What was the single biggest mistake we made this season?

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Lower West
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Re: What was the single biggest mistake we made this season?

by Lower West » 13 Feb 2018 13:27

Swift's injury problems are a concern. Seems to have been overplayed. Taking into account England summer tournament appearances .

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Re: What was the single biggest mistake we made this season?

by Denver Royal » 13 Feb 2018 14:46

under the tin
SCIAG Tactically, we have got the possession side of things right, but it needs to be coupled with quick and decisive counter attacks. Good possession teams need two good wingers - look at us last season with McCleary and Beerens. Barrow does the job on one flank but Aluko, Beerens, McCleary, and Popa all struggled this season. Our best games were with Bacuna overlapping from right back with real purpose.

I also think our central midfielders need to be better at driving forward with the ball. Swift does it, Bacuna does it when he plays there (but we need him at right back), Kelly was doing it well in August/September, but lately it's been Edwards and Kelly in front of Joey and none of them want to make anything happen.

I think spending so much on Aluko and Edwards when we could have added a full-back and a striker and kept Tanner and Stacey/Fosu around has to go down as a major mistake. Two expensive proven Championship players haven't really gelled with the squad and have taken up a lot of money. We'd have got just as much from our better young players who we let go.

And of course, one of the major problems has been the boo-boys. No good from coming of bemoaning how terrible your fans are, so more should have been done to get the fans onside. I think the early-season initiatives like "show up an hour early for six matches and get a free program" probably did more harm than good because they were hopelessly out of touch. There were also the invasive body searches being performed at low-energy league cup games. What was the East Stand's "fantastic prize" for winning the half time game? Long and short is that the club needs to be doing more to foster a community spirit around the ground. An increased emphasis on counter-attacking would also probably help the atmosphere.


We all can talk all day long about tweaking formations, using different players, improving the concourse beer, etc. But in the final analysis , football is about the nets at either end of the grass. Nothing affects the atmosphere more than seeing your team sticking the ball into the opposition's one. Fact is, the Madstad faithful have been denied very much of this under Stam's stewardship.


We were in top 6 in goals scored last season, and currently (in a bad season) we are about mid-table in goals scored this season. So, in that timeframe almost 30 teams have had bigger problems than us scoring goals in the Champ. How do you suppose the 'faithful' at those teams feel?

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Re: What was the single biggest mistake we made this season?

by ROYALJOE » 13 Feb 2018 18:49

Not Sacking Jaap Stam.

easy, only reason we are were we are. The soon he goes the sooner our form improves nothing changes till he's out

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Re: What was the single biggest mistake we made this season?

by RoyalBlue » 13 Feb 2018 19:14

Coppells Lost Coat Every one keeps going on about confidence which I believe is one of the biggest factors of our downfall this season on a player and team level. Has the club done anything to address this. I know top clubs across most sports has a sports psychologist, does RFC employ one for our players?


It would be absolutely criminal if they don't. The state of a sports person's mind is usually one of the critical differences between success and failure. Most of what Geller came out with was showbiz crap but the success of visualisation techniques is well proven.

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