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Please, for once… don’t let history go in a cycle. We’ve been there, done that…

6th October 2008 By Guest Blogger Leave a Comment

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So we reach the magical ten games in mark and we are only five points off the play-offs. If we win the next three on the bounce we could easily be in the play-offs.

Of course, we also happen to be two points off the bottom three and lose the next three and we will most certainly be well entrenched in the relegation places. So welcome to the bloodbath that is the Championship.

So which way to look, up or down? Well the division is so much of a muchness in many regards that to you probably need to play a third to a half of a season to get a genuine sense of what lies in store.

Ten games can only really give your guess a sliver of empirical rigidity, not much more. So Stanley's analysis of the current state of play does come with the health warning that those three straight wins could quite easily emerge out of the October mists when combat resumes in a fortnight. However Stanley's money is on the more likely scenario of more defeats.

City are weak in terms of physicality, depth and, frankly the most worrying aspect, direction. Roeder is not acting in a way which suggests he knows his best team, preferred formation and the key positions to reinforce come January, or through the ridiculously over-used loan system.

City's predicament arises from two linked problems. Issues of bad refereeing, bad luck and injuries are unfortunately red herrings which should not be used to hide the truth. Both stem from the manager.

The team needs to be more settled in it's make-up and approach. Consistency comes from consistency of selection and formation. Injuries and suspensions alone do not account for, let alone justify, Roeder's Grant-esque inability to resist tinkering. Playing players out of position, weather it be Hoolahan on the right wing at Barnsley or Koroma on the left wing against Derby, is another basic mistake.

These mistakes are indicative of a manger who does not know his best team, preferred formation or perhaps even what he actually wants from the team. It is bordering on the desperate and seems to reflect a manger desperately thrashing around for a solution in a chaotic and unsystematic way.

As a result, to Stanley's reckoning, City have now got five players (Cureton, Lupoli, Koroma, Lita and Hoolahan) who can fill the 'little man up front' role, but only one player who can fill the 'big man up front role' (Siberski). Four of whom also happen to be loanees.

Lita is a good player, but it is the target man position we need cover in. Roeder's signings Lupoli and Hoolahan are discarded before they have been given a chance to 'bed in' because their impacts have not been instant. Desperate management.

And, of course, we are still short of that domineering midfield player to play alongside the very impressive Clingan, now that Fotheringham has been dropped by the manager who made him captain ten games ago. The recall of Grounds, by Middlesborough, further demonstrates the dangers of building a team upon lonees. It is like building a house upon a bed of sand.

In short it's all rather desperate stuff from an increasingly, so it seems, desperate manager. So time to panic? To be honest no – things can turn round very quickly and in Marshall, Bertrand, Stefanovic, Kennedy, Omuozsi, Bell, Clingan, Russell, Hoolihan, Lupoli and Lita we have some very good players.

It is simply a case of getting them all on the pitch at the same time in the face of the obstacles of injuries, suspensions, loan arrangements and managerial impatience.

Then it's a case of buying the domineering midfield player and target man come January. Which of course brings us to the next thorny issue money and proposed takeovers. Frankly a messy business and one Stanley is sceptical about the likelihood of happening.

Roeder's job is a tough one without a shadow of a doubt, but he could make it easier on himself by developing some patience. Give the team time to 'gel' would be Stanley's advice, but Stanley has never even managed an Under-10s football team so what does he know?

Quite a bit unfortunately based on watching the same mistakes being made by several of Roeder's predecessors before the inevitable happened. History really does go in cycles, just ask the nearest economist…


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Filed Under: Column, Stanley

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