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Post by ChrisVessey on Nov 26, 2023 10:05:57 GMT
No loss.
Looked lively first few cameos and had potential to be a good player for us but has got markedly worse.
I'm sure there's a good player there but we'll never see it. A combination of playing in a declining team with defensive/dull tactics probably contributed to that.
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Post by squeeze. on Nov 26, 2023 10:07:42 GMT
Yeah just didn’t work out, hopefully he goes on to have a decent career for himself somewhere and it was a good experience for him.
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shubs
Reserve team substitute
Posts: 2,292
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Post by shubs on Nov 26, 2023 10:25:35 GMT
I have a Palace supporting mate who says he is well thought of there. Real pity as it looked like a decent signing on paper.
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Post by treadmore on Nov 26, 2023 10:34:31 GMT
No Janneh in the squad either. Shame for him that he hasn't been able to rediscover his pre-injury form. One of our stand out players early part of the season.
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Post by joeaustin on Nov 26, 2023 10:40:31 GMT
With the way we play Wingers are unfortunately always going to struggle, I still feel there was a player in Tracey but when we focus so much on shape and off the ball work, these ‘luxury’ players just aren’t going to succeed as easily here.
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Post by Andrewlang on Nov 26, 2023 11:28:40 GMT
Odd that we keep signing those luxury type players. You'd think if rigidity, shape and off the ball was so important (which it obviously is) and we didn't or couldn't play in a way that suits that type of winger then we'd prioritise brutes or the type of player that suits our way of playing instead.
Andrew
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Post by El Goodo on Nov 26, 2023 12:36:17 GMT
No Janneh in the squad either. Shame for him that he hasn't been able to rediscover his pre-injury form. One of our stand out players early part of the season. Only for 2 games, really. This was always going to be the case when everyone was fit though with our squad as it is this year – at least 2 or 3 of Brophy, Lankester, Kachunga, Thomas, Kaikai, Gordon, Janneh, McConnell & Yearn will be in the stands each game.
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Post by El Goodo on Nov 26, 2023 12:41:30 GMT
Odd that we keep signing those luxury type players. You'd think if rigidity, shape and off the ball was so important (which it obviously is) and we didn't or couldn't play in a way that suits that type of winger then we'd prioritise brutes or the type of player that suits our way of playing instead. This is something I've pondered and does come back to Bonner's management style, Ι think. I said elsewhere, after Peterborough probably or maybe Cheltenham, that I've really struggled this season to work out what our attacking plan actually is. Sure you can identify against some (most) teams we try to play a low-block & spring counters, but even that hasn't really been true for a while now, and also the nature of the way that counter-attacking works is very unclear. We don't play quick balls into the channels, through the thirds, up to a target man (when Okenabirhie's on), we don't load the box and get crosses in etc. Watching the highlights of yesterday & I can't remember the last time we put a move together like the one they did for the Hoskins chance in the second half that Stevens saves – quick passing with players making runs that their teammates know they're going to make. So it sort of seems to me that Bonner likes a bit of a maverick type to "make something happen" – that's really what Janneh is, it's what Kaikai is too & Lankester as well to a degree. Doesn't really seem sustainable, particularly not when you so often see our players clearly not on the same wavelength for what we're trying to do. Too many attempted one-twos or first-time passes simply aren't read by one or several others players, or a run just isn't made, which suggests to me we're not really playing that way to a plan. There's something to be said for a more unstructured way of attacking that prioritises individual creativity, but you need players good enough for it to work, and perhaps the small pond we fish in in the bottom half of L1 doesn't really have the marine life good enough for it, or we haven't got the right framework in place around it to allow it to be consistently effective.
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Post by Tom Shaw's Fist of Rage on Nov 26, 2023 13:01:54 GMT
Odd that we keep signing those luxury type players. You'd think if rigidity, shape and off the ball was so important (which it obviously is) and we didn't or couldn't play in a way that suits that type of winger then we'd prioritise brutes or the type of player that suits our way of playing instead. This is something I've pondered and does come back to Bonner's management style, Ι think. I said elsewhere, after Peterborough probably or maybe Cheltenham, that I've really struggled this season to work out what our attacking plan actually is. Sure you can identify against some (most) teams we try to play a low-block & spring counters, but even that hasn't really been true for a while now, and also the nature of the way that counter-attacking works is very unclear. We don't play quick balls into the channels, through the thirds, up to a target man (when Okenabirhie's on), we don't load the box and get crosses in etc. Watching the highlights of yesterday & I can't remember the last time we put a move together like the one they did for the Hoskins chance in the second half that Stevens saves – quick passing with players making runs that their teammates know they're going to make. So it sort of seems to me that Bonner likes a bit of a maverick type to "make something happen" – that's really what Janneh is, it's what Kaikai is too & Lankester as well to a degree. Doesn't really seem sustainable, particularly not when you so often see our players clearly not on the same wavelength for what we're trying to do. Too many attempted one-twos or first-time passes simply aren't read by one or several others players, which suggests to me we're not really playing that way to a plan. There's something to be said for a more unstructured way of attacking that prioritises individual creativity, but you need players good enough for it to work, and perhaps the small pond we fish in in the bottom half of L1 doesn't really have the marine life good enough for it, or we haven't got the right framework in place around it to allow it to be consistently effective. While this has been the pattern the small crumb of comfort I can take from the first half of Northampton is that for the first time in ages there were noticeable repeated patterns to our play which due to their frequency I have to assume they were instructed. We were clearly trying to get it into Okenabirhe's feet quickly to distribute in a Kane-esque deep lying role. When counter attacking the midfield pointedly looked like they were instructed to overload with the winger to allow full-backs to overlap. Thirdly, Stevens was looking to quickly distribute to either a fullback or midfielder at every opportunity. Seemed to all fizzle out a bit as the game went on though and back to, as you say, a more unstructured style.
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Post by huddsmoose on Nov 26, 2023 13:27:25 GMT
We do lack a clear playing identity, other than, as has been said, our preference to play in a low block.
It's worrying that two years in a row we've been desperate for the January transfer window to fix perceived deficiencies in the squad. Especially considering (what I perceive to be) relatively high investment over the summer.
Contrast this to Stevenage and Steve Evans, who has a clear plan built around physicality and set pieces and brought in experienced league one athletes to implement it. A smaller club than us, but a clear identity and a genuine chance of promotion.
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Post by Andrewlang on Nov 26, 2023 14:59:39 GMT
High investment by our standards but probably not by the league standards. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Stevenage have a higher budget actually (though I imagine there's not much in it eitherway)
I thought we'd recruited quite well in the summer, but if we've not recruited to a plan then maybe not after all. Interesting to see what we do in the summer, the sort of surgery we saw last year seems unnecessary at this point but who knows.
Andrew
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onlyluke92
Youth team star
Posts: 1,867
Favourite CUFC player: Scott Rendell
Favourite CUFC match: U's 3 vs 0 Stevenage (Conf Play Off Semi, 2nd leg, 2009
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Post by onlyluke92 on Nov 26, 2023 15:09:07 GMT
The lack of a team ethos and identity is now spreading to players individually. What is Brophys best position? Lankester? Digby? Fejiri? Thomas?
I have no idea what our main game plan is and where our players should be to get the best out of them. They are too often sacrificed to "benefit the team".
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Post by squeeze. on Nov 26, 2023 15:35:13 GMT
Our use of the loan market hasn’t been great, we don’t recruit from non-league & we aren’t seeing many of the youth being blooded.
For a side that has a low budget in this league, when you look at our side, bar Lennett, that’s three legitimate sources of players for sides like ours that Bonner seems stubbornly reticent to use.
There’s several young players from East Anglia now in the Football League that have come from Non-League since Bonner / Strang axis has been here - I would be genuinely interested to know whether we ever had a look.
That’s not even really a criticism, it’s just me thinking out loud and thinking of ways we could bolster this side.
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Post by groundsman on Nov 26, 2023 16:40:08 GMT
Stevenage have a 1in 2 goal scorer we have a 1 in ten
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Post by Bangkok u on Nov 26, 2023 16:42:15 GMT
Was Shillow Tracey a worse wide man than what we have now.I don’t think he was!
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