Following the loss to Bradford City, that’s probably the play-offs out of reach, but there have been many positives which we can take into next season.
We’ve see numerous positive tactical displays from Michael Duff, aggressive pressing, nice build up patterns and significantly improved attacking dynamics compared to the start of the season.
There will be a lot of reactionary and emotional opinions from us fans now but it’s important to look at the wider picture. Duff’s taken us from the relegation zone to being involved in the play-off chase.
The actual quality of our squad depth isn’t great and Duff tried to touch on that in January but that is a very difficult transfer window to navigate in comparison to the summer window and clubs are a lot harder to negotiate with in January than in the summer.
It’s important to recognise our current injury situation too. Without naming names, as a lot of our players are on here, but some of the players which have deputized for the injured lot are not up to standard and it’s significantly affected our season.
– Junior Quitirna
– Fred Onyedinma
– Dan Casey
– Anders Hagelskjær
– Niall Huggins
– Caolan Boyd-Munce
All of the above are injured, and apart from Onyedinma and Boyd-Munce, they’re all most likely to be out for the rest of the season.
Those aren’t reserve players or players who come on for the last 5 minutes, they’re all very important players and vital to Duff’s system.
Under Duff, we’ve seen heavy improvements in and out of possession, for the former we’re more fluid, the rotations are better, the 4-3-3 is dynamic, the eights drop from high to low to either receive and bounce to the spare man or drop to drag their marker out leaving 1v1 situations on the opposition backline for us to play over too, triangles on both sides when attacking in wide areas (one deep, one inside and one wide), having the wingers be the widest man instead of the FB’s (better 1v1 threat).
Out of possession we’re more aggressive off the ball, from opposition goal kicks pressing man to man from or pressing to give us a +1 on the defensive line, 4-4-2 mid block giving us good coverage of all areas of the pitch, the 4-4-2 can transition easily to a man to man press when the opposition play backwards in their own half.
In our low block we drop a winger into the backline to stop the opposition overloading us. Our CB’s (Anders as Casey is the sweeper) has license to be aggressive with his positioning and follow players dropping between the lines.
Now yes, there have been a lot of mental crumbles this season such as Bolton away, Plymouth away and Exeter away and I do agree that is on the culture and mentality which comes from the manager, but believe me there have been far more positives than negatives since Duff’s arrival.
Hopefully this summer Duff can make sure that mentality and culture is top heading into next season.
I’ll back him until/if he ever gives me reasons not too from both a tactical and a mentality point of view, and for me he hasn’t given me reasons to turn.
He’s a top manager and if he can improve the quality of squad depth in the summer window, make sure the mentality is up to scratch and remain tactically great like what we’ve seen in numerous games this term, then we’re in for a very exciting 2026/27 season.
Trust the process ladies and gentlemen, it’s a million miles better than what saw under Dodds. Both short and long term.
