Match Thread City v Walsall| League 2 | 20 October

Whilst none of us rate Guthrie, it's good man management from Stuart. The initial question about why he chose him over Samuels last night was a valid one but I think the next one about Guthrie lacking confidence was a bit of a pointless one and Stuart didn't want to get dragged down that road.

Seems to me that he accepts that fans know he's poor and are angry that he's still here and stealing a wage but wants to protect him mentally from being in the spotlight, which is understandable.

 

The biggest is for me is the front two. One of Novak or Donaldson is fine but both together doesn’t work. They both like to drop off the CBs and run the channels but neither tries to get in behind the CBs and actually get on the end of throw balls or crosses.

I’m not sure if Samuels is the answer (Guthrie isn’t) but I’d like to see us try a different strike partnership and try to stretch teams a bit more.

 

We won 3 - 1 Mansfield with the Donaldson/Novak pairing .

 

True. But Mansfield were awful.

 

Depends on who we are playing and the weaknesses we are trying to exploit in them. For example, the pairing of Novak and Donaldson worked against Mansfield.

 

Depends on who we are playing and the weaknesses we are trying to exploit in them. For example, the pairing of Novak and Donaldson worked against Mansfield.

 

Mansfield were that bad you could have played the chuckle brothers upfront.

 

You can only beat the 11 in front of you, we could use the same arguement with regards Harrogate they were playing a awful team on the night but only won by the odd goal.

 

Strange thing on this site. We win and the opposition are crap. We lose and we are crap.

 

Come on, be realistic. A blind man could see that Harrogate and Walsall were different class from Mansfield. This is reflected in their respective positions in the table and the fact that Walsall have the longest unbeaten record in the FL.
I'm not saying that this makes us crap. Just that we can't read much from a win against a team that are likely bottom three candidates.
I don't think we're going to get beaten easily very often. But we have to accept that our strikers are average at best, so they are going to miss plenty. So, unless we can create a lot more chances than we're currently doing, we are going to struggle for goals.

 

There are a number of free agents hanging around. Dont despair too much yet

 

I accept that of course but it’s a general thing whenever we get a win it’s not us playin well it’s the oppositio being poor

 

Sorry Steve I believe my reply was being realistic, you say Mansfield we crap and that's the reason we beat them, against Harrogate McCall went for a different formation and we were crap and Harrogate had few problems countering our formation and bossing the game, I repeat you can only beat the 11 in opposition, not sure what Walsall have to do with the debate, I replied to a post saying the Donaldson/Novak pairing doesn't work and pointed out where if did work.

 

At least we would have a first. A chubby pensioner partnered by a skeleton.

 

Agree with where you are coming from but I am struggling to think of a defence as bad as the Mansfield one

 

the Mansfield keeper had crisp packets for hands. It’s an ageing and sluggish front two and not great to watch.

We need better.

 

My original reply was to this post :
https://bantamtalk.com/index.php?threads/city-v-walsall-league-2-20-october.4338/page-16#post-410982, where Donaldson and Novak were our strike pairing that day.
I agree we do need better I dont think anyone would disagree, unfortunatly I dont believe that will happen until January, until then we have to get the best out of what we have, the balls we won in the air against Walsall should have won us the game on Tuesday night IMO.

 

True...but our attacking midfielders are hardly stepping up to the plate are they? No goals between them.

 

Yep I saw that? Not a good benchmark against Mansfield, I don’t think we will sign anyone even in January unless someone goes, and that’s unlikely.