Match Thread Away V Newport Tue 9th March. 7pm kick off.

I don’t get where some fans are coming from that we are some free flowing possession based side suited to good pitches as we were under McCall in 16/17, we often have less of the ball than our opponents and poorer pass accuracy. I’d say we are more a hard working counter attacking team, sure we have the odd passage of nice play but not sustained like Bolton did or Newport did to us earlier in the season although we are a lot harder to play against now.

I think the pitch suits them more than us if they are anything like they were when we last met, that said I think they’ve lost a fair few key players.

 

Newport murdered us at Valley parade 3-0 with a goal in the first couple of minutes. That was the game when McCall in his post match reaction said he thought about trying to match them up and get a 0-0 draw. That was one of our lowest points of the season will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow night.

 

Big difference being they were their registered home grounds for the season.

 

I think we need to freshen the side up. We've definitely looked leggy in the last couple of games. I think that is the primary reason for our performances tailing off. And whether we like it or not, at the rate of games we have coming up, if we don't change things around players are going to start breaking down with injuries brought on by the hectic schedule. That could prove costly later down the road. I don't agree with change for changes sake, but I do think fatigue is starting to affect performances.

I think Rowe can cover for Cooke. Rowe likes to play the deeper role and it gives him the space to attack. Cooke looks buggered and the lad needs a rest (as do a few others).

I'd also bring in FCD and Clarke too. FCD has been unfairly judged by some on here. Yes, he had a mare at Exeter but that was down to having Clarke out injured and the inexperienced Stevens not doing his defensive duties. Up until then FCD had done a great job. He was dropped whilst Clarke was out injured and we needed some experience out there to cover that wing. But now Clarke's back I see no reason to they can't both be added to the team sheet.

 

Despite what some may think, we got away with one on Saturday. It wasn't anything to do with tiredness or any other excuse you can think of, in fact both Evatt and Truemans post match comments alluded to it and thats what i find refreshing about Truemans post match comments after every game, he see the same game i see. Parkers match review and player scores were bang on too, we are getting big games every week from the likes of Paudie, Canavan, AOC and Sutton. Cooke had his first quiet game for a fair while but Watt, Vernam and Crankshaw were also quiet and we need to see more from these three in the next coming games. The trick on tuesday is to get the balance upfront right. Get it right and we have a chance of the three points.

 

I think the last gasp equalizer against Bolton will be a massive physiological boost for the team if we had lost it would have been hard to pick them up for tomorrow and if we had gone on and drawn without the last ten minutes I think the realisation that we were a bit lucky but the way we penned them in and scored that late goal will lift moral no end

 

Can we please stop going on about Callum Cooke being tired. By all means, if you want him dropped for Rowe then say that. He isn't tired. No one mentions that Connor Wood has played 65 games on the bounce but no one wants him rested. Bolton have a good midfield and negated ours somewhat. Why is it only Callum Cooke that gets singled out as being tired?

 

Because he has looked tired in the last couple of games and why he came off. Different players have different energy levels some can run all day and not get tired others can’t. As for replacing him with Rowe I am not sure that him and Cook can play together

 

Logically there is no way they can get that pitch up to scratch and ready to play on again unless the rugby teams also give it a break. Would be better if they were RL rather than RU which in addition to being a winter sport, also damages the pitch a lot more as more of the game involves contested scrums and the damage done by proper scrummaging rather than pretend scrummages they have in RL.

 

Logically there is no way they can get that pitch up to scratch and ready to play on again unless the rugby teams also give it a break. Would be better if they were RL rather than RU which in addition to being a winter sport, also damages the pitch a lot more as more of the game involves contested scrums rather than the pretend scrums in RL

Spot on, he's 23 and played in no more than 35 matches so far. How can he be "tired". It's like poor prince Harry being having such an awful life and crying about it, when millions are suffering through covid in silence.

 

He's 24 years old, we're not talking Clayton donaldson at 37. He wasn't tired on Saturday, he was pulled for tactical reasons. If people want him dropped then fair dos, thats football. Nobody has mentioned any other player as being tired, our back four have played virtually every game yet i've not heard anyone mention one of them needs 'resting'.

 

Remember the squad in 87/88 and how many games they played?

 

Paudie & Canavan are both double hard barstewards. They don't accept the concept of being tired and wind down from football with an Iron Man Challenge.

 

@Rogered Tart I'm not singling him out, because I think there's a few others who're tired too. Some you can see it in their performances - Cooke being one of them.
You may disagree on that but on reflection our performances have tailed off and I put that down to fatigue. It would be great to rest more players, but that could be too disruptive to the team if all done at once.
I don't simply want to replace Cooke with Rowe. Cooke is a big player for us and I think his loss due to injury would be more keenly felt than in other positions. Rowe seems like a good fit for his position. It means we can still retain the same shape without having to change formation to suit a particular player.

 

McCall played 59 but had he played in all the League Cup matches that would have been 62, and he still managed to score more goals than Kurtis Guthrie has scored in three years.

 

Was 87/88 a year they were restructuring the league as there were only 44 league games that year so only 23 teams in Division Two.

 

Yet not one other player on here has been mentioned by name as being 'tired'. I get the fact some want Cooke dropped for Rowe, i don't personally but each to their own. Boltons midfield wasn't better than ours on Saturday because of tiredness, they just played better than us.

 

Two who I did think looked out of sorts were Crankshaft (sic) and Vernham. I put that down to fatigue.
I think Bolton were better in the second half because they went up a gear. I can't put my finger on it but they just looked 'fresher' (not better) just like they had more to give and we didn't.
Interestingly, I watched a Bolton fans vlog last night. He did a pre-, during and post match review. In the pre-match analysis he thought Bolton would benefit fitness wise from their mid-week win over Oldham. Oldham had a man sent off and went 0-2 down by half-time. According to the vlogger, Bolton took their foot off the gas in the second half, which wasn't something we could do in our mid-week game.

 

There is a difference in being fit to run around for 90 minutes like pub teams do every week but it’s being able to produce a good performance as I say Cooke’s performance level has dropped more in my opinion than Sutton who was on it till the last minute on Saturday and Watt.
Also going back to your point in the earlier post about being out played in midfield in his post match interview Trueman said the tactics ceded midfield to catch them on the break which is why they played Cook