Sun Mar 19, 2017 10:43 am
Not sure why there is all of a sudden criticism of Whitney? He's never looked like being a decent manager. I gave him credit for improving our form during the middle 3 months of the season - but any sensible person has to temper that credit with common sense.
Yes, he achieved an improvement in form, but it has only been because we've played 5 defenders and 2 defensive midfielders, coupled with the widely accepted assertion that the league this season is extremely poor.
Yesterday was a case in point - this league is so poor that on paper, Southend and Walsall were only 2 positions apart at kickoff, but on the pitch, we were worlds apart - they had Robinson, Ranger and Cox as a forward line, we had Makris and Moussa, just let that sink in.
On to the game...
Southend had the better of the opening 20minutes, and as is usual, our defence got carved open from a cross, Ranger missed a very good chance.
We then scored 2 goals in quick succession, both against the run of play, both due to very good work by Edwards on the left wing, and both very neat finishes from Moussa.
Apart from that, we created nothing. I honestly don't remember another attempt on goal.
Second half, we were passive - no presence up front whatsoever, so much so that Southend subbed off their centre half and brought Demetriou on.
Their first goal was a bit harsh, the ref allowed the free kick to be taken quickly, before Etheridge was even looking - which despite people on twitter saying on Twitter that is perfectly fine, doesn't seem right to me - surely the ref needs to check the keeper is looking up?
After that we crumbled.
By 60 minutes, Dobson was blowing out of his arse, as were Moussa, as was Makris. All this talk of having a great physio, isn't it amazing how unfit we look?
Their second goal was another cross/corner which we failed to defend, and their third was an excellently taken freekick by Cox. The freekick looked a bit of a dive TBH, almost as if once Cox was on, they went looking for freekicks around the edge of the area, but the ref fell for this ruse.
After that, we were lucky not to concede another couple, with Etheridge pulling off a decent save.
So...the dissection.
We're a poor side, Whitney is a poor manager. He did absolutely nothing to counter Phil Brown yesterday, he just stood by passively allowing the game to slip out of our hands. From the post-match comments that I have seen from Whitney, he's blamed set piece defending, but the reason we're giving away set pieces in dangerous places is because we don't defend from the front! It's not rocket science, but obviously Jon can't grasp it.
All season we've been far too vulnerable to crosses, but you've got to look at the source of the problem - why are so many crosses coming in? Answer: Because we give teams far too much space on the periphery of our box, hence we either see a lot of crosses coming in, or we give away a lot of fouls as teams exploit this weakness.
Whitney tried to fix this problem by his mid season swap to 5-3-1-1 from 4-4-1-1, but this tries to fix the problem by putting an extra big bloke in the middle to head it away, but completely ignores solving the problem at source (ie stopping the crosses coming in).
He's signed so many unfit players it's crazy, and most of us were saying that at the start of the season. Moussa got rejected by Southend because he wasn't fit enough, surprise surprise, he had to be subbed off yesterday (after being subbed on after 15 mins!). Dobson was blowing out of his arse, Makris barely got near the ball all afternoon, and Preston appears to have put weight on. Our fitness is shocking.
I'm not going to change my tune on Whitney, I don't think he's fit to be our manager. He's not fit to clean Graydon's shoes, or Richard Money's , we as a club - a club relatively flush after some big sales - should be aiming higher than a glorified physio as manager.
Good to see Makris start yesterday, finally people will start seeing that he's not a professional footballer, he's more likely a window cleaner who's won a competition to be a pro footballer for a year.
He didn't win a single header or challenge yesterday, didn't have a single attempt on goal, didn't get in behind once, and looked nackered from about half an hour in. He's got no pace, no height, no strength, no movement, no guile, no skill - easily one of the worst forwards I've seen play for Walsall, even Ngoo and Dickinson were at least a handful for opposing defenders because of their sheer size.
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned some nice inter-play with Moussa? Must have missed that. Someone said he worked hard? Jesus, what world do you live in? Don't you remember the shift's Leitao used to put in? The shifts Mooney used to put in? Remember how they would create chances just because they would chase and chase and chase and chase until defenders made mistakes - have you ever seen that from Makris? No. Will you ever see it? No.
Who ever is responsible for signing Makris (assuming it isn't a fiddle), should be fired.
It's sad to see because he's a young lad, but he's simply no where near the standard we require - those supporting him, or saying he'll come good next season are either deluded, or have been watching Walsall too long and are blinded by the pound signs. Still, even those will come to the realisation soon.
I think the club have already come to that realisation, and will let him go in the close season.
