Player ratings

O'Donnell - 7 - good save 1st half.
AOC - 6 - steady
POC - 6 - steady
Staunton - 6 - steady
DMH - 5 - lots of effort but no quality.
Cooke - 4 - poor today. Very sloppy in possession.
Watt - 6 - tidy enough. Better 2nd half.
Wood - 6 - isolated too much down the flank.
Clarke - 6 - bright but no end product.
Novak - 3 - missed a sitter then went missing.
Guthrie - 5 - decent hold up play, nothing else.

 

Harsh on Cooke, but otherwise I agree.

 

Not all his fault, colchester did a job on him and Watt to be fair. But not up to his standards today.

 

Odd one with cooke, once again seems a victim of circumstance. Seems he was promised a forward/free but bolton and today he seemed to be the base of a midfield which isnt his game

 

He had a poor game today but I agree with your comments, he seemed caught in no man's land at numerous points with Clarke taking the space he was looking for. I like what McCall was trying to do today but not sure the pieces fit the jigsaw.

 

I thought clarke was mom

 

First half yes but seemed to fade as the game went on. Staunton had a good game overall.

 

I fear if you're gonna see the best of Cooke it would be in the space Clarke occupies. Watt looks comfortable around the centre circle or dropping deep but Cooke doesn't.

 

Basically Stuart has done his mate Clarke a favour by giving him a contact and now he's occupying the space that Cooke would thrive in and be infinitely more productive in.

Classic Stuart. Give his mate a lifeline and hope it all works out. It won't unfortunately.

The sooner we sign a proper defensive midfielder to tackle in the midfield and get Cooke in the space Clarke is occupying the better.

 

Whilst Clarke had a good 45 minutes I am afraid as the second half went on, the less effect he had. I think once the 60 minutes is up then it will be time to pull him off as I don't think he has the legs for a full 90 unless with more training and games his stamina improves.

 

A lot of comments about Clarke but reading elsewhere he seems to have had a good game to go with a good appearance at Bolton. Strange.

 

Agree. He was annoyed when Stuart took off at Bolton (or he looked annoyed) but he's not influencing games and that is his job. He, Wood and DMH should have been creating the chances today. We can berate Novak and Guthrie all we want but they can't do it by themselves!

If Clarke is not creating chances then he needs replacing in the team.

Sorry Ten but if he's an attacking midfielder he has a good game if he's creating chances for the forwards. He didn't do that today.

The thing is he's tidy, he's retains possession. He's ALWAYS done that and folk think thats good and it is sometimes but we need to score goals to win matches and at the moment Watt and Wood look like the most likely to create chances. If Clarke could at least practice his corners that would be helpful!

 

I thought Clarke played alright but its questionable if we play two out and out strikers with Clarke behind how far forward can Cooke get without leaving us open to the counter?

 

He can't really because as we saw today they could have scored 2 or 3 on the counter.

 

The problem with is he's not very good at tracking back when loses posession, Colchester possessed one thing we lack badly and thats pace in various psoitions.

 

Cant disagree with you. Having him and Clarke meandering back from the oppo's half isn't great especially when the oppo is running at twice the speed!