I look at these things from a coaching perspective.

At a club like ours, a number of the first team squad are always going to be lads in the age range 17-23. They are young, impressionable, still learning the game. Outfield players generally don't peak until around 27. They are also human beings, and they're going to make mistakes. And they haven't developed a thick enough skin to take the negative with the positive, despite what some fans think they should be able to tolerate.

Imagine being a young lad, going into work every day and having a bunch of people constantly criticising what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's not going to encourage you to try to do better. It's just going to weigh on you, and chances are your performance level will drop and mistakes will become more frequent.

Kieran Freeman is a good example. Not the best right back we've ever had, but when he had confidence, he put in a good shift and was involved in setting up goals pretty regularly. A couple of errors, people start to get on his back, his head goes down, the rest is history. And as a club, I think we've had a good number of younger players who have moved on - or got out, if you prefer - a lot sooner than I'd have liked. I agree that quite a few in our support are quicker than most to turn on a player and give them a barrage of criticism every week. More so than at most other clubs.

Any player who downs tools and isn't putting the work in deserves all the criticism directed at them. But players who have been selected by the manager and who are out there giving everything they've got, despite not being particularly good, don't deserve abuse.

Are you entitled to give a player abuse? Sure. You've paid your money. Will it help? Make him play better? Get the team to shift up a gear? Nope. It's counter-productive.

Like DB said, if the performance hasn't been good enough, give them some stick at half time and let them know what you think at full time if things haven't improved. But the only way we can do our bit to help lift the players and the team during the 90 minutes is to encourage players. Berating people does nothing positive and will often make things worse. It's human nature.

CCX2 2010 wrote:

Tek wrote:

David_Blunkett wrote:

 a lot also hang on to last season, when moaning about this one.


 

And as a self confessed 'greeting faced bastard' wtf should we not? It was a devastating collapse post-split, and some of us (myself included) largely blame Goodwin for that.

After all we'd sure as Hell still hear about if he'd kept us up and then subsequently went through a rocky period, from the Goodwin backers, would we not?
 

 
Without hopefully derailing another thread, he had an almost impossible job, he played his part and got them to the line, the players available just didn't have the minerals to complete the job.

It was 100% nailed on and with the benifit of hindsight I can't understand why you can't see it. One striker who could hardly walk after the split and missed games, no battling midfielders at all- none, nada absolutely no fuckin steel whatsoever in the middle. No left back that could defend, Liam Smith at right back, Edwards and Mulgrew in the middle and Birighitti. Look at it mate, how was he meant to get them up for a battle, it was a complete shitshow, the squad was assembled (don't laugh) to finish 3rd not to battle out a relegation dog fight and when it came down to it, the more astute organised clubs run over the top of us.

He inherited all of the above, he put his hand up and others ran a mile.

Following that I don't recall any appetite for another manager to come in and evaluate the squad in the summer (again) there was no time. Goodwin has generally just got almost everyone of them out the door which we all wanted.

Finally, I hope we are all Goodwin backers, surely we are. We all want him to succeed don't we? Of course we do, he ain't going anywhere until the summer at least unless that idiot of a chairman does anything else that would be to the detriment of our club.

13 games to go and the pressure is on, I hope for our clubs sake we manage to get over the line, I really dread to think of what might happen if we don't to our club.

It will be tight on Saturday, but 2-0 united.

Yip good post.  Relegation certainly wasn't the fault of Goodwin, but the end of last season and this season do have some similarities in that he seems to be unable to get the players up for the occasion.  I'd much rather that we'd gone to Raith and had a right good go at them and lost rather than controlling large parts of the game and losing.  Granted he is without two of his key players and the one up front is having a stinking dip in form at the wrong time.  Wotherspoon does look like a short term solution to our creativity issues so I guess we are just going to have to dig in and hope that he can get us there at which point the clowns will have to assess his plan for next seaon and decide if we need another new face at the helm.

Canadian Arab wrote:

I look at these things from a coaching perspective.

At a club like ours, a number of the first team squad are always going to be lads in the age range 17-23. They are young, impressionable, still learning the game. Outfield players generally don't peak until around 27. They are also human beings, and they're going to make mistakes. And they haven't developed a thick enough skin to take the negative with the positive, despite what some fans think they should be able to tolerate.

Imagine being a young lad, going into work every day and having a bunch of people constantly criticising what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's not going to encourage you to try to do better. It's just going to weigh on you, and chances are your performance level will drop and mistakes will become more frequent.

Kieran Freeman is a good example. Not the best right back we've ever had, but when he had confidence, he put in a good shift and was involved in setting up goals pretty regularly. A couple of errors, people start to get on his back, his head goes down, the rest is history. And as a club, I think we've had a good number of younger players who have moved on - or got out, if you prefer - a lot sooner than I'd have liked. I agree that quite a few in our support are quicker than most to turn on a player and give them a barrage of criticism every week. More so than at most other clubs.

Any player who downs tools and isn't putting the work in deserves all the criticism directed at them. But players who have been selected by the manager and who are out there giving everything they've got, despite not being particularly good, don't deserve abuse.

Are you entitled to give a player abuse? Sure. You've paid your money. Will it help? Make him play better? Get the team to shift up a gear? Nope. It's counter-productive.

Like DB said, if the performance hasn't been good enough, give them some stick at half time and let them know what you think at full time if things haven't improved. But the only way we can do our bit to help lift the players and the team during the 90 minutes is to encourage players. Berating people does nothing positive and will often make things worse. It's human nature.

Another great post.

Heard Tilson starting and you thought last week didnt have creativity  

CCX2 2010 wrote:

We get exactly what it says on the tim with him, effort, holds the shape well, organises and in general decent when we dont have the ball.

He can be very wasteful with possession but I think he will add a bit of balance to the team and allow Sibbald to do what he does best.

Hopefully Moult is starting as I think he is our best striker and can't be arsed what Watt telling everyone behind to settle down and take it easy.

Would mind seeing Mochrie start just behind him with Wootherspoon on the right and Cudjoe on the left. Something a bit different, we are very predictable down the line and get some crosses into the box, maybe someone cutting inside will work at breaking down this back 10.

Any word if Gallagher is back 2019?

I dont think he is far away, trained all week unlike the Chocolate captain. 
 

Big changes tomorrow apparently

dufc2019 wrote:

Heard Tilson starting

😂
 

SuperMario wrote:

Big changes tomorrow apparently

The previous several managers we have had have persisted with guys in the team who were clearly not deserving a place, and all of us were regularly asking "How can [insert manager here] not see what we can all see?"

Credit to Goodwin. It isn't often that he doesn't drop someone when they have been poor the week before and the fans have been in general agreement that the player's performance wasn't good enough, and when he has a reasonable option to replace them with.

I'm not saying he makes changes because he reads Tekel Towers and agrees with our opinions - I'm saying he sees many of the same problems that we do, and he generally does something about it.

Makes a pleasant change.

Hopefully he does not put Graham next to the young lad , surely got to put Gallagher beside young MT.

Tillson is like xavi huh jeeezy peeps canna believe he’s a professional footballer, seen better playing at drummy on a sat.

Thomson at right back was really positive and cudjoe was excellent, apart from that pretty pish, how Tony watt plays full 90 every week I’ll never know

Wasn’t at the game, did Fotheringham play on the left wing when he came on?

Had to win today with Raith getting a good result at Ayr.  Don’t think we’ll see many great performances at Tannadice for the rest of the season, which I’ll grudgingly accept so long as we pick up the points that get us out this shitey league.

SuperMario wrote:

Tillson is like xavi huh jeeezy peeps canna believe he’s a professional footballer, seen better playing at drummy on a sat.

Thomson at right back was really positive and cudjoe was excellent, apart from that pretty pish, how Tony watt plays full 90 every week I’ll never know

He didn’t,he was subbed off.

Frustrating, disjointed at times yes, but that's the nature of the beast in this diddy division.
Finally looked threatening at dead balls.
Moult's free kick a peach, long time since we've seen one.
Corners - hitting good areas, great to get result - about time and thought Watt did the simple instinctive strikers thing well - hitting ball into deck.
Third, fast breaking with width team goal, cut inside, precision finish.- wee while since we've seen one of them.
Oor Wullie MOTM (as usual.)
The young Thomson a wee way from finished article but nonetheless excellent.
Cudjoe - still don't know what to make of him, offers something different at times but can be predictable cutting inside into blind alleys.
Tillson gtf, absolute liability.

Any word on Wotherspoon ?
 

Last edited by Shakey Isles Arab (24/2/2024 10:34 pm)