Tomlin in talks | Page 3 | Vital Football

Tomlin in talks

Easy to pick holes in both manager’s reigns at the moment but the important thing is what happens next and that starts with this transfer window.

AKs ruthless approach in the last window gives me the confidence to believe he understands where the problems are in the squad which is a step forward from most of his predecessors.

What he has to do now is bring in the right players and show that he can take us up the league.

I am not expecting the free flowing football of Wolves or Fulham as he is a disciple of Mourinho but I am hoping that he retains the squads ability to keep the ball and just ensures we have a bit more purpose about our play.

Ally that with some defensive solidity and we might just be looking at the right end of the league for a change.
 
Karanka can not be judged on proactive management of the team until nearer Christmas. The results and league standing will be testimony to how well he has done after a summer of revamp and not a jot before.
 
Though I thought BB looked a better player out wide under MW than through the middle under AK - probably had more support at that time though...
 
I thought he looked lost and frustrated out wide if I am honest. At times he looked like it was the last place he wanted to be and I am not convinced his confidence really recovered.
 
Apollyon said:
How often did we see Ben Brereton out on the wing do nothing? How often did we see an attack turn to defence as a ball in the final third found its way back to our keeper? Those rose tinted bins must be working magic
Click to expand...

The objective with BB was to take the pressure off him and to learn different aspects of the game and he's far from the first young striker to follow that path.

I'm not remotely claiming we were the finished product, it was a long term project abandoned after one transfer window. What exactly can you expect? We went from a relegation side to comfortable midtable.
 
Calvin Plummer said:
The objective with BB was to take the pressure off him and to learn different aspects of the game and he's far from the first young striker to follow that path.

I'm not remotely claiming we were the finished product, it was a long term project abandoned after one transfer window. What exactly can you expect? We went from a relegation side to comfortable midtable.
Click to expand...

Problem is CP that if it was a long term project it was an extremely poorly conceived and executed one

I said this to you long ago- the signings in the summer were not indicative of great long term planning.

Selling Assombalonga is expected, but replacing with a 34 year old with a pretty poor goalscoring record? And a Scottish second tier striker? What long term thinking is that?

Dowell was always someone else's youngster.

Darikwa's signing ignored the problem we had to solve a problem we didn't. I know you claim (evidence free) that he actually intended to play him as a wing back-to-back but he never played that system and barely attempted it.

In January we were going for some Chelsea youngster and this McGinn. He is playing to league one standard and wants to move to Celtic anyway.

You are also making assumptions about the purpose of playing Brereton in the wing. Look at him. He isn't a winger while there's a hole in his arse. He was terrible there and only played a handful of times because for a large part of Warburton's time he was dropped.

The only signings I can outright say we're looking to build a promotion team were Bridcutt at the last minute and McKay. Darikwa as a poorly conceived punt. Certainly Dowell and Murphy had no chance of being part of some distant promotion squad.

You criticise Karanka, but in the signing of the superb Lolley and Figueiredo he has already done better in terms of preparing for a future promotion push IMO and that's before you look at players that divide opinion such as Watson.
 
Last edited:
Calvin Plummer said:
Agreed in the main, though 3 players scoring 40% of goals isn't a particularly large figure.

Also agreed there are no guarantees that we'd have been better off under MW in the short term, in the long run though...

While I do see the increased defensive solidity and organisation, to achieve that we sacrificed a little of our threat. Formation became far more rigid and we became reliant on our left back and a chubby dude to feel up for it. It wasn't simply that their goals dried up, more that we exchanged a little more defence for a little less offence.

How often did we watch an isolated, frustrated ineffective BB ploughing away alone?
Click to expand...

As for goals, 60% of Warburton's goals (33 in 25 games) were by those three players.

5% were by those players in the 21 games after that.

3 players went from scoring 60% of our goals to 5% and that had already happened a month before Warburton was sacked. If you look at it we stopped scoring after 21 games (early December)- there are only 21 goals all season after that.

I know what you mean by defensive solidity and I can see why you believe that we somehow sacrificed something up front

Thing is CP, that isn't what I saw and the goal stats don't really back it up. We stopped scoring goals after 21 games, which is deep into Warburton territory. When those three players, who were signed to 0rovide us goals all stopped, that was it. What is saw in the second half of the season was not defensive -first it was decent attacking football, some moments or of decent creativity but terrible finishing and some players who were not sure how to unlock a defence- because the summer purchases signed to do that didn't deserve to be on the field.

Where did our rest of the season (25 games under three managera) goals come from?

Well, around 40% came from Karanka signings.

Another 35% or so came from players he revived- Vellios, Brereton (who scored more), Cash (back from injury).

And the rest was from Osborn, Lichaj etc who were there already.

I would argue that Karanka inherited a situation that was always going to lead to Warburton being sacked. If the sources of 60% of your goals all dry up at once and never recover, how exactly was MW going to turn that around? The players we knew he was targeting certainly wouldn't have done.

In a fortnight Karanka managed to replace some of those goals while solidifying us. It's no wonder given those circumstances that we struggled to score- any team whose three top scorers all go off the boil together after 21 games would struggle.

I give credit to AK that in that circumstance we didn't end up as a Birmingham or Barnsley
 
It would appear that Warburton is the new Billy. There are those that would wish to turn back the clock. Warburton had an impressive start, and we had a mid-table position on the back of it. However he had lost it, if he stayed, chances are we would have gone down.

The players had lost confidence, unsure of what to do when their training post Warburton, conflicted with their development pre Warburton. By all accounts Warburton’s wish list for January failed to inspire the ownership.

Whatever you think about the style of football, it was not sustaining us in the championship, the ownership saw that and had to act. Whilst the overall objective that Warburton was trying to achieve was laudable, but as pope says, the execution was poor. The personnel selected to deliver the project just weren’t good enough.

It’s easy to say, given time Warburton would have delivered, but it was time that Warburton didn’t have. To avoid relegation, the ship had to be steadied, and Warburton’s one dimensional system was ill equipped to deliver that. There was no plan B, when something doesn’t work, you change it. Other teams had sussed us, and we WERE going down.

I was fortunate to see Brian Clough’s glory days, we attacked in waves, but the defence was solid. Having a solid defence, buys you the licence to play the style of football you want to play. Warburton didn’t seem to appreciate that, and that led to his demise. Playing attractive football is all well and good, when you have the ball, but when it breaks down you have to deal with that, and we didn’t.
 
Calvin Plummer said:
The objective with BB was to take the pressure off him and to learn different aspects of the game
Click to expand...

By shattering his confidence and playing him out of position? Its an unusual tactic in management and I doubt that will catch on. I hope to see Fulham playing Sessegnon in the holding forward role against Villa
 
Pope John XXIII said:
Problem is CP that if it was a long term project it was an extremely poorly conceived and executed one

I said this to you long ago- the signings in the summer were not indicative of great long term planning.

Selling Assombalonga is expected, but replacing with a 34 year old with a pretty poor goalscoring record? And a Scottish second tier striker? What long term thinking is that?

Dowell was always someone else's youngster.

Darikwa's signing ignored the problem we had to solve a problem we didn't. I know you claim (evidence free) that he actually intended to play him as a wing back-to-back but he never played that system and barely attempted it.

In January we were going for some Chelsea youngster and this McGinn. He is playing to league one standard and wants to move to Celtic anyway.

You are also making assumptions about the purpose of playing Brereton in the wing. Look at him. He isn't a winger while there's a hole in his arse. He was terrible there and only played a handful of times because for a large part of Warburton's time he was dropped.

The only signings I can outright say we're looking to build a promotion team were Bridcutt at the last minute and McKay. Darikwa as a poorly conceived punt. Certainly Dowell and Murphy had no chance of being part of some distant promotion squad.

You criticise Karanka, but in the signing of the superb Lolley and Figueiredo he has already done better in terms of preparing for a future promotion push IMO and that's before you look at players that divide opinion such as Watson.
Click to expand...

I didn't say I had inside knowledge as it were, just looked at the type of player Darikwa was and the formations he'd played previously and made a leap of logic.

I can only assume he didn't feel we had the players for that formation.

Again DM was about removing the pressure from BB as he learned. All young players go through cycles of growth and fallow periods. Signing an experienced pro with a decent goal scoring record to learn from and transition from is reasonable to me.

Cummings was a punt.

Lolley I like, though I think MacKay the more talented player.
 
Pope John XXIII said:
As for goals, 60% of Warburton's goals (33 in 25 games) were by those three players.

5% were by those players in the 21 games after that.

3 players went from scoring 60% of our goals to 5% and that had already happened a month before Warburton was sacked. If you look at it we stopped scoring after 21 games (early December)- there are only 21 goals all season after that.

I know what you mean by defensive solidity and I can see why you believe that we somehow sacrificed something up front

Thing is CP, that isn't what I saw and the goal stats don't really back it up. We stopped scoring goals after 21 games, which is deep into Warburton territory. When those three players, who were signed to 0rovide us goals all stopped, that was it. What is saw in the second half of the season was not defensive -first it was decent attacking football, some moments or of decent creativity but terrible finishing and some players who were not sure how to unlock a defence- because the summer purchases signed to do that didn't deserve to be on the field.

Where did our rest of the season (25 games under three managera) goals come from?

Well, around 40% came from Karanka signings.

Another 35% or so came from players he revived- Vellios, Brereton (who scored more), Cash (back from injury).

And the rest was from Osborn, Lichaj etc who were there already.

I would argue that Karanka inherited a situation that was always going to lead to Warburton being sacked. If the sources of 60% of your goals all dry up at once and never recover, how exactly was MW going to turn that around? The players we knew he was targeting certainly wouldn't have done.

In a fortnight Karanka managed to replace some of those goals while solidifying us. It's no wonder given those circumstances that we struggled to score- any team whose three top scorers all go off the boil together after 21 games would struggle.

I give credit to AK that in that circumstance we didn't end up as a Birmingham or Barnsley
Click to expand...

We broke our record for minutes without a goal...
 
Warburton initially looked to have great ideas and ideals that he was going to pursue every minute of every game but it pretty soon became apparent that his one size fits all philosophy wasn't working and that the players were not believing in his coaching system. We were always in marvellous statistical possession territory but it was always in areas unlikely to hurt opposing teams. Sixty per cent possession is fine if you are camped around the other teams penalty area but when it is always in your own half it becomes so frustrating. As stated our goal scorers all went missing en masses or were never up to the job in the first place. Not everyone can take a move in their stride and for the first half of the season Dowell was on fire and unplayable but by Christmas he was physically wrecked having played all through the summer in the World Cup campaign.
Karanka arrived and pretty quickly seemed to come to the conclusion that he had a pretty toxic dressing room with unruly influences he didn't want around and they were very quickly moved out. He steadied the ship defensively by mainly stopping the playing for possession in silly areas . By the end of the season we were safe with very little to play for but pride. We were creating a raft of chances every game but converting hardly any of them and being hit with often solitary chances by our opponents.
Tomlin was instrumental in this and the thing is AK if he really wants him now has to get him fully fit and firing for the new season. Add in a striker or two who doesn't need nine chances to score every game and we are somewhere where we need to be . Next seasons three relegated teams should on paper be at the top reaches but it rarely works that way after their squads have been cherry picked . Clever buying and creativity with a proven finisher is hopefully what we get. Do that and who knows !!!!!
 
Apollyon said:
By shattering his confidence and playing him out of position? Its an unusual tactic in management and I doubt that will catch on. I hope to see Fulham playing Sessegnon in the holding forward role against Villa
Click to expand...

You mean the player who has learned both the LB and LW role...

We can both names numerous strikers who have spent time learning their trade in auxiliary attacking positions. It's really not unusual and I've no idea why you'd claim otherwise.

It wasn't a particularly successful period for BB but that doesn't mean he learned nothing from that time, both about the game and himself.
 
It matterz not a jot who clueless Krankz signs as he won’t be around for that long but the goss that is getting out of the locked down owd girl is decidedly underwhelming & reeks of Krankz dour football & short-termism
 
Calvin Plummer said:
I didn't say I had inside knowledge as it were, just looked at the type of player Darikwa was and the formations he'd played previously and made a leap of logic.

I can only assume he didn't feel we had the players for that formation.

Again DM was about removing the pressure from BB as he learned. All young players go through cycles of growth and fallow periods. Signing an experienced pro with a decent goal scoring record to learn from and transition from is reasonable to me.

Cummings was a punt.

Lolley I like, though I think MacKay the more talented player.
Click to expand...
I agree tha McKay is probably the most talented player in the squad. Unfortunately he is also the least arsed player and if he doesn’t change that then his career is going nowhere and we are better off getting shot of him.
 
Calvin Plummer said:
You mean the player who has learned both the LB and LW role...

We can both names numerous strikers who have spent time learning their trade in auxiliary attacking positions. It's really not unusual and I've no idea why you'd claim otherwise.

It wasn't a particularly successful period for BB but that doesn't mean he learned nothing from that time, both about the game and himself.
Click to expand...
I had no problem at all with MW trying B.B. out wide. As you say it is a common tactic. My problem was that it was obvious after the first game that he wasnt up to it and yet MW persisted with it meaning that B.B. either played out of position or not at all.
 
Basha73 said:
I agree tha McKay is probably the most talented player in the squad. Unfortunately he is also the least arsed player and if he doesn’t change that then his career is going nowhere and we are better off getting shot of him.
Click to expand...


Perhaps he should be played in a number 10 role so he gets to know himself
 
You must log in or register to reply here.