Tonda Eckert

[Lord Duckhunter]

3 hours ago, Convict Colony said:

My main complaint was that this entire forum knew we should be playing 4 at the back and fellows isnt a wing back yet it took a long fucking time until it got to him as well.

 

Who would he have played as right back in 4  then Einstein? Bree was at Charlton, & the other 2 were mostly injured. Stephen’s?, that bloke who we just stuck 5 past?

If only we’d listened to you, we’d be in the play off places now…

The fact is, as soon as he had a decent right back on the books, he reverted to a 4. 
 

 

[RedArmy]

2 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Wait till we ‘reset’ in the summer and ‘pivot’ to 3 at the back 

It’ll be far sooner than the summer if we have a wobble during our playoff chase. 
Ramsus will make his demands again. 

[trousers]

25 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Who would he have played as right back in 4  then Einstein? Bree was at Charlton, & the other 2 were mostly injured. Stephen’s?, that bloke who we just stuck 5 past?

If only we’d listened to you, we’d be in the play off places now…

The fact is, as soon as he had a decent right back on the books, he reverted to a 4. 
 

 

If only the "Einsteins" at the club hadn't loaned out Bree in the first place... 

Edited 16 hours ago by trousers

[AlexLaw76]

Edwards could have played RB

[StrangelyBrown]

13 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

You’re right but claims like ‘let’s see what the next 7 games are like’ seem a bit wild to me. What if Eckert passes trousers test over the next 7 games with flying colours but never wins a game again. Good or bad? 

There’s obvious differences a manager can make, you’ve named some and Eckert has done well in some but I do think this fan base can take a step back from wild conclusions on managers, good or bad, based on small samples of results especially when 11 players on the pitch have stopped giving stupid goals away which immediately makes us more competitive.

What are these "wild conclusions" you are talking about? When are people allowed to have an opinion?

Edited 6 hours ago by StrangelyBrown

[CB Fry]

11 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Who would he have played as right back in 4  then Einstein?

Youre making out Fellows as a wing back was some under duress down-to-the-bare-bone makeshift decision when it was clearly intended / actively desired by the manager. And it was and is a fucking stupid decision.

[Fabrice29]

21 hours ago, trousers said:

 

Good observation, which means the next tranche of 7 games will tell us how much the latest good run of 7 games has been influenced by an upturn in the manager's (& team's) performance or more down to the reduced quality of opposition. Interesting times...

 

15 hours ago, trousers said:

Where did I say "solely" you giblet muffin?

 

You don’t seem to mention anything else as far as I can see? And you seem pretty keen to point out the next 7 games will tell us how much the managers influence has had so I just assumed that’s what you meant. 

[Fabrice29]

11 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Edwards could have played RB

Barely played CB well let alone RB.

[Fabrice29]

25 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Youre making out Fellows as a wing back was some under duress down-to-the-bare-bone makeshift decision when it was clearly intended / actively desired by the manager. And it was and is a fucking stupid decision.

You’re making out Fellows hasn’t played as a RWB semi regularly before, including in arguably his biggest game before signing for us, against us. And making out we didn’t go on a mad run of form with him playing there and making out he’s not been pretty bang average and dropped since moving to RW.

[trousers]

43 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

 

You don’t seem to mention anything else as far as I can see? And you seem pretty keen to point out the next 7 games will tell us how much the managers influence has had so I just assumed that’s what you meant. 

Fair point. I probably should have said "may" rather that than "will" 👍🏻

I still maintain it's a reasonable observation though...

The general consensus seems to be that Tonda (and Saints) has turned a corner and, therefore, that that tranche of 7 poor results is unlikely to be repeated.

I simply found it interesting that Tonda's reign, so far, has 3 distinct 7 match spells, and I'm very much hopeful that this 'boom / bust' cycle won't be repeated over the upcoming games, despite the observation that the 2 'boom' periods tended to coincide with playing poorer teams, and the 'bust' period with playing better teams. 

P.s. given the heaps of praise coming Tonda's way at the moment (quite rightly) one would venture that most people believe that the manager is has a significant influence on results, one way or t'other...?

Edited 4 hours ago by trousers

[coalman]

12 minutes ago, trousers said:

Fair point. I probably should have said "may" rather that than "will" 👍🏻

I still maintain it's a reasonable observation though...

The general consensus seems to be that Tonda (and Saints) has turned a corner and, therefore, that that tranche of 7 poor results is unlikely to be repeated.

I simply found it interesting that Tonda's reign, so far, has 3 distinct 7 match spells, and I'm very much hopeful that this 'boom / bust' cycle won't be repeated over the upcoming games, despite the observation that the 2 'boom' periods tended to coincide with playing poorer teams, and the 'bust' period with playing better teams. 

 

Even in the 5-0 win we looked pretty ordinary for most of the first half after we scored. Those are the kind of performances that have resulted in Saints becoming passive and waiting for the inevitable. What I'd really love to see is Tonda coach the team to play with higher intensity in these situations. We're not always going to be playing against QPR's Baz tribute act. The same thing played out against Charlton - our play slowed to a crawl and we didn't go for it whilst looking increasingly vulnerable and could easily have turned that performance into a loss. When we become passive we also go back to the whole dicking around at the back nonsense where we invite pressure and take unnecessary risks around our own penalty area.

I think that Tonda is very much the beneficiary of fine margins being in his favour during his reign as opposed to Still where we were very much on the wrong side of them. As Napoleon noted about one of his generals "you say he's good, but is he lucky?".

Teams adapted after our quick start and we got picked apart pretty easily. Our 5-1 win at Charlton showed what happens if you give our players space while trying to press. The 1-1 draw with Charlton showed there's a way to play Saints where you sit back in the low block and we lose all our intensity. A better side than Charlton would have exploited that. I imagine we'll start seeing other teams trying this approach.

It also doesn't bode well for if we return to the Premier League. Our inability to turn up the intensity in pursuit of a result or to match the other side was our undoing in many matches last season. We need to (re)discover this part of our game if we're to harbour serious ambitions of staying up should we manage to get promoted. You can just about get away with being passive in the Championship if you have the players who can make a difference. You can't in the Premier League.

[Fabrice29]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

Fair point. I probably should have said "may" rather that than "will" 👍🏻

I still maintain it's a reasonable observation though...

The general consensus seems to be that Tonda (and Saints) has turned a corner and, therefore, that that tranche of 7 poor results is unlikely to be repeated.

I simply found it interesting that Tonda's reign, so far, has 3 distinct 7 match spells, and I'm very much hopeful that this 'boom / bust' cycle won't be repeated over the upcoming games, despite the observation that the 2 'boom' periods tended to coincide with playing poorer teams, and the 'bust' period with playing better teams. 

P.s. given the heaps of praise coming Tonda's way at the moment (quite rightly) one would venture that most people believe that the manager is has a significant influence on results, one way or t'other...?

I'm not saying he doesn't have influence. I'm saying judging managers in batches of 7 games, ranked on difficulty, is something we should stop doing. We've gone through a significant portion of managers recently, mainly because we've wet the bed almost every time a bad run of results happen. I've said this before but we have to stick with a manager through poor form at some stage, but the fans initial reaction every time we lose once/twice/7 times is to always blame the manager. I think we started to address some of the major issues in January, we haven't addressed them all though and the defenders who have never shown themselves to be too far away from a mistake and unreliable goalscorers will rear their head again at some stage this season and when they do I think we should look in those directions rather than immediately declare the manager as not good enough because it's in a self chosen 7 game batch that we've somehow decided is a marker.

[trousers]

16 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

I'm saying judging managers in batches of 7 games, ranked on difficulty, is something we should stop doing.

Fair enough. I just find such patterns interesting, and potentially revealing. No worries if you feel differently. 

[Fabrice29]

36 minutes ago, trousers said:

Fair enough. I just find such patterns interesting, and potentially revealing. No worries if you feel differently. 

Yes that’s fine and how we rise to the challenges is of course interesting. I’m pointing out that it’s not on the manager to rise to that challenge, but players. Can they cut out mistakes, continue to be resilient and continue to take chances? Because I think it was painfully obvious that’s where the failings have been this season rather than how good our managers supposedly are. All things a manager can influence a bit but predominantly on the players and we should reframe those conversations for me. But yeah, different people, different perspectives.

[trousers]

10 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

Yes that’s fine and how we rise to the challenges is of course interesting. I’m pointing out that it’s not on the manager to rise to that challenge, but players. Can they cut out mistakes, continue to be resilient and continue to take chances? Because I think it was painfully obvious that’s where the failings have been this season rather than how good our managers supposedly are. All things a manager can influence a bit but predominantly on the players and we should reframe those conversations for me. But yeah, different people, different perspectives.

Yep, agree to disagree 👍🏻

[Convict Colony]

16 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Who would he have played as right back in 4  then Einstein? Bree was at Charlton, & the other 2 were mostly injured. Stephen’s?, that bloke who we just stuck 5 past?

If only we’d listened to you, we’d be in the play off places now…

The fact is, as soon as he had a decent right back on the books, he reverted to a 4. 
 

 

So keep doing the same thing and get pumped with 3 at the back without trying something different !

Worst case scenario put stephens there for 1 game who has done it alot in prem and champs or put quarshie or Bragg but at least be seen to try something rather when 3 isnt working.

Agree Bree makes the difference but so far this club loaned him out and now relies on him as 1st team starter I'd like to see how spors spins that.

The Oxford away 1 in particular annoys me as a game we should have had 4 at back as they ceded half the field to us.

And just to add no way in hell did i think we would be in playoffs if this was done, he's done very well for his 1st gig.

Edited 39 minutes ago by Convict Colony