Match Thread Away V Carlisle Saturday 13th March 3.00pm

That was a question of an unhappy player who wanted to leave, ditto with Vaughan. There are exceptions to every rule but the general principle still applies for me. You and Simon (Woking) have got a point and we're clearly better than we were. But that's because we've signed average players for this league to replace those who were nowhere near average. But that only makes us average, not challenging for promotion. To do that you have to have an inspired manager who can make a team of average players better than their constituent parts, or build on what you've got and recruit better players from above or below you, or players out of contract. We've done wonderfully well to get ourselves out of the mess we were in but a lot of people on here seem to think this squad will walk promotion next season, if not this. I hope that two defeats against pretty mediocre opposition will cause some people to see that we're still a long way from where we need to be.

 

So now Trueman and Sellars are making the same mistakes that Stuart McCall made, interesting. Obviously clueless this pair of chances we gave contracts to.

 

For me we looked knackered. We’ve played a lot of games recently, travelled a lot of miles and looked tired and flat.

Carlisle were the better team and outperformed us today however If we had played like recent form, I genuinely believe we would have easily beaten them. However today we looked physically and mentally tired and with the first half conditions Carlisle played them and us better.

A week without a midweek game and home next week is desperately needed. We seriously need to step up on todays result and performance

 

Rubbish to say not one of the January signings have looked good in the last 3 matches. Canavan has been a solid and Cook and Rowe have scored goals.

 

They made mistakes today and hopefully will learn from them, Problem with McCall is he was stubborn and did not learn from the mistakes he made, Hopefully these two will show they learn quickly

 

Also Evans with his great chance in the first half Lepton. He tucks that away instead of dilly-dallying, we take the lead. Then it's a different game.

 

Their record to date suggests they aren’t chancers. 10 wins from 16 games isn’t bad going for anyone. Today was dismal however.

 

Poor performance, excuses not required or welcome, but two instances of very very weak refereeing and even worse instances of a team showing no fight.

1. The second goal. We should have been going apoplectic about that being given. To me it clearly looks like its kicked out of hornbys hands and we just take it on the chin. We should have been round the ref like a rash
2. The penalty. The decision was there to be won. The ref dithered. If we had pushed it enough I think the lino might have swayed him.

The lack of fight worried me. Are T&S too nice ? Parky would have been going wild on the sidelined over either.

 

I'd take him like a shot.

 

4/3/2/1 the old Xmas tree formation. I'm a fan of that.

 

You took the words out of my mouth. I'd rather have two young coaches who have the capacity to learn than a dinosaur merry-go-round manager who simply repeats the mistakes he made before.

 

This is a joke post right?

 

Far too much over reaction today to T&S, amongst a minority. It's a defeat amongst a run of 3 without a win.

Questioning method, tactics et al is fine. But doubting them for a promotion push next season based on the last week is massively over reactive and fickle.

Plenty of positives about these guys. Mistakes will happen. Bumps in the road and all that. But with one window, a steep learning curve and 10 wins from 17, totally keep my confidence.

 

Oiked vernam off after about 20 minutes and bring Scales into a 3. Left crankshaw on who was about the only one getting past their right back. Taken Evans off who wasn't tackling back and didn't know if he was a winger or a ten. Bring Rowe on earlier and go 4/3/2/ 1 with both Crankshaw and Rowe playing behind Evans.

Football is an easy game, and I'm a genius manager.

In championship 97 I got Huddersfield relegated at the first attempt by hacking the data base, allocating only retired 40 year old from deep within the data base to their squad and only playing six players.

Easy.

 

Today was a combination of things. From the word go Carlisle played the conditions far better than us and without Callum Cooke we didn't seem capable of getting the ball down on the deck and when we did the likes of Riley and Callum Guy were all over us. For once our centre backs were struggled with balls into the box, plus to me Watt and Sutton looked a bit jaded so maybe a week without a game on Tuesday won't be a bad thing.
I also agree about playing Crankshaw and Vernan from the start is maybe a luxury. Once Cooke is back it might be an idea to play Vernan/Evans on one side of Cooke with Crankshaw/Clarke on the other but maybe not Crankshaw and Vernan from the start. The big issue is finding a spot for Rowe but it's a nice problem to have.

 

Ok. Last two games.

 

Quality

 

I was being sarcastic when I called T&S chancers.

 

No excuse for this sort of defending :
https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/league-two/12245090/carlisle-3-1-bradford