On the eve of Barnet's visit for an important league clash, Victoria Road hosted a Fans' Forum attended by club representatives Daryl McMahon, Steve Thompson and transatlantic owner Peter Freund, all of whom answered questions pertaining to their relevant areas. The main topics are below:On our philosophy...McMahon started by delivering an insightful presentation documenting the principles he has attempted to instil within the team since arriving in January 2020 to what he candidly described as a bad culture around the club. He requested confidentiality beyond the confines of the clubhouse hall given that there were detailed breakdowns of scenarios like attacking/defending corners and where specific players would be positioned accordingly. Relating this to individual games, he then revealed an example scouting report for a typical National League clash, using the most recent one at Bromley as an example. It featured extensive breakdowns of the opposition and, consequently, where the game could potentially be won.
On the season's remainder...McMahon emphasised the point that many teams we have to play also featured in our near-flawless opening eight games of the season, and played a video showcasing every goal throughout that glorious period, which has presumably also been relayed to the players as a motivational tool to get into the play-offs. Anything below, however, he acknowledged would constitute a failure albeit with the caveat of it being an incredibly tough division in which many sides have massive spending power. On individual players...a few were mentioned. First was Robinson in relation to the incredible statistic that he averages around 13k covered in distance every game. Another player portrayed as an incredible hard worker was Morias and the reason he came off against Grimsby around a fortnight ago, to the opposition of supporters, was simply because he was reaching the threshold where he was likely to sustain an injury. McMahon stated how shrewd a signing he's been and that our initial approach was rebuffed by King's Lynn whose valuation vastly exceeded ours, but we eventually got him for a more reasonable figure. It was a similar case with Onariase and we wanted to wait for our desired man instead of making an impulsive alternative signing for the sake of it. Another smart acquisition, much like Morias, was Mo Sagaf - McMahon stating barely anybody would have heard of a player who was just 'sitting in his flat in Barking' before we identified him. Also receiving praise was Balanta, whom he loves because he's the one player you'd want on the pitch to produce a moment of magic in an otherwise cagey game, despite the question pertaining to his lack of suitability to our overall system. On Joey Jones' loan departure...it had reached a point where he was inevitably on his way out of the club and we didn't want to harm his career by denying a move to Grimsby, even if it came at our own expense with regard to the play-off push. Peter Freund was more forthright in his opinion, implying Jones was a bad influence because he didn't fit the club's culture and issuing a somewhat cryptic statement that we don't want people who object to others being in the team. On McMahon's new contract...Freund not only stands by the decision due to McMahon working tirelessly hard and being unanimously trusted, but is actually ''thrilled'' we tied him down because it is believed we ''cannot do better from a coaching standpoint.'' He does express disappointment at our current position and reiterates that anything below a top-seven finish would fall below expectations however still visualises a pathway there this season. On John Still's exit to Southend...Thompson thinks his role was slightly overstated and that McMahon has adequate contacts to compensate, including from the Football League. He also has regular contact with an agent who we often work with, despite Thompson expressing his displeasure of the profession and the money it drains from the game even at our level, which was integral in the Onariase deal. Whereas Still would regularly attend three lower division games per week, McMahon instead painstakingly sifts through hours of video footage to identify potential gems. On Yoan Zouma 'cat-gate'...it was stressed that Zouma is a young man, with only his elder brother for family in a foreign country, who has made a mistake that he regrets to the point where he has regularly been in tears. Furthermore, the point was made that he only shared the video to friends, one of whom sold it to the newspapers for money, and that he's received adequate punishment through the initial club suspension. The club wanted to let the judicial procedure run it's course and not go beyond that by imposing any further consequence ourselves. On our apprentice scheme...Thompson believes it is positively unique to the setup anybody else has at this level, which he wants to expand next season and suggested entering them into a specialist college league to do so. However, he is leaning towards keeping it a small group, sending them out on loan to ensure the players get vital men's football under their belts as has been fundamental to the progress of Daniel Obi and Aaron Blair this campaign.
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If Dagenham had even the faintest quantity of battle-hardened resistance within their indisputably strong armoury, they would have contested an FA Trophy semi final over the weekend while sitting neatly perched inside the play-offs.Instead, on what was meant to be their free weekend anyway due to the uneven team quantity within the division, they kept fitness up by playing St Albans City in an exhibition friendly that may well set the tone for an anticlimactic finale to a season seemingly descending towards nothingness once again. Even if Dagenham manage the increasingly unlikely task of gatecrashing the top seven, their catastrophic inability to triumph against similar calibre teams would almost certainly condemn them to another year at this level regardless. While other sides have progressively evolved, Dagenham seem no more intelligent or defensively astute since that glorious curtain-raiser away to Stockport County in late August. Nobody who witnessed the energy-driven masterclass from the bouncing away end at Edgeley Park would have anticipated a failure to make the play-offs altogether, though, especially when it was consolidated by a near-flawless few weeks thereafter. Yet that's where things are seemingly heading unless there's a massive upturn in form akin to their blistering run at the end of last season: a lesser extent of failure, misconstrued by some as success. Ironically a corner appeared to have been turned in one sense last month, during which the Daggers accumulated as many league clean sheets as the rest of their season combined, however the damaging defeats interspersed within demonstrate why that's merely superficial. While beating mid-table teams with nothing to play for is a fundamental necessity, it means nothing when we constantly fall short in the games that really matter, and our three defeats throughout March all contribute to a worrying narrative.
Three very different kinds of loss but all alluding to the same deep-rooted mentality issue. It leaves their season lacking direction ahead of a daunting week in which they play Boreham Wood then Bromley having not beaten anybody inside the current top seven since August; if their hopes are dangling by a thread now, they could be completely dead and buried this time next week unless the Daggers somehow pull off two very uncharacteristic results.
Our cause hasn't been aided, either, by the inexplicable decision to loan out Joey Jones to play-off rivals Grimsby Town - certainly I know which team looked more in need of a driving midfielder when we played them at the end of March. The writing was clearly on the wall for his exit however giving another team the opportunity to unlock his undisputed quality, potentially at our own expense, is frankly remarkable and symbolic of us not being streetwise whatsoever in our approach towards success. The statistics not only substantiate that belief but blatantly portray Dagenham as a bang average side minus the false omen of those opening few weeks where they caught everybody off guard. Once again their performance over the whole campaign has been wholly disproportionate to the healthy budget funding it, for which responsibility lies primarily with Daryl McMahon. Essentially, with the gap beneath the play-offs widening and the remaining games ebbing away, what's required is a near-perfect month during which they collect every available point - certainly there won't be many within the fanbase who have the necessary faith in the team to realistically believe that the season will end in anything but the failure alluded to above. |
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May 2024
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