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Chopping, changing, tactics
at 20:32 25 Aug 2018

Not a regular poster on here and never started a post but am doing so today to address the biggest issue at the moment on the pitch. I wasn’t there today but had reports from those who were, and I did watch the Peterborough game, plus follow all the others so feel qualified enough to vent my opinion. I’m not for a minute a ‘Hill out’ fan and he has brought more good times to my time supporting Dale (30 years) than any other manager, but there has been a developing problem over the last 2/3 seasons which is now becoming a massive one.

For me, what Hill is good at historically is recruitment (bar the odd failure), developing young players, fixing broken toys and all that, and I agree with his statement the other day that our squad is better this season than last. But it’s becoming clear he doesn’t know how to use the players he’s got. From game to game, and during games, the personnel, formation and tactics change so much, as a fan you just wonder whether he knows what he’s doing. And bringing in a new RB and keeper so soon into the season without any apparent need for cover is troubling.

It seems like he’s constantly searching for a combination that works, either in setting up the team before the games or during them, and the players get switched around so much it can’t be good for them. I could list some examples but we'd be here all day. We’ve got away with it for the last two years, but every Saturday before kick off, as fans we’ve usually no idea what the team will be or how they’ll line up — it’s fine if we win but we obviously struggled last season and have just lost our first three home games. Yes we played Peterborough and Barnsley in the first two, bigger budgets etc but we made it much easier than it should have been. Today we lost at home to an average team by all accounts.

We need a proper, settled strategy that suits the players and makes them comfortable, and less switching when the game is going on. I don’t care about stats that show how many miles everyone runs, I want to see us more decisive at both ends of the pitch and that comes from having an effective, stable system where everyone knows their jobs, a way of playing that everyone is happy with and much less chopping and changing. We could run 20 miles more than the opposition during a game without affecting the result. And playing out from the back and knocking it around prettily like Man City looks nice but this is League One and has created more problems than benefits.

Hill can’t keep blaming each loss on player ‘mistakes’ as happened yet again today. Some proper questions from journalists about tactics after games would help to enlighten fans as I’m not sure what the plan is to win games or what’s going on in Keith’s head. But would that be blasphemy?

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rich_dale

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