Pidge

The real issue isn’t fitness. The players who play regularly are all super fit. The real issue is how you perform when you feel tired and maybe have some discomfort, do you ease off, or do you shut it out and keep going hard. Ask the SAS how they get their mentality right. What makes you dig in and put that extra in? Love of your team? Love of your manager? Fear of your manager? Love of the game and winning? All questions for the job application form .

Sorry I’m confused. Are you saying if we also only train twice a week we could run rings around the opposition? I think you just showed how complicated it is.

Great idea! (Not) We have been playing twice a week for some time now and the team as a whole are apparently running out of steam in second halves of games, so clearly they aren’t fit enough, let’s cancel the rest day and work them harder? Strength and conditioning during an active season is not about, just work them harder. It is complicated. A match is the most intensive training session a player will have. Players need recovery. I remember hearing a Team Doctor, from a then recently demoted Prem League club, talk a few years ago. Every morning the 4 sport’s scientists and 4 Physios and Team Doctor would sit and discuss each player to decide what that players activity would be that day. This was then monitored by the GPS trackers and reviewed the next day.

Do we know that, or are you guessing?

I guess that’s what I want to see worked out by the manager. Get an emergency loan in. Try playing our best ball playing defensive CD there and give Sheron licence to roam. Dickenson as suggested by others. Try something, but don’t play Shelton. It doesn’t work!

That is the one thing that worries me about Tommo. Why does he start Shelton again? He has seen the same as us. Shelton and Sheron cannot be together. Again and again the Oldham performance has been terrible with those two. Sheron had done well when with someone else. I get it that there is not much choice, but try something different! Shelton has to be a last resort!

Some may say “why do some people respond to anything anyone else says, in a negative critical way, unless it’s for attention.”

When he does start, let’s hope they give work him back in, not just give him 90 mins straight off. Starting Gardener 3 games in a week was a bit naive or desperate. I agree with Yarddog that we need an extra body in midfield.

They say, “never put anything smaller then your elbow in your ear”

I will agree with you on Thomo when he spots that Shelton is not ready to play. Twice now when he replaced Gardner, we have looked poor again in the middle. When Thomo drops Shelton, I will feel better about him carrying on managing us.

Not sure what was ridiculous. When Shelton came on the performance (obviously the team) reverted to bad habits, and the trigger was him backing off. We needed him to come on and give us energy and keep us on the front foot.

Really enjoyed the game today, exciting to watch and the team seemed much more positive all round. Great result!

I was disappointed that when Shelton came on, we look a bit like the performances in previous games. Shelton tend to drop back nearly into the back 4. We had been engaging them 5 or 10 yards further out until then. Suddenly their mid field had time and space, and for 15 mins we struggled. Shelton rarely closes inside 5 yards from the man with the ball and tries to block their pass from there. He doesn’t get close enough to influence them. Maybe that can be coached, but he isn’t ready to play at the moment.

It’s not really dropping down if you haven’t got a job!

Depends what you are talking about. Do you mean rules from the club admin? Probably they would want to give him time as well. If you mean the fans, that was my last answer and you have said you weren’t suggesting fans can’t put pressure on when the manager isn’t performing. So yes the rules are the same, 10 poor results and some will doubt you. 20 games and most will doubt you, bar a couple. One year of poor results and most fans will want you gone.

The new manager with get time, just like DU has. Only winning 1 out of 10 would always gets some fans on his back. All managers would expect pressure to build after that. You are crazy to suggest we should all be blowing smoke up a managers arse all the time or we are not fans.

Of course not. Giving DU 10 games to see how the season is panning out is fine and expected. 15 games with poor point return would be indecisive IMO. 20 games with poor points return eg 1 point per games, would be bordering negligence IMO, when last year is taken into account.

A bit silly these comments. I can assure you DU is still trying his best, both to get a performance from the players, and to connect with the fans. Unfortunately not every manager is good at coaching or public relations.

You are assuming a lot there about what intentions were.

I can live with that.

Lol, interesting who was the first to mention the term “pompous pain”. How does that old saying go? “It takes one to know one”? Old sayings are full of wisdom I find.

However deyres, you have to admit we would have to win every one of those hundred point to equal the final points tally of the second placed Notts County last year. So, as we are unlikely to do that even if we suddenly improve and do well from now till the end of the season, we already have to feel we will be well below 100 points at the end. Another 3 or 4 poor results and that drops to below 90, again only with a long consistent brilliant run. The season really has nearly sailed. Things have to get better now and remain good for the rest of the season. Can DU do that?

Some of us get tired of reading posts defending the indefensible under the guise of “positivity “. There are a lot of us who feel we have a squad with enough quality to be near the top of the league. If that is true of course during a game we will see the signs that we can compete. So if it’s not happening for us, something else isn’t right. As we have a good owner now, there is only one other major element in a football club to look at. That’s why the call to replace the team management is getting louder. I’m sure this squad will get some good results, but we are now in the horrible position of needing 4 wins on the trot. New manager bounce is probably the only thing that may get that.

We most of us think this squad is good enough to win against teams in this div. That means we will look capable of winning matches. There is one ingredient which isn’t good enough to get us over the line. We will I’m sure get a few more games with this manager to final prove if he is that ingredient or if we were just unlucky.

Looking at the replays, he tripped himself up. Not a dive. The ref just didn’t see what happened. Benefit of the doubt that must have been there, should have gone to Shelton.