| Winning Ugly 17:34 - Feb 20 with 4831 views | Hunterhoop |
Good lord, that was one of the ugliest Rangers’ wins I can remember. But more importantly, it’s a complete change in team character from the first half of the season when we were losing when playing well.
3 centre halves are clearly helping and, as many others have pointed out, Austin and Johansen have made us a lot more game savvy and vocal, but the whole team seems to have a certain togetherness that wasn’t there 2 plus months ago.
Winning helps, but i’m wondering what else.
I think his legs have gone, but I think Geoff has stepped up and seems to be far more vocal since the arrival of Austin and Johansen. He’s getting involved in celebrations, being far more vocal during the game and with the ref. It’s as if Austin’s presence has helped him feel able to speak up more.
Something similar could be said for Barbet. I actually thought both he and Cameron were better than Dickie today and really seem to be enjoying playing more “agriculturally” at times.
I wonder if the arrival of some gnarly pros has helped some of the older pros in the side feel more confident and comfortable?
I think of what Onuoha said in his podcast about the young vs old games in training and how the younger lads played all the football, looked good, but the old boys always beat them.
Something about the last few weeks makes me think the older boys, with Austin and Johansen’s arrival, have now wrestled control of the dressing room and perhaps are now playing more of a type of leadership/mentoring role to the younger lads than they were?
Worth also pointing out that our run has coincided with BOS being taken out of the team and leaving. Perhaps the club knew what they were doing with BOS and Manning, and their influence in the dressing room wasn’t particularly positive. That’s pure speculation. But something in the character of the players has changed. We’re not even playing very well in some of these games. [Post edited 20 Feb 2021 18:04]
|  | | |  |
| Winning Ugly on 09:46 - Feb 21 with 935 views | nix |
| Winning Ugly on 09:33 - Feb 21 by davman |
Agree with that nix; the thing is whether we are capable on building on the base this team is building or whether we end up selling a couple to "balance the books" and have to start re-building again only for it to gel half way through next season.
I am hoping that the wage bill has been reduced sufficiently not to have to find a £10m+ player every other season, but am not sure that is the case.
This is undoubtedly the risk of signing loan players with this model - the wage bill shoots up; hopefully not to the point where we have to sell an asset to cover them...
Not easy, this real life Football Manager, is it? |
I'm hoping we won't have to sell for next season Davman. I'd say without Covid, almost certainly not unless big money offered but under the circs we may have to. But as has been said on another thread we've been building strength in depth. I really wondered where our creativity was coming from this season, losing BOS and Ebs but across the team, with Uncs, Willock, Chair, Kane and even Wallace we've largely plugged that gap. We're certainly creating enough chances now.
We've also been canny at getting loan players in for half the season, managing our budget once we're safe etc. Like not paying Leistner's wages for half the season or not replacing Wells when we were neither going up nor down last season. This season they realised we needed a bit of quality but we're still only paying half the season for Charlie and Stefan, so that's a saving. Obviously we could argue that we could be challenging for play offs if we'd had them all season but then as I said elsewhere we wouldn't have got that kind of quality for what we're paying them now as their parent clubs are paying some (most?) of their wages and we're nowhere near a £70k a week kind of club. |  | | |
| Winning Ugly on 10:50 - Feb 21 with 872 views | Hunterhoop |
| Winning Ugly on 22:00 - Feb 20 by DavieQPR |
Wouldn't have thought Austin and Johansen had ' to wrestle control' of the dressing room as there seemed to have been no leaders. The difference is the change in tactics ( from the man not supposed to have a Plan B) that suited the players and addressed the weakness .I believe Austin has taken to the Senior role like a duck to water. |
I didn’t mean that. I meant their arrival allowed/enabled the likes of Cameron, Barbet, Wallace to become more vocal leaders. I have a theory that perhaps the young guns were dominating the dressing room earlier in the season and with a few more older pros, the balance was reset and a desire to do the basics not showboat had taken hold. And now the younger set are buying into that pragmatic approach. | | | |
| Winning Ugly on 11:11 - Feb 21 with 822 views | 2Thomas2Bowles |
Winning ugly is better than losing pretty.
So the way I see this with MW, is that he had to throw his playbook out the window.
I'm sure he never wanted to, all his talk was about the 70's team total football, something like that, and he stuck to his principles over and over, you could say he was only let down by not having the right players but as was said on here (not just by me) The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. 10 out of 10 there.
Things have changed, some better players and much better results, winning ugly maybe the players who have come in like CA have had more influence than the manager himself.
That winning is more important than style, Who would have guessed, not MW for half this season.
I'm still not convinced by him, but I would say that...
We will be in the play-off in no time and I'll be eating my words
*no I'm not expecting that of him//the team * this season... |  |
| |
| Winning Ugly on 11:15 - Feb 21 with 836 views | gazza1 |
| Winning Ugly on 10:50 - Feb 21 by Hunterhoop |
I didn’t mean that. I meant their arrival allowed/enabled the likes of Cameron, Barbet, Wallace to become more vocal leaders. I have a theory that perhaps the young guns were dominating the dressing room earlier in the season and with a few more older pros, the balance was reset and a desire to do the basics not showboat had taken hold. And now the younger set are buying into that pragmatic approach. |
I doubt very much that the young were dominating the dressing room Hunter...... |  | | |
| Winning Ugly on 11:23 - Feb 21 with 817 views | stevenagehoop |
My two penny worth is that we have considerably strengthened the spine of the team. Dieng has made a tremendous difference - in the system currently being played Dickie’s one flaw - pace- is mitigated add Barbet’s improvement, with the Dutch lad waiting in the wings. In the middle Johansen has both steel and ability and time to play decent killer balls and spray the ball round the park and finally Charlie , albeit slower, is a proven goal scorer and leader of the line. Luckily he has players around him to do the extra yard running.
Play off team probably not but more than enough to stay up. [Post edited 21 Feb 2021 11:24]
|  |
| I never lie but I don't always tell the truth |
| |
| Winning Ugly on 22:40 - Feb 21 with 686 views | Hunterhoop |
| Winning Ugly on 11:15 - Feb 21 by gazza1 |
I doubt very much that the young were dominating the dressing room Hunter...... |
Unless you have some inside knowledge you care to share, I’d wager otherwise. The most iconic image last season was Eze, BOS, Manning, and Chair (I think?) celebrating. You add in how many other young lads started in the squad earlier, plus the whole taking the knee thing and Geoff’s antics on Twitter. It would not surprise me at all if the more experienced blokes I mentioned were on the fringes of the dressing room rather than leading it. But obviously I could be wrong. Just fascinated by it all. I think morale and psychology is very important in a successful team dynamic. | | | |
| Winning Ugly on 22:52 - Feb 21 with 670 views | OldPedro |
| Winning Ugly on 09:46 - Feb 21 by nix |
I'm hoping we won't have to sell for next season Davman. I'd say without Covid, almost certainly not unless big money offered but under the circs we may have to. But as has been said on another thread we've been building strength in depth. I really wondered where our creativity was coming from this season, losing BOS and Ebs but across the team, with Uncs, Willock, Chair, Kane and even Wallace we've largely plugged that gap. We're certainly creating enough chances now.
We've also been canny at getting loan players in for half the season, managing our budget once we're safe etc. Like not paying Leistner's wages for half the season or not replacing Wells when we were neither going up nor down last season. This season they realised we needed a bit of quality but we're still only paying half the season for Charlie and Stefan, so that's a saving. Obviously we could argue that we could be challenging for play offs if we'd had them all season but then as I said elsewhere we wouldn't have got that kind of quality for what we're paying them now as their parent clubs are paying some (most?) of their wages and we're nowhere near a £70k a week kind of club. |
The financial problems caused by Covid could mean that transfer fees and wages are depressed in the short term, as many clubs won't have the money to spend big. This could mean that either we will have to try and sell a few players to raise funds or alternatively, it might mean that it isn't worth selling our best players for another season and we wait, hoping that the market will pick up in the medium term. |  |
| Extra mature cheddar......a simple cheese for a simple man |
| |
| Winning Ugly on 23:45 - Feb 21 with 626 views | simmo |
| Winning Ugly on 22:40 - Feb 21 by Hunterhoop |
Unless you have some inside knowledge you care to share, I’d wager otherwise. The most iconic image last season was Eze, BOS, Manning, and Chair (I think?) celebrating. You add in how many other young lads started in the squad earlier, plus the whole taking the knee thing and Geoff’s antics on Twitter. It would not surprise me at all if the more experienced blokes I mentioned were on the fringes of the dressing room rather than leading it. But obviously I could be wrong. Just fascinated by it all. I think morale and psychology is very important in a successful team dynamic. |
There's also some insight via Clive's Patreon interview with Warburton that players weren't vocal enough with each other and they were trying to make people more assertive and demand accountability. It appears the arrival of Austin especially has opened that up more and as we saw against Brentford with Barbet bollocking Chair, there is more demands on each other, which is obvs meaning more commitment to defending and not letting heads drop.
It goes to show how important a culture is for success, talent not enough. |  |
| ask Beavis I get nothing Butthead |
| |
Login to get fewer ads
| Winning Ugly on 08:17 - Feb 22 with 548 views | westberksr |
for the number of times we have played well (particularly in the first half) and seen no reward until eventually being outsmarted by teams game management we should be proud of our team's new found ability to shithouse games.
more fouls than opposition - yep
more yellow cards than opposition - yep
bit of cramp in 83rd minute- yep
makes a very pleasant change from being 'nice'
along with the arrival of the 2 experienced players to strengthen the spine, for me the switch to 352 has made a huge difference. This taking Cameron out of the energy sapping midfield and into defence where he he can focus on organising and physical battles rather than chasing his tail. He obviously has qualities that MW appreciates and this switch brings out the best of these.
All the while Dickie has grown into the division comfortably.
not having conventional full backs in a 4 also helps as neither of ours are particularly good at defending (not meant as a dig, just saying it how I see it) but are willing runners who can make opposition think about what they are doing.
Chaz is never a 1 man up top as he doesn't have the legs to constantly chase down, so by pairing him with another unit also helps with the ball retention that was so poor earlier on.
a lovely combination of having some new toys to play with and appreciating and using those you already have a bit better. Long may the 'dirty' continue! |  | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
