Cod Almighty | Diary
Just pick the best team, damn it!
3 September 2015
Devon Diary writes: Usually by the time Thursday comes around there's no need for me to comment on the last game. Usually it's all been done and put to bed by my fellow diarists, along with some insightful match reports by Mr Butcher, the Grimsby Telegraph and a blogger or two. Three days later and the dust has just about settled on a pretty disappointing bank holiday weekend.
This is even the case over at the Fishy, where some bewildering team selections and four poor results (if not always poor performances) have led to the inevitable shouts for Hurst's head on a pike and the recruiting of AN Other forthwith, with some even suggesting that Sir Alan be given the gaffership again. Although we've had a couple of cracking pieces by original/regular, Middle-Aged and Wicklow Diaries this week I reckon I'm due my twopenn'orth. But the rant I felt bubbling on Tuesday is gone. Time is a great healer.
To start with, my thoughts on this are basically that we should all just take a deep breath, step back and see what happens. Essentially what my fellow diarists have been saying, in fact. Those calling for a recall of Buckley obviously don't remember the club's kneejerk sacking of His Lordship in the 2000-01 and 2008-09 seasons – a hastiness which arguably contributed to our decline. In his biography Buckley says of the second sacking: "I wouldn't have got that club relegated... They sacked me in September to prevent relegation in May. Ultimately they got relegated anyway. So where did sacking their most successful manager get them? What good did it actually do?"
OK, we're not at risk of relegation. But my point is that it's early in the season, we still have 117 points left to play for and we haven't even kicked a ball in a cup competition yet. In previous seasons we have never really started that strongly and you'll need to stick your head in some stats for quite a while to find a significantly better first seven games than we've had this year, even though right now it feels like we're dropping like a stone. That's just the way we are – we start the season poorly.
Look at last season – we lost to both Torquay at home and Lincoln away and you could argue that things didn't really improve until the away fixture at Torquay. This season we've drawn both corresponding fixtures this season and I believe things will pick up before the Torquay game this time around. It was 18 October last year and this year 17 October and then we'll be looking back and wondering what the fuss was about. Either that or I'll be eating humble pie, a hat or two and my words and admitting that I was totally and utterly wrong. But I won't be. No jinx.
Did you read Rich Lord's blogpost earlier this week on how Town's strikers are having to shoot over 13 times for each goal? Rich looked at the last four games and found that from 53 shots we have scored four goals, while our opposition have scored seven from 33 shots. This means the opposition has a shots-to-goals conversion rate three times better than Town's. The conversion rate of shots on target was even better for them.
OK, that's not going to continue, Rich argues and I believe he's right (he usually is). If you take a minute and play with the data a little, maybe adjust our conversion rate up and the opposition's down – let's say adjust it for 'luck' – then our results could/would have been so much better. We wouldn't have been worrying and there certainly wouldn't have been calls for a sacking. It's all about margins, close calls and an error or two here or there.
Over at the rather splendid Too Good To Go Down blog the focus was on the defensive and goalkeeping frailties rather than the strikers and this is well worth a read if you haven't done so already. We all know that the back four aren't cutting out crosses as well as they did last year, and that needs to improve – but is it training or the lack of a settled line-up?
We all have our views on that, of course. But I'm of the opinion, as is the blog and several other commentators, that stability and focus in the back four are linked to a steady line-up. Yes, we've got an enforced change since the weekend due to 'Big' (cheat) Matt Rhead's dying swan routine. But there have been too many changes for no real obvious reason, too many tweaks, too many players being 'rested'.
One thing that stood out when reading Alan Buckley's biography was his belief in a steady line-up if the team is playing well. It might have been that this was borne out of necessity at first because of Town's thriftiness as much as any ingrained philosophy, and perhaps Alan's approach was shaped by that need to 'cut cloth accordingly'. But by God, it worked.
My view is that if a player is in form and the team is playing well then don't drop him. Simple. If he's injured, if he's suspended, if he starts playing terribly for some reason and becomes a liability then yes, drop him and fix it on the training pitch. Apply that across the team and make other squad members work harder to break into the starting line-up. If a player comes back from injury then give them a place on the bench; let them get match time as a sub. But don't start that player at the expense of someone in form! Why chuck in a newcomer when the opposition was bound to try bullying us off the ball? That's not competition for places: that's squad rotation and tweaking for the sake of it.
After the last few games I think we're all acutely aware of the need for stability. The first half of the Torquay game was a shocker and is certainly linked to the unforced changes in the starting line-up. A team that was playing well, regardless of the blip at Altrincham, was tweaked and in-form players Clay, Amond and East found themselves dropped for no obvious reason. I say dropped rather than benched – what else could it be? They were playing well and the team was playing well.
A change in a key area affects the whole team too. Take the replacement of Clay with loanee Robinson for the Torquay game. We needed a robust centre midfield partnership, and the two Craigs were performing well, so why chuck in someone who hasn't played with the rest of the team in a game like that, where the opposition was bound to try bullying us off the ball? That's not competition for places: that's squad rotation and tweaking for the sake of it.
I'd say that Disley, Clay, Amond, Monkhouse and probably Pearson should be nailed-on starts for Town until they begin to look jaded, stale or get injured; then we can rotate. Maybe also if a sub is consistently performing well they can force themselves into the reckoning. I reckon if you pushed him on it Gregor Robertson would probably say he struggled with the Torquay game. Don't get me wrong I think he's a great player but some substitute appearances would have been far better for him and the team as a whole.
What does all of this tweaking say to us as fans? Sitting at the Torquay game I wondered what had been the point of the pre-season and a relatively unchanged line-up in the first few games. It seemed like the gaffer wasn't sure of his best starting XI. Yes, we have the luxury of competition for places but I suggest that most fans if asked for their opinion of their perfect starting lineup would pick pretty much the same team: McKeown; Tait, Gowling, Pearson, East; Monkhouse, Disley, Clay, Arnold; Amond, Bogle.
Yes, we have Toto of course, but this season Gowling is edging him. If Toto looks good for the next couple of games of the (unjust) suspension then Josh should win his place back rather than be guaranteed it. JP and Marcus Marshall are returning from injury and we also have Scott Brown out right now. But it's about form and understanding and that line-up has it.
The fans would be quite happy to see the same guys on the pitch every game, Mr Hurst. So don't think you have to fiddle with it every game to impress us. Just pick the best team, week in, week out, and worry about freshening it up when it doesn't work. Don't try and pre-empt that. Don't worry about players being tired and resting them 'just in case'. The best team two games in a row will surely produce more points over consecutive games than two compromised and perhaps under-strength teams? Maybe I don't get it and that's why I'm not a football manager – but why not prove me wrong?
Oh yeah, a game on Saturday? I can't top anything that Wicklow Diary wrote yesterday, and to be honest I didn't even know where Borehamwood even was until a couple of days ago, let alone that Grange Hill was filmed there. But a quick look at the town's Wikipedia page and the film industry section in particular means that anyone reviewing the game on Monday will have a field day. Moby Dick, The Muppets and Goodbye Mr Chips. Indeed.
Onwards and upwards and up the Mariners. See you next week.