Holmes_and_Watson

There's one in France, where someone has drawn an auroch over it in disgust. 🙂

"No Rasmus. Those are rows and those are columns!."

Anxiety

Agreed. SR don't have to get involved in insisting on day to day things, necessarily. They have decided, through their data, on a style of play. Their recruitment process insists on incoming personnel adapting to that system. It's the same, and increasingly, the case with player recruitment. SR merged the scouting depts of their clubs into more of a data driven model. And using the database of recruits they've bought into accessing. Those recruits are to fit the SR model of player trading, and their preferred system. Now we have a head coach reliant on what recruitment tell him. Previous managers have had to deal with whatever SR ended up with at the end of a window - Downs, Orsic, Groenback. That extends to where they want to recruit. The Baz project, keeping with Stewart's return. Some of it has been impacted by them getting it wrong right from the first window they had. But they've happily reinforced their errors of judgement.

Just wanted to point out that he did claim and do a good punched clearance, through some bodies, in the last couple of games, that was encouraging. It was offside, but he wasn't to know that.

My Bundusliga watching brother said "he's crap" after prompting me asking about him. We were watching the Liverpool snooze fest, so I couldn't see if it was a wind up. The guy's barely played after all. From snippets I've read he has appearances from his home country league, bought with promise by a top team, but dropping now to third choice and out the door. He feels he was told he'd be playing for his loan club. But they've just gone with their regular keeper as they try and stay up. My brother did say that there were plenty of duds around German football at the moment, catching idiot clubs like ours recruiting in that market. So, that was cheerful to hear.

Working

20 games for Valenciennes in 23/24 when they went down from ligue 2. 6 games in 25/26 for Red Star in the promotion spots of ligue 2, and who are happy to give him back. Not the progress anyone would have wanted.

It's like a pullover, facial hair, repetitive press conferences and one trick tactics went wrong. Of course that can't be the case as it would undermine everything SR value too, and that's worked out fi...oh...

Policy

"Right Johannes, that's your mid season appraisal. Send in Tonda on your way out."

Which Baz still wouldn't be able to put a ball over. I think this guy has pushed Baz enough. No need to go through with the deal now.

A fair draw at the moment. Millwall have us well shackled, as we try and figure out a plan of attack. THB's header our best effort. Baz has had a couple of efforts straight at him. But Millwall have looked the more dangerous in the final third. That's not unexpected as we look to unlock our opponents through quick passing, rather than overload and drive forward. In so e moments, I was wondering when Russ was going to be announced as Tonda's consultant. If we're going to play crab football, get the promotion earning expert.

Decent long throw gets them a corner. Millwall stronger. Pushed us back, stopped any overloads and easily compact enough to stop the balls to feet every one of players in attack wants. Need to push up down those flanks.

Oof. Millwall nearly take advantage of one of our predictable passes. Yellow for Wood or that would have been worse.

Nearly from THB. And not far away from Leo. Millwall pretty solid though, as we look for gaps rather than take risks.

Another nice ball across our goal. We don't seem to have any desire to create attacks by impossing them. It's much more passive, waiting to see what if any space appears.

Whew! Straight at Baz. From Stephens being way upfield to them keeping it in, I thought that was going in.

Not winning many challenges, and our attacks are starting too deep leaving a lot for Scienza in particular to do. Not great to see Archer outpaced and outmuscled by their defenders. Manning more of the outlet, with some decent deliveries.

Both teams getting a good pass across. Archer closer to getting on the end of ours.

Same as every game - prepare for defeat, enjoy the wins. 🙂

If we had to use our squad in a fixture heavy period, happy to at least see those making a positive impact make the team in Bragg, Archer, Jelert and Matsuki. I imagine Stephens for Quarshie is as much tactical and that Robinson will be getting plenty of minutes as a sub. It's obviously not going to be as slick as Tonda's early passing success. But no reason why the forward play all these have shown can't kick start us out of our struggles to get forward in recent games. Something a little different in Tonda's preferred system hopefully. COYR!

Just sparing a thought for Baz. To go from the high of a man of the match performance, to the low of having the club bring in a challenger for your place is tough. Football is a harsh, fickle business.

Not long after a very young Casillas was put in to replace a solid enough older 'keeper, I remember him racing out needlessly, not getting the ball and Madrid conceded. He was briefly dropped. Hopefully, that's not the snapshot of Casillas they're referring to. 🙂

I fell down a rabbit hole looking at old toys and adverts. What were we talking about? 🙂