Match Thread City v Walsall| League 2 | 20 October

At least I got the score right this afternoon in a prediction. Should have put £5 on it

 

What do you mean he turned down offers for Guthrie???!

Have I missed that?!

 

At the start of the season McCall said there was interest from other clubs for Guthrie but we wanted to keep him.

 

WTF... Why?!??!

 

I think it’s more the frustration of not addressing the obvious deficiencies. The resigning of DMH is an Anderson moment of last season. We should have at least one winger in the squad surely.

 

I think absolutely, the transfer window underwhelmed people to the point they just wanted to find fault with everything, expecting failure and validating that notion every time we don't win.

Like every side in this division, we have deficiencies, but we're not going to be an easy game for anyone in L2 this season.

 

But we’re to easy to defend against.

I’m struggling to remember one occasion where we got to the byline tonight or got in behind.

 

In the second half, I believe we started to climb out of the crap category. If we continue to play like that we might turn a corner.

 

By that logic, it's pretty easy to defend against all of our league opposition this season.

Not one team has created three or four very good chances against us, have they?

 

Well here's my take on the game, knock me - do/say what you want - your choice.
Overall that performance for me, was lacking any sort of quality that is needed to win games.
The passing was poor, experienced (in the main) pro's cannot execute a simple 10 yard pass is really alarming.
No quality up front, which McCall was supposed to address with the signing of Samuels, yet he saw to leave him on the bench whilst bringing on Guthrie - no comment on him/that decision.
Yes, their 'keeper pulled off a great save from Donaldson and overall had a good game, but hell, that performance was no better than the Boring Bowyer days.
Sorry lads & lasses, that's how I saw it.
ps.............too much hoof ball too!!

 

just in the slightly shit category now?

 

Sorry but i cannot agree with you regarding the 'no better that the boring Bowyer days' (although i agree with everything else you have said). I think over time people forget just how bad we were the final 15 or so games where Bowyer was in charge. Yesterday was 2 evenly matched teams cancelling each other out. Walsall will be in and amongst it this year so all in all, not a bad point, but slightly disappointing not to get all 3. In the Bowyer days, not a chance we would have come back from a goal down. I remember games where we didn't seem to make a single forward ball, or have a single shot on target. Yesterday wasn't that. We just lacked that quality in the final third, and the final ball just wasn't there. But we showed attacking intent and tried to play on the front foot, which is head and shoulders above what we saw in the Bowyer teams.

 

When you look at the squads from the Parky era, there has always been a winger or defender able to get down the line and get decent balls into the box. Even going back to the Premiership, McCall played with Beagrie and further back with Hendrie.

Looking at this seasons squad the best crosser of the ball is Connor Wood and he’s not a patch on Meredith (yet). We have 3 strikers who I’d imagine would thrive on quality balls into the box, even McCall talks about this, yet he’s done nothing to address it.

If you don’t have wingers, then you need creativity and again, the best we have is Billy Clarke who I’d say is tidy, but too lightweight. All in all this squad has mid table all over it unless he addresses the obvious.

Oh, by the way, if he’s getting stressed when questioned by a very good Radio Leeds reporter, just wait until the crowd is back in the ground.

 

We need a more mobile striker badly, Novak and Donaldson are ridiculously slow. There must be a free agent out there (Sat on their backside ).

There was enough built up play and balls flashed into the box to have won that match.

Clarke deserves to start in thie next game in place of Pritchard who was poir.

 

I'm sick of watching Dylan Mottley-Henry turning and passing backwards. What's the point of a winger who is not prepared/able to take on their opposing full back?
Our strike force is mediocre, at best, but a half decent winger would at least give them a fighting chance of scoring. Sadly, we don't have one. There surely must be a better free agent winger out there than DMH.

 

i can't agree with you either.
second half we had the tempo and created chances.
only time the long ball didnt work for me was BRE.
You have to mix it up if poss and we did.
You compare it to the Bowyer days??
We are miles better to watch than under him.
Every year supporters say "lets see where we are after 10 games or in November"
Lets just do that
We looked good on Saturday
Looked good in spells last night
If we are good on Saturday and Tuesday and take another 4 points we will look good in the league table and do remember we are a game behind everybody so who knows we might have won that and be top 7.

 

I'd say its work in progress at the moment, we have inherent weaknesses that can't be fixed on the training field. We've tried various formations ( a McCall trait) with varying results. We do lack a player that can carry the ball from midfield, last night showed this formation cries out for a decent wide man, imagine a Kyel Reid in front of Wood or a Mark Marshall in front of Hosanah. And we've done nothing to change the unbalance upfront, question marks over all three of our main strikers and the new lad can't get a game.

 

Liam Burt

 

More chance of us signing Big Bert I reckon..