Match Thread Home v Cheltenham, Tuesday 1st December 7pm kick off.

I’m wondering about Rupp and what he is thinking. Surely he must be concerned, and yet he keeps on funding City - why? The way forward is very very bleak,

 

Don't know why you think its bizarre m8, others have agreed with me.

I stand corrected on the assist, although still want to see Cooke more involved and on the ball over the full 90.
Watt did really well winning the ball and playing it through for the Hosannah chance and made a great block at the end of the first half, but without the assist I'm knocking him down to 5. He simply gave the ball away too much, even on some short 5 yard passes.

Donaldson, as I said, gets a generous mark just for keeping himself fit and sticking it out for the full 90, I wouldn't argue if you gave him a 7. He was running on empty after 60 mins and should have subbed (albeit with no options on the bench). He's 36 and playing Saturday/Tuesday. I'm not going to mark him down when he shouldn't have been on the pitch, that's not really his fault. The first half he was very good, if the lino was actually paying attention and watched the shove in his back he would've won a penalty. Score that and I don't think anyone would argue with an 8 or even a 9.

BRE - overall I prefer POC but BRE was better than him today. He did miss a sitter (on his weaker foot), but based on his defending he was the one more often than not bailing us out and the goal line clearance was fantastic. POC made a couple of mistakes leading to goal scoring chances and I don't think BRE did. I don't think he should be starting every week but he isn't a bad no nonsense CB at this level like everyone makes out.
In terms of responsibility for the goals, Hosannah for the first for not tracking his man, giving them a 3v2 overload and created the space in the box to shoot. The second, Scales loses his man.

Some of the marks may be generous but that was better than some performances we have put in, albeit still not good enough.

No need to be condescending with 'you weren't paying much attention'. Just how I saw the game.

 

Looked like a 4/2/3/1 at times yet at others we went back to a 3/5/1/1. This team needs a pair of fullback who get nose bleeds on the halfway line, it's the only way to stop conceding. A solid bank of four in the middle, probably with a fullback type player on one side and a winger on the other (who can also tackle) and a small mobile striker playing off a big man who can keep up with play. Sound familiar ? It's the Parky blueprint.

 

I'm not trying to be condescending and apologies if it came across that way but you're marking people on the basis of making assists that they didn't make and criticising a player for not contributing when he actually made one of the very few positive contributions to the first half performance.

Coupled with the 8 and a 7 in a game we could easily have been beaten by more in it just seems an overly generous summary.

 

Fair enough, I revised my mark for Watt based on it being Cooke's assist. I would still like to see more from Cooke overall but he was fine yesterday.
On Donaldson and BRE marks, I think I've explained my reasoning and they both come in for undue stick IMO. It is possible for players to play well individually yet be part of a poor team performance, I tried to recognise that in my marks. I have given out several 4/5s also.

 

I understand that players can receive high marks in a poor team performance but your essentially giving CD an 8 because of a good 45 minute performance. To not take into account the second 45 where he was as poor as the rest is the reason I believe his mark is skewed.

What you've essentially done is decided that two of our usually poorer players put in an improved performance and thrown an extra couple of marks on both just because they've been rightly criticised in the past.

 

Think we're splitting hairs here tbh so I'm going to leave it at this:
In my opinion, both Donaldson and BRE have come in for unfair criticism at times this season, that is not to say neither of them have made mistakes and had poor games.
In BREs case I think he has made fewer mistakes than POC and Staunton per minute played so far this season, but is made to look bad by playing him as a ball playing LCB or a makeshift target man. POC and Staunton seem to get a pass because they are young and have potential and for whatever reason people have already decided that they don't rate BRE.
In Donaldsons case, I think he has done a reasonable job over the season of getting us higher up the pitch and winning silly freekicks. He is playing more minutes than someone his age should be. His composure often lets him down and his first touch is hit and miss. He is our joint top scorer. We do however obviously need better and more options asap.

 

Fair enough, I'll leave it there too but just one last point, NONE of them get a pass. They've all been disappointing and every player, to a man needs to buck their ideas up and improve.

 

Giving Donaldson a high mark for being 36 and staying fit is liking giving Captain Tom a 9 for his epic walk. As Sean Dyche would say "It's his job, by the way". If he isn't fit he doesn't play. Simples. No allowance for age, he draws a wage and is expected to perform with no silly allowance for being 36.

 

Is he available?

 

Yes but will take a few weeks to get up to our required level of fitness.

 

Up to our level?
Really?

 

He could cover more ground with his zimmer than Guthrie has so far this season

 

Who gives a feck about the marks they are given, 3 points is the only thing that REALLY matters.

 

Stevenage winning and Mansfield drawing. Didn’t someone say we won’t go into bottom two tonight as they won’t win? Oh dear

 

Don't need to look at the league table until we get a couple of wins. Better to live in ignorance.

 

It's about not pretending that 45 minute performance was anywhere near acceptable if we are to win fans and move up the league. First off, it's a 90 minute game anyway and secondly, even with the first 45 minutes taken in isolation, 1 shot on target, which happened to go in (thanks to their keeper?) does not constitute a huge improvement.

There's too many on here praising an increased effort and workrate when in reality that should have been the absolute minimum all season and the base we should be working from.

It's like the longer we put up with terrible performances the more often an average or even below par one gets exaggerated into something it's not. We've seen it often with individual players, Will Atkinson was a prime example but now it's happening to over egg team performances and that's a sure fire way to sleep walk our way to relegation.