What Changed?

However you cut and dice it, whatever analysis and stats you look at..

There is actually only one answer to JAH's question.

Money.

Apparently we don't have players who can pass a ball anymore. Why that is I don't know.
Holden was certainly a big loss. The newer players don't seem to be all that skillful to me. Add that to certain others who are well past the sell by dates and there you have it.
I don't know if OC can turn this around.

No effective plan B.

We have players with ability, we do.

But until we see Kevin Davies dropped, we will never see our team click together, as we are so focused on pumping it forward to him, and then him losing control, we will never create anything.

Even if we do start him, and try and pass the ball, when we get in an advantageous position, only one of our forwards have made a run, and the other walks in treacle. Meaning its incredibly easy for teams to effectively stop up in our tracks. No coincidence we've scored the majority of goals from lumps into the area or a set piece, never going to score a goal from open play until we see movement up top and width on the wings.

CYL, Muamba and Holden were missed badly last season. We didnt have the money to replace them. Which never helps proceedings. When you are losing 30m a season over revenue, how can you sign someone? That was poor management from the board over a 5 year period when Megson left. That is not me defending Coyle, that is me criticising the board for terrible, terrible management from the top.

Muamba? Please don't use him in that sentence.

What changed?

First and foremost, I think the quality of personel has had the biggest impact. For a variety of reasons.

1. Finances
Coyle simply hasn't had the money to spend on replacing some of the talent lost. Elmander for example was one of the most talented players in the squad and was neither retained nor replaced. I know he wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and didn't bag enough goals for some fans, but IMO we lost half our footballing brain with his departure.
Gary Cahill was our best defender by a country mile and was replaced by someone who can even head a ball never mind defend at the level we hoped he could.
Also, we were seemingly not in any position to replace the likes of Holden and Lee due to available finances.

2. Injury
To lose Holden and Lee was too much to overcome on top of the other 2 quality players we lost. Most teams would struggle losing such influential members of the team at a time when it is difficult to bring in replacements, on a budget.
There were others injured to boot which didn't help matters - Sean Davis (could have been a big help if he had avoided a career ending injury), Tyrone Mears (doubt he would have ever made much of a difference but who knows?)

3. Retirement
Muamba has gone. Sure he had his limitations but he could break up opposition attacks like the best of them. I think he has been a huge loss given that it is goals conceded that has been our biggest problem for a long time now.

3. Loss of Form
Kevin Davies' time was up 2 years ago and we've since just been prolonging the agony. Jussi Jaaskelainen was showing signs of not being as sharp as he was in the past and lost his place to Bogdan. Two hugely key members of our first team who started to lose it at the wrong time for us. Even Paul Robinson (someone I never rated) played his best season ever and then completely fell apart.

4. Tactics
I haven't seen anything to convince me that Owen Coyle has any tactical nouse when it comes to organizing his team. I don't see any particular system as such other than just trying to encourage players to play to their individuals strengths. He also doesn't seem to be able to switch up the way we play based on combating the opposition's threat - it just isn't there.
No doubt he is a great motivator, and by convincing players to go out and 'express themselves' on the pitch, gets the odd outstanding performance for the better players (usually loaners). It worked when he first came in because his motivation was no doubt a breath of fresh air to the players who had been grinding away playing absolutely rotten football under Megson.
During that period we also caught teams by surprise because they had no idea how to play us. Much like the better newly promoted teams seem to do well during their first few month in the Premiership, because teams don't know enough about them, we caught out many a club because they were expecting Megson's Bolton to show up and instead got Barcelona (heh!).

All that leads me to what I consider to be out biggest problem right now...

5. Confidence
It's shot. Completely shot. You can see just by watching our defence back off, terrified of the ball. The way they have resorted to HOOFing it long to Davies again tells me that they can't get rid of the ball fast enough and have zero confidence in finding a simple pass in order to retain possession instead of giving it straight back to the opposing team.
I believe, if they have time, Coyle wants them to look for another option before launching a long ball forward. I cannot believe he has changed his entire footballing philosophy and encourages them to give the ball away so cheaply.

Anyhow, that's what I think changed for the most part...


WHAT HASN'T CHANGED is a whole other problem and actually the reason I think we now need consider finding a new manager.

The reason being - Coyle simply hasn't learned by his mistakes...

The fact that it took until last week to finally get in a left back who is capable of preventing a ball from being crossed into the box on virtually every attack is inconceivable to me. Robbo was shot and we didn't replace him, Alonso was not only unknown at Premiership level but with his driving incident no-one knew, or still does for that matter, how it would pan out for him. Ricketts is not and never will be a left back.
It took 2 years to reach this conclusion, and by conclusion, I mean bringing someone in on loan for 3 months. It blows my mind.

Re-signing the incompetent Zat Knight left me dumbfounded. He has never been good and never will be and if Coyle thinks he can improve this guy then he is completely out of his mind.

Kevin Davies is still the first player on the teamsheet. It's time to give it up, let it go, move on. Please!
An absolute legend, a hero, a White through and through but his time is up and as long as he is on the pitch we'll allow players like Knight and Ream to take the easy option out, HOOF it long and give the ball away again and again.
Please, please, please can we see a couple of complementing forwards play up front for us... Reeves/Philliskirk, McGinlay/Walker etc.
I understand a club with limited resources like ours playing with one up front in the Premiership but we're in the Championship for God's sake. Surely it's time to give it a try?


Alright, I'm done. I've been quiet for a while but just wanted to vent for a minute or two.
Thanks for listening.

COYW!

Super essay above 5*

agree with every word said by finlay. nothing to add.

Once again our Gotham correspondent nails it.

You sure you're not Batman?

Good essay but what makes you think that if KD is dropped the centre halves won't still lump the ball up the pitch. Guys like Knight aren't good enough and we all know it, except Owen it would seem.

I think that is a flaw in your post but apart from that very good.