[bluepooch]

Well he managed to drop 6 who started saturday and lo and behold we win !
This tells me that he doesnt actually know his best team.No doubt he will bring Evo , O'neill , Fulton and Ariyibi back on Sat and we will lose .

[Dancingwilldoit]

So if as you say its not down to the players it must have been because of good management that we won last night?

[Devongone]

Last night a re-jigged Chesterfield beat a re-jigged Rochdale. How much there is to learn I don't know.

BUT how Danny stands during a game IS of primary importance. By folding his arms he's telling players - nothing to do with me, nothing I can do, he's effectively disowning his team. Whether they know it or not people get the messages transmitted by body-language. If he keeps doing it we WILL lose and lose and lose. (He should be sharing the player's experience and opening up to them, but he's effectively shouting as loud as Sheridan that once you are on that pitch there's nothing I can do.) Unfortunately though we all read body language we find it very difficult to control our own. But Danny has to, because that team has to play FOR HIM and believe he can influence the game!

Though O'Shea is up for Player of the Month how much we benefit from his bursts of good performances followed by a series of invisible ones is hard to assess. If he wins it, might we actually be able to sell him in January and bring in a player capable of giving his best more than 25% of the time? Are we better or worse for Jay O'Shea?

Last night should be sufficient at least to worry a few established players. Allinson's clean sheet? Why not play him on Saturday, at worst he'd be our flop, rather than Liverpool's? Maguire must have made his case. Gardner? We know he's as reliable as O'Shea, but did he do enough? And there's Simons, if wants it and is trying, does that alone make him a better bet than some of our players who often aren't? Then we can, like Pooch, question those who were absent and wonder if we have players who actually improve our team by not being on the field!

Good management would be winning because you had a plan and it worked. Unfortunately random select will also sometimes arrive at the right answer. And occasionally the opposition will accidentally transform themselves into a team almost perfectly designed to lose. Much as some academics convince themselves management is a science, if it is, then it is based on Chaos Theory, with so many imponderables and immeasurables, that establishing causation between doing A and getting result B is nigh impossible.

BUT STOP FOLDING YOUR FCUIKNG ARMS DANNY!

[St Charles Owl]

If I remember correctly he always used to stand on the sidelines with his arms folded when he was our manager!! Hadn't thought about it before but its an image I can remember clearly from way back then.

[bluepooch]

It was pot luck that he got it right last night and by all accounts it was a familiar story of sitting further back as the game went on and if it wasn't for some good saves by Allinson again it could have been a different story.If Dannys plan is to defend in numbers and hit on the break we will lose more than win because we are not good enough to play that way ,if he says thats not what he tells his players then he has no control over how the team plays because thats how it looks to me .
I stand by my opinion that he doesn't know his best team .

[Devongone]

Pooch have you considered that is is very difficult to establish your best team IF your best team is still worse than almost all your opponents.

This season there isn't a lot of positive evidence as what is our best formation, playing style or first eleven. Even when you look at a game like perhaps Northampton where we played well against a team that was winning at the time, how do you share out our good and their bad?

I can understand Danny feeling defensive and adopting his Les Dawson stance when his team's on the field. Unfortunately I can understand it so well that I'm sure he creates exactly the situation he wants to avoid. Imagine if your manager at work came up and stood watching you with his arms folded like Danny, how would you think you were performing, and if he was always like that, who would you think he was blaming, himself, or his workforce?

By the way a lot of top managers do it when their team is performing badly. Arsene and Pep to name two, but neither looks as desperately defensive as Danny.