After a night to sleep on it....

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 140381

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.