I refuse to believe..

AmericanTangerine

AmericanTangerine

Well-known member
That this is the best that this squad was capable of.

Upper mid table with a couple decent cup runs? Genuinely believe the squad of players we have should have done so much better.

We've been boring as all hell and the players look uncomfortable every game, NC is great at structuring a team and individual coaching, but has no clue how to coach on ball tactics, we're as good as we are at the start of the window, cannot see him improving us over the Summer either.

We're where we are in spite of the manager not because of him.

We could replay this season with any number of managers who wouldn't have done worse if not better.
 
BFC_53 said:
"NC is great at structuring a team and individual coaching"

Is he? Carey's gone backwards, as has Lavery. CJ never improves. And we constantly concede poor goals away from home. These things haven't shown any signs of changing.
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Giving him the benefit of a doubt here to be fair
 
I'm not sure that he is good at anything anymore. Players struggle with basics and he gets his team selections wrong on a match by match basis. He also doesn't learn from his mistakes.
We go to Derby and he plays Dembele behind a lone centre forward and we look toothless, how many times has he tried that now, too many!
He brings Dembele on today behind the lesser pair of our 4 average forwards and we make loads of chances but can't finish!
Start Dembele behind Lavery and Joseph and I'm pretty sure we get more than 1 point out of the last 6.
Team selections wrong, subs too little too late, players looking like they are going downhill when he should be improving them.
I have no strong opinions on Critchley the man or the coach but I can see that the team are getting worse by the week. Something has to change.
 
gjr said:
I'm not sure that he is good at anything anymore. Players struggle with basics and he gets his team selections wrong on a match by match basis. He also doesn't learn from his mistakes.
We go to Derby and he plays Dembele behind a lone centre forward and we look toothless, how many times has he tried that now, too many!
He brings Dembele on today behind the lesser pair of our 4 average forwards and we make loads of chances but can't finish!
Start Dembele behind Lavery and Joseph and I'm pretty sure we get more than 1 point out of the last 6.
Team selections wrong, subs too little too late, players looking like they are going downhill when he should be improving them.
I have no strong opinions on Critchley the man or the coach but I can see that the team are getting worse by the week. Something has to change.
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Very very fair
 
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I disagree with idea that the players have the quality required. We look vulnerable at the back, ponderous, unable to string three passes together in midfiield and powder puff up front. Very frustrating to watch and can't see it getting any better.

Critchley is unwilling to change tactics when clearly not working. Too many players have gone backwards in terms of performance the only bright spots being Casey, Dembele and Rhodes. The latter two of those are unlikely to be here next season.
 
Manager too dogmatic but players are not good enough. Main problem is lack of physicality. Critchley s first promoted team would beat this lot by 6. We look what we are and that is a mid table Division 1 side. Inconsistency is a sign of inability.
 
AmericanTangerine said:
"We've been boring as all hell and the players look uncomfortable every game,"
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That's it in a nutshell. I could accept ninth if I felt that the football was entertaining and you could see an end goal. It is mind numbing dross and it's not improving. I personally can't see it changing under Critchley, and as others have said the positive atmosphere inside the stadium has gone. For the sake of the club and all the fans, a change is needed now .... it isn't working and I don't think it ever will.
 
Seainsea said:
I disagree with idea that the players have the quality required. We look vulnerable at the back, ponderous, unable to string three passes together in midfiield and powder puff up front. Very frustrating to watch and can't see it getting any better.

Critchley is unwilling to change tactics when clearly not working. Too many players have gone backwards in terms of performance the only bright spots being Casey, Dembele and Rhodes. The latter two of those are unlikely to be here next season.
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The second paragraph basically answers the first.
It is all about the tactics as you can't keep blaming players when the one constant is the system.
 
I’m not sure the players aren’t good enough. At some point in the season almost all of them have have a good spell but for some reason Critch and the coaching team have been unable to keep it going and the potential seems to evaporate. In his season in the championship the team seemed to stop playing the second they became safe and this season has the same feel about it albeit we do still have a slim chance of the play offs. We seem unable to last the distance and I don’t know why. Have they been told not to risk injury rather than go out and give their all?
 
Tiptree Tangerine said:
That's it in a nutshell. I could accept ninth if I felt that the football was entertaining and you could see an end goal. It is mind numbing dross and it's not improving. I personally can't see it changing under Critchley, and as others have said the positive atmosphere inside the stadium has gone. For the sake of the club and all the fans, a change is needed now .... it isn't working and I don't think it ever will.
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Absolutely, would be a completely different story if there was a demonstrable improvement in the performances under this system.

But there hasn’t been at all…

Lincoln appointed their manager (who also plays 3-5-2!!!) halfway through the season and he turned them into world beaters!
 
Simonized said:
The second paragraph basically answers the first.
It is all about the tactics as you can't keep blaming players when the one constant is the system.
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Don't get me wrong I think Critchley is the most culpable but Norburn and Pennington have been disappointing to put it mildly. We needed and still need a left sided CH and a left back before the season started and will do next season.

Another victim of Critchley 2.0 is Connolly. Ok he was never a world beater but he performed adequately as a jack of all trades in the Championship. This utterly ridiculous idea that Connolly could play as a left wing back even if it was an extreme emergency and there was nobody else was an early sign that all was not well with Critchley.
 
Missed the last week or so but a quick catch up reveals Critchley saying things like you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink which says to me he knows he's fighting a losing battle and that he doesn't have the ability to find a way or work outside of his own limitations to get more out of less. Some managers can, but it usually comes from a place of instinct and having been there themselves.

But if there's a post-mortem on this season eventually where he says we were well set up to push on in January but he knew Jordan Rhodes was struggling with more football than he'd played for about five years, and the club decided to piss about with pretend U21 players instead then I could understand his take.
 
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