Rate AN v Watford

[AlbertTatlock]

A big fat 0 from me, as many others have said the back 5 was disastrous and he persisted with it for the whole match. We have the personnel to play 4-3-3 - or 4-3-1-2.

The lack of fight and passion was there for everyone to see which is unforgivable.

Gouranga.

[adamsson]

Can I give negative marks

[dwr17477]

0

[st3mark]

0

[scfcwebby]

Zero

Shit formation

No game plan

Kept Smallbone on

Didn't change shape to react to how the game was playing out

Subs too late and were pathetic when they happened

And they are the positives...

[SamB_SCFC]

0. Making the same mistakes as the previous managers by playing 5 at the back when we don't have any suitable wing backs. Absolute insanity, why do successive managers keep doing it?

[biddulphchav]

0 - absolute garbage. Formation, team selection and subs were crap but most worrying was the lack of effort and fight that I thought was part of what he said he’d bring

[wuzza]

Disappointing post match interview to round off the whole proceedings - not his finest couple of hours.

[gawa]

2.5.

A decent spell for 10 minutes after the restart where we had a chance to get back into the game. Barring that not much to talk about.

This defeat is on the manager.

[superpotter]

0 for picking Flint ,, leaving Smallbone on all game ,, playing 352 or whatever you call that formation where you need quality intelligent players , oh and for having 10 days working with the players and still couldn’t defend if there lives depended on it .

[HarryTheHat]

Big fat zero

Shameful effort given that he's had over a week to get them ready / fit for this

Get your finger out AN

[maninasuitcase]

0
Nada
Nowt

Words fail me after that performance.

[shrewspotter]

0
Why the fuck does get peddle out the 3-5-2, its a formation that doesn't work for us, we don't have the central defenders to pass the ball out. We don't have the wingback to stop us being hurt on the flanks and therefore we miss a man further up field.

It was O'Neil downfall. Neil needs to be careful here

[Staffsoatcake]

I thought I done with the 0s when O'Neill left.

It would seem not. 0

[andystokey]

For a formation that relies on the width of the wingbacks playing a left footer on the right and vice versa. Then at four down and 80 odd minutes he changes it. 🤔

I don't blame him for the injuries, or the sparcity on the bench. I don't blame him for Laurent and Smallbone being so poor. But the first decision to play wingbacks on the wrong side making us too narrow was shocking. Not reverting to 433 when it was obviously not working. Not substituting when we were still in the game. Hanging a kid in his first game who is a RB at LWB.

2

I hope he admits to his share in interviews

[thebasfordhedgehog]

1 - for not having a drinker’s nose.

[danmase]

2
He's inherited a woefully unbalanced and unfit squad, but that was the sort of tepid and insipid performance that you expect at the end of a failing reign, not at the start.
Couldn't understand the lack of subs, given the way the game was going.
Post match interview was as passive as the performance.

[thepottypotter]

2

He has inherited a squad that isn’t anywhere near as good as many thought
His post match interview was grounded. Especially saying that he and the players had to learn the mistakes of this game before focussing on the next game.

[cobhamstokey]

Oct 2, 2022 17:10:05 GMT danmase said:

2
He's inherited a woefully unbalanced and unfit squad, but that was the sort of tepid and insipid performance that you expect at the end of a failing reign, not at the start.
Couldn't understand the lack of subs, given the way the game was going.
Post match interview was as passive as the performance.

He seems so bright and a good motivator. I can’t believe how poor we were.
So gutless. There’s no excuse for the players playing like they don’t care.
There were zero bright spots today.
Smallbone was woeful and looks so weak, Fosu terrible, Flint clumsy as hell and for someone so tall he doesn’t look commanding, Fox really poor.
The only ones for me today that looked half decent were Sterling, Wilmot and Gayle.

[pavel]

A generous 1, showing all the traits of O’Neil, persisting with a system we haven’t the players for, subs to late, no change of system when all around it’s going pear shaped. Didn’t really react to what was happening on the pitch but he’s got some slack yet but needs to show some flexibility in terms of set up and shape.

[Pugsley]

0

He couldn't care less.

[nott1]

Why is he better than MoN?
Zero

[mrrine]

So just to be crystal clear - giving anything less than 10/10 for beating a dreadful Hull is basically being the devil, But giving 0's out for being twatted by Watford is the agreed standard?

Anyway...

2/10 for AN.

• Thoroughly wank throughout We *still* don't have the players to play fullback, so why persist?
  
  
  
• This team can't function without Powell. Smallbone is fine if you're playing rubbish teams but what did he expect here exactly? What was the intent in this game? Dominate Sarr etc and give Smallbone all the time in the world? Poor decision to start him.
  
  
• Cut wide open and you could argue it was individual errors, but apart from an OK 7-10 Mins throughout the game we were obviously going to get spanked.
  
  
• If ever there was a game to play on the counter - today was it.  But what exactly did we set up for? Possession? Attacking football? Still not clear to me what it was but it was fucking foolish.

Deeper issues:

1. Gayle and Delap - Not working. Do we persist or do we drop Delap for Campbell? (neither are fit)  I was pleasantly surprised by how much more to Gayle there is than just goals, but for Gayle at this age, to not be scoring is bad and is not the answer. Delap is still not fit but both need to be scoring, it's their job. 

2. Defence Without Jageilka / Souttar - Terrifying, none of them can play that game with wingbacks as it is, but Flint is a massive downgrade and I don't think Wilmot or Fox can play with him. On days like today the defensive unit was exposed by quality and no one can deny it. Whereas it's more frequently swept under the rug When we churn out a 1-1 with the likes of Bristol.

3. Wingback system without actual wingbacks. Does not work. Another poster mentioned it's only half useful when Tymon is firing - Dead right!

4. I know its being worked on but fitness. It's not longer excusable. 




I think we're all still affording him time and everyone appreciates the morale of the players/ fitness / inherting a squad etc. But so far I've seen nothing to suggest he's up to the scale of the task yet. 

[Bera’s Beano]

On a scale of 0-10 I’d rate Alex’s performance as…

Michael O’Neil

[Fred Merger]

0 nothing apart from a 10 min spell after an obvious bollocking at halftime.

[OldStokie]

2 from me. 1 because they're not his players and another 1 because I thought two of the goals were offside. I've knocked 8 off because his tactics, system, and team selection were as bad as anything MON served up at his worst.

OS.

[Gods]

I wonder if we might see another managerial change before the seasons out.

We've gone from 12 years stability under Pulis and Hughes to changing the manager more often than I change my underpants.

[iamstokie]

Oct 2, 2022 18:29:22 GMT Gods said:

I wonder if we might see another managerial change before the seasons out.

We've gone from 12 years stability under Pulis and Hughes to changing the manager more often than I change my underpants.

I couldn’t a fuck if we change managers every month if we finally get a good one tbh

[dutchstokie]

0 - fuckin disgusting ‘performance’

[chrisgal]

I cannot for the life of me think why you are all rating the manager. I have been a Stoke fan since the mid 60's. To the last man in the Stoke team at championship level I would not rate any of them more than 4/10. No effort. No stamina. No skill, No pace, No commitment. This is not down to the current manager. I gave O'Neil loads of time as he had a very difficult job getting rid of all the high earners which he did well, and he is the only manager I can remember Giving any younger players game time although the team were crap. We have had 3 or 4 managers since we were relegated, and I have not seen any difference in the style of play. Today was an absolute embarrassment on all fronts. Loads of high balls put into the box and we won ONE header. Today we were outclassed in every department. You may tell me different if you watched it on TV but I can only remember 1 shot on target from a Baker free kick that was saved well by a keeper that we released and has played in the Premiership. The keeper we released looked far more confident than Bursik. I wish I had stopped at home and watched it on Sky. On a positive point Man Utd got stuffed.