I totally agree with you Degsy, my comments were not directed solely at the players but they are the ones on the pitch and should have realised the futility of what they were doing and brought it to the attention of the coaches. LR is not new to this type of situation, he was part of the team alongside Paul Cook that used the tactic last season and it failed miserably.
What it says to me is that he doesn't trust his midfield and is instructing the back four to miss them out and I think his mistrust is misguided.
When we get the ball down and play through midfield we look a decent side, sure, they are young lads and will make the odd mistake but they will learn from that rather than basically giving the opposition the ball back every time we play out and putting them under pressure.
There is a time to play the long ball, but to do it every time we play the ball out from the back is so easy for the opposition. We need to vary it and Jamie Jones should use his centre backs more, as most of the opposing teams do when we play them.
Yesterday was possibly the worst time to be hitting long balls with the weather conditions very much against it and LR and GR should have seen that and encouraged the lads to get it down on the deck. Possibly a little bit of inexperience from them and I am sure it is as much a learning curve for them as it is for the players.
Still a good point for us and the next three games are all six pointers against the teams around us and if the lads continue to battle the way they did yesterday we will get out of the bottom four.