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Let's be realistic

Jun 13, 2015
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19
Iv read and heard a lot about where we are ATM as a club bottom
If he league and we should get rid of Adams.... we'll let's just be realistic for a minute.
Since Adams has come in he has improved are league position 2 seasons in a row and promoted. He has been able to get free agent players such as Bradley, carey, Jervis and fox who are decent players and who probably wouldn't have come to the club without Adams being here.
The last 2 seasons he got us playing winning football, not always attractive but he made the team difficult to beat and got the team spirit and club together.
We are bottom of league 1.... but this is a different team, different league to last time out. I'm fed up with hearing fans say we should be higher, we should be sacking Adams etc.
We need to think where we have been and what we have to do to be successful. We stick with the manager, he might be stubborn, he might not be everyone's cup of tea with his selections and views and comments but by god he's the best man for the job. The players are playing for him. When has been able to select his 1st eleven for a match his season...? Iv watched enough matches this season home and away to think we will be ok, we have dominated 15/20 mins in most matches and should have taken advantage.
We would all love the board to pump money into transfers and wages etc but as a club we need to be solid and get the infrastructure right....
so can everyone settle down, have a realistic thought on where we are now compared to 2 years ago... oh and wasn't people wanting Adams head at the start of last season.. isn't tisdale half way through a 2 year notice period... maybe stick and trust your managers and see what happens.
 

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May 12, 2008
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Plymouth
Greenarmymatt":1bsqbkgp said:
Iv read and heard a lot about where we are ATM as a club bottom
If he league and we should get rid of Adams.... we'll let's just be realistic for a minute.
Since Adams has come in he has improved are league position 2 seasons in a row and promoted. He has been able to get free agent players such as Bradley, carey, Jervis and fox who are decent players and who probably wouldn't have come to the club without Adams being here.
The last 2 seasons he got us playing winning football, not always attractive but he made the team difficult to beat and got the team spirit and club together.
We are bottom of league 1.... but this is a different team, different league to last time out. I'm fed up with hearing fans say we should be higher, we should be sacking Adams etc.
We need to think where we have been and what we have to do to be successful. We stick with the manager, he might be stubborn, he might not be everyone's cup of tea with his selections and views and comments but by god he's the best man for the job. The players are playing for him. When has been able to select his 1st eleven for a match his season...? Iv watched enough matches this season home and away to think we will be ok, we have dominated 15/20 mins in most matches and should have taken advantage.
We would all love the board to pump money into transfers and wages etc but as a club we need to be solid and get the infrastructure right....
so can everyone settle down, have a realistic thought on where we are now compared to 2 years ago... oh and wasn't people wanting Adams head at the start of last season.. isn't tisdale half way through a 2 year notice period... maybe stick and trust your managers and see what happens.
Agree with you except I would question the bold bit. We need to dominate more than just 15/20 minutes in a game. However I do think we'll be fine.
 
Aug 17, 2011
8,830
686
57
Kings Tamerton
Thereā€™s a lot in the OP to disagree with and personally iā€™ve not for one minute thought we have a god given rite to be higher in the league and my reasoning from the word go to replace Adams was the fundamental mistake he made in the close season to not recruit a striker. How any team going up a division could expect to go into the new season with an injured striker, a striker that was maybe not up to speed the season before and to give him some credit a young striker that he knew could do the business when he had the chance.

To alleviate the negativity so far, Taylor - canā€™t do anything about his injury. Blissett - looked to be a handful when being used and the most likely in Adams strategy to work and Fletcher - top scorer so canā€™t knock that.

It that doesnā€™t excuse Ciftci who may be decent but doesnā€™t suit Adams style and Adams wonā€™t change to make best use of his staff. It doesnā€™t excuse throwing Oscar on and putting his rehabilitation back a few more weeks and it doesnā€™t excuse his very poor timing (to be generous) of his subs last week against Shrewsbury.

Finally and to end on a high note, his recruitment of Toumanis last week and the possible recruitment of Church soonish might just save our season and his job. The question remains, why couldnā€™t this have been done earlier?
 
May 8, 2011
5,788
793
In the social media world of instant reaction, things are either absolutely fantastic or absolutely dire.
The message boards of teams in mid table mediocrity must be ever so dull as what have the fans got to get over excited about!
 
Jul 29, 2010
13,412
2,957
HC Green":yjbztjqr said:
In the social media world of instant reaction, things are either absolutely fantastic or absolutely dire.
The message boards of teams in mid table mediocrity must be ever so dull as what have the fans got to get over excited about!
We have some folk who could find excited enthusiastic delirium and others who could find vitriolic unconstructive negativity in watching paint dry, it'd never be dull :lol:

Both extremes of mood though are equally odd and equally knee jerk. The middle path is the path to follow and I tend to seek out and value higher those posters who rarely stray from it.

I'm glad the virus of modern 24/7 social media hasn't infected everyone. While the 'flighty' sorts might be entertaining they invariably lack focus, or in some cases lack an actual grip on reality. Short term events don't matter as much as long term direction, the little picture isn't as important as the big one. So both 'going off on one' or being 'orgasmically excited' is just silly.

We're not nearly as good as most think we are when things are going well and we're not nearly as bad as most think we are when things aren't going well. That is the pragmatist way, long live the pragmatists.
 
Apr 15, 2008
4,168
148
London
When have football fans ever been realistic?

Lots of truth in the original post, but there's also some truth that we have been bloody awful in the bulk of our home games this season. Fans have a right to moan.
 
Mar 14, 2009
5,148
277
Ok, lets be realistic.

Let's take the results out of the debate for a min.

The football is atrocious. I have no problem with "functional" football. Sometimes passing football can be boring as Fletchers team proved. We went sideways and backways. However, just like his team, we don't play penetrating football which breaks a teams defensive back line by either pace, skill and great technique on crosses.

Adams works them hard on double training sessions and yet l often wonder why. We don't see an improvement in the way the players pass, cross or shoot the ball. We are meant to be a fit team and yet we end up retreating to the half way line in games, standing off the opposition without comitting to a tackle.

How many times have we witnessed the opposition get to the edge of our box, with no pressure on them, and able to get cross after cross into the box? Or shoot, just like Saturday on the edge of the box with nobody closing that player down. Adams talks about these things like it just happened in games and yet it happened last season and continues to do so this season.

In fact, let's be realistic. When is Adams not talking BS in his post match interviews. Often saying we deserved to win the game when for the majority of the game we can't even remember a shot on target whilst the opposition has been all over us.

Without magic goals from Carey we simply don't look like scoring. That's being realistic. That's why we are going down. If you don't score you can't win games. Let's look at the last two games. Shrewsbury were there for the taking. When we did go forward they looked shaky at the back. However, Adams decided the best form of attack is to defend. So suddenly Shrewsbury weakness at the back wasn't exploited. Just our own. Yet Adams comes out at the end of the game with how we attacked them. He is delusional at times.

Then last night. A great point but again we got battered. If we keep playing a defensive game eventually the team that attacks you will score. A great block by ATS but imagine if that went in. Suddenly, in the cold light of day people will be once again frustrated by his negative tactics. Carey's two wonder goals have masked a massive problem. We still don't look like scoring goals. You can't win games if you don't attack teams. We are always worrying about what the opposition do. Not how we are going to hurt teams.

Adams negative brand of football is just garbage to watch. He may get us out of this mess but there is more to football than just winning. Not expecting to play well every week but l do expect my team to "have a go". There are times we have lost before we have even got going simply because of our playing style.

We rarely win in style. A lot of Adams wins last year were narrow 2-1 games in which we were hanging on for dear life for the 3pts when the opposition had exposed our frailties and somehow managed not convert their dominance.

So l think l am realistic. Because l've been watching this dross for 15-18 months (from the last few months of Adams first season).

I have said give him time for two reasons.

1. Whoever comes in now can't bring in his own players

2. He got us promotion and even though l think we were very fortunate, at the end of the day he still got us up. So he deserves time to turn around the results.

However, let's be honest and realistic. He may turn around the results. Yet what he won't be doing is making us play a more positive, attacking brand of football. If we get out of this mess it will be by dour, dire negative football where we are hanging on for narrow victories. It may be the football some people want to see, but it's not for me. We can't win every week so l at least want to see my football team have a go. At the moment all l see is us giving up possession game after game whilst we wait for the opposition to score even though we have put 11 men behind the ball. Our ability to somehow not press a team when they are in our own half is one of many reasons why l find Adams tactics baffling at best. I mean how can you get the ball back if you don't press? You are relying on the opposition to make a mistake.

Like l said many times, just watch his brand of football. If you still believe in Adams then your watching a totally different game from me.
 

Lesley Somerville

āœ… Evergreen
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Jan 1, 2011
1,517
740
Plymouth
Metal_Green_Mickey":2vkf7w2l said:
Ok, lets be realistic.

Let's take the results out of the debate for a min.

The football is atrocious. I have no problem with "functional" football. Sometimes passing football can be boring as Fletchers team proved. We went sideways and backways. However, just like his team, we don't play penetrating football which breaks a teams defensive back line by either pace, skill and great technique on crosses.

Adams works them hard on double training sessions and yet l often wonder why. We don't see an improvement in the way the players pass, cross or shoot the ball. We are meant to be a fit team and yet we end up retreating to the half way line in games, standing off the opposition without comitting to a tackle.

How many times have we witnessed the opposition get to the edge of our box, with no pressure on them, and able to get cross after cross into the box? Or shoot, just like Saturday on the edge of the box with nobody closing that player down. Adams talks about these things like it just happened in games and yet it happened last season and continues to do so this season.

In fact, let's be realistic. When is Adams not talking BS in his post match interviews. Often saying we deserved to win the game when for the majority of the game we can't even remember a shot on target whilst the opposition has been all over us.

Without magic goals from Carey we simply don't look like scoring. That's being realistic. That's why we are going down. If you don't score you can't win games. Let's look at the last two games. Shrewsbury were there for the taking. When we did go forward they looked shaky at the back. However, Adams decided the best form of attack is to defend. So suddenly Shrewsbury weakness at the back wasn't exploited. Just our own. Yet Adams comes out at the end of the game with how we attacked them. He is delusional at times.

Then last night. A great point but again we got battered. If we keep playing a defensive game eventually the team that attacks you will score. A great block by ATS but imagine if that went in. Suddenly, in the cold light of day people will be once again frustrated by his negative tactics. Carey's two wonder goals have masked a massive problem. We still don't look like scoring goals. You can't win games if you don't attack teams. We are always worrying about what the opposition do. Not how we are going to hurt teams.

Adams negative brand of football is just garbage to watch. He may get us out of this mess but there is more to football than just winning. Not expecting to play well every week but l do expect my team to "have a go". There are times we have lost before we have even got going simply because of our playing style.

We rarely win in style. A lot of Adams wins last year were narrow 2-1 games in which we were hanging on for dear life for the 3pts when the opposition had exposed our frailties and somehow managed not convert their dominance.

So l think l am realistic. Because l've been watching this dross for 15-18 months (from the last few months of Adams first season).

I have said give him time for two reasons.

1. Whoever comes in now can't bring in his own players

2. He got us promotion and even though l think we were very fortunate, at the end of the day he still got us up. So he deserves time to turn around the results.

However, let's be honest and realistic. He may turn around the results. Yet what he won't be doing is making us play a more positive, attacking brand of football. If we get out of this mess it will be by dour, dire negative football where we are hanging on for narrow victories. It may be the football some people want to see, but it's not for me. We can't win every week so l at least want to see my football team have a go. At the moment all l see is us giving up possession game after game whilst we wait for the opposition to score even though we have put 11 men behind the ball. Our ability to somehow not press a team when they are in our own half is one of many reasons why l find Adams tactics baffling at best. I mean how can you get the ball back if you don't press? You are relying on the opposition to make a mistake.

Like l said many times, just watch his brand of football. If you still believe in Adams then your watching a totally different game from me.

Really could not have said it any better myself.
 
Apr 4, 2004
1,374
709
Metal_Green_Mickey":xs54tlrb said:
Ok, lets be realistic.

Let's take the results out of the debate for a min.

The football is atrocious. I have no problem with "functional" football. Sometimes passing football can be boring as Fletchers team proved. We went sideways and backways. However, just like his team, we don't play penetrating football which breaks a teams defensive back line by either pace, skill and great technique on crosses.

Adams works them hard on double training sessions and yet l often wonder why. We don't see an improvement in the way the players pass, cross or shoot the ball. We are meant to be a fit team and yet we end up retreating to the half way line in games, standing off the opposition without comitting to a tackle.

How many times have we witnessed the opposition get to the edge of our box, with no pressure on them, and able to get cross after cross into the box? Or shoot, just like Saturday on the edge of the box with nobody closing that player down. Adams talks about these things like it just happened in games and yet it happened last season and continues to do so this season.

In fact, let's be realistic. When is Adams not talking BS in his post match interviews. Often saying we deserved to win the game when for the majority of the game we can't even remember a shot on target whilst the opposition has been all over us.

Without magic goals from Carey we simply don't look like scoring. That's being realistic. That's why we are going down. If you don't score you can't win games. Let's look at the last two games. Shrewsbury were there for the taking. When we did go forward they looked shaky at the back. However, Adams decided the best form of attack is to defend. So suddenly Shrewsbury weakness at the back wasn't exploited. Just our own. Yet Adams comes out at the end of the game with how we attacked them. He is delusional at times.

Then last night. A great point but again we got battered. If we keep playing a defensive game eventually the team that attacks you will score. A great block by ATS but imagine if that went in. Suddenly, in the cold light of day people will be once again frustrated by his negative tactics. Carey's two wonder goals have masked a massive problem. We still don't look like scoring goals. You can't win games if you don't attack teams. We are always worrying about what the opposition do. Not how we are going to hurt teams.

Adams negative brand of football is just garbage to watch. He may get us out of this mess but there is more to football than just winning. Not expecting to play well every week but l do expect my team to "have a go". There are times we have lost before we have even got going simply because of our playing style.

We rarely win in style. A lot of Adams wins last year were narrow 2-1 games in which we were hanging on for dear life for the 3pts when the opposition had exposed our frailties and somehow managed not convert their dominance.

So l think l am realistic. Because l've been watching this dross for 15-18 months (from the last few months of Adams first season).

I have said give him time for two reasons.

1. Whoever comes in now can't bring in his own players

2. He got us promotion and even though l think we were very fortunate, at the end of the day he still got us up. So he deserves time to turn around the results.

However, let's be honest and realistic. He may turn around the results. Yet what he won't be doing is making us play a more positive, attacking brand of football. If we get out of this mess it will be by dour, dire negative football where we are hanging on for narrow victories. It may be the football some people want to see, but it's not for me. We can't win every week so l at least want to see my football team have a go. At the moment all l see is us giving up possession game after game whilst we wait for the opposition to score by putting 11 men behind the ball but with the ability to somehow not press them when they are in our own half.

Hell yeah with bells on. Every word spot on.

I think I'm a realist. I'm a middle aged man and I've been supporting Argyle since I was a teenager. But come on. Surely there has to be some thought of trying to make it entertaining to watch. I know someone will come along in a mo and say if you want entertainment go and do blah blah blah. But that's utter tosh. Clubs around the country with smaller budgets than our have shown its possible to play attractive football and have some success at it.
 

Larry David

āœ… Evergreen
Apr 9, 2004
1,834
853
LA NY or Cuckfield
Excellent realistic post from MGM. A win on Saturday might just be a sign we are slowly coming to terms with this league. On the other hand a defeat would mean we have managed just 3 points from the last 12 league games, harness that to the grim attritional style of football served up by DA and it's hard to take any positives going forward.
 
Jul 29, 2010
13,412
2,957
Oh my, I beg to differ hugely.

Was that supposed to be realism Mickey?, reads like utopianism to me.

That reads less like pragmatism and more like you want both your cake and to eat it. Sure we'd all like fantastic free flowing football but realism, pragmatism dictates that results win over style every which way you look at it.

I love free flowing attacking football, as a neutral Man City are a pure joy to watch right now. But that ain't gonna happen for us with this squad, either with Adams or nay. We're in a relegation battle now and no manager is going to come in and radically reset the ethos. His football was the epitome of binary but the last time we started a season so poorly the Pulis way saved our season, if it's gonna happen again it'll be by the same method.

Your post does not in any way shape or form suggest even a hint of realism. A realist would accept the poo position we find ourselves in and deal with it. He'd pragmatically forsake utopian dreams and live with both the reality and the method required to remedy it.
 
Jun 1, 2015
924
4
47
Pett, East Sussex
I'm going to say this with my tin hat on. DA pretty much sets his teams up the same way as Mourinho does and many other managers. It requires the forward 3 midfielders to be mobile and intelligent. It's a modern style of football. What I think we really struggle with is psychology of the tactics. It's not just us btw. All teams withdraw to the 18 yard box when things become a little tougher. It's almost human nature on the football pitch.
The football may be dour at times ( a lot this season ) but, my goodness he has got a bunch of players on that park busting a gut for him. What does that tell you?
Reinforcing my tin hat for this one..... If we keep DA in the long term and we go higher and higher the system will work better and better because we will recruit better more intelligent gifted players to fulfill the roles required. Then my 2028 when we're top of the PL and DA gets the manager of the year award i'll remind you of this post! :greensmile:
 
Feb 5, 2015
115
0
Metal_Green_Mickey":3069jr2a said:
Ok, lets be realistic.

Let's take the results out of the debate for a min.

The football is atrocious. I have no problem with "functional" football. Sometimes passing football can be boring as Fletchers team proved. We went sideways and backways. However, just like his team, we don't play penetrating football which breaks a teams defensive back line by either pace, skill and great technique on crosses.

Adams works them hard on double training sessions and yet l often wonder why. We don't see an improvement in the way the players pass, cross or shoot the ball. We are meant to be a fit team and yet we end up retreating to the half way line in games, standing off the opposition without comitting to a tackle.

How many times have we witnessed the opposition get to the edge of our box, with no pressure on them, and able to get cross after cross into the box? Or shoot, just like Saturday on the edge of the box with nobody closing that player down. Adams talks about these things like it just happened in games and yet it happened last season and continues to do so this season.

In fact, let's be realistic. When is Adams not talking BS in his post match interviews. Often saying we deserved to win the game when for the majority of the game we can't even remember a shot on target whilst the opposition has been all over us.

Without magic goals from Carey we simply don't look like scoring. That's being realistic. That's why we are going down. If you don't score you can't win games. Let's look at the last two games. Shrewsbury were there for the taking. When we did go forward they looked shaky at the back. However, Adams decided the best form of attack is to defend. So suddenly Shrewsbury weakness at the back wasn't exploited. Just our own. Yet Adams comes out at the end of the game with how we attacked them. He is delusional at times.

Then last night. A great point but again we got battered. If we keep playing a defensive game eventually the team that attacks you will score. A great block by ATS but imagine if that went in. Suddenly, in the cold light of day people will be once again frustrated by his negative tactics. Carey's two wonder goals have masked a massive problem. We still don't look like scoring goals. You can't win games if you don't attack teams. We are always worrying about what the opposition do. Not how we are going to hurt teams.

Adams negative brand of football is just garbage to watch. He may get us out of this mess but there is more to football than just winning. Not expecting to play well every week but l do expect my team to "have a go". There are times we have lost before we have even got going simply because of our playing style.

We rarely win in style. A lot of Adams wins last year were narrow 2-1 games in which we were hanging on for dear life for the 3pts when the opposition had exposed our frailties and somehow managed not convert their dominance.

So l think l am realistic. Because l've been watching this dross for 15-18 months (from the last few months of Adams first season).

I have said give him time for two reasons.

1. Whoever comes in now can't bring in his own players

2. He got us promotion and even though l think we were very fortunate, at the end of the day he still got us up. So he deserves time to turn around the results.

However, let's be honest and realistic. He may turn around the results. Yet what he won't be doing is making us play a more positive, attacking brand of football. If we get out of this mess it will be by dour, dire negative football where we are hanging on for narrow victories. It may be the football some people want to see, but it's not for me. We can't win every week so l at least want to see my football team have a go. At the moment all l see is us giving up possession game after game whilst we wait for the opposition to score even though we have put 11 men behind the ball. Our ability to somehow not press a team when they are in our own half is one of many reasons why l find Adams tactics baffling at best. I mean how can you get the ball back if you don't press? You are relying on the opposition to make a mistake.

Like l said many times, just watch his brand of football. If you still believe in Adams then your watching a totally different game from me.

The football hasn't been great - but I think I can give some leeway on this front.

I was at Peterborough on the opening day, and we were attacking. Alright, we didn't do it for the full 90 (when do we ever), but we should have won that game, really, and it was us trying to attack that ultimately cost us the game. However, I came away feeling optimistic. It was one of the few times where it appeared that Adams had taken the shackles off and said go out there and play with freedom. The other game that stands out for me where that happened was the 6-1 against Newport, when promotion was wrapped up.

Similarly we were attacking, at least in spells, for a couple of games after Peterborough. However, since then I think Adams' has feared playing an expansive, attacking style of football because we were losing every week.

IMHO, I think that the position we were in a few weeks ago, shipping goals left right and centre, demanded that we go back to last season's efficient, more defensive setup in order to stop shipping goals. It's not pretty, and it's not fun to watch, but it yielded results last season.

That, touch wood, seems to be happening now, with two excellent points in the last two games. While taking the game to Shrewsbury may have resulted in a second goal and three points, they are the league leaders and could have quite easily scored two and we walked away with nothing.

Personally, I think Adams does want to be attacking. He'll do it in his 4-2-3-1 or whatever you want to call it, but he does want to. However the likelihood is, for the near future, and probably much of the rest of this season, we will settle for a more defensive style because he knows he has the players to do that, and knows it works.

We all knew this season would be hard, and I was never really expecting more than mid-table. If defensive football gets us there, and keeps us up, I'm happy to be content for now, and hopefully with a season of experience under our belts, we can make improvements in the summer to change that for next season.

He's not to everyone's liking, and he says some odd things, but Adams is a very, very good manager, and he's got my backing.