Match Thread Home v Harrogate Town Tues Feb 22nd @7.45pm

Well, I listen to those who say we won’t go up and we won’t go down. I am not sure where our next point is coming from, never mind win and I can see us scrapping at the end of the season. I do think there was a bit more passion shown tonight, but geez, they looked like a team of headless chickens at times. We don’t look fit enough nor good enough to win games.
The club seems to be in an absolute directionless mess - as some have said in crisis, only does the owner realise or care? I don’t know.

 

Could tell neither have played in a 2 up top for a while. The amount of times Robinson shaped up for the Cook flick on either a out 2 feet directly behind Cook, or running the complete other direction to the header got annoying.... the one time they read the play well, Robinson was a few yards offside.

Just feels like this team has a massive mentality issue. As soon as we concede you can visibly see people's shoulders drop and they never seem to mentally get back going.

 

How's he been allowed to get like that, he wasn't like that at the start of the season. I suspect letting himself go as the season progresses is why he fell out of favour at Mansfield. We haven't got anyone else as a goal threat with Angol out injured so he gets picked.
The Mansfield fans warned us that he liked his kebabs.

 

Stressed, demoralized and frustrated I imagine. He has been known to have weight problems at his previous clubs. I don't buy into the line that the players don't care, or are bone idle, or simply have no fight in them. I think Cook for example probably does care, but when the pressure gets too much he goes for comfort food to take his mind off of it. He needs to be played in a system where we have two up front.

 

We don’t have a board or directors.

 

My first game of the season tonight, up here for work. Wow - how utterly disappointing. Upper Kop with a view directly behind the free kick for their 2nd, so obvious what was going to happen. Songo - no; Robinson - no. Bit more “oomph” from Callum Cooke when he got on - it pains me to say that I thought we looked most likely to get something when we went direct late on. After 50 mins, backed Harrogate to win 3-1 and got 17/1 - didn’t think we’d get anything at that point - sad!

 

No argument. And DONT mention bloody EVANS![/QUOTE]

Yes towards the end of the first half they were slicing and kicking the ball anywhere to get a breather we just haven’t got the firepower up front. But people wanted us on the front foot giving it a go and at least they got that tonight

 

And that Park sadly shows just how far we have fallen - celebrating giving it a go

 

The long break around xmas with Covid postponements has done him no favours

 

He is an average league 2 striker. That stood out at Forest in August when they had pace and movement and we didn’t. He also has not scored for some time. If he isn’t scoring he doesn’t contribute enough. If he is up front next season then we ain’t going forwards as a club.

 

25 shots to harrogates 9.
10 corners to harrogates 1. yet they scored with their corner. Says it all. Can’t keep the ball out of our net and don’t take our chances. Recipe for mediocrity at best.

 

The problem is he rarely gets chances when he's facing goal. We never seem to get crosses in for him to attack, he's normally the one going for the useless looping throw ins. I can understand his frustrations.
Going back to the throws, why oh why are we persisting with it. I can't recall scoring 1 goal from this yet, every single throw is the same. Its just so amateur.

 

First game in a while. Thoughts:

- 2 up front was good to see.
- very good goal.
- we played well for half an hour.
- the other 60 mins were terrible.
- Songo’o needs to go back to Morecambe.

352 didn’t work. Our good spell was in spite of the system, not because of it. It was entirely due to the intensity of the players, not any particular great tactics or good technical play.

Once the intensity dropped, we looked clueless. The midfield didn’t get a kick as the ball sailed over their heads time and again. The front two tried to make this work but weren’t working with much as every long ball was straight down the middle. No width as we couldn’t create overlaps due to a lack of numbers our wide and our wide CBs not attacking (think Wilder). Long throws didn’t work once and were SO predictable.

And finally, our keeper was begging him to score that free kick. I said when he lined it up that it was a huge gap. Didn’t even need to put it in the corner to score. Awful positioning.

 

The frenzy of excitement that we could put a good 30 minutes together shows what a basket case of a club we are becoming. Rupps only spouting for ages was in protecting his own name during the recent 'take over ' , Ryan sadly is becoming more of a let down with each passing week, big head Adams has left the team with very little unity and quality and tactically embarrassing, Trueman cares but is out of his depth, and the vast majority of the players are just not up to the job.
We are plummeting faster than randy Prince Andy's reputation - we need a bloody miracle!

 

You do understand we were the home team?

 

I agree but we were just incapable of maintaining it, both physically and mentally

 

I will summarise what I can here but when we signed Bass and he made a couple of saves in his first game there was a fair few on here raving in about how Adams was a genius and we had Gordon banks in the net. He’s no better than what we had before and there’s a reason he’s out on Loan in league two.

We have no heart. No youth products coming through. No saleable assets. We now have no recruitment team or head of recruitment because we listened to a dinosaur manager who plays big boot football and signs low budget players who will listen to his orders and anyone steps out of line you’re gone.
We have a novice assistant manager who is now caretaker more times than he should ever have been close to this job. We have no decent sports science team, no fitness department. Nothing.

The club is being ruined by Rupp and Sparks is his custodian. I would dare say sparks is doing more damaged than Rahic if he continues to take us down the league and almost into non league.
He hasn’t got one thing right and all we have to show for it is some new seats and a tunnel and seabrooks crisps in the kiosks.

i don’t care how many commercial deals we have got or if the Efl chairman likes him. Take him with you for all I care, our football team we go to watch every week is so shite and that’s all that matters.

I said it before and I’ll say it again Sparks has not got one footballing decision right since he joined not one. Ryan do the honest and decent thing and appoint someone who knows a thing or two about football and keep out. You stick to your podcasts and radio talk shows.

 

Haven't argued against that-what's your point?

 

We are meant to be on the front foot.

It’s not up to Harrogate to come out and attack us.

Either way we lost 3-1 and that is unacceptable against a poor team.

 

Yep, but he'll definitely score against us again on Saturday!