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Our enigma of a manager
- Thread starter Dustysteve
- Start date
I agree with those saying that yes, overall we'd take this as a season of consolidation, and that should be generally seen as a job done with a platform to move forward.
However, what worries me is the total inconsistency and lack of real style. Yes, we've scored a few very nice goals this season, but overall the football has been flat for large periods and just not all that pleasant to watch. I guess I'm watching a different game, because I really just don't see this silky football that others seem to wax lyrical about.
I've paid for a few iFollow games, but honestly I often find it just difficult to watch. Sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, sideways, panic, punt, possession lost. Repeat.
If Lowe is going to persist with this style and formation, let's hope he has got some intelligent business lined up this summer or else I fear next season will be more of the same.
However, what worries me is the total inconsistency and lack of real style. Yes, we've scored a few very nice goals this season, but overall the football has been flat for large periods and just not all that pleasant to watch. I guess I'm watching a different game, because I really just don't see this silky football that others seem to wax lyrical about.
I've paid for a few iFollow games, but honestly I often find it just difficult to watch. Sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, sideways, panic, punt, possession lost. Repeat.
If Lowe is going to persist with this style and formation, let's hope he has got some intelligent business lined up this summer or else I fear next season will be more of the same.
Manchesterlalala":3aiey8rn said:
Really? Where have you heard that or is it just something you think this season was about? I would say that Lowe is not the sort of person to just want to consolidate. He certainly didn't put a team together that was going to consolidate judging by the attacking way he wants to play and the defence he put together. If the plan was to consolidate then surely you start from the back and make sure you don't leak the goals. I believe this season was ALWAYS about sneaking a playoff spot. How many times has Lowe said that we have a team thats able to compete in this league. If it was about consolidation then surely he would have been saying that we have a team that is capable of staying in this league. When you compete, you compete to win. I believe that from a team objective, this season has been a failure.
A voice of reason? We were fortunate to be promoted last season and although I am glad Lowe has virtually guaranteed our position in this division where is all this exciting football we were promised? We don't seem to learn from our mistakes.Our set piece play is laughable and the sideways and backwards passing is a cure for insomnia. I genuinely hope Lowe can turn it around because unfortunately I cannot see him going anywhere soon.Alan Turing":2xpmibml said:
Biggs":2wyxzs0n said:
I'll agree with the fact that Lowe got us promoted, that the current team has won enough games to keep us there for next season, and that most of us would have accepted at the start of the season.
There's a word in there, however, that is so ridiculously out of place that I can only conclude that you don't know the meaning. Consolidated. There's a five letter clue in the middle of it, the word "solid". Consolidated, in case you don't know, means to make more solid, to strengthen, to unite as a strong single entity.
When Paul Sturrock got Argyle promoted to the third tier he took a season to genuinely consolidate. He added a few players, let one or two go, but above all strengthened the team as a unit. Like most decent managers, Sturrock built from the back, putting in place a defensive unit that was hard to break down, and consequently hard to beat. In other words, he made us more solid. Having created those foundations, he then worked on the more offensive part of the team. The result was that if Argyle lost, then they lost narrowly, but losses became rarer and Argyle were promoted again the following year.
Contrast this with Lowe's "consolidation". Nearing the end of this season of "consolidation", Argyle actually own only 2 defenders with any experience, one of whom is old, injury-prone and currently moonlighting (badly) in the commentary box. Both Sawyer and Aimson are out of contract at the end of the season, so we have no defenders whatsoever signed up for next season. The rest of the defence is made up by a gang of loanees, boys expected to do men's jobs who IMHO have taken some unfair stick. Lowe had a chance to perhaps consolidate and start to rebuild the defence in January, but he declined to replace the departing experience of Canavan and Wootton, opting instead for more callow loanees, including a LB bereft of defensive nous.
Lowe's salvation has been that his team can, on their day win games, and have actually done so quite often. At its best this team can be very easy on the eye, can be exciting to watch, and in Ennis and Camara Lowe has recruited two players with a lot of potential. However, this is not a solid team. It's is perhaps the flakiest Argyle team I've seen. We're far too easy to beat, and when we concede there's always the likelihood of conceding another 2 or 3 soon after.
I'm sorry Biggs, but this is not consolidation. There's no defensive structure in place for next season, no foundations whatsoever. Yet all you can do is naively whoop about "what the management team have got up their sleeves to push us on".
Where exactly is the enigma? I think this thread says more about us than it does RL. Some people don't like a confident, sharp, Liverpudlian who has personal ambition and talks a lot when given the opportunity. Some prefer a more 'traditional' manager in the Luggy mould, talking blood and snotters. You can frame performances and results in many ways, but your own personal preference will have a massive impact let's be honest. It's too early to compare RL's managerial career to that of Sturrock or even Adams, as both had more years under their belts when they came here.
I'm in the Lowe camp so I'm happy with what he's done so far. I'll be watching with interest to see how he handles these last few games, and whether or not he gets performances out of players who, for whatever reason, looked very uninterested yesterday. I also cannot wait to see what next season brings and I think there will be big crowds at HP. And just to add, when I have inflicted games on my long-suffering family, they have remarked on how much better the football is now than it was in years previous. And trust me, they would not say that just to please me because they like nothing better than taunting me with the 'same old Argyle' mantra.
COYGs!!
I'm in the Lowe camp so I'm happy with what he's done so far. I'll be watching with interest to see how he handles these last few games, and whether or not he gets performances out of players who, for whatever reason, looked very uninterested yesterday. I also cannot wait to see what next season brings and I think there will be big crowds at HP. And just to add, when I have inflicted games on my long-suffering family, they have remarked on how much better the football is now than it was in years previous. And trust me, they would not say that just to please me because they like nothing better than taunting me with the 'same old Argyle' mantra.
COYGs!!
D
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As always with football fans after of a bad defeat, a bit of perspective is required.
The first post here is patently nonsense, he didn't get Bury relegated or bankrupt the club and where he comes from is irrelevant, you'll soon be saying our 2nd half performances are down to the players valuables going missing at half time!
I think you've got to weigh up the positives and negatives. On the plus side we've consolidated in League 1, at times played some nice stuff and got some good players. We also have the one of the best Chairmen in the country with a long term plan for the club including strengthening ties with the community. The very rare situation of a Chairman doing the right things for the right reasons.
On the negative side the team is very brittle and doesn't appear to be able to adapt tactically or mentally. To be 2nd in the league for first halves and next to bottom for 2nd halves over 39 games is just bizarre.
However i think we have to give those in charge the benefit of the doubt, we are in a much better position than we were a year ago, the manager is young and relatively inexperienced and I like the football we try to play, although I agree we haven't yet got the players to play that way consistently. With 4 or 5 good signings in the summer next season with the Green Army back could be a special one.
The first post here is patently nonsense, he didn't get Bury relegated or bankrupt the club and where he comes from is irrelevant, you'll soon be saying our 2nd half performances are down to the players valuables going missing at half time!
I think you've got to weigh up the positives and negatives. On the plus side we've consolidated in League 1, at times played some nice stuff and got some good players. We also have the one of the best Chairmen in the country with a long term plan for the club including strengthening ties with the community. The very rare situation of a Chairman doing the right things for the right reasons.
On the negative side the team is very brittle and doesn't appear to be able to adapt tactically or mentally. To be 2nd in the league for first halves and next to bottom for 2nd halves over 39 games is just bizarre.
However i think we have to give those in charge the benefit of the doubt, we are in a much better position than we were a year ago, the manager is young and relatively inexperienced and I like the football we try to play, although I agree we haven't yet got the players to play that way consistently. With 4 or 5 good signings in the summer next season with the Green Army back could be a special one.
xmastree":1vsho6hz said:
It's not a naive whoop at all, it's just a reasonable hope. I don't think people normally whoop about consolidation anyway, it's way too boring :lol:
And I think we have consolidated on the pitch as well as off it. This summer we'll be coming off the back off the second of two of the most bizarre seasons in living memory, having had two broadly positive years and coming into a League One season where we will have come out of Covid in (touch wood) a very healthy and competitive financial position.
Obviously it's hard to know for sure what players will go, stay, or be signed... but we'll probably be lining up with a now fully blooded Michael Cooper, a returning and hugely promising Adam Randell in a midfield with Panutche Camara, with an incredibly exciting couple of young forwards who are ours. Under a management team who have had a season to suss out what's required, that seems a pretty decent core... though I'd 100% agree the defensive signings will be absolutely key as it will be largely a blank state.
None of us know whether we'll be promoted or relegated, but there are surely lots and lots of reasons to be very optimistic.
xmastree":1jb4e7v5 said:
This is spot on. I find the fact that we will have to completely rebuild the defence during the summer really hard to understand. The only thing I can think is that one or more of the loan players is already lined up to join again but even if that is true there is still a huge job to be done to create any kind of defence for next season, let alone one that is better than this season’s (which it certainly needs to be as this one has one of the worst records for conceding goals in the whole division).
I would share the defensive concerns but if (hopefully WHEN) we sign a couple of dominant centre backs in the transfer window, then those concerns will be forgotten fairly quickly.
I don't think there's any particular worry that we haven't got those players now, that's the whole point of a transfer window. You could see it as a positive that we're going to totally rebuild that, as I think the management team got it wrong in being too loyal to a few from the League 2 season. Then we were trying to plug the gaps with loanees, when we realised they weren't at League 1 level.
I don't think there's any particular worry that we haven't got those players now, that's the whole point of a transfer window. You could see it as a positive that we're going to totally rebuild that, as I think the management team got it wrong in being too loyal to a few from the League 2 season. Then we were trying to plug the gaps with loanees, when we realised they weren't at League 1 level.
Yes it hasnt been perfect this season,but we had a good spell after Christmas,just not enough consistency in the performances.
The OP is talking rubbish though,obviously wants instant success ,well go and support team thats gets funded by hundreds of millions if you want that.
The OP is talking rubbish though,obviously wants instant success ,well go and support team thats gets funded by hundreds of millions if you want that.
Much of the discussion on this thread implicitly assumes that responsibility for Argyle's recruitment/transfer activity accrues to Ryan Lowe.
Is that correct? I don't doubt that he has some say, but it has also been quite clear that Neil Dewsnip has been very actively involved in our squad building - several of our signings are players he has worked with previously in the England age-group teams.
It is also clear from Simon Hallett's updates that we have an approach to transfers driven by age, data analytics and potential resale value that will endure beyond the tenure of any first team manager, and that this is something that they are expected to work within while in post.
It therefore seems to me that there's an 'apples and oranges' element to comparisons with Paul Sturrock, and that criticism (and praise) for new signings may be wrongly targeted
Is that correct? I don't doubt that he has some say, but it has also been quite clear that Neil Dewsnip has been very actively involved in our squad building - several of our signings are players he has worked with previously in the England age-group teams.
It is also clear from Simon Hallett's updates that we have an approach to transfers driven by age, data analytics and potential resale value that will endure beyond the tenure of any first team manager, and that this is something that they are expected to work within while in post.
It therefore seems to me that there's an 'apples and oranges' element to comparisons with Paul Sturrock, and that criticism (and praise) for new signings may be wrongly targeted