Dodds wasn’t in charge v Cambridge.
Fair enough- stand corrected - but my point is still the same
Against Stevenage, we luckily won 1-0 despite an horrendous performance. We were fortunate to win at Bolton. And we also struck lucky at Rotherham in a ridiculous second half. So I don’t think Dodds has been particularly unlucky.
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I disagree, look up the statistics on all three of those games: Bolton, Stevenage and Rotherham - I’m sure we’d have had more shots on target in those matches, Northampton would need another one. Your manager can’t stick the ball in the net…and, under Bloomfield we should have lost at home against Rotherham. They had loads more shots and should have buried us but football luck shone for us. Then we brought in Humphreys for the last twenty minutes and the game changed.
…I do know he wasn’t in charge for that game! Wycombe were quite unlucky.
we were not fortunate to win away at Bolton, we played a perfect match and deserved to win. Dodds needs time and feel he will turn things around, his honestly and transparency is something that fans really like and want to see
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Agreed, would we want a Steve Evans or Ian Evatt at Wycombe? Too horrible to think about. I really want Mike to succeed as he is a decent honest man and someone you would want representing our club. What seems to be missing is a sense of connection between him and the players, like he’s a consultant brought in to run a sales seminar. The use of the phrase ‘the group’ is something i find particularly bland. I guess I’m just old school. Football isn’t just a technical exercise, it’s also heart, passion and brutal will to win. Mike needs to bring this out of the players, and himself. That’s why I liked his post match interview, the ‘head coach’ mask slipped a bit.
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I agree with this post. Untimately none of us know how things are going to progress but I am optimistic as you are. I think many look at Bloomfield’s tenure through rose tinted glasses and forget what it was like under him earlier on . Also you are correct that we rode our luck during his winning run . I remember us winning a few games we simply didn’t deserve to . He was also the architect of a 17 game winless run. The level of scrutiny Dodds is under is quite something with any slack being in short supply.
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Well, one thing’s for sure. @Loakes isn’t Shev reincarnated as I fleetingly wondered! 
We could have still been playing now and not scored in that Shrewsbury game. And we absolutely were not in control against Stockport last season. Had we scored the penalty I think we’d probably have held on, but at no point in that game did we look comfortable. It was a shocking performance. As was the win against Stevenage, which I rate as one of the worst Wycombe performances I’ve seen for as long as I can remember. As was the win over Lincoln.
Saying he’s unlucky is only true if you overlook his decisions that made some of these things happen. We only played so badly and with no attacking intent under him due to his changing formation to a flat back five. Our defence is all over the place at the moment, but possibly because he chops and changes every game and didn’t use the friendlies to form any understanding, instead he changed all 11 players every 45 mins.
His job is to influence these things. Spend all your time pinning your opponent into their box and committing their defenders you’ll find you get penalties. That’s not luck. That’s the result of a conscious choice.
Equally, chop and change your defence and your young goalkeeper whose first language isn’t English and has almost no first team games under his belt is more likely to make errors. Some things can’t be helped - keeper struck by lightning just before picking up a backpass resulting in an own goal for instance - but generally you can mitigate these things with sensible management.
Indeed, some of us said that changing every player was a bad idea while he was doing it. Some of us were asking why there was no right back after about 5 mins while Stockport waltzed into that position time after time yet he waited until 2-0 down and an hour in to make a change.
Those things are on him. You don’t just get to cry “oh what terrible luck” when your own decisions are a direct contributing factor to said bad luck.
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Had Bolton got the lucky goal that we got from a set piece you think we’d have won? Honestly? How many times have we won after conceding first under Dodds?
There was precisely zero threat all game until stoppage time - the same as Bolton. We just happened to be the one with a 6’6” centre half on a hot streak in front of goal.
I really hate how reductive looking at the result and saying “oh, it’s a good performance because we won,” is.
It’s asinine.
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Shots means nothing. Of course we had more shots than a god awful Stevenage side with nothing to play for! Who cares if we took loads of pot shots from outside the area that had minimal chance of scoring?
To pretend we deserved to win that game is an unbelievable claim. We created absolutely nothing of note until stoppage time. And the reason was the manager. He played a flat back 5 and isolated our front men. On one else so that’s on him.
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My concern…and I am no head coach…is that MD has a plan…he must have told the bosses his plan…I assume they recruited to some extent based on the plan and yet these professional footballers are still having trouble getting to grips with his plan.
We are scoring a goal a game…which is great as long as the other team isn’t scoring two. To be unhappy after finally scraping a point from a losing position struck me as bizarre.
I hope we can start winning ‘playing the right way’ soon because he may well be the only one happy with the way the group are applying his ideas after ten games.
,
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He’s not happy, though, as he made very plain.
The plan was that they could meet Jude Bellingham
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He was relatively happy with the group the first two games, though as I recall.
It was just the goalling of the opposition that spoiled things
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I don’t know. He might have said “great group” but he also talked a lot about the “need to be braver” and more robust (my terminology not his). My sense from this interview was that his frustration was because (to quote the estimable Peter Murphy to a team mate defending the Valley End in 2014*) “… it keep’s bastard ‘appenin’”. I.e. I’ve tolerated it once or twice, because of bedding in and that, but no more. Oh for a Peter Murphy in the midfield now.
*Special Peter Murphy reference for you @Ryan_W_Kirkby. If you bump into him down the shops, let him know we remember him fondly in Bucks.
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Yep, I do claim that…and I think we were unfortunate against Wrexham at home. If you were to watch the replay we had by far the better chances…and Charlton only just beat us in the playoffs over two legs…so I still don’t think we are that far away from being a team that can challenge most sides. I’d also much rather watch our tippy happy football than hoof ball. Given time Mike Dodds will be fabulous for us.
…I do think shots mean something…surely, if you don’t shoot you don’t score?
Rubbish. They thrashed us in the league, we ground out a gnarly draw in the first leg and surprised them and most of us by showing some fight but we were never really at it in the away game. Reassessing all of our previous games and effectively talking Dodds team up last season does no more to improve us than trying to talk down or up previous teams. It’s been done a hundred times here and it’s all a distraction to the actual play. It’s been months now since we really took our game to team and imposed it from the outset, Bolton might be the only game in a long time.
He’s had his moan now and it’s for the leaders in the team to stand up and enforce some standards, forget if fit and formation are perfect (not quite to the extent of not playing a right back) and get on with being first to every tackle, passing with a bit of bravery and quality, creating chances and hitting the bloody net.
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