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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

What factors enabled our current run of form?


Jayjay23

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Dearden keeps alluding to it on GMR prematch and on The Wanderer Podcast if any of you lot listen to it; he feels there’s been a tweak in the style of play a couple of months back. Playing a little more direct with a little less emphasis on trying to tire teams out with sideways and backwards passing. Attacking the box quicker and more purposely.  
 

Pretty valid points tbf

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24 minutes ago, matty2094 said:

Dearden keeps alluding to it on GMR prematch and on The Wanderer Podcast if any of you lot listen to it; he feels there’s been a tweak in the style of play a couple of months back. Playing a little more direct with a little less emphasis on trying to tire teams out with sideways and backwards passing. Attacking the box quicker and more purposely.  
 

Pretty valid points tbf

It definitely feels that way. 

Whether it's personnel changes enforced or evatt signing I don't know but happy either way. 

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7 hours ago, matty2094 said:

Dearden keeps alluding to it on GMR prematch and on The Wanderer Podcast if any of you lot listen to it; he feels there’s been a tweak in the style of play a couple of months back. Playing a little more direct with a little less emphasis on trying to tire teams out with sideways and backwards passing. Attacking the box quicker and more purposely.  
 

Pretty valid points tbf

The manager pinpointing, working on and rectifying problems?

Who'd have thunked it :)

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9 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

I agree, they haven't put a foot wrong and their goals have been a huge bonus.  But they were part of the team losing at Cheltenham, FGR etc so there must be other factors.  In no order I would say the introductions of Toal, Morley, Shoretire and John, plus Dempsey's clear improvement and Charles finally getting some goals from open play.  Throw in some penalties, and most opposition being fairly dire in recent weeks, and its been a perfect storm.  It may last, nobody knows, let's just enjoy the journey no matter where it ends.

All very relevant points.

It’s definitely not just one thing, as you say lots of things coming together at the same time.

Surely though, during this run-in, Evatt won’t be criticised, even if we have a blip?

Theres an extended point about bringing Jones and Santos back when he did.

You don’t have to go back too long when folk pre game were quite adamant about who should/shouldn’t be playing. And plenty of people weren’t banging the drum to bring Santos and Jones back in when he did.   

He’s done more than enough to be trusted on the sides he selects.

The present example will be Bradley this weekend. I can’t decide. Whether he starts or not, I hope we don’t get “He shouldn’t have changed the back 5” “Why’s he not started with our player of the season” 

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Dempsey, Morley and Lee have been excellent. Some proper bite and intensity in that midfield now, where it was a bit pedestrian earlier in the season.

And Eoin Toal has been a revelation. What a find; his presence has also upped the game of Johnston, Santos and Jones, for me.

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1 hour ago, Rizlar said:

Partnership of Dempsey and Morley and the emergence of Toal also Dion getting his scoring boots on.

I still can't get over how well Toal has played since his arrival - absolutely rock solid so far. For years it's bugged me that we weren't spreading our net wide enough in the transfer window but it all seems to be coming together nicely now. Astute signing. Hopefully Doyler can find us another bargain or two.

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Think Dapo being replaced by Shoretire + the form of Dempsey and Morley + the introduction of Eoin Toal have been the biggest contributors.

Not sure how much we’ve tweaked it tactically to be more direct/aggressive, we still pass it around quite patiently at times but maybe we do play with a bit of a higher tempo now… Dapo and Santos both used to dally on the ball too long and that doesn’t seem to be the case any longer. Morley is always looking to drive us forward and Shoretire is perfectly suited to the 10 role with his vision and decisive passing.

 

Our confidence was knocked earlier in the season with a mix of shit mistakes like Sheffield at home and Plymouth away, and then just poor performances vs FGR and Cheltenham away.

But weve managed to get on a bit of a roll now after some good recruitment and players coming into form. We’ve stopped conceding the first goal so early, not sure what that’s down to.

But beating Barnsley 3-0 away, grinding out wins vs FGR and Cheltenham at home who both shithoused us in the reverse fixture and then a complete performance vs Charlton set the wheels in motion. The loss to Derby gave us a bit of a reality check but thankfully we brushed it off.

We’re now winning in different ways, with set piece goals and open play goals. It’s like the opposite of a vicious circle. Winning breeds confidence and that culminated in two massive 5-0 wins. 
 

The challenge now is to keep our feet on the ground, don’t get complacent and just keep our performance levels up, grinding out wins whatever which way we can. 

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4 hours ago, Mantra said:

Think Dapo being replaced by Shoretire + the form of Dempsey and Morley + the introduction of Eoin Toal have been the biggest contributors.

Not sure how much we’ve tweaked it tactically to be more direct/aggressive, we still pass it around quite patiently at times but maybe we do play with a bit of a higher tempo now… Dapo and Santos both used to dally on the ball too long and that doesn’t seem to be the case any longer. Morley is always looking to drive us forward and Shoretire is perfectly suited to the 10 role with his vision and decisive passing.

 

Our confidence was knocked earlier in the season with a mix of shit mistakes like Sheffield at home and Plymouth away, and then just poor performances vs FGR and Cheltenham away.

But weve managed to get on a bit of a roll now after some good recruitment and players coming into form. We’ve stopped conceding the first goal so early, not sure what that’s down to.

But beating Barnsley 3-0 away, grinding out wins vs FGR and Cheltenham at home who both shithoused us in the reverse fixture and then a complete performance vs Charlton set the wheels in motion. The loss to Derby gave us a bit of a reality check but thankfully we brushed it off.

We’re now winning in different ways, with set piece goals and open play goals. It’s like the opposite of a vicious circle. Winning breeds confidence and that culminated in two massive 5-0 wins. 
 

The challenge now is to keep our feet on the ground, don’t get complacent and just keep our performance levels up, grinding out wins whatever which way we can. 

For me the biggest factor is Evatt instilling both confidence and self belief in the players, that  is what has been key to our resurgence in form at similar points both this season and in the previous two seasons

There have been individual matches which have turned out to be defining moments in each of those seasons from which we have gone on to build  momentum and i think Evatt has used those games to inspire the players 

Go back to League 2 and even though we had had gone 3 games unbeaten  going into the Mansfield game we had not looked that confident , but the comeback from 2-0 down with 20 minutes to go that night and to win 3-2 at the death, just after our january signings had come on board gave the players self belief and from then on we were unstoppable. 

12 months later coming off the back of 5 successive defeats - Morley and Trafford make their debuts against Ipswich and we suddenly look a different team , the self belief and confidence is back and we thrash Sunderland 6-0 a fortnight later and go on another great run 

This season I remember thinking when we came from behind to win at Accrington that would be the catalyst for another good run, but that was a false dawn - it was the Barnsley game which will be seen as the turning point - they were on a decent unbeaten 7 match run - but we got lucky in the sense we played against 10 men for the bulk of the 90 minutes and following that win  new signings were brought into the squad and once again confidence and self belief has rocketed 

 

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10 hours ago, desperado said:

Surely though, during this run-in, Evatt won’t be criticised, even if we have a blip?

Theres an extended point about bringing Jones and Santos back when he did.

You don’t have to go back too long when folk pre game were quite adamant about who should/shouldn’t be playing. And plenty of people weren’t banging the drum to bring Santos and Jones back in when he did.   

He’s done more than enough to be trusted on the sides he selects.

The present example will be Bradley this weekend. I can’t decide. Whether he starts or not, I hope we don’t get “He shouldn’t have changed the back 5” “Why’s he not started with our player of the season” 

I'm with you on Bradley, I don't care who plays, of the contenders Bradley, Jones, Mbete, its all good and logical.  Main thing for me is round pegs in round holes.  I feel IE went a bit square pegs earlier in the season, and why shouldn't we disagree with Dapo or Sadlier at LWB?  Nobody will convince me they were the right selections at the time, but its OK to have different opinions (same with 11 back at corners, I don't get it personally, but we don't have to agree).

And not to be anti-Kachunga, but would anyone have picked him consecutively up front as many times as IE did?  The points we lost at that stage of the season can't be retrieved, they've gone for good.  Anyway, its all in the past, and IE is currently well in credit and if we lose tomorrow I will just move onto the next game, we know we're in a good place with this manager (and ownership) and this squad.  Any concerns don't even rate in the top 20 of previous seasons!  We can just enjoy the journey. 

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13 minutes ago, leigh white said:

Our manager, he is brilliant, turned Barrow for 50 years in Non League to a style of football never seen before, I just hope he never gets snapped up next season.

If we go up this year we'll keep him a bit longer. 

 

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13 hours ago, gonzo said:

Is Evatt still pig headed and arrogant now we are winning a few games?

Where are @Black Sheep, @JimmyRiddleand co?

Both habitual miserables that have no reason to be on here just now, long may it continue. Plus @Black Sheep threatened to leave, stating that all the hard men of yesteryear had already done so, presume they followed through on that.

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Maybe the players are just properly buying into the Evatt system now, including Declan John?? They finally all seem to know their jobs and actually look a team with no weak links. Certainly the arrival of Toal and the improvements in Morley and Dempsey have all helped massively but the fact that it’s almost impossible to agree on a MoM every week proves how far we’ve come?

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