Is no one allowed to use hyperbole to emphasise a point? Is figurative language not allowed in sensible discussions?
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Sads would have made a difference if introduced earlier on Saturday, I feel (yes, I know, big Sadlier apologist). He is brilliant at beating his man and getting those crosses in from the byline.
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Would he have been allowed past the halfway line though?
So, you picked a game at home to a relegated side with ten men. I can’t help but feel that that’s cherry picking a little bit.
So, what about this example of an away game against a side that’s been relegated.
Compare that to how he played away to Bristol Rovers and Burton earlier in the season.
I’ll hand it to you; he was allowed to cross the half way line. It’s just that he generally only just got over the white line and he almost never got deep into the opponent’s territory, which is quite the contrast to similar games earlier in the season.
The post I was replying to said that he was ordered to never cross the halfway line. It didn’t take much to counter that point.
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A relegated side with 10 men, who’s cherry picking now? They were not a relegated side when we beat them and they had a player sent off in the 82nd minute by which time Wycombe had held a 2-0 lead for 23 minutes. Your vendetta against MD is, in my opinion, getting rather tiresome.
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Let’s look at average positions in our - as I remember it - very disappointing display against a Huddersfield side that at the time was on a long winning run chasing a playoff place vs our disappointing match against Stevenage.
Obviously to compare it to us at our best would be unfair so I’ve deliberately picked a game we weren’t great, but it shows the difference in where our attacking intent was vs where it is now. Equally, it’s helpful that both games we played a 3-5-2 variation with Fred at right wing-back.
Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to say that winning is all that matters and therefore the Steveange game is by definition the better performance. But I prefer to see football played with intent, attacking threat, a little excitement and effort to entertain.
However, each to their own.
Anway, two takeaways for me.
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Look how close Udoh and Humpries are to Kone in the Huddersfield game. It can be argued that this is nothing to do with his loss of form. However, even though I accept tiredness probably plays a large factor I find it impossible to believe that his relative isolation compared to him at his best isn’t also a huge part of this.
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And in Fred’s heatmap on the second set of images, just look at how little he gets forward against a relegation battler with nothing to play for that offered no threat compared to playing one of the division’s big hitters at a time when they were in great form.
Could this also play a part in his lack of output recently?
Anyway, I find it really insightful to note the key differences and if Rice is so data-driven I’d be interested to know what he makes of these kind of details.
Of course they weren’t relegated - it was played in February. The point is simply that they were to be relegated i.e. one of the division’s weakest four teams and that they also played over 11% of the game with ten men.
My point is he could have used either of the other two games, (I think we can all agree that Birmingham away would be unfair) but chose not to. I’ve provided more context which shows the difference in how he was utilised before his unfortunate injury. An injury which I totally accept makes Dodds’ job much, much harder.
However. the heatmap clearly shows he was already being tasked with a more defensive role upon Dodds’ appointment. Which was the point the other poster was making, albeit using exaggerated, non-literal language.
Your quite welcome to mute/ignore me if you don’t like the discussion. But it’s a thread called Mike Dodds so it feels a bit remiss to ban discussion of Mike Dodds on said thread.
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But his point was clearly a use of a hyperbolic statement. I doubt any player (bar perhaps the keeper) is “ordered never to cross the half-way line.”
However,. I - and I’d assume most people - read that as “he was given significantly more defensive instructions than he’d had previously.” Which the heatmaps seem to confirm.
I don’t understand why the hyper-literalism is necessary for a “sensible discussion.” It just feels like obfuscation to me.
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Thank you, JJ. You make the point far more eloquently and with far greater patience than I could ever muster.
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Your exact post said: ‘So, you picked a game at home to a relegated side with ten men.’ Now, you say of course they weren’t relegated because it was February and have admitted that they had eleven men on the field for 89% of the game, thereby rendering the sending off of no great significance. I might add that it was entirely justified to question a poster for saying ‘One of the things that made me most irate with early Dodds was his clear instruction to Dan Harvie to never cross the halfway line and just boot the ball long when he got there.’ You can call it hyperbole or any other clever word but it is obviously an order that no coach would ever issue.
Top bike-shedding lads.
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Had to look that up, what a great phrase. Will be using that myself
Although if anything I might even prefer Parkinson’s Law of Triviality
It’s good innit. I think the gum debate was a perfect example.
Was someone last season accused of not smiling enough, or have I imagined that?
Heat maps are the new DNA on here.
Without wanting to come across as being excessively pedantic, but the keeper has crossed the halfway line under Dodds to search for a last minute winner vs Shrewsbury
Doddsball = all out attack
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And what a stupid thing to do that was. The chance of the keeper contributing to a goal and winning 2 additional points is surely miles less than the chance of conceding and losing the 1 point. Or you’d have the keeper up all the time for set pieces.
If the consensus is that the early season winning and goal scoring was an unsustainable fluke that could not have been maintained to the end of the season by any manager, it does not inspire much confidence in fun and entertainment going forward.
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Chris! You normally talk so much sense, but a keeper coming up for a set piece is one of the greatest things in football.
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