ANY ONE ELSE NOT CONVINCED

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Not a phrase I ever expected to read.

Hey, it's the fishy, nothing should surprise you. 'Tis a bit lame i admit.

Quoted from ginnywings

There are different approaches to "rule 1" though. The Hurst way is to keep us shape and play tight and efficient football. The MB way is to keep the ball away from the opposition and play further up the pitch.

In essence, it's either attack is the best form of defence, or defence is the best form of defence. I'd rather we lost trying to win than set out for a point and anything else is a bonus mentality. As RRFC points out, losing games is no big deal if you win a fair few as well. Draws are no good to no-one long term. They just leave you in a safe no mans land.

Agree with that but we did score 83 league goals last year although against tin pot opposition and some really ropey sides and as you quite rightly pointed out recently Ginny PH wanted to play what is seen as a more open 4 - 3 - 3 but never felt he had the personnel.

Things is with Paul we could have won the champions league but after cupping his ear at Wembley it still would not have won many people over.

Yesterday sounded just like the sort of away performance we used to get under PH didn't it? I'm pleased with how it's going and I like MB but I'm not sure I see the huge change of approach some seem to.

The main thing for me is that prior to a game Marcus will talk positively about getting a result without belittling the opposition, P Hurst on the other hand would big up the opposition that I think the players and maybe some fans would think we were playing world beaters.

Quoted from Kris2

Oh they are never there when we are doing well lol. If we lose a couple of games the same few sad sacks turn up and start complaining I wonder sometimes if they are even supporters or they just get off on coming to wind people up when we lose because they never seem interested in celebrating and praising when it's due.  

If I am not criticising then things are going reasonably well, just the way I like it!  

Quoted from Rodley Mariner

Yesterday sounded just like the sort of away performance we used to get under PH didn't it? I'm pleased with how it's going and I like MB but I'm not sure I see the huge change of approach some seem to.

I think the will is there to change the approach but not the players as yet. Going 3-5-2 lately may suggest that Bignot has realised that he can't get us playing the way he wants to at this time and has tightened us up on the back of three losses on the trot and playing a system that suits the personnel we currently have. I think we will play a more expansive game than Hurst did when the appropriate signings are made. I think he has realised that the wide players we have are not up to it, so is using wing backs instead.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Agree with that but we did score 83 league goals last year although against tin pot opposition and some really ropey sides and as you quite rightly pointed out recently Ginny PH wanted to play what is seen as a more open 4 - 3 - 3 but never felt he had the personnel.

Things is with Paul we could have won the champions league but after cupping his ear at Wembley it still would not have won many people over.

I was never interested in the ear cupping and though his approach to fans and the media left something to be desired it was always his football approach that I was never keen on. The best way out of that league was to go for the jugular and build a team to make others afraid. Somehow he would make us appear to be the underdogs even against the pub teams. It's reasonable to have an opinion about that isn't it?

If as you say he wanted to play a more open style he had years to assemble the personnel. I don't think he really did. His game is rooted in the 1990s when defence began with the number 9 and if the other side didn't score you had a point. If he had wanted to be more open in the play he would never have messed about Amond and Bogle with people like Tomlinson like he did. His problem was that he couldn't come up with any other way to defend without his strikers running themselves legless but he couldn't get the team to play to the strikers to win games either.

So the easier way out is 4-4-2, hard running strikers, defensive midfield, wingers cover full backs, long ball out, fight for the second ball, play from there. Easy to play, easy to stop too.

His other problem was that tactically, i.e. during games, he wasn't very inventive and his substitutions were less than inspiring.

I'm not 100% certain about MB yet, this window and another month or two of routine matches will let us know what his ideas are really like. I am just saying that so far those ideas and the ethos he has brought have gained us more points than the safety first would have done and the position of being able to look down on most of the league. Even when not playing well, the players look interested in getting the ball quickly and getting forward if they can. Better players will do that better.

Reading the early pages of this thread convinces me yet again that the instinct of some contributors is always to fire off the first thing that comes into their head only to see, less than a month later, that their words look slightly ridiculous in print. I said on here (and some others said it too) that I thought MB was an excellent choice but that I didn't expect Town to embark on a winning run straight away. It's an old adage that 'patience is a virtue' and it's as true in football as in any other walk of life. It seems to me that the least successful clubs are those that change managers at the drop of a hat (how ya doing Notts County?). It always takes time to change a culture and one could tell at the very beginning that MB and PH were very different characters, the latter diffident and frequently tetchy, the former bubbly and extrovert, overflowing with enthusiasm for the task ahead. But it's still early days and it'll take time for MB to build the team he wants to build. Personally, I really like the guy-full of optimism, and I think it galvanises the supporters too. If part of the new culture is to have double training sessions and have class room sessions too, I imagine this is all part of the drive to improve fitness and application. Surely the other adage that 'practice makes perfect' has merit too! I'm more optimistic now about the club's future than I have been for years, but I know it's still early days too.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

I was never interested in the ear cupping and though his approach to fans and the media left something to be desired it was always his football approach that I was never keen on. The best way out of that league was to go for the jugular and build a team to make others afraid. Somehow he would make us appear to be the underdogs even against the pub teams. It's reasonable to have an opinion about that isn't it?

If as you say he wanted to play a more open style he had years to assemble the personnel. I don't think he really did. His game is rooted in the 1990s when defence began with the number 9 and if the other side didn't score you had a point. If he had wanted to be more open in the play he would never have messed about Amond and Bogle with people like Tomlinson like he did. His problem was that he couldn't come up with any other way to defend without his strikers running themselves legless but he couldn't get the team to play to the strikers to win games either.

So the easier way out is 4-4-2, hard running strikers, defensive midfield, wingers cover full backs, long ball out, fight for the second ball, play from there. Easy to play, easy to stop too.

His other problem was that tactically, i.e. during games, he wasn't very inventive and his substitutions were less than inspiring.

I'm not 100% certain about MB yet, this window and another month or two of routine matches will let us know what his ideas are really like. I am just saying that so far those ideas and the ethos he has brought have gained us more points than the safety first would have done and the position of being able to look down on most of the league. Even when not playing well, the players look interested in getting the ball quickly and getting forward if they can. Better players will do that better.

It was Ginny that said PH wanted to play 4 - 3 - 3 I used to get really p1ssed off that we would line up against poor sides in a 4 - 4 -2 especially when at times we had no real quality on the flanks or that we could not go 3 at the back when sides would come to BP and put 1 up front.

I do agree endeavour will get you more points in theory and to be fair to Marcus I think he is learning that at this level you need a mix of that and pragmatism hence packing the mid field at Carlisle.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

It was Ginny that said PH wanted to play 4 - 3 - 3 I used to get really p1ssed off that we would line up against poor sides in a 4 - 4 -2 especially when at times we had no real quality on the flanks or that we could not go 3 at the back when sides would come to BP and put 1 up front.

I do agree endeavour will get you more points in theory and to be fair to Marcus I think he is learning that at this level you need a mix of that and pragmatism hence packing the mid field at Carlisle.

Did i ?