Once again i cannot fathom Taylors tactics. Watching from the stands you can see a distinct lack of shape and it must be easy for the opposition managers to plan against us. Some players are either not up to this level or seem to have lost their edge. I have been most disappointed with Tracy this season. Pulls out of every challenge and his passing is woeful. Rainsford is not ready for this level yet no matter how well he does in training. Rory is not lone striker and plays much better out wide off a centre forward. Even if Curran & Tam were not fully fit,Taylor could have played one in each half and that would have given us some shape up front. I am beginning to worry about our direction on the field and Taylor surely only has a couple of more games to put things right before measures will have to be taken to rescue our season.
"We've had a lot of good times, but you don't know how good they are until you have the bad ones" Tony Adams
Taylor won't change his system because he doesn't have another one, he plays players out of position in training to fit his system.
Only threat last night was when Duggan broke from midfield unfortunately I don't think Hughes is a good enough partner in there with him to allow this to happen more often.
I think the general consensus is that Taylor just needs to change it up a bit to save his job. As I say injuries aside the lack of budging on the way we are playing or trying to play is the most frustrating thing for everyone. The best managers are able to adapt the team when needs be but Taylor doesn't seem to be doing it.
I bet this football looks great in training, not in real games. It's like we're not expecting to be closed down and when we have the ball the only players making any real effort are the opposition
I think the thing with Taylor is, he's a good coach, but not the best manager. I'm sure he has ideas, but is struggling to implement it. And he's finding it hard to get Irish players in who can play to his ideas. He has been restricted budget wise, that's fairly documented. He has to play to our strengths and build a system around the players available...maybe even bring in the Thomond park pitch a bit to stop leaving players so isolated.Originally Posted by Jofspring
Ideal scenario would have been to bring him in as assistant under an experienced manager, with the view that after 2 years (ball park figure) he'd be the manager.
No one wants to see anyone sacked, and I don't think he's anyway close to being so. But if we lose to UCD, lose to Cork, fans will really turn. It's ok for the hardcore group there who are used to it, but we'll never attract new fans as is to help us get to a self sustainable point.
Last edited by kingpin4; 29/03/2014 at 12:43 PM.
system?? what system I have seen the two home games and the park the bus game against pats which deserves to be commended showed a lot team spirit etc etc but no flair whatsoever and that's all he keeps banging on about but it's pass pass pass pass bang it goes long passing for the sake of it no shape whatsoever I have seen better organised junior teams and they only have 2 hours a week with their players most of these players are full time and for me Taylor is a first class bluffer keeps repeating himself over and over but on the flipside the club have as usual done things arseways started last season with a small squad done ok and them weakened the squad because of budget yet go to Spain for pre-season and have more people on the pay roll than some professional clubs buying land in bruff while we still don't have a home or have the MF developed and they are missing the point if we are not in the premier league people will not come and support the club no matter where we play bar the bunch of die hards who have followed the club thru thick and thin and I feel for them having been given false hope last season and now it's gone backwards for me and a relegation battle looms with a very small squad.. playing in the premier league and getting exposure on national television and we don't have a sponsor what are the people who are been paid to market the club doing??? I hope I am wrong but this is getting very worrying.. who is the number 2 ??? exactly some clown by all accounts and we sign a Scottish journeyman who is well past his sell by date and we are supposed to get excited... rant over
was at the game last night,very poor display from limerick.lack somebody in midfield to help shane duggan,jason hughes isnt up to it.taylor released too many players in the off season and didnt replace them.the young guys arent up to premier standard yet.im afraid that its going to be a long season after such a poor start.thomond park has absolutely no atmosphere and even more so with only 855 at last nights game.
It wasn't the same 4-3-3/4-5-1 last night. It was a clear switch to a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 system, with Tracy in the number 10 position playing behind Gaffney and Hughes/Duggan playing in a double pivot.
I thought we moved the ball a lot better in this configuration in the first half. Gaffney was not as isolated as in previous games and linked more regularly with the midfield. Unfortunately as mentioned above, we suffered from having to field two centrally minded players on the flanks in Rainsford and McGrath. Not to continue to flog a dead horse here, but we simply have no width and are far too predictable in attack. Someone mentioned our only genuine winger (Galbraith) - when he does come back he won't be utilised as a winger. We all know he'll be on the right cutting in.
Unfortunate for Ryan to be culpable for the goal, but in fairness he saved at least 4 point blank efforts other than that - Gary O'Neil's chance on the break just after the goal, McNally's header, Holohan's chance after Nzuzi was robbed and Fabio's chance after Folan left the ball go over his head late on.
What did we create? The only real chance we made from open play was the one where Gaffney danced through and the ball was worked wide for Shaun Kelly. Kelly is expected to do a lot in this system and in fairness he tries manfully every game. You usually get a shot on target from him at least, but he just doesn't do enough from an attacking perspective. Full backs at this level are not capable of providing all of the width adequately in my opinion.
The most worrying thing was how we lost our shape after the Curran sub. The players seemed to take matter into their own hands and there was massive interchanging and duplication of positioning.
It was even worse when McManus came on and were effectively playing with three permanent strikers and hoofing it up to them.
Of course, Oji was inevitably thrown up there too for the last few minutes.
I have zero faith in this manager guys. He either doesn't learn from his mistakes or isn't capable of instructing the players to right them. I understand the point about the budget/squad but his failure to right simple and glaring wrongs is no longer tolerable.
I missed this game as I was out sick but in truth I missed nothing because I know exactly how it would have looked - loads of huffing and puffing, pointless passing with no end product, hesitant defending and over all just a bland rudderless performance. We play like this almost every game.
Taylor talks a great game, has a repertoire of sound bites, but doesn't really deliver on any of it. Huge questions about him tactically. Stuart do yourself a favour and stop talking about playing good football, because you do not play good football. A team that plays good football plays it in the oppositions half of the pitch, not fannying about with the ball in your own half before hoofing it to no mans land. Stop feeding us and the media with this stuff. You'll earn a lot more respect by being honest and laying your cards on the table. If you have to play more direct, so what? At least be honest about it. Be honest about the squad of players you have. We're not stupid. I stand near the benches in Thomond Park and from what I could see it was Malkey Thompson that was doing most of the organising and orchestrating last season. Malkey is gone now and Stuart seems to be sinking without him. No coincidence there.
There are lots of worrying questions to be asked. Why were Bradley and Gamble released when we didn't have O'Leary signed, a player we eventually lost? Why did we not invest in a striker? According to all and sundry we had Anthony Elding as good as signed, but we pulled out. Why? Why wasn't Bossekota re-signed if we ran out of options? Our assistant manager was released in the off season, and wasn't replaced until the new season had already started. Why? Who's making these decisions? Is it Taylor or is it other people at the club? These are important questions because whoever it was that thought it was adequate to start the season with the likes of Hughes, Rainsford, McGrath and Gaffney as first team players needs their head examined. Barry Sheedy is our back up striker. Those sort of decisions.......you almost deserve to be relegated. If you think about it logically, we finished mid table last season. We've lost the bones of half that team and instead of replacing them all, we've promoted a bunch of third/fourth/fifth choice players in their place. If that's not asking for trouble I don't know what is. Maybe the thinking was that regardless of what we do, we still won't be as bad as Athlone/UCD/Bray?
It's well known that the budget has been slashed this season. Fair enough. But again, where's the logic in not investing in a first team that's playing in a huge expensive stadium that's costing the club considerable money to rent? If you make one or two major signings it creates a buzz about the place and a belief among fans - look at Cork City. If you invest nothing, it creates worry and apathy. Those two big signings would pay for themselves on the gate. Look at the lack of investment in the Limerick squad this season, and look at the corresponding gates so far. No coincidence there either.
There's loads of other off field questions to be asked. We still don't have a shirt sponsor. The club doesn't have a single major sponsor really. It's small, local business (the same ones season after season might I add) that are keeping that side of the show on the road. With that in mind, who's paying for Bruff both now and the future development? Is it Pat O'Sullivan? Or is the club paying for it? As for the Markets Field, that's a basket case that will have it's day in the not so distant future.
It's looking like being a long hard season. I just hope McManus hits the ground running and Prince is as good as he's been made out to be.
Jason Hughes has been named in one of those team of the week things based on this match. Described as "Lims stand out performer".
Shane Duggan made RTE's team of the week too.
The ball is round and has many surprises.
I often find those things are trying to achieve a sort of balance by handing out spots to whatever team they can think of who aren't in already.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Reading this, Im surprised on how harsh you are, considering in how weak your roster is, I think only, Curran, Galbraith, Duggan, Oji and Ryan would be regular starters in other teams of the league, you have many young guys who I doubt are good enough for Premier.
Most peoples problems is with our predictability and how there doesn't seem to be any shift in the way we are trying to play.
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