+ Visit Cardiff FC for Latest News, Transfer Gossip, Fixtures and Match Results |
He’s so far out of his depth it’s embarrassing.
Why he persists with the formation that saw his predecessor get the boot I don’t know
To be fair to Morison, we were terrible yesterday and the players deserved to be criticised, especially the central defenders - he was right when he said Bristol had more desire than us. “Brutal” is the right word to describe what he said, but, if it were a one off, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. The trouble is, it’s far from that - it follows on from him effectively blaming last week’s defeat on his front two and his disgraceful treatment of Isaak Davies after the Bournemouth match when, if he was going to single out individuals, it was Bacuna who was far more deserving of such treatment.
I notice Bacuna wasn’t in the eighteen yesterday despite him being available again after the suspension, so it would appear that his ridiculous sending off did have an effect on our manager. In truth though, if Morison has decided Bacuna no longer features in his plans, he is a little unlucky because he’s the only one out of the failing seven or eight senior players that I believe are most responsible for our struggles who our manager has lost faith in.
That’s the second thing I don’t like about Morison’s management, he is increasingly losing confidence in the group of home produced young players who I’d say have given us more hope that we can get out of this mess than their seniors. It shouldn’t be like that, a relegation struggling squad which is almost solely reliant on inexperienced players in their early twenties or younger for its flair and invention is a recipe for disaster, but it’s the likes of Colwill, Davies, Giles and Evans (if he were given more of a chance) who were capable of “making something happen” for us, not their seniors. Yet, such players are playing less of a part for us as Morison relies on a group who are losing games for us week in, week out with their substandard displays - I’ve still not heard about an injury to Colwill which prevented from being in the squad today and, if there wasn’t one, then it was a disgraceful decision by Morison to leave him out because it suggests that he thinks there’s only room for one number ten type player in our match day squad.
It had been Colwill, but, now we have Doyle (who, hardly surprisingly, became less influential as his first senior start of the season went on) and Morison’s selection suggested the former was no longer required when the opposite was the case when we found ourselves losing with a tiring Doyle less prominent.
I don’t really have an issue with three centre backs because I don’t see how using just two out of Flint, Nelson, Morison and McGuiness will result in an improvement in our defending. Let’s not forget either that our complete lack of wingers means we would lose the little attacking contribution we get from our current wing backs as they reverted to full backs in a flat back four as it seems to me that the only players we have capable of making a worthwhile job of a wide attacking role are in the group of players he had at under 23 level who he is now showing very little faith in.
I can’t see anything other than a defeat against Forest next week and, watching us yesterday, Liverpool will get a cricket score against us if they’re in the mood to. After that we face a side that are worse away from home than we are at home. Peterborough is a huge game for us and our manager - if we’re as insipid at home as we usually are and end up losing that one then, as someone who has always thought Morison would see out the season with us, I would agree the Board would be under real pressure to make a change.
I like the fact that Morison is trying to change the way we play, but he is doing it with a group of centrebacks and too many central midfielders who are wholly unsuited to playing a passing game well - in many ways, he’s being penalised for the failings of previous managers (Warnock in particular), but he really isn’t helping his cause with some of his selections and a lot of his public comments.
He's not wrong.
He himself can do better but the senior pros in this squad are a shadow of themselves and the rot has set in.
The contract issues, or lack of have to play a part. If you know you aren't around next season and neither may SM be, then you aren't quite putting in the effort you would otherwise. Probably isn't even a conscious thing. Few % drop off in intensity here and there and we get punished.
I don't think the changes to the squad in recent months, and now during the window have made it necessarily stronger, just given us a few more options. To improve a squad you broadly speaking need to replace a player/position with someone better, so in overall strength terms, we're not. We're still probably the worst squad in the Championship apart from [presumably] Barnsley and Peterborough. Reading have an awful injury list which may well abate in the coming weeks, and directly above us are Hull, who ran Everton off the park for 75 minutes and look absolutely light years ahead of us in terms of pace, sharpness and energy. Back 3, back 4, back 5, yesterday all poor defending whatever the formation. But we're kidding ourselves if we think there's 'quality' enough in this squad. The football Gods have been with us this season though, and we hopefully can re-boot seriously in the summer.
I'm not saying that the players have stopped trying at the moment, but they downed tools on Harris last season and they clearly hated playing for McCarthy at the end of his tenure, so why won't they have a similar reaction to Morison if he keeps calling them out in public?
I found his comments quite refreshing. Yes he is treading dangerous ground but he also needs to change the system and remove those players who aren't trying. Pack being top of my list.
He's had a sideways dig at Watters too, saying he scored a goal, but didn't do a lot more. I thought he made a couple of decent runs off the shoulder, but we just don't have anyone to pick the pass,
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/...-city-22844237
Maybe the ultimate truth is Morison simply isn’t a very good manager even quite a bad one.Perhaps he just got lucky managing the most talented under 23s we had for a couple of decades and anyone with the most moderate level of competence would have done a similar job with them. He had some early success but this was possible down to new manager effect.
There seems to be general agreement he is picking the wrong team using the wrong tactics and making the wrong subsistutions not to mention the unwise comments after the game. To make matters worse now he is failing he seems to be doubling down on his mistakes and going back to the experienced players who got us into this mess in the first place.
To be honest can’t really think of any obvious replacement.
He’s right. It’s probably what most fans and managers think.
But regardless he shouldn’t be saying that in a press conference.
Weird