There's been some poor communication around this playing style thing but so what? Even if it had been all been well communicated pre-season there's every chance we'd still be struggling with it now. That's just football (something we all seem to have lost sight of was that success this season was never guaranteed). And if Welnix want to hang on to Ricki then so be it. They are the ones paying the money and they are a hell of a lot closer to the situation and privy to a much greater level of information and insight than any of us.
[/quote]I think this is a key thing.
Had everyone come out at the start of the season and said 'We are going to try to play a different brand of football with these players this year. At times its going to be good, at times its going to be bad. We are doing this in the interests of not settling for always being a play off team. We want to win the league and the style we used was most likely not going to get us there. Bear with us as it could get bumpy but we have a plan and how we want to execute it". At least we would have gone 'Right, this is the lie of the land, we know whats coming'
As things have gone, the indication it gives everyone who tunes in is that there does not appear to be a plan with an execution strategy because of poor communication and now its a case of 'well I'm not involved in this and I know nothing of that and thats him' and the other side is saying the same. Hence all this angst comes up because the communication of it or even the execution of it (depending on your view) was just a disaster from a public perseption point of view. Considering that the public pay the bills with bums on seats, you have to make sure you are crystal clear with them or else they will throw their hands up and go 'fuck this for a game of soldiers'
I think this has been a rather large execise in how to cock up your communication and I do wonder if the same guys that advise NZC also advise Welnix... I will finish this with one thing.There needs to one mouth when
it comes to talking about future strategy. Hopefully the club have
figured that out. Whether its the coach, the GM or the Chairman is for
them to decide.
!00% this
I see Hamish Bidwell wrote an article in todays Doom post where he rehashed the "they suddenly changed styles midseason"... sloppy journalism really. But the trouble is I'd imagine that just about everyone in the public now thinks this is what happened. I have lost count of the number of people I have talked to and the subject of the Nix's season has come up and they have all said the same thing..."why did they make such a change right in the middle of the season".....its now a bona fida urban myth!
Gareth made the point that observant people would have noticed signs of a change from early season. Come to think of it I did notice how we started with two strikers from game one and played the youngster Fenton(Ricki normally being very conservative to blooding youngsters) Boyd also got time early too. Can any one imagine Ricki, circa seasons 1 to 5 giving a 17 year old kiwi kid a run. But interdispersed with that was a fair bit of long ball. Even now probably 90% of Pastons clearances go 50 metres down field so it all has been a bit confusing.
Totally agree with above post that clear communication at the start would have avoided the controversy. Ricki too is culpable to some extent. After the Vietch interview he did say that he was "alongside" the new strategy and supported it but it all seemed a bit half hearted IMO. He certainly has avoided the heat of poor results by hiding behind the smokescreen of Gareths "total football" statements. If Ricki had come straight out afterward and strongly stated that this new strategy was devised a long time ago by concensious from a group including myself, Noah Hickey, Chotey and some board members then the controversy would have died very quickly IMO.
By not doing so he has not exactly helped Gareth or the board out of the spot they have found themselves in. We can only speculate why he has not done this