After a night to sleep on it....

This is only an observation but does anyone else think that our players lack passion?

It's fair to say that the only time we've looked up for it was against Lincoln (probably our best performance) and in every other home game, the players look like they've come out of the classroom having told what to do, and then haven't got a clue what to do when it doesn't work.

I've just read the D3D4 report by the Oldham fan who describes us as 'one-dimensional' - I think he's probably right. A bit of passion please Mr Jolley.

Bit of a recurring theme this lack of passion from players, been going on for 15 years and I don’t think anyone bar Shaun Pearson has shown anything like the kind of spirit fans want to see in a town shirt.

This group of senior professionals that Jolley has got together - McKeown, Collins, Welsh and Woolford - do they lead by example on the pitch? Not from what I’ve seen. They should be setting the tempo and dragging the younger players along with them but I look at some of them and think they’re what’s holding us back.

Towards the end of the winless run last year I just got fed up of hearing from the players saying how they were “going to put things right” or some other meaningless garbage - I’m already at that stage this year. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about the fans being the 12th man and atmosphere, we’re not to blame for this.

Everyone knew it as soon as they scored the first yesterday, that’s it - game over. Looking at the players lining up for the restart all hunched shoulders and looking at the floor, where’s the fight? Not one of them tried to gee the others up, there was nearly half an hour left ffs.

" Sleep on it " who could fking sleep ?

Quoted from golfer

" Sleep on it " who could fking sleep ?

Most of our defence.

Yesterday's RH interview with Sean Cunnington was the first time I have heard him speak. In his day, he and his colleagues did their talking on the pitch. I do not believe most fans give a damn about player interviews. They are pap and an insult to the intelligence of all concerned.

Fully agree.
Interviews are so sterile and bland.
Just the same items regurgitated.
And I slept very well thank you

I was out yesterday afternoon and when I switch football focus on  about 60 mins into the match I said " oh its still 0-0 we are not losing yet "   2 mins later we are 2-0 down,  I very disappointed  

BUT

I was not surprised ,  why ?

Quoted from MuddyWaters

This is only an observation but does anyone else think that our players lack passion?

I think they lack quality.

I think being a footballer is a someone that most fans would love to be. and most fans would bust a gut to be out there on the field. They have  a good life style.  and from our league up good to wow pay. I wonder how they would play if they got performance related play  ie  starting at nat min wage , and had to realy earn the rest as top up for a good performance

Quoted from denni266

I think being a footballer is a someone that most fans would love to be. and most fans would bust a gut to be out there on the field. They have  a good life style.  and from our league up good to wow pay. I wonder how they would play if they got performance related play  ie  starting at nat min wage , and had to realy earn the rest as top up for a good performance

I dont know what its like now but years ago it was common practice to have a basic wage,

A bonus for appearing in the 1st team,

A bonus for a point  an extra bonus for a win,

Some clubs had a bonus for the league postion,

Some had a bonus on the crowd attendance.

I doubt that will be the case today though.

Quoted from arryarryarry

I think they lack quality.

If I were in MJ's shoes, these are the outfield players at present I think I could work with..

RHJ
Hendrie
Davis
Whitmore
Famewo
Fox
Welsh
Rose M
Hessenthaler
Embleton
Pringle
Vernam
Thomas
Cook
Rose A

Development: HC and MW

That's a balanced core of 15 outfield players who should be playing a more cohesive brand of football. The others are not good enough (HC or MW not yet) and when they are picked they hugely weaken the side. The attributes the others I've not identified are that they're relatively physically or mentally weak and slow. For various reasons, injuries and suspensions aside, MJ hasn't picked what I perceive to be his strongest XI available match by match yet this season. I have different views from him and normally I would say he should know better as he works with them every day, but our performances suggest otherwise. He seems to have signed up a squad with a mish mash of qualities that is difficult to blend into one effective playing style. Whatever he tries to do, three or four are just not suited to the high pressing, high tempo passing game that he promised. He was too conservative in keeping players like Collins, Cardwell, Dixon, Woolford and Hooper in the summer and has hamstrung himself.

We've cut our squad size down to add quality, and to a certain extent we have, but we've still added or retained too much chaff to have the quality in depth that having a smaller playing squad should achieve. We were promised pace, physicality and a higher level of fitness, I haven't seen that yet in games, other than Lincoln and MK Dons first half..

Would anyone play Dixon, Hooper, Collins, Robles, Woolford or Cardwell if we were to be a progressive team? That's a big chunk of budget that could have gone on a goalscorer, a quality box to box centre mid and another quality central defender. Add those three to the 15 above and I think we could be getting somewhere..

We're not far off, but the dead wood are holding us back..

I think most agree that the players are better than last season ,

They are not showing it so that must come down to why ?

Every week Jolley says they are not doing what he tells them,

We are good in the middle of the park but can not score and can not defend,

So Michael ask yourself  why ??????????????

Just want to see a settled team with players playing in the positions that they were signed for.

Last year's passion went with Summer field, like him or not,. we are at the moment suffering from an inexperienced manager learning his trade but loosing his confidence, how long we can afford to let this happen is down to JF, IMO we can stay with him for a while yet

It’s confidence they lack, not “passion”.

Quoted from marinerdazza

It’s confidence they lack, not “passion”.

And before confidence comes belief. Do they have belief in what the manager is doing? And do they have belief in certain team mates? Because I'm not so sure they do..

Grimsby is a graveyard for players on the wane. I've no doubt that a lot of the signings we have made are technically better, with most having played at a higher level for big parts of their careers, but they seem to be going through the motions to me. The Oldham fan in that other thread was right in that we are a team of individuals, with many of our players thinking they can just turn up and p1ss League 2 with technique alone. You can't.

We have been down this route many times before and it never works. Players like Collins etc are not impressed by playing for us, and whether they will admit it or not, it's a step down for them at the homosexual end of their careers. We always seem to do much better when we have the majority of players with something to prove; who want to progress and see us a step up in their career.

If you couple that with a near 2 decade slump, and a lingering malaise around the club, it just sucks the life out of the players. It's no coincidence that a lot of the players who leave us, prosper at other clubs. I think Jolley recognises this and is trying to change things. Unfortunately, i don't think you can with some of the players we have at the club. You can't teach an old dog new tricks if they are not willing to change, and at the stage of their careers now, they don't want to change, and in some cases are incapable of change. How many times have we heard Jolley complain that the players are not carrying out his instructions?

It's not all bad though, and we do have the nucleus of a decent side i think. Hendrie impressed me yesterday and i think Famewo will only get better with games under his belt. I think RHJ showed much promise and some missing verve when he played last season. Rose looked very good in patches yesterday. Thomas looks good so far and others have shown good signs if we can get the balance right. I feel there are 3 or 4 passengers in the side at the moment, and you can't afford to have that many in a side. I hope Jolley can sort this before he starts to come under intense pressure, but for me, the jury is well and truly out right now. Maybe it's time to see what A Rose and Wright can do given a chance, and get Clifton back into the set up?

Having said all that, who the fook knows what the answer is? Many have tried and most have failed.

“The homosexual end of their careers”

I love the swear filter.  

Like the late icey's "half time homosexual"  

I couldn't get yesterday so listened intently on the radio. A couple of points....
We used to start well, go a goal down and lose heart. Now we start well, miss our first good chance (Embleton) and lose heart, like that one chance will sum up our day. It's as fragile a team in belief as it was 10 years ago and this has to stop.

2nd half all I heard, every 30 seconds was "Sturridge...finds space..Sturridge..runs gets into the box....Sturridge this, Sturridge that" until I realised that our blunt, ineffective and unexciting attacking play is just as blunt, ineffective and unexciting as it has been for the majority of the last few seasons. It's like watching a football club on some weird loop, nothing ever changes, regardless of the current players.
I just prayed that we could get Thomas or Vernam on the ball as much as fookin' Sturridge but it wasn't happening.

They announced Hooper was coming on and I turned the radio off.

Quoted from Bigdog

If I were in MJ's shoes, these are the outfield players at present I think I could work with..

RHJ
Hendrie
Davis
Whitmore
Famewo
Fox
Welsh
Rose M
Hessenthaler
Embleton
Pringle
Vernam
Thomas
Cook
Rose A

Development: HC and MW

That's a balanced core of 15 outfield players who should be playing a more cohesive brand of football. The others are not good enough (HC or MW not yet) and when they are picked they hugely weaken the side. The attributes the others I've not identified are that they're relatively physically or mentally weak and slow. For various reasons, injuries and suspensions aside, MJ hasn't picked what I perceive to be his strongest XI available match by match yet this season. I have different views from him and normally I would say he should know better as he works with them every day, but our performances suggest otherwise. He seems to have signed up a squad with a mish mash of qualities that is difficult to blend into one effective playing style. Whatever he tries to do, three or four are just not suited to the high pressing, high tempo passing game that he promised. He was too conservative in keeping players like Collins, Cardwell, Dixon, Woolford and Hooper in the summer and has hamstrung himself.

We've cut our squad size down to add quality, and to a certain extent we have, but we've still added or retained too much chaff to have the quality in depth that having a smaller playing squad should achieve. We were promised pace, physicality and a higher level of fitness, I haven't seen that yet in games, other than Lincoln and MK Dons first half..

Would anyone play Dixon, Hooper, Collins, Robles, Woolford or Cardwell if we were to be a progressive team? That's a big chunk of budget that could have gone on a goalscorer, a quality box to box centre mid and another quality central defender. Add those three to the 15 above and I think we could be getting somewhere..

We're not far off, but the dead wood are holding us back..

Sounds like it's a process that's gonna take time.

After sleeping on it with the aid of the best part of a gallon of beer I think we are in deep sh1t to be honest.

The biggest issue is the lack of goals as well as this stopping us winning points it's also leading to the lack of belief and intent in that when we go behind the players don't believe we can score to get back into the game.  

Due to a mix of late loans who lack match fitness, suspensions and injuries MJ has not been able to field his best side and has fallen into the trap of fuzzy logic picking players out of position and making changes when a bit of faith in certain personnel might just go some way to building a bit of belief.  

Though and quite rightly so the defense in the last few games has come under criticism you have to stick with the same personnel and shape for a few games on the bang for them to get any cohesion.

Midfield, again disrupted by injury and suspension but keep a pattern and shape so that people can drop in and out of the side, it feels like we go into games trying to deal with our opponents systems rather than setting ourselves up to play the way we want to play.

Up front I guess Cooke has been a half decent constant but needs a partner who can play close to him, its been an issue with Town for ages that our forwards get split, though at least on occasion in the first half yesterday we did try and thread the ball into channels with players looking to receive it.

What I have sen this year is that we can play against teams but can't deal with it when they play against us. As soon as we get worked out we crumble and that is when Welsh apart the lack of leadership is truly exposed.

So there are lots of things that need fixing and I just hope that MJ knows how as I'd love to see him have some success, and when I say success I'd take mid table with a few wins. At the moment though I'm not that confident that this isn't going to end badly.        

So, here's my slant on yesterday. From the off the referee just didn't want to give free kicks, this is not a blame the referee post by the way, there were tackles, late wrestling moves, body blocks ,kicking and gouging going on and the ref didn't seem to mind.
Half time came they realised what they could get away with, basically anything, so let's rough up GTFC.
Then of course the improvements to the side by substitutions sorry Michael you really cocked that up, I don't think your quorum are giving you good advice. I like vernham but he played to deep. Hooper should have the no9 shirt taken off him, Matt tees and Kev  Drinkell would do a better job. Pringle comes on a left footed player, let's play him right side of midfield, great idea leave the left hand side of the pitch clear so Woodford can bomb up and down.
Enough....
Nope one last thing the officials were all shockers, they didn't cost us the game but they certainly didn't apply the rules of the game.

Officials were fine ffs. We were excrement end of

We will win the next 3 games in a row trust me

Quoted from hheh2

We will win the next 3 games in a row trust me

Not a chance, more like lose unfortunately