Thetownend.com

Di Canio questions mentality after home defeat
           
           


  ‘SWINDON Town manager Paolo Di Canio has questioned his side’s “weak mentalityâ€� after they slipped to a 1-0 home defeat to Brentford last night.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10059761.Di_Canio_questions_mentality_after_home_defeat/?ref=rss
           
           
           

So who were the 3-4 players? Context would suggest:

- Collins
- Ritchie
- Ferry
- Roberts

Sounds like Roberts at the end there - he's been hugely disappointing

It could be Roberts but why not just play De Vita, i think he might be having a dig at Ritchie. The pair of them were poor last night which is the most disappointing thing because potentialy we have two of the best if not the best wingers in league one.

I thought he meant Roberts. PDC went crazy after he put that poor cross in (or should I say numerous poor crosses), just before he was dragged off. Ritchie was very poor too though.

Without an attacking Right Back Ritchie just hasn't seemed the same as last season. There is signs that he could work well with McCormack at RB but ideally (although highly unlikely) we could solve the Caddis problem and combine these two again.

Roberts needs to be dropped for a couple of games and Rafa needs to be given a chance.

If it was a choice between Caddis coming back and Di Canio going or Caddis being offloaded for good and Di Canio staying I wonder what the fans would prefer.

Personally, I'd prefer to see Caddis back. Di Canio will be gone by the end of the season anyway......I'm sure of that. Caddis at right back is what Ritchie and the team needs. He makes an enormous difference.

If Ritchie is reliant on Caddis then his career is going to go much further is it?

I think it was DRS that said, before the season started, that Ritchie would struggle this season.

Although, yeah, Caddis is clearly more valuable then PDC. After all Caddis was instrumental in helping us avoid the drop to L2 a couple of seasons ago........ Oh!

I didn't say that. I said if it was a choice between him and Di Canio I'd prefer Caddis. What you prefer is up to you.....

I also said nothing about Ritchie being reliant on him, just that he makes a big difference.

How very convoluted.

Either way, if Ritchie needs Caddis to perform then he (Ritchie) needs to pull his finger out and adjust. By all accounts N Thompson is a very good RB. Is that not good enough for Ritchie?

I have nothing against Ritchie by the way.

Caddis over PDC?! Fuck off. We are hardly in a relegation battle...

I'm only going on what I've seen of Ritchie playing with Caddis and the others that have played at right back and, in my opinion, he is a much better player when Caddis plays.

That's not saying that I don't think Thompson is good enough. You're right - Ritchie needs to pull his finger out.

And, going back to your point about Caddis and the drop a couple of seasons ago, he was one of the few that came out of the season with any credibility left. Maybe if Ritchie had been playing on the right that season, with Caddis, instead of the left, it might have been different...... ;)

I'd welcome him back with open arms.

Paolo prides himself on the way he looks at other teams..well suprise,suprise we get watched as well by opposition teams.

Fact is the main thing they do(especially at the County Ground) is double up on Ritchie....they know it is our main source of quality with regards balls into the box.
Ritchie plays to deep for my liking....often making lung bursting runs just to get into position to cross a ball.........i would have him playing upside the front players especially at home...this would also make sure that the players keeping tabs on him are nearer there own goal area instead of nearer ours.

The perfect scenario when we got Roberts in was that we were going to have quality crosses from both left and right. So if Ritchie is marked out of it Roberts would tear them a new one, and vice versa.

The fact that this has not happened is, I think, the fundamental reason why we are so inconsistent.

Crosses into the box is the oirign of the vast majority of goals scored - no, or poor, crosses = few chances and fewer goals.

That said, we aint doing too bad.

I trust PdC to sort it out one way or another

I think the point that PDC was making is that there were 3 'young' players that he thought would rest on their laurels having done well on Saturday. I think they are Collins (who he berated for not putting in enough effort for the team after scoring at the weekend), Ferry (who he subbes) and Ritchie (who from commentary appeared anonymous).

I think that during the game, he became frustrated with Roberts.

After the game he in effect said that he had had enough of one of the players and was going to bring a loanee in to replace them. Quite which one that is I'm not sure - Ritchie probably as we don't seem to have competition on the right for him.

Ritchie to Bornmuff, eh!!

We need our wingers to be able to beat a man on the outside.Its far to predictable now

We should have sold him!

I agree Ritchie hasn't been at his best lately, but I don't think he's been as bad as some are making out.  He's one of the only players we've got who is likely to pull something out of the bag when needed and even on a bad day offers more than Roberts.  7 goals makes him only 1 goal behind our top scorer Collins.

Leefer is right, most games (at home anyway), he's got 2 or even 3 players on him constantly and he doesn't get the level of support from Thompson/Devera/Bessone (delete as appropriate dependant on who is playing at RB) that he got from Caddis.

Didn't Bournemouth offer 800k? I'd snap their hand off for that now.

Good job you ain't chairman then. How many other wingers have scored 7 goals this season?

For £800k you should be able to perform to perform to a good standard in the Championship. So far in his career he has been mainly been excellent in League 2 and decent, but not great, in League 1.

Not sure he has yet earned a £800k price tag, considerably less than some of the ludicrous price tags being banded around for him by some supporters past season (£1.5m+,etc)

I think even an off form Ritchie is a valuable asset. Not sure of actual monetary value mind. Would agree he is off form and that teams have marked him pretty well recently, but he'll click back in again.

Think he's been decent enough this season to be honest. He's a quality footballer and works bloody hard for the team, especially for a winger. Don't think some of our fans have really ever appreciated his attributes fully.

I agree. Overall Ritchie has been one of the better players I have seen for us this season, having watched a dozen games.  If I were a chairman I'd risk £800k  in todays footballing money on him - easily. If he moved to another L1 club in Jan the words 'foot shoot yourself in the' come to mind.

Ritchie would still be one of my first players on the team sheet but I think Paolo is hinting about bringing a loanee in to compete with Matty for that postition. Or it could be that last nights post match comments was something of nothing and it was just Paolo being Paolo !

His lack of pace is what will stop him being a top winger.

We need a regular right back that Ritchie can gain an understanding with.

Last year Ritchie with Caddis (and Ferry as the right sided CM) were frightening the lives out of the opposition fullbacks/wingers.

This year Ritchie has been struggling because he gets double marked and there's nobody going on the outside to help him create the space/ occupy the one of the other opposition players marking him.

He's still a very important player for us though, just needs a settled right back he can play with.

Agree with that mrverve.

Personally thought after being a bit cautious overlapping in his first few games, Thompson has shown signs he's growing in confidence and understanding in this respect. Can't speak for the Brentford game but thought against Walsall and even Coventry that Thompson and Ritchie showed potential as a combination.

Am I right in saying that we don't have a reserve team at the moment?

I think the problems with Roberts and Ritchie to a degree are not helped by this, in the past dropping a player into the reserves would take them out of limelight a bit, get some potentially easier games under belt and get some confidence back.

Without this if you drop players they just don't play which rarely addresses the confidence issue, they just fester.

Maybe Paolo should stop playing them on the opposite side all the time then. Ritchie on the left means less cutting inside. Might be worth giving Roberts a go on the right as i could have sworn he played that side for Huddersfield.

True, but that was in a lower division.

Speaking of linking up with a right back......Paul caddis returned to training today.

Still would love to see him return but I don't think this will happen with PdC in charge.

Don't think it will happen at all now, too much water under the bridge, on both sides.