Todays tactics, hit or miss?

Can we be critical of a manager whose tactics ultimately won the match?  His late substitution scored the winner even. 

There are a couple of ways of looking at today's game.... 

1. We won. The manager can't be really criticised.  
2. We won but were lucky. The manager still got it mostly wrong. 

I can think of arguments as to why both statements could be valid and reasonably backed up.  

What's your take on today from a tactical point of view?

Biggie wrote:Can we be critical of a manager whose tactics ultimately won the match?  His late substitution scored the winner even. 

There are a couple of ways of looking at today's game.... 

1. We won. The manager can't be really criticised.  
2. We won but were lucky. The manager still got it mostly wrong. 

I can think of arguments as to why both statements could be valid and reasonably backed up.  

What's your take on today from a tactical point of view?

No. 2- we were really lucky Lennon got it wrong from the start with someone as slow and lumbering as Heskey. With Woolery on we would have won the game by half time

Answer to the question is obviously 2.

Theoretically any manager can make a whole catalogue of stupid decisions and still win a match.

In this case I don't think Lennon can be blamed on many issues.

It's never exciting to see Heskey starting, but Woolery was apparently ineffective at Wolves and Heskey came on and made a good impact.

I'd have probably kept Wellington on despite that he wasn't playing well.

I do think Pratley is getting an easy ride from Lennon. Trotter is currently the miles better player I have to say.

doffcocker wrote:Answer to the question is obviously 2.

Theoretically any manager can make a whole catalogue of stupid decisions and still win a match.

In this case I don't think Lennon can be blamed on many issues.

It's never exciting to see Heskey starting, but Woolery was apparently ineffective at Wolves and Heskey came on and made a good impact.

I'd have probably kept Wellington on despite that he wasn't playing well.

I do think Pratley is getting an easy ride from Lennon. Trotter is currently the miles better player I have to say

Lennon can be blamed on many issues, today he persisted with hoofball when Rotherham had big units at the back, he took off the only striker on the pitch to replace him with a midfielder, as you say Trotter has been immense since returning from Forest, yet gets dropped, had it not been for Amos Woolery's goal would have been irrelevant, Lennon is a clueless prick.

Sorry about the long post which follows. But hopefully you will enjoy reading the theory.  


I think the match was boring.  As a supporter I wanted Heskey off sooner and for us to ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK as chanted toward the end of the game.  

However, the tactics employed we're probably quite deliberate.  We were mostly disciplined at the back and without the ball.  We started fast and high pressure and it paid off in a really quick goal.  

Then there was the lull. We time wasted, stood off.  Passed slowly and were mostly cautious with the ball.  This started in the 3rd minute. 

Even the ball boys were told not to fetch the ball back.  

Why we decided that this was the best approach against Rothrrham at home is a bit beyond me.

Heskey stayed on not because he was great but because the aim was to allow Woolery to have the biggest impact.  

The more we "held them" as the game progressed the more risks they  started to take and the more men they pushed forward.  I say this was deliberate because the more confident they got the better it was for us.  

At a certain critical point in the match Rotherham made a couple of tactical changes and suddenly their defensive line was the highest it had been all game.  

At this point we threw the switch.  Feeney went up front on his own and Heskey went off. Then Woolery came on a few mins later.  
With their defensive line up near half way we started to exploit the gaps and use pace to break quickly.  

Ultimately it worked.  Wooly scored. 

And with a couple of better passes in the last 5 mins we could have got a couple more.  

The key here was the leaving it late.  

At 1-1 if we bring on Woolery with 30 mins to play, or even 20... Rotherham keep their shape and deeper defence line. With so long left away from home,if we start pressing hard they are happy to soak up the pressure,get deeper and deeper and hope for a lucky break. If it ends  1-1 they are happy to take it. 

At 1-1 80 mins on the clock. On the front foot away from home they start to sense a win. And push higher. 

Without that ambition to push higher there would not have been the big gaps in behind for us to exploit later on. If we didnt coax them up the pitch the effectiveness of Woolery would have been nullified. 

Once Wooly was on Rotherham could have gone more defensive. But by then it was a game of stick or twist. A lot of teams twist. Its worth the gamble. Plus it would be hard for them possibly to go defensive after making two attacking substitutions a few minutes earlier. 

That's the theory behind it anyway.  
Whether we like watching it or not is another thing.  
Did it work? Yes.  
Could another tactic have worked? Possibly. 


Its a risky strategy but arguably less risky than us being a bit more gung ho.

Interesting take Biggie. When Woolery started against Wolves we dominated possession because Wolves daren't get up the pitch - still we conceded 2 bad goals. But when he was subbed Dobbie etc took advantage of wolves being knackered. 

My take is that Woolery - played correctly - gives us something different from lumping it to madine or heskey so can be used tactically as the game requires. Two sides of the same coin.

Lennon got lucky in my opinion, the first substitution to take off Heskey and put Feeney up front was stupid. Feeney was doing well down the wing and he is no centre forward. The better call would have been to do a straight swap for Heskey with Woolery and not move other players around unnecessarily.

He also should have left Silva on and brought on Trotter for Pratley but as i said at the start Lennon got lucky

Good thoughtfull post Biggie, but I think you give Lennon too much nous

He started with Heskey because he was the only fit striker, Woolery is a winger

For 70 mins we were playing with 9 men, Heskey gave us nothing and Davies and (un-fit?) Pratley were only worth one fit player
Rotherham had 3 very good chances to score so the game would have been out of our reach by the time he brought on Woolery
They made subs and so did we, that changed the balance of the game into our favour and for a change we got lucky a chance fell to someone who could take it, Woolery, and the 3 points were ours

Woolery has been a striker since Tamworth but Lennon seems to think that the central positions are sacrosanct and youngsters shouldn't be given the opportunity so Woolery and Clayton get shoved out on the wing just as Holding was made to play RB until needs must and Lennon had to let him play in his natural position. No doubt Alex Finney will be given a shot at FB before he's trusted enough to play CB - it's the way Lennon thinks. Seems a crazy way of thinking IMO but that's what we're stuck with for now.

In mitigation of Lennon's tactics, it is really noticeable that consistency on an individual basis has been a major issue of late. 
Wellie was great v Wolves but shit yesterday.
Pratley wasn't at his best and Moxey was poor compared to recent matches. Spearing has started to show a bit of form. There are dips and rises in form all over the team so it must make selection a nightmare.
That said I can't see why Trotter, who has been playing well for months according to the Forest fans, was dropped after doing so well against Wolves - presumably to make way for the captain's return when Spearing deserved to be retained.
For 20 minutes in the second half yesterday, we had Pratley, Spearing and Trotter on the pitch at the same time and we finally got a degree of control of the midfield so it's encouraging to know that if the match situation requires it, we have the talent to stop teams from playing. The downside was that we weren't very creative ourselves until Woolery and Dobbie were brought on but that worked out OK as much by accident as by design IMO.

I am encouraged that Lennon is finally recognising that we have a range of skills and tactics at our disposal including pace up front and tenacity in midfield but I'm not confident that Lennon is capable of using the right tactics at the right time. He seems scared of trusting the kids to do a job despite the fact that nobody would blame him for trying something new even if it didn't work out. But he's getting better at it than he was a few months ago.

In normal circumstances Lennon would have been sacked months ago, prob after Rotherham away.

Most managers who are dismissed say that if they had been given more time they would have got it right, the fans have cut him, Lennon, some slack because of our present situation.

So could he get it 'right'?

CAMPO wrote:In normal circumstances Lennon would have been sacked months ago, prob after Rotherham away.

Most managers who are dismissed say that if they had been given more time they would have got it right, the fans have cut him, Lennon, some slack because of our present situation.

So could he get it 'right'?

In short no fucking way, he's clueless.

People will always just build their argument based on their personal agenda for or against a manager.

I mean nobody was calling Lennon clueless this time last year when we were mid-table. The absolute opposite in fact. Presumably that means everybody basically agreed with every single decision he'd made as that point in time. It's only this season that he's come up with a whole new set of managerial principles and strategies and it's for that reason that it's all gone tits up? I suspect it's more the case that he's doing pretty much everything the same way as he always has, but other factors have taken their toll, and people need somebody to blame for how crap we are.

We won. The manager got lucky. The players got lucky. They got unlucky. We were actually crap. They were actually crap. Flash in the pan and the test will be the upcoming six games.

doffcocker wrote:People will always just build their argument based on their personal agenda for or against a manager.

Speak for yourself you pleb.

I can tell within 3 games whether a manager will be any good. I actually called Owen Coyle after 2 games.

Lennon is out of his depth without pots of cash to spend and inferior opposition. Hopefully the ST will get shut when they takeover and put Crispy Cock in charge.

Natasha Whittam wrote:
Lennon is out of his depth without pots of cash to spend and inferior opposition. Hopefully the ST will get shut when they takeover and put Crispy Cock in charge.

Stupid post by a stupid person.

Lennon kept us up last season, hardly spending a penny.

There's no way anyone could know what he could produce in this league given a few million to spend.

doffcocker wrote:

Stupid post by a stupid person.

Lennon kept us up last season, hardly spending a penny.

There's no way anyone could know what he could produce in this league given a few million to spend.

Hello Mr Stupid. Kept us up? He had a decent squad with experienced players, Magoo could have kept us up.

He's signed 20 odd players since he came to Bolton - how many have been a success?

This thread reeks of repressed sexual tension.

Cold showers required all round.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

He's signed 20 odd players since he came to Bolton - how many have been a success?

Yes but you said the exact same thing about Freedman, yet here you are claiming that he left Lennon a "decent squad with experienced players".

What a fanny.

doffcocker wrote:

Yes but you said the exact same thing about Freedman, yet here you are claiming that he left Lennon a "decent squad with experienced players".

What a fanny.

Freedman had a decent squad but fucked it up. Lennon inherited a squad more than capable of mid-table but he's fucked it up.

Neither could sign a good player if I wrote the names down for them.

Now leave me alone, I want to watch Simon Reeves without interruption.