“If you can’t support us when we chase out the manager playing the best football we’ve seen in years and replaced him with a man whose teams create no chances and score in under half of their games then don’t support us when we labour to another 1-0 win against some League one dross with a fraction of our budget while scoring 40 goals all season.”
You’re attacking a strawman. People gave repeatedly said that they don’t like the pedestrian and overly-cautious style of football being played. It’s far less to do with the results.
The difficulty is we’ve never had a manager pathologically committed to not trying to score.
In 52% of his games,where he’s had some of the best attacking talent in the respective division, his side haven’t scored. 23 goals scored in 29 games. When both those sides scored plenty prior to him arriving.
Dodds’ style is such an extreme example of defensive football, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Gaz was often defensive, but he had a plan to score goals even if he gave up possession and used “the dark arts.”
So, you really need a new category beyond “predictable, defensive football.” to represent Dodds’. His teams’ football is just so uninspiring anyone who’s on the fence as to whether to spend at least £30 (closer to £75 for me coming up from South London) to go and take up most of their Saturday doing it will undoubtedly turn that offer down.
One of the problems is irrespective of Mike Dodds, there are Blooms boys and post-bloom boys. Some of the transfer window appears to be an attempt to flood the squad with most expensive in club’s history,non-playing post bloom boys.
Conflicting signals, huge investment in controversial Harlington and possible move to back where we were in Marlow Road.
Who is making these decisions?
Can’t just blame Mr. Dodds.
Correct, you have to blame the idiot who appointed Dodds. As others have said he is a nice man, but I would rather have a not so nice man that has a philosophy of playing attractive positive football rather than Doddsball.
Yeah, I think he comes across as a pretty humble and decent guy in interviews. I’d love for him to do well. However, that’s of no interest to me if on current form we’ll score 40 goals all season next year. and fail to score in almost half our games.
And it’s not like we’re missing hundreds of chances. We’re scoring, in all honesty, probably slightly more than we deserve based on quality of chances created in his tenure.
Come on, Eric. Disgraceful fans aside (and I doubt anyone on here was booing or heckling around you), did you enjoy Saturday? Are you happy with the style and tactics? Do we all have to be or we’re not supporting the club?
I’ve asked main club cheerleader what he thought of the game three times…but all we get is stop moaning about it.
I’m still hoping for a playoff miracle but I see a team deteriorating.
Its a worry.
Hang on a moment, I answered your question yesterday and nowhere did I say stop moaning. Of course I was gutted at missing out on automatic promotion but we are still in the playoffs and until they are completed we should be concentrating on getting behind the team.
Hi @glasshalffull1 as much as clearly you and I have very different views on here lately, I do totally agree with this post of yours. I’m not sure who you are replying to but my personal reflection as each day passes is you are right that we must continue to support until it’s over. I do agree with this as the club (or ChatGPT!!!) told us they are behind Dodds so I expect him to see out the season as a minimum.
Aside from this (so not in reply to yourself, but having read the recent posts) I honestly cannot see Dodds ever winning over our fanbase even if we improve our football (assuming we are in L1) next season. Sometimes fans do know more, based on thousands of collective years of watching football at this level) than a new board who have not.
Whilst being in a different scenario altogether to Charlton all those years ago, this really does have the ‘Les Reed’ feel about it. None of there fans disliked him as a person but my god they were not happy with what was being served up in front of them and they knew he was out of his depth.
On another note, about not supporting when times are tough - that’s utter bo110ck5 and the type of post which irritates. What is a supporter? To me we are all supporters, whether we attend all the home games, some of the home games, all the away games, some of the away games of watch on sky sports or Vipienne. We’ve all got differing reasons WHY we choose, want or have to support.
Personally, I simply cannot afford to watch every home match so choose not to buy a season ticket anymore. I either take both my kids with me or we don’t go or I pay for the eldest child to go on his own so he can be with his friends in the terrace now he has reached a particular age. What I can do is make last minute decisions when I’ve worked overtime or second jobs. This means I’m the type of person who could miss 6 home games but then rock up at Huddersfield or Exeter away on a Tuesday night.
In fact I’ve asked myself over the years how many of our season ticket holders are ‘real fans’. I’ve wondered if some only attend as it’s cheap to get a season ticket they can afford but then never attend away games where a bit more effort is involved. But I’ve moved away from these thoughts, as we ARE all supporters.
However, being a supporter and taking the decision to part with hard earned cash in difficult times / giving up priceless family time / turning down much needed overtime income OR choosing to want to watch crap football is a personal choice for personal reasons.
I did enjoy Saturday, yes. I love away games and everything that goes with them and I’m long past the point of letting what happens on the pitch be the sole determiner of whether or not I’ve had a good day.
As for tactics and formations, most Gasroom discussions on these things tend to be ill-informed and over-simplistic and this one is no exception. But here are a few things just to counter incorrect statements I’ve read in the last few days: Sadlier is only just fit enough to come back on the bench, and when he did against Bolton he suffered a reaction meaning he wasn’t even available for the bench against Charlton. Finn Back got injured on his debut and hasn’t been available for selection since. And we did indeed make several bids to sign Aaron Morley permanently but Bolton kept playing silly buggers and moving the goalposts and it became impossible.
I’d also throw in that it is very unlikely indeed that had Matt Bloomfield stayed we would still be in a position to play that high intensity pressing game that brought so much early season success. I actually think the intensity had dropped slightly just before he left and it’s been a 2 games per week slog through the winter ever since then.
I also think that losing Dan Harvie has been absolutely massive. I made several posts on the previous incarnation of the Gasroom that he was the one player we could least afford to lose. His ability to play as a wing back from the left back position was the key component to the attacking threat we posed at the start of the season. He played more or less every minute of every game Matt Bloomfield was in charge for (was missing against Bolton at home when we laboured to a 0-0 draw). Mike Dodds had him for 4 games. This is not convenient revisionism. As I said I made this point during that golden run of form earlier in the season under Bloomfield.
There is so much that goes into how a team is performing and how you are able to set a team up and what you are able to ask of those players. To boil it all down to Bloomfield good Dodds bad is just infantile.
And finally yeah, seeing fans of the same team as I am with their faces contorted with rage calling a young man like Richard Kone a c**t does absolutely make me want to confront them and does make me wish that fans could find it within themselves to support and encourage a group of players who have given their all for us, rather than huff about like spoilt toddlers who didn’t get the tea they wanted.
Couldn’t agree more with the “what makes a supporter?” aspect of this post.
Because of where I live now I’m more likely to make it to Orient or Charlton on a Tuesday evening - or even show up at a League Trophy game at Wimbledon with almost no one else because it’s cheap and a short ride on the 77 away than I am to make it to High Wycombe on a Saturday afternoon nowadays.
What makes a Wycombe Supporter one word, gumption and tenacity.
Although I got no confidence from that Orient post match interview, Dodds looked baffled and confused he reminded me of the guy who reversed into my front wall.
