Barrow AFC.net

Niall Maher gone to Grimsby!

blue nige wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:50 pm

BarrowLad71 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:51 am A lot on here forgetting we have one of the best defensive records in the league , we just couldn’t score goals… being very overdramatic about what we’ve already got.

That's because we played so defensively it was embarrassing!, how many times after home games did we nearly all complain about no shots ,nobody getting into the penalty area etc , our team (Cooper's) after starting promisingly he decided to go defensive so yes we did not concede many but our attacking side was woeful, we need to now get this balance right or we'll be back down the bottom again !

Probably coz Cooper knew we wouldn't score unless it was a penalty

Andy Firth always liking our tweets these days. Wonder if theres anything in that. I am sure not but good to see ex players still paying attention to things like season ticket sales.

Nothing in that he's been doing it since he left.

blue nige wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:50 pm

BarrowLad71 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:51 am A lot on here forgetting we have one of the best defensive records in the league , we just couldn’t score goals… being very overdramatic about what we’ve already got.

That's because we played so defensively it was embarrassing!, how many times after home games did we nearly all complain about no shots ,nobody getting into the penalty area etc , our team (Cooper's) after starting promisingly he decided to go defensive so yes we did not concede many but our attacking side was woeful, we need to now get this balance right or we'll be back down the bottom again !

I don’t think he did set up defensively at home at all. He very often favoured an attacking 3-4-1-2 with Rooney just in behind a front 2 and flanked by wingbacks and often Kay / Hutton. How more attack set up can you be ??
We often dominated possession and had more completed passes and more dangerous attacks than the opposition.
The bottom line is we weren’t good enough and that culminated in the defeat at home to Carlisle. Mistakes cost us time and again.

Jonty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:47 pm
We often dominated possession and had more completed passes and more dangerous attacks than the opposition.

We didn’t have anyone good enough to get on the end of the numerous crosses put into the box. Under cooper I lost count of how many crosses we put in with nobody on the end of them. Hence we were all shouting for a striker.

Main Stand SeasonTct wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 4:04 pm

Jonty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:47 pm
We often dominated possession and had more completed passes and more dangerous attacks than the opposition.

We didn’t have anyone good enough to get on the end of the numerous crosses put into the box. Under cooper I lost count of how many crosses we put in with nobody on the end of them. Hence we were all shouting for a striker.

Yes very much agree many good scoring opportunities not being taken. I had a go at trying to work out our points difference by adding a Barrow goal to each of the last 10 Cooper games and we would have been 12 points better off, well clear and he probably would have kept his job. Just shows you the fine margins in our results and highlights the total lack of goalscoring threat. By the way our strikers scored ONE goal between them in that lousy 10 game run and that was Holloway against Northampton.

A truly woeful return from our front men and highlights exactly where the main issues are. I’m sure Wild will watch many re-runs of our games with the players

Jonty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:47 pm

blue nige wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:50 pm

That's because we played so defensively it was embarrassing!, how many times after home games did we nearly all complain about no shots ,nobody getting into the penalty area etc , our team (Cooper's) after starting promisingly he decided to go defensive so yes we did not concede many but our attacking side was woeful, we need to now get this balance right or we'll be back down the bottom again !

I don’t think he did set up defensively at home at all. He very often favoured an attacking 3-4-1-2 with Rooney just in behind a front 2 and flanked by wingbacks and often Kay / Hutton. How more attack set up can you be ??
We often dominated possession and had more completed passes and more dangerous attacks than the opposition.
The bottom line is we weren’t good enough and that culminated in the defeat at home to Carlisle. Mistakes cost us time and again.

Results, 19th February
It’s our home form. It’s been alarming and has to improve. The crowds have been great but have been left disappointed time and again. The fact is we’ve only scored 3 goals in the last 6 home league games and that has to be addressed. I’m fed up of this totally ineffective slow build up and sideways ...
I rest my case Jonty your words not mine!

blue nige wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 6:14 pm

Jonty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:47 pm

I don’t think he did set up defensively at home at all. He very often favoured an attacking 3-4-1-2 with Rooney just in behind a front 2 and flanked by wingbacks and often Kay / Hutton. How more attack set up can you be ??
We often dominated possession and had more completed passes and more dangerous attacks than the opposition.
The bottom line is we weren’t good enough and that culminated in the defeat at home to Carlisle. Mistakes cost us time and again.

Results, 19th February
It’s our home form. It’s been alarming and has to improve. The crowds have been great but have been left disappointed time and again. The fact is we’ve only scored 3 goals in the last 6 home league games and that has to be addressed. I’m fed up of this totally ineffective slow build up and sideways ...
I rest my case Jonty your words not mine!

Yes, And that poor return continued until he got sacked a few games later? I don’t understand your point digging out my posts from a long forgotten match thread? At various points I probably swung both sides of the fence during the should he stay / go debates. It was a reaction to a particular match but it followed a consistent week in week out pattern. Let me put it another way- Regardless of my view of what we did in this particular game in our own half, we were consistently ineffective in the final third- particularly so in the box, despite creating good chances in games. Does it need spelling it out any clearer?

You think he was a defensive manager, fair enough, - I don’t think he was particularly defensive, nor did he set out that way. Yes he may have adjusted during games to try and defend leads because he knew we couldn’t push on and score 2-3 but that further highlighted the issue. Our strikers scored one goal in 10 games!!

Well done on picking out a comment from a long forgotten match thread though.

Mark Cooper recruited and picked his teams.
We started well but it soon became obvious to many that we couldn’t score properly.
Cooper lauded his strikers for hard work but the truth was they couldn’t score enough.
This was an experienced manager....in the transfer window in jan he promised but signed kids who he then didn’t play hardly?
I am and my mates are still baffled by this.
Very poor management and no doubt his awful persona lost the dressing room.
Maybe he had his own objectives but we have moved on and I think wild is the the good choice to move us up

Jonty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 5:33 pm
he probably would have kept his job.

That sent shivers down my spine!

If we had kept any manager who could dish out contracts like he did to the quality of players he has done and to actually expect us to believe a front line like we had was good enough (and that includes his Jan loan signings) I wouldn't be sat here now with a ST....and after 38 years of following the club I'd have struggled to muster up the enthusiasm to actually get off the settee on a saturday and waste an afternoon of my life at HS.

spirit of 1990 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:59 am

Jonty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 5:33 pm
he probably would have kept his job.

That sent shivers down my spine!

If we had kept any manager who could dish out contracts like he did to the quality of players he has done and to actually expect us to believe a front line like we had was good enough (and that includes his Jan loan signings) I wouldn't be sat here now with a ST....and after 38 years of following the club I'd have struggled to muster up the enthusiasm to actually get off the settee on a saturday and waste an afternoon of my life at HS.

Whilst I don’t think the BoD would’ve pushed him out the door, I truly believe he would have gone anyway. For whatever reasons he wasn’t at the races mentally and could just not cope with the peculiarities of BAFC. He also came across as very inflexible- his way or no way.

Technically I do think he remains one of the best managers we’ve had. But an inability or lack of desire or willingness to adapt to situations is an absolute requirement for a BAFC manager and to a lesser extent any modern manager. I think we saw enough of Phil Brown to see the same sort of symptoms appear and would have had exactly the same outcome. Managers that have a rigid framework that extends well beyond on field performance into the way a club should be set up and run. IMO the BoD should have foreseen the possibility of the traits in Cooper and probably took action only when they inevitably re-surfaced in Brown.

Without wishing to be ageist these traits are out-of-date in a rapidly changing and perplexing football world and many would say old-fashioned. Wild already appears to have one advantage over his predecessors - he doesn’t appear to think he knows it all.

Mark cooper should never have been given the job in the first place, he was never the right fit for us, but it's all in the past now so who cares.

Suffolk Blue wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 10:25 am

spirit of 1990 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:59 am

That sent shivers down my spine!

If we had kept any manager who could dish out contracts like he did to the quality of players he has done and to actually expect us to believe a front line like we had was good enough (and that includes his Jan loan signings) I wouldn't be sat here now with a ST....and after 38 years of following the club I'd have struggled to muster up the enthusiasm to actually get off the settee on a saturday and waste an afternoon of my life at HS.

Whilst I don’t think the BoD would’ve pushed him out the door, I truly believe he would have gone anyway. For whatever reasons he wasn’t at the races mentally and could just not cope with the peculiarities of BAFC. He also came across as very inflexible- his way or no way.

One thing many have overlooked was that Mark Cooper lost his Dad very early in his tenure at Barrow. He was by all accounts close to his dad and grieving affects everyone in different ways. He has no doubt been a successful manager in the past but maybe he needed time away from the game after his fathers passing rather than a full on managers role that sadly never ended well for him

Just a couple of points. If he was that affected by his father's death then he could have asked the club for time off and I'm sure it would have been considered. Secondly if he was struggling to do the job because of the same then he could have resigned and walked away.