Thoughts on Mike Dodds and next season

General
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Mike Dodds record is now:

P12 W5 D4 L3 F11 A7 Pts 19 PPG 1.58 (over a season: 72.68)

Over the course of a season, that is borderline playoffs, anywhere from 6th to 9th, probably. The three defeats were 1-0s to Birmingham (with red card), Wrexham (which could have gone either way) and Reading (lost to a penalty and probably should have won).

I find his style frustrating at times, but the reality is that we have become very difficult to score against, with 7 against in 12 games being really impressive. Though we are scoring at slightly less than a goal per game, we have missed a host of chances that were more down to the players than Dodds.

Ultimately, of course we keep him if we go up, but I am fully behind keeping him if we stay in League One too. Some of the dull football aside, his start has been better than that of Blooms when taking over from GA (though obviously with a better squad) and I do think there is potential in there if we give him time.

The summer could well be a huge sea change with the squad. Bradley, Taylor and Low all probably gone, with Taffs too, leaving Skura and one Dane as CBs. Kone will move on if we don’t get promoted, and several others too. The last thing we need is starting over again at head coach.

I find it hard to warm to Dodds at times because of the general blandness, but I do think I have seen enough to think he should be backed in the summer, irrespective of division. I want us to remain a club who give time to managers/coaches, and to be honest, chopping and changing again would make me a little nervous about our stability.

There is a world in which Dodds is able to start getting something from our attackers while maintaining a miserly defence, and that would be an extremely difficult team to beat.

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Wouldn’t call it dull/ bland football i’ve seen far worse at Wycombe . With a pre season behind him I would hope he would be able to ingrain the style of football he does actually want , we defend so well now a positive as you say . Will have the time to play new systems and decide which players he wants to start with . A very difficult time for anyone to take over a team. Bloomfield , yes the football was great in the end but the football wasn’t working for 6 months and we did concede quite a lot so if he gets a better balance is that such a bad thing. We are still creating lots of chances and the attack side of his game does need fine tuning.

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Not a chance I’d be even thinking about discontinuing with him. I was critical at first. Didn’t particularly like his lineups. Didn’t particularly like his subs. My comment about his swaying in interviews has become a bit of a meme too. However, I am really impressed with how we have functioned in the last three games. The results haven’t been there, but they’ve been some of the best performances since losing Morley. I’ve come around to find him very logical. A good problem solver. I see a bit of myself in him and I quite like that. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s been dealt a tough hand - huge squad, disappointing big money new signings, can only ‘lose’ from the position we were originally in, no Morley etc. I still think we are well away from our October/November period but football seasons aren’t defined by six weeks. They’re nine months of really tough graft with ups and downs. I think we look excellent at the back and with Kone and Udoh up front, along with how dangerous we look from corners, I wouldn’t rule us out yet. Keep getting behind Dodds.

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We should absolutely stick with him.

Imagine if we’d judged Ainsworth or Bloomfield after a similar number of games and got rid? To think what we would have lost as a club the last decade. Stability is good, giving managers time is good.

you’d struggle to find a single supporter who wanted to replace Bloomfield with Dodds or anyone else at the time. He’s been dealt an incredibly tough hand in some ways with expectation, squad, timing, signings, culture etc.

But he seems like a hugely popular coach among players he’s worked with, with a good track recording of bringing through talent. I think he’s improving game on game.

Defensively we are superb. Attacking incisiveness will hopefully continue to improve.

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I’ve been guilty of letting my dislike of the ownership group cloud my opinion of Dodds.

Still not entirely convinced but the support shown by our senior players last night goes a long way with me, as well as showing he’s a man under some pressure.

I’d imagine the lack of Danes and those sharp comments about data at the weekend may have annoyed Danuard.

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I think the league position, was clouding sone of the more recent performances prior to him taking over.

Led to the feeling that he didnt need to change much, and he said that.

He obviously then realised that he did need to change things, the defence being one. We did have the worst goals against in the top 6 for a while. And that has been clearly worked on, we saw Low say the defence werent happy with their record.

Problem is the forwards, Kone has been great, but the injuries and probably lack of fitness has been an impact, he is in his first full season.

Udoh became important then got injured.

The wide players haven’t lived up to earlier, and not sure they will.

I think he deserves to stay, and build a squad to fit how he wants to play.

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I think your post makes perfect sense. The football at the moment is not particularly entertaining but he has made us difficult to beat. How many 1-0s have Burnley won and look at their position in their League. So it can be done playing defensively. No matter what league we’re in ( hopefully the Championship) there will be a significant turn round in players and keeping the same manager is important.

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I’m more concerned about the number of replacement players required and our track record since Bloomfield left of who we have brought in. Most seem to vanish into thin air!

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You have to fear for the summer instalment of Data Dan’s recruitment plan.

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Ainsworth needed time to build a team, so did Bloomfield, any thoughts of binning off Dodds (even if we don’t go up) would be unfair at best, sheer madness at worst.

Yes, the football has been clunky at times, even awful (Posh away springs to mind) but it’s another period of transition, Dodds is playing the cards he’s been dealt as best he can.

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Let’s see what division we’re in and judge it at that point. The prospect of a season of tight 0-0, 1-0 and 0-1s in League One doesn’t thrill me, though may be exactly what would be required in the Championship to keep us up. First he has to get us there and this conversation quickly becomes moot.

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Any decision on the future of the Head Coach will of course be made by the owner and his team. It doesn’t really matter what supporters think. We don’t yet really know whether the existing management team are hirers and firers like so many clubs or more happy to give the manager some rope and accept some ups and downs. We will have to wait and find out.

Interesting that Dodds is already only sixteenth of 92 on the newest managers list and assuming he is still here expect that he will be significantly further down the list by next season kick off. Interesting to note that less than half the managers have been in post for a year with 40 of the 92 not having started the current season in post.

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I think the decision to put, and stick with, Norris in goal defines a lot of what Dodds wanted to get done when he came into the club - make us difficult to score against.

Franco probably has better distribution but the goals conceded stat is stark since Norris has come in. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have also then not scored as many as we have done.

I think he has taken, what I think, is the correct approach in getting us more solid at the back as a basis to work from. It has become more boring (compared to the first half of the season) to watch especially as we were flying at the start.

Now, the key for me is the next part. The last 2 or 3 games has shown we can create chances while also being defensively solid.

We have shown we have the players that can score and attack for fun.
We have shown we have the players that can defend and hold teams from the top half of the division off and only concede a few goals.

I think Dodds can marry those two things together and therefore o am hopeful we can finish this season stronger than perhaps we have shown in the last 5, but with a preseason behind him - whatever league we are in- we’ll be in a decent position*

*depending on which players come and go in that summer break with Low, Bradley, Kone, Taylor, Simons, Norris, and maybe some others that maybe, or will be moving on/going back to parent clubs.

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I missed that, what did he say?

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I think he’s done very well so far.

We’ve played slower and reduced risks a bit to minimise turnovers. Frustrating to watch at times when you want us to get the ball forward quicker. But there have been signs in the last few games we’re improving in that respect.

To my mind we’re a better team now than when he took over and he’s done a good job of keeping a level head during a somewhat turbulent period.

He’s had a fair bit of bad luck too. Narrow defeats in a couple of games, which could have gone differently. And the red cards against both Cambridge and Birmingham.

I still think Wrexham will come 2nd but that we’re playing well enough to make it close. The last few games have been our best sustained spell of dominance in games since the autumn/winter period. Results haven’t quite reflected that but if we can keep making small improvements theres a decent chance of a strong end to the season, perhaps to sneak into 2nd or at least to go into the play offs with some optimism.

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‘I don’t like talking about data. You can manipulate data in your favour’.

To be fair, he was talking about match stats but bearing in mind the club’s stated focus on data, it stood out to me.

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The jury is still out.

This is the best squad we have ever had and there have been several flaws tactically recently. However I don’t think there has been too much wrong tactically in last three games but prior to that there were issues.

I can’t say with 100% certainty I wish Mike Dodds to remain in charge next season. But there have been signs of progress over last three games and I’d love those to continue.

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I quite like Dodds, he comes across (for me) as someone who thinks deeply about the game & the players in his charge. He clearly has won over the senior players as evidenced by their reaction last night.
I also think DR would be stupid to bin him off even if we miss promotion as the whole of the owners model is built on player development & that is, allegedly, Dodds strong suit.

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I like Dodds a lot and have actually been impressed with his interviews and what he’s tried to do. As others have said, he came into a very difficult situation and has been quite unlucky for various reasons (red cards, injuries, refereeing decisions, performances not getting the results they deserve). The last three or four games have shown lots of progress. We’ve also been very unlucky that Wrexham have had about 8 or 9 horrendous refereeing decisions in their favour over the past three months, which must have given them an extra 10-12 points.

Having said that, I think our defensive stinginess is because we now have three CBs (Low, Taylor, Bradley) who must be the best we’ve ever had at the club at one time. Something I thought impossible when we had Low, Forino, and Lonwijk last season.

Unfortunately it’s very unlikely we’ll have more than one of them at the club next season, if any. So our recruitment this summer at CB has to be excellent to replace them.

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I’m still in the camp that he would be an excellent number 2, not a natural ‘manager / head coach’.

Times have changed and so have what Wycombe are now.

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