Away vs Cambridge United - Sat 15 Feb 2020

Problem is Akpan needed changing and we were short of central midfielders. If he could have brought on Pritchard AND Cooke say then it might have shored it up better than 3 centre backs.

 

I agree.

Stuart clearly doesn't know his squad or players enough to adapt to situations like this.

But then, we all know that and he's not at fault for that.

 

I don't blame the players, he could have changed Akpan for Pritchard to help in the midfield. Or better still he could have brought Donaldson on for Middleton to help hold the ball up front. No way he should have weakened the already struggling midfield to put an extra defender on.

 

My fear was when McCall said this week all the players will get a chance etc.

Think it was @Park bantam that use to say that McCall tries to act like everyone's mate and that's weak.

Not digging him out but this I still his last chance here and he can't act like everybodies mate.

However, he's shooting himself in the foot not having Devitt in the squad.

 

Can only sum that up as one team managed the conditions better than another. However Stuart got it wrong with his subs. Reverting to 3 CDs only meant we would invite more attack at us in conditions where that was inevitable. We couldn’t get hold of the ball or win second balls in the second half.

That said, we defended well and how we weren’t given a free kick for the winner is shocking. Poor ref today, but we didn’t do enough for a win today.

 

Aye. Great post. Cos Stuart is getting off scot free on this thread!

 

Let's be fair the extra defender would have been on the pitch before we kicked off under Bowyer. Watched the second half and it is definitely Stuart's fault that we didn't play the ball on the floor. On the plus side I saw some battle there today. We were rubbish on Tuesday and won. Before we all start Moaning let's give the team a chance to turn it round.

 

Don't blame the ref Stuart, defending was appalling...Devitt ( not even on the bench I know) instead of the useless Paudie would have been a better choice...

 

Cambridge only 3 places behind us now.

McCall has a big job in the summer rebuilding this poor squad.

 

He should have put another mid in there instead of a defender, style of play was irrelevant today. We had the lead, it’s ours to lose and we did that by giving up all possession you can’t defend for so long without offering anything back, as we saw under Bowyer.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t do that again.

 

I don't think anyone is criticising the team. Wrong management decisions today cost us the game.

 

It will give you something to do this evening.

 

They did well in the second half.

Our subs helped them.

He was right to make changes when he did but leaving Novak up top by himself, leaving the walking Akpan on in the centre and bringing on a third centre back were all poor.

 

Tbf I never said we weren’t mid table garbage as well

 

Not being funny but Devitt would have been blown over the home stand as soon as he came on.

 

Aye. Great post. Cos Stuart is getting off scot free on this thread!

 

Big clear out,had enough of them.

 

Gutted that we lost but by the sounds of it on the radio the conditions were atrocious second half-much worse than the first.

It seems Cambridge pressed as high as they could to force us to kick long. Good tactics from them using the wind to their advantage. So we went 5 4 1 when Paudie came on. That should have been strong enough to hold out for a draw at worse.

The positive from this is that SM has had another game to see who is up for the fight.

Who wasn't marking their man for the winner?

Its all right having a go at SM but yet again we switch off and let in late goals.

 

Agreed, it’s simple really we were winning the game and although they improved second half they were not as close to our goal as the were once we brought another CB on. If we’d held out then it’d be fair to praise him for the subs helping us get 3 points, so it’s fair to criticise if they cost us the game as well.

 

Watched this on ifollow. Thought Cambridge deserved it in the end, that was a very poor second half. Basics like ball retention and passing seem to much for our lot. That said they weren't helped by the substitutions at all, all 3 CBs does is totally confuse the 2 already on. The second goal they had 2 queueing up to score and 3 CBs not marking them.

But dissolutioned all round with that display. Poor management, poor team performance.