london blue wrote:
Tyrant
i am not attempting to defend Denis's game plan or question whether he is the right coach or not, but who are the players you believe he has failed to develop to the levels that would satisfy?
I could point to this year and ask what development has gone into a variety of young players, like Russell, Blackwell etc.... Kennedy, O'hAilpin etc etc
and yes they've gotten games (and O'hAilpin good minutes of late) but they are hardly getting a run....
we've finished last.
Going back in time and putting more time and variety into some of those players isn't going to make us have a worse season. His recent treatment of Smith etc has been appalling.
The most galling thing has been picking the kids and giving them a couple of minutes and ripping them off when they make errors etc.
I'm not advocating "chucking them all in at once", but we need a balance and there's been only a very flimsy sense of balance, which gives rise to my concern about the exact nature of the "plan" in place.
And I don't believe point to Simpson and saying "he didn't play much for 3 years and now he's great" is a great argument for Pagan's plan either. I could just as easily say if you compress a spring and leave it compressed, its going to spring back into shape if you release it 1 year later or 3.
Its one of those GREY areas Dannyboy loves, that ultimately comes back to idealogy...
I personally have detested pagan's idealogy for the handling of the non-super-kids, because, frankly, its not as though they'd be costing GOOD players games, is it?
People are talking now about Bentick looking exhausted last week. It might have been nice if we'd had someone like Smith available from day 1 to come off the bench and work with him, give him a breather, pick up some valuable minutes himself... his form in the 2s last year certainly warranted at least some minutes in a team that finished last last season and, well, had just as piss-poor a list as last season (in terms of players ready to play in 2006)
But whoops! we can't promote Smith because we chocked up on deadhead midfielders from other teams like Chambers... adn we can't delist him because we gave him 2 years.
And we can't give Jackson a shot, despite a decent preseason, because well, we picked him with a rookie pick.... and though we were pathetic last year and had SO MANY hopeless players... we only had 4 picks in the national draft because... well... we'd made so many shocking decisions with contracts and rejects from other clubs.
PLANNING! Where was it in 2003 when our only kid we drafted was Walker? What about in 2004 when we "added" Chambers and Longmuir?
It all builds up! Pagan's whole idealogy about re-building this list has been HOPELESSLY POOR from day 1... its flowed into this season from that day....
Login
Register
FAQ
