DPL v Crewe A

Two struggling teams take to the field tomorrow. Crewe have declined alongside us and were as high as 2nd and are now down to 13, one below us. Form-wise they have had more draws and 1 win compared with our 3 defeats and 3 wins, but there have usually only been one goal either way, so they generally defend better.

I wrote that yesterday and only discovered today that there are interviews on you tube with Copps and Schofield which are not on iFollow and are not referenced from the Official Site! My impression of him from that is that he is in his own words very “process-driven", a man who has studied the manuals and is probably thorough in the way he coaches. I have never read a football coaching manual, but I imagine that there is an extensive range of them. I also assume that the big clubs embrace their teaching fairly thoroughly. Adaptation is, I suppose, a necessary skill when it comes to the very talented players and equally to those incapable of appropriate execution of the manoeuvres in the Manual, a part of his training which will need to come well to the fore with some of our squad.

On the same page as his interviews yesterday is an interview on the Huddersfield pre-season game at the Keepmoat which they lost 1-0! The questions were not really “open" and his answers were relatively brief and rather underlined his process-driven approach and his seeming lack of emotion that their first team squad had lost to us.

So we await how he might rearrange his assets and their operation into a more efficient footballing combination. We know that earlier in the season (admittedly usually with Tommy Rowe present) winning combinations were assembled which may not have produced scintillating skill, but did enough to hold on or to score the vital goal when it mattered. So one might conclude that the raw material is available.

Beyond coaching the players and presumably selecting the team, we do not know to what extent his role will include managerial functions. Perhaps Copps (whose enthusiasm for the appointment rather exceeded that of his chosen one) will have a more prominent role and presence in communicating with us.

Coming back to Next Business, Crewe have it in them to win matches and only 3 weeks ago they went to Carlisle and drew 0-0 with the majority of possession and shots on goal, plus, obviously, a better defence than ours.

They are the home team, and with only 1 day to coach his new team it would be reckless to forecast a win for Rovers. So 0-2.

(I’ve noticed fewer followers add “RTID" nowadays.)