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I think it’s fairly clear that even the best LoI players have stupid mistakes in them. It’s why they are here and not at a higher level. If Cleary had better football intelligence when it came to decision making then he wouldn’t be playing here, and that goes for most players in the league. It’s simply just our teams being out played by higher quality, and more often than not the higher quality team will win.
A perfect summation Yossarian- you sure your a dundalk fan??
Outclassed by a better side, the same as against Ferencvaros and Ludogrets.
Basic defending is not punished in week to week LOI football but at this level your dead in the water , and Bradley seems insistent on playing this way away from home so results are not unexpected - his tactical acumen is rightly being questioned tho.
Hopefully the squad can re-gather themselves for a tough 90(poss 120) mins against Derry on a shameful pitch. Happily it doesn't seem derry players are that comfortable on it either - has a bang of penos off that tie.
Except if that was the case why weren’t Dundalk having the exact same problems in Europe defensively. Shamrock Rovers defense is so laughably bad it’s bordering of nativity at this point.Quote:
Originally Posted by placid casual
I still don’t get how the coaches are not being held to more scrutiny, this is the third time this season Rovers have been shown up for their naivety and yet there still appears to be little done to actually resolve the issue, Bradley would be better spending less time talking about needing to improve and spend more time actually improving…
While I don’t think it'd be accurate to call their defenders 'wise men' you could definitely be onto something there as they certainly do come baring gifts of goals ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
To be fair (or unfair) to Cleary, that glaring error (did he stumble, or just lose control of the ball?) would have been punished even in the LOI.
Bradley deserves kudos for what he's done for Rovers, but their away games in Europe have been generally regarded as tactical disasters. I don't think it's just that they're playing against better players (although they obviously are). Gartland and Kerr have continually pointed out the error of his ways. It would be interesting to see if they'd fare better in European games under another manager. It'd be a big decision for Rovers - especially as Bradley has showed his loyalty to them by declining the Lincoln job. However, if they see regular qualification for European group stages - which I don't think is an unreasonable ambition under the current easier qualification route - they may be tempted.
I think this might be just a little OTT ;), i'm sure the coaches and players are trying to change things but as the old boxing saying goes "all plans go out the window after the first punch in the face"Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
They cant be that bad or they wouldnt be top of the league.
Move on to Molde but priority for me is League wins in the next few matches
It took Bradley and the coaching team quite a while to hit upon a system that domestically works, and very well too. They seem limited in their flexibility now but really none of the Irish coaches atm are any better. Been going on a while too, Fenlon dominated the league here while at bohs and was found wanting in Europe. The players are limited yes but you feel a better coach could eke out a lot more, particularly that rovers squad, and maybe even sign a striker who could score at least one of the chances created.Quote:
Originally Posted by placid casual
Well in fairness, Dundalk made plenty of defensive blunders in our Euro games, it’s probably just that we scored goals in most games or at least kept the defensive errors to a minimum, and most of the games were close. Gary Rogers made a howler in Alkmaar, Sava the same against Zenit. Sean Hoare was caught badly against Larnaca. They’re just the ones that come to mind immediately.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
I see you've successfully banished Aaron McCarey from your mind :)
Gartland was caught out badly a couple of times as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
I think its down to technical ability in the LOI , the players of whatever team just have less time to control and pass the ball in Europe than in LOI and hence under more pressure they make more mistakes. A LOI team could ask the players to play different systems in Europe than domestically but youd have to wonder would that be better asking players to change systems and it wont solve the technical ability issue.
As KR said above a few long clearences early in the game maybe rather than playing out all the time but generally all that does is give the ball back, worth trying maybe even if only to keep things tight at the start
But Dundalk did make defensive mistakes. Seem to remember Gartland and Gannon being at fault for a couple goals after defensive howlers. The difference is they made a few less mistakes and were a better team overall than this Rovers team.Quote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
Exactly this. Dundalk made plenty of howlers as mentioned above, and missed plenty of sitters too - Oduwa against Vienna immediately comes to mind. They just made fewer than this Rovers team, and were able to usually keep away games alive for longer.Quote:
Originally Posted by ger121
Not many people remember the away BATE match in 2016, which they should have lost by about 4/5, but they got huge luck and managed to somehow come away with just a 1-0 loss. The rest is history.
I might have agreed with that if it was just the Ludogorets game and they learnt from it but there have been 2 big games since then where they have made the exact same errors and appear to learn nothing game on game.Quote:
Originally Posted by sbgawa
I’m sick of this talk of blaming the quality of opposition and thinking that’s an excuse to not fix the problems, there are glaring problems in the Rovers defense and it’s time they actually fix the problems rather than just say they should in press conferences.
Like I’ve said repeatedly it’s fine in the league because Rovers have a better squad than anyone else by far, they control most games so don’t get exposed. It’s games in Europe when they have to step up to the plate that they get exposed and it shows up the issues they have in the coaching staff.
Also the fact that with the squad Rovers have they are only 1 point on top of the LOI (I know they have games in hand, but still the fact that with 8 games left the league isn’t done and dusted already) speaks volumes. And I find most bizarre is the lack of ambition from the fans or coaching staff, it’s like they could turn Rovers into another Dundalk and make history in Europe but are happy to settle for the bare minimum in Europe and not bother fixing glaring issues they have because they are winning the LOI which considering their squad shouldn’t be the holy grail, they should see that as an expectation but wins in Europe as the holy grail.
So here’s a solution, if you have a weakness don’t continue to build you’re game plan around that weakness, that’s just stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by sbgawa
Uh oh... he's getting going again...
Some things are better left in the past!Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
It's a tough one for Rovers and Bradley. Mangers these days seem to wed themselves to a particular philosophy and change is rare and slow. It's very obvious that Mannus is not very comfortable with playing out and that the centre backs are nervous in the early stages of the game. Given the strength of Gaffney up front it seems bizarre at this stage that Rovers don't push up and go long in the early phase of the game. I'm sure the counter thinking is that they want to slow the game down early on, get some touches and take the sting out of the home crowd, but there's more than enough evidence at this stage that all they're doing is encouraging the high tempo press from their opponents and giving the ball to them cheaply and conceding as a result.
There's no harm bringing back the short game as things settle down and we've also seen Rovers grow into all of the games and look much better as they go on. There's promise there but it is concerning to see the same mistakes repeated, one offs can happen and are expected with the step up, but repeating the same errors is hard to forgive. Stephen Kenny had similar issues with Ireland in the early games and we've seen them be much more pragmatic in mixing it up more recently so hopefully Bradley can have a similar epiphany. There's definitely more points in the group for Rovers, yes the opponents are all probably a little bit better than them, but we've seen enough to say the gaps are not huge.
Look most on here know I'm a big supporter of Bradley. What he and his team have done for Rovers to improve us on and off the field is incredible and puts him up in my favourite managers of all time list. He's fallen down away from home in Europe and that's a blot in the copybook but to continue the analogy, he's only in about 5th class. He's 38 and has been at one club his whole managerial career, gradually building a particular type of team to play a certain way. He's achieved what we wanted him to to this point. The next step would be winning games against better opposition in Europe, home and away.
His current approach has been to stick to play out from the back regardless of the occasion and I'm ok with that for the most part. There were extenuating circumstances around the Flora and Ludogorets games in particular and I think he knew that and wanted to try playing our game with a (close to) fully fit squad against Gent as we hadn't had that luxury in other fixtures. It didn't work although I would say we weren't outplayed by Gent in the same way we were against Flora, Ludo or Ferencvaros. They cut us apart whereas Gent just pounced on bad errors. To be fair to the critics they were errors that were brought about by the approach we took which I think was wrong in this case with that lineup. That said, Gent were actually on the ropes at times but they took their chances and we didn't. The game probably should have finished 2-1 or 3-2. I'd fancy us against them at home.
So what does he do now? He's shown a willingness to change the approach when it is clearly not working but it usually takes him a while to give up on it as it is generally successful for us. You can look at how we switched things up against Bohs to end our bad run there. Or how we played against Dundalk recently. I'd like to see him attempt that away in Europe but I'd
equally love us to get our best 11 on the field and try to play our way. I think he'll aim for that before a switch to be honest.
Ive always felt its the assistant's job to basically argue with the manager on the way theyve set up, point out the tunnel vision tendencies of a manager and offer their alternate rationale. For that reason coaching teams that work are gold dust and why you often see a manager or assistant struggle when they move on to different circles. There isnt much more for Bradley domestically and in some ways Europe is the better opportunity for him to test his setup, at this stage he should be looking at tweaking how he sets up for European games even if its just for his own development. To stick when it doesnt work is a wasted opportunity for himself never mind his club. He is a bit too conservative first for a young manager that is at a club dominating domestically so safe in that regard, has delivered group stage football and is odds on to go again next season. The team or squad needs to evolve more to be more interchangeable for domestic and then European games and have more than a plan A for Europe.
That's why Harps have been crap this year. We don't have Paul Hegarty falling out with Ollie Horgan every match and training session over the style of football.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesta99