The Voice - Match preview Colchester United vs Bradford City Tuesday 16 August @ 7:45pm

Overriding feeling today is one of FRUSTRATION.

We are good enough on paper to do well. However the execution right now is quite poor.

Lewis to Crichlow to Platt to Halliday to Platt to Crichlow to Ridehalgh to Crichlow to Smallwood to Platt to Halliday ad nauseam isn't going to get us very far.

 

Ah Charlie... At the angle I was sat, I was in line with Charlie and the young ball boy, seated on the pitch... Some of the expressions of the young lad were simply priceless...

 

Feels very much like the last 4 seasons so far.
Mid table

 

Just to make you feel worse if we projected what we've achieved so far then we will finish with 46 points.....
Home: 2 x games averaged 2 points per game = 46pts
Away: 2 x games averaged 0 points per game = 0pts
But a win against Hartlepool would increase the projection to 69 pts by increasing our away average to 1 pt per away game
* Sorry, got nowt else to do this morning...

 

Yes good shout, you are right. I’d forgotten! I think that summed up the evening rather well….forgettable !

 

That’s how it was last night, for sure.

 

Oli

Did they see when his teeth shot onto the floor after one "conversation" with the linesman, comedy gold

 

Oh that was comedy gold, the roar of laughter from the home fans

(and he still went back for more once he had composed his false nashers)

 

No I didn’t see that… Hilarious!

 

He took them out many times to shout but this time he forgot. My sister and niece have never seen him before and were entertained more by Charlie than the game

 

Did you see the two young boys with yellow earphones, ( hearing issues ) . ? That’s us if you did. We were sat not far behind the young City YouTube blogger.

 

Sometimes you have to give the opposition credit. I thought Colchester used their aerial dominance really well and I was expecting their central players to fade because of the amount of ground they were having to cover but they really didn't. They were patient as well, waited for us to look long towards Oliver where the big lads at the back were on hand and their No.33 mopped most things up. They also went after Halliday with great effect in the second half with long balls. Hornby made a couple of decent saves from Platt & Harratt too.

Hughes was right in his assessment though that on another day we probably get something from the game. Lessons will be learnt from it. We missed Walker's composure in the final third because it was a bit frantic from Young, Chapman & Angol - some poor decision making on show from them. Banks was the one that was a constant threat all game and continues to impress.

 

Thought it best not to fly off into a rage following the last minute defeat last night and just sleep on it.

To me we setup wrong. Oliver seems to be the kind of player that you throw on if you are losing a game and have resorted to pumping long balls into the box in order to try steal a point. Alternatively he needs crossing whipping in all the time to try get on the end of. Neither of those scenarios were in play last night. There was literally zero threat from him.

Angol goes down to easy, there were about 3 or 4 times before the penalty shout where he went down with the minimal of contact and I don't care what anyone says but that plays into the referees mind when he has to make a decision on what look like a very good claim for a penalty. If he hadn't been going to ground so easily prior to that I think the penalty would have been given, but because he was falling over since he had come on the referee thought twice about it.

Cook and Harratt did more in 15 minutes than anyone other than Banks as an attacking threat in the previous 75. Chapman was having an off day and was constantly giving the ball away where as Oliver was offering nothing. The subs should have been made at half time.

The defence looked pretty steady, they weren't really under any pressure, however it is criminal to give away needless freekicks in dangerous positions to invite pressure especially against such a physical team.

We need a reaction on Saturday, not a soft performance which hands Hartlepool their first win of the season.

 

Ive slept on it and my take is that despite it being early in the season its simply just embarrassing. When Barrow have less budget and more points than us. Barrow FFS.

 

They were great with the set piece at the end. Eastman the goalscorer who is 6'2/6'3 moved onto the 5'9 Brad Halliday (who had a real off game) and there was another lad there if he didn't get round to the jump and we just didn't track movement. Again, like the Barrow game it's down to game management and the lads making sure they are switched on.

Thought Banks was pretty unplayable in that first half, always a threat.... cant recall him doing anything of note in the second half. Most of our attacks in the second came from the left but he really faded towards the back half.

 

Regarding our wide players, both our starters were playing on their 'wrong' side, a left footer on the right and a right footer on the left. Consequently, they both cut inside onto their best foot, and never once got to the byline where they could have produced the sort of crosses that Oliver is said to thrive on. Our only occasional crosses from near the byline came from our fullbacks and then were poor. When Angol came on on the left you might have expected him to take on the fullback and get crosses in on his best foot but we all know he won't do that any more and he too drifted inside into no man's land. I don't understand the thinking of playing wide men on their wrong side unless it's something to do with how the link up with the front man.
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Hughes is trying to get us to play like a premier league side, the wide men on the wrong side, a rotational policy, playing it around at the back as if we were Man City. That's fine when you have brilliant players to play the system and brilliant players you can rotate. But we all know that isn't league 2. The reason most of our players are in league 2 is because they're not good enough or consistent enough to play higher up. Consequently, you need to adapt your system to the capabilities of your players and, so far, Mark doesn't seem to appreciate how far this needs to go.
Like all of us I hope he finds a way to bring us success and he obviously knows more about the game than me. But I bet that I've watched a lot more lower league football than he has over six decades, as have a good few people on here, and I have to say that his post-match comments are not exactly filling me with confidence. Let's hope we get a good win at Hartlepool to assuage the fears of old cynics like me.

 

The more I watch the team I like the possession based game but we don’t have obvious attacking threats to unpick defences and as ever you can’t rely on not conceding 1 goal in any given game. On several occasions Angol had the ball and was attacking whilst Ridehalgh was trying to overlap but did not possess the pace to get beyond Angol who turned inside. In recent season better sides have contained attacking threats in wide wing back areas as well as further upfield. We don’t appear to have this so are reliant upon the front 3+1 to be that danger. It’s something we also lack presently. We are too safe and don’t have enough flair to unlock defences. Or rather didn’t last night. I trust in Hughes but it frustrates when we see the same errors year on year out. Hopefully the side have more progression in them.

 

Budget at this level means very little. What matters is hard work, team cohesion and momentum. It’s a cliche but anyone can beat anyone and our superiority complex does us not favours at all.

 

Think it was Parky who said 'To get out of this league, you must first accept where you are'.
Too many can't accept where we are and that we won't win every game and we don't play like Barca every week.