Home V Cheltenham 28.01.20

Incredibly harsh in my view, I wonder what VAR would have given

 

Yes just posted after watching the Sky clip Cheltenham's 21 clearly has his hands on McCartan both outside and inside the box your correct IMO.

Not the best screen shot but the referee was right in line with the incident.

 

Potentially a blocked view there. The ref is on the lean. I'd have been livid if that would have been given against us.

 

I can take tbe odd defeat, that in isolation isn't an issue. What I can't take is a team set up to prevent them being allowed to give it a go.

We had the effort and desire that was missing against Mansfield, what we didn't have (and haven't all season) is a man in charge with the courage required.

 

Looks like a shoulder and top arm push. However, it was soft, but then we have suffered from those kind of decisions. Including the sandwich which Oteh found himself in!

 

Couldn't agree more. I just want to leave a game feeling we've really given it a go and done everything we can to win a game. I just can't stomach what is getting served up at the minute. I'd happily clap them off after a defeat if they have given their all and made the other team work for the 3 points. Bowyer Ball I can't stomach as it's just dropping point after point without any value from a fans point of view. If you are going to provide turgid football it has to be winning football and frankly it's not even close to being acceptable. The interviews by Bowyer amaze me. He's either so arrogant that he thinks it's how the game should be played or he's just burying his head in the sand and not wanting to take responsibility. He seems a bit of a shirker to me. Never accepts the responsibility of a bad performance, always blaming the pitch or players or playing up the opposition. Really strange manager with no ambition. I don't understand how the board are letting him get away with it. The empty stands speaks volumes. Do the board think he's really worth backing when they lost 50% of the attendance last night?

 

I agree. I want to leave matches feeling satisfied that we have put in a good performance and optimistic about chances. I have not felt like that all season long following on from the previous season. It is truly dire football. Even when we have won, I still don’t get the normal buzz of winning, we are either hanging on backs to the wall, or we have been incredibly lucky and we were not the better team. It is hard league to get out of, and I have been gritting my teeth all season, BUT here is the clincher when we started to lose that is just not acceptable, it wasn’t good enough before and it certainly isn’t now. Football is a simple game, if you score goals by enlarge you win, stop scoring goals are you are reliant on the opposition having a similar affliction for a draw or a miserly 1-0.
If we don’t win well on Saturday, then the Board are going to have to take the hit or languish in this league next season.

 

I'm sure there will be games this season where we get a harsh decision against us take em when we can.
I hope VAR is never introduced at the lower levels of the EFL, not a lover.

 

Agree ,if I was board I would be really worried about the real attendance last night.

At the match I would know 15/20 people round me,last night,not one of these people were there and it's down mainly in my view to the boring cr@p we have to put up with under bowyer.

Three points and a performance on saturday is a must in my opinion,it won't be easy with oldham getting a win and playing well against our conquerers mansfield.

 

Maybe as I suggested the referee was watching to see if Doyle-Hayes continued man handling McCartan inside the box as he was outside the box.

 

The was a bottle thrown on the pitch as May (Cheltenham goal scorer) was celebrating in front of the main stand
But the bottle was picked up of the wall and thrown on the pitch by a Cheltenham sub
I was 5 rows back and saw it clearly

 

I watched on ifollow last night as am currently away, there were 2 occasions in the second half where our player threw the ball into the stand during a break in play to waste more time. Now I know we were down to 10 but as already said this didnt mean we had to develop such extreme tactics. Have we really sunk so low at home against the mighty Cheltenham that we had to do this? This is not game management this is desperation.

 

I don't think he really is a football manager. He doesn't appear to have any of the qualities required. He seems like someone who's been given the job as a result of some sort of mistake. He might really be an accountant.

 

Well for those wanting Stuart back he had three attempts at getting out of league two and failed Bowyer had one attempt at Blackpool in very difficult circumstances and succeeded so there is your answer

 

Three, two and one. You're right- he is an accountant.

 

Wonder why he did that, to try and get the club into trouble, could there be any other reason ?.

 

I'm dead at that absolutely creased. Some sort of admin error which ironically he is an expert in admin and should be filing away for some corporate company? I get your vibe.

 

It wasn’t ideal at all that Donaldson had to lead the line on his own with no support on his first start since his injury. Oteh was thrown on after an hour but he was never gonna win hopeful punts forward so he was chasing lost causes. Vaughan would have started normally, though, so that needs acknowledging. Donaldson was thrust in and did his best.

The other thing which wasn’t ideal was that we picked up other soft early yellows. There was a point where McCartan was fouled on the edge of the box infront of the Kop and we should have probably won a free kick. The ref waved play on, they broke and we had to make a tactical foul to halt the counter. It might have been Wood that was booked there.

It isn’t ideal having several players walking the tightrope after that. Wood, for example, could hardly go bombing forward then, risk getting caught out of position, them scramble back, foul, and also be given his marching orders. Safety first was the priority then.

Whilst it is fair to say we created little going forward in the second half, bar a bit of a scramble from a corner, we did restrict their chances and had a solid shape. They hit the post with a header but they generally struggled to break us down for the majority of the game.

We can focus on the negatives if we wish but it was a certain improvement on the Mansfield debacle. Even With 11 men yesterday were we at the level we should be before the red? No. But the players have not thrown in the towel yet and there’s been a lot of disrespect shown to Cheltenham, who have done well this season, including away, and have a reputation for passing it about well. This wasn’t a relegation team dominating us with an extra man - its a team who could well be top seven end of the season.

 

To those that are saying our possession figure was a disgrace, even with 10 men, did anyone see the Wolves v Man City game at Molineux in December?

Ederson was sent off for City in the first 15 minutes and it became a backs to the wall job for them in the end. Wolves had 62 % possession to City's 38 % that night. De Bruyne and Sterling worked their nuts off but even in a side as good as Man City's they were dominated. We don't have players anywhere near as good at working the ball to retain possession and the one outlet we had, Donaldson, was being asked to lead the line without 90 minutes under his belt since October. Ball was booted it up and it often came straight back.

I'm sure someone will quote me an example of a team with 10 men fighting back and winning a game against the odds but last night was effectively a game you could put a line through in terms of assessing our attacking intent and approach as the red card ruined it.

It wasn't a shambles in the first half when we had XI men on the pitch. We pressed on, won the penalty and forced them into conceding several fouls in dangerous areas. Certainly not as bad as it was at Mansfield.