ's comments in the Chron, he's definitely targeted it as a weak area "We've been unhappy with a couple of goals we have conceded recently. Both goalkeepers have played pretty well, but goalkeepers are there to keep the ball out of the back of the net." Generally a fan of Chubs, he was crucial in our 10 game run last season, and is fairly solid, but they're obviously not happy with some of his recent performances. JPT was ideal time to try Etheridge, and he clearly didn't impress either. I'm assuming if Kenny performs, he's looking at a permanent deal, as he's clearly not going to get a game at Bolton.

Brentford it is then!!

Oh yeah! Also, it was the first time in that blue Slumberland kit, and Bruce Grobbelaar was in goal for Latics - He actually kept 3 clean sheets in 4 for us at the end of that season!

Remember that game so well - was the first time I'd seen such a massive away crowd. I think the primary reason for their ridiculous support in that particular match was because it was a re-arranged fixture from around Christmas 97 which was postponed, and it turned out be an absolutely massive fixture for the Dingles, as it was 2nd to last day of the season and their game in hand in a crucial relegation battle. If memory serves correctly, we so very nearly sent them down, as they were 3-1 up at HT and we came back to 3-3 (despite having 10 men as Garnett was sent off early second half) meaning they had to go into the last day fixture having to win to have any chance of surviving. They always bought amazing support around that time though, around 3,500. Preston did too.

A Dale fan in the season preview in August's issue of When Saturday Comes said something along the lines of 'We'll finish mid table - if that's above Oldham, even better' I'll rip his bloody 'ead off!!!

I hear that comrades. Ended up in the home stand for our Boxing Day victory in 2001. The ground was in the middle of being developed, so I think we were given a fairly paltry allocation. By the time we'd got there, away end was full, so we headed into the home part of the same stand. The ground was half as it is now, which wasn't open to fans at the time, and half decrepit :censored:ehole. I recall having the misfortune of spending most of the game next to some of Cesspool's biggest drongos, belting out such witty classics as 'I'd rather be a P**i than a Latic'. Depressing. Also remember me and my mates laughing as someone had scrawled ':censored: off Preston' in permanent marker on the bog walls. Yeah, take THAT Preston!! Needles to say, I was a bit chuffed walking out of that hole with a convincing 2-0 win, although we've never won there since, presumably because we used all our good fortune for the decade on David Reeves scoring a brace. Remember on the way back from the game saying on GMR that Reeves and Smart was the best partnership we'd had in years. I do love the bollocks that's spouted amid the giddiness a good win!

Been to Alty a few times for my football fix whilst Latics are in some far-flung hole I'm not hardcore enough to go to, cracking little club with a decent set up. Their average attendance is somewhere just below the 1,000 mark, but may be slightly more now they're in the conference. Proper old school ground with only 1 sitting stand and 3 terraces. They have a small handful of fans who generally contribute a fairly decent atmosphere too. Ground is roughly 15 min walk from all the transport stations and they have a club suite which opens up pre game and half time for booze. Would absolutely love them away in round 2 if they get through.

Huddersfield in 2006 was insane, think it was announced as 2,800, but my old man and I were queueing unail about 10 mins into the game and we were standing at the top for ages until a steward cleared one of the first rows for us. Was absolutely heaving that day, steward commented they weren't expecting so many of us to turn up! What an atmosphere, what a performance and what a day. 2009 NY day was absolutely rammed too. Also remember Wigan in about 2001 under Stitch, lost 3-1 after leading, may have been because I was young and we didn't travel particularly well around that time, but seemed like an absolutely massive away attendance. Bury in 02 was mental as well, remember a huge number had congregated in the stand to the left as well as the packed away end behind the goal. Chaos when last min equaliser went in!

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