Match Thread Stockport County vs Bradford City Tues 24 January @ 7.45pm

From Smallwood's reaction I think he felt it might be red

 

Id imagine that Walker will replace Gillead going forward.

 

Greetings, County fan in peace. Absolutely horrible game to watch last night for both sets of fans. Thought we were poor by our standards & apart from a brief spell at the start of the 2nd half where we applied a bit of pressure we got sucked into a continuous game of hoofball, both sides seemed content to just keep lumping it up to nowhere with the same unfruitful outcome over & over again. Thought both defences were solid although neither were particularly tested by sustained attacking spells, thought you looked a little shaky defending corners but other that you fully nullified our front men. From our perspective your back line had periods where they passed it about between themselves at will & we did little to press them.

Looked like you had a nailed on penalty shout early 1st half but some of ours are saying on tv replays your fella went down too easy & might of been better staying on his feet to get the shot off, personally in real time I've seen them given this season for far less & thought we got away with that one! The ref in general just didn't want to give anything which may have contributed to the ugly physicality of the game, Refs in this division either seem overly card happy & nit picky or go to the other extreme & completely ignore everything! There doesn't seem to be any inbetween.

I worried a bit when you brought Cooke on near the end as I thought he's just the type of player who could nick a late winner, It say's a lot about the dourness of Mark Hughes though when he's prepared to leave a proven scorer on the bench for over 80 minutes! Thought his shithousery with the throw in incident was also disappointing, a manager trying to impede a player showed a lack of class on his part in my opinion.

Best of luck for the rest of the season. A club your size with your fanbase should be gracing the championship not league two but from our point of view after 11 years of non-league hell it's fantastic to be playing proper teams like yourselves who pack the away end again. Despite the dross served up on the pitch last night it still feels like a return to proper football for us after suffering years of playing village teams who sometimes brought less than 20 fans!

 

Look at the passing stats. We had 20% more passes than Stockport and a far better completion rate

 

After now watching the highlights, that is a penalty all day long, at least as much as Stockport , Swindon and Rochdale at our place and the non ones against Eisa v Rochdale and Wright v Orient. You do not know how games will pan out, but as Hughes says, could cost us double figures in lost points by the end of the season.
We all make mistakes, its part of life. All we ask for is consistency in decision. I suppose we are getting it in a way, consistent bad decision's against us

 

Ah, passing wins football matches now?

we were shit, as were Stockport, stop trying to gloss over it with pointless stats

 

Can't disagree with any of that and in fairness it's also good to see proper football clubs like yourselves back in the league rather than the Forest Greens and Salford's of this world.

As a side note, the fan park behind the main stand was excellent and I wish we'd put something like this in place. It reminded me a little of Tranmere's set up but done better.

 

Remove the completed passes from side to side across the back 4 with no pressure. Then you'll be given a clearer picture of our pass completion statistics.

 

It helps. It also says they weren't so much better than is being made out.

Win against Rochdale, as we should have done, and you are looking at 11 points from five, which is championship form. On balance, the only poor result in the last five games is that one.

We can build on this result. Whether we do is a completely different matter.

 

He was behaving like a complete bell end and the ref should have booked him for simulation!

Hippolyte actually scored 2 goals for us a few seasons ago, he was trialling for us at Brighouse Town in pre-season and scored 2 penalties. He didn't look too shabby from what I can recall and I honestly thought we were going to take a punt on him

 

Well the so called creative players in our team are not creating.

If Smallwood or Gilly are dropped for Walker in the next game then I might think we will stand a chance.

However, seeing us play live recently I think we are a poor team.

 

my problem is everyone looks stronger and more physical we were pushed off the ball lots agian especially Eisa and Abbott sorry Costello and as for our centre forward I dont know what is strengths are ? Does not win many headers, no pace no shots dunno we look poo

 

I'm sick to death of all the piss moaners.
I'm no happy clapper, far from it.
I'm not blind to players playing poorly or a manager not earning his wage.
If I feel a manager has lost his dressing room then I accept his time is up.
I've slagged Gilliead off all season until the diamond was introduced.
But I'm also clued up enough to think yes we have been dull as dishwater these last 2 games.
But I understand there is a reason.
After we had played Sutton in November we were a win off 3rd.
We had played 18 league games, conceded 14 goals whilst keeping 7 clean sheets.
0.77 goals per game.
Clean sheet in 39% of games
After the Rochdale game, we had played 6 league games since Sutton.
In the 6 matches we were conceding an average of 1.83 goals a game.
We kept a clean sheet in only 17% of the games.
We had gone from a win shy of the top 3 down to 7 points off.
If any of our supporters can't see that the whole team needed a reminder of the type of defensive solidity that had us near the promotion places then these stats show what Hughes is trying achieve.
Get us playing tight again.
If we keep it clean then the chances are we either get a point or grab all 3.
I get that we have better attacking options than played last night.
Chapman, Banks, Cook, Perriera.
Banks was in the stand last night declaring he was fit but not selected.
Chapman was taken out for Wimbledon.
Cook has been out ever since the 3 defeats on the spin.
Perriera is a total luxury.
Coincidences???
For me though these are luxury players, not roll your sleeves up and press, be physical, forget the referee and get on with the game players.
Players that we need right now to try and get us back to being hard to beat.
Football clubs are totally different these days.
The approach is defined by statistics, and we have a dedicated team who will be pointing out the why's and why nots about goals and chances conceded compared to points per game and league positions.
I bet you they use the stat I've just produced of the amount of points we accumulate when we are defensively sound compared to not.
Making us tight again, whilst picking up points at historically tough teams on good runs, whilst keeping our real quality rested and blooding recently acquired loan players into the revised work ethics, for me is good management and something we will see the benefit of in the next 10 games.

 

Smallwood, Gilliead and Clayton is worth persevering with for now, it will be Costelloe that makes way for Walker imo.

Mansfield play the same formation, so it wil be interesting to see how they match up player for player.

 

Our fan base. Goodness me

 

Didn't some moot that Costelloe has a "must play" clause? Because on the basis of last nights performance, I think that's the only way he's going to start games.

 

We don't put on sparkling displays with plenty of shots and entertainment when we win, never mind when we lose.

It IS a results business and if Hughes takes us up, no one will remember that the football was crap. But, over time results tend to follow performances. And that's at the nub of the criticism.

 

That type of clause can't be legal.

I doubt it.

 

Well like everyone else that match was not enjoyable. However, it reminded me of early Parky matches. Do not lose mentality was instilled in the players awful to watch but you pick up points.

This leads me to my next point. I think we all caught the Hughes bug. High expectations of our ability to play fantastic football and waltz out of this league without a backwards glance. This league makes me swear it is awful I hate it, don’t want to be here but here we most definitely are. We are here because we have not been good enough. We are also still suffering from “we shouldn’t be here bug” we are here because other teams keep beating us without all the crap/baggage we are carting it around.

We have to drop all this nonsense and I am talking to myself as much as everyone else here. We know the players crave recognition from the fans. That doesn’t mean we have to clap rubbish but it does mean we encourage them to improve. We have to let go of Mark Hughes past, and support him here in lg2 somewhere he has never been before. It does mean we have to endure some awful football and especially when we get a point. We are in league 2, no team gets to walk out of here without scars. Remember they don’t want us to go, we are too lucrative, so teams will go the extra mile to make sure we don’t leave their place with anything but sore pride.
We do have to make sure we win at home.

 

Uncertain why you think we'll gain anything from dropping our ball winners and replacing them with arguably our most creative player - who needs to be further forward.

I never understand why fans, seem to think that you can have a midfield that has it all in L2 - when playing three upfront (in affect). If it's a 4-4-2, then I understand your point. But we don't play that system so having a solid three and then asking the full backs to create plus the two creative attacking players, is the only way forward.

The likes of Chapman or even Banks (who occasionally drifts out of games) are far more culpable than your anti-favorites, but it seems that those who are supposed to create the chances and don't, are immune to criticism.

Dropping Smallwood is hilarious. Strange that the footie stat indexes rate him as high as 12 (too high in my opinion) but you'd drop him and we'd just be weaker in midfield.