Match Thread Most liked posts in thread: Home V Grimsby Saturday 10th April @ 3.00pm

Honestly do think wood is overrated. Maybe just me but he seems bang average in this side. I assume the club agree and are not willing to pay the exorbitant wages he was on when we were in league one. If he goes i expect him to go to a l2 club. Maybe bolton if they get promoted.

 

I'm not sure the two things are mutually exclusive.

 

Just a thought......
Are some peoples expectations being subconsciously raised by overexposure to Premier League coverage?
Yesterday I went straight from watching L**ds v Man City, played on a billiard table with moves and passes that literally took your breath away, to The Fighting *@?$ v The Trawlermans Arms, complete with commentary from the chuckle brothers. Maybe people are just expecting too much? We’re an above average side in the basement league, hopefully we can get into the top 7, but we’re not going to steamroller anyone because most teams in this league are on a par. The biggest difference yesterday? We had discipline & team spirit, T&S have instilled a real togetherness, something Hursts players didn’t have.

 

Generally winners win by playing the better game. There is the odd exception but usually the best teams play the more entertaining football. When we went up in the years 85, and 99 and nearly went up in 88 the football we played was the best I've ever seen.

 

lets get out of this league and then try to entertain in league 1. one.

 

For all my criticism, just to be clear, I don't think we're far off.

We under invested in central/passing midfielders in January. Let's give T&S some of the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they thought Cooke and Pritchard could rotate with Watt and Sutton but both got injured unfortunately.

They also thought that playing Vernham and Crankshaw on the side of the attacking three with Cook/Rowe would give us good attacking options but what happened was we became less solid/defensively sure and started losing so they went the other way and moved to a more solid three.

Both of those things will be fixed in the summer window I think and we'll have better options.

They're still learning and I don't mind that. Against Stevenage there is an argument that the team started so poorly (not sure that's totally down to the managers) but we pulled back and went attacking to try and win it and therefore it wasn't a bad result. I was just disappointed yesterday that they hadn't learned from that performance and got more pace into the team but I hope they'll continue to learn and improve the team and squad generally.

 

I thought the pitch looked quite good.

Spoken like a true City fan. If we hit the play-offs I will be more than happy with a performance and result like that in the last two games.

 

The three points was welcome, the performance was not. The standard of the game was National League. The ball was up in the air more than the RAF and the pass completion from both sides was very poor. Apart from a 10-15 minute spell half way through the second half, I cannot remember any fluent passing moves from us that lasted for more than three or four passes. Want much more from City. Want some joy!

 

Haha Monkey got told off by a mod. Come on own up, who did it?

 

For long stretches of the game it looked like a National League match. I realize Grimsby will probably be in it next season, but we're still in with a shout for play offs. We have to become sharper, cuter, more decisive in these last few games. Watching the ifollow live coverage, it looked like we were playing in slow motion at times.

 

By my reckoning if we win this game (and southend lose) we will be mathematically safe from relegation too.

if we are serious about getting into the playoffs this game does need to be won.

 

They seem to play with three number 9s in Hanson, Payne and John-Lewis. Not sure how this looks in practice but would imagine their gameplan is to launch balls in the box from all angles and hope something drops. Could be a problem considering we've looked vulnerable from crosses and set pieces especially, lately. People were quick to jump on O'Donnell on Monday and whilst he probably should've come for it, not one other outfield player attacked the ball, which is simply not good enough.

But as others have said, this is a must win if we're to finish top 7. Get an early goal and I think we'll win comfortably.

 

I think that Canavan's performances have dropped off a little recently. When he first came he was getting onto the ball before the forward, either getting a tackle in or even more so, making the clearance. I feel that lately he has just been that little bit off the pace and not being as dominating as he previously was. Still a very good signing though, just hope he isn't letting his standards slip a little.

 

I would add they do not contribute enough aerially from our corners and set pieces - assists or goals.

 

If the 2 Centre halves are concerned about James Hanson at this point in his career then we're in trouble anyway.

 

True and what is causing angst I think is that we're not creating lots of chances but our conversion rate must be really high.

I think we'd all be more comfortable if we were making lots of chances and therefore losing the odd goal here and there wouldn't matter because we'd probably be scoring more than one. At the moment scoring more than one per game looks hard so conceding any makes everyone nervous.

 

Under McCall we were understandably poor due to continual changes in formation and personnel. We then had a period of stopping goals and shots on target. The formation was consistent during this period and still is today. The 2 recent changes to the defensive unit were FCD and Hornby. Most agreed the moving of AOC to right back strengthened the defense and I think the majority (could be wrong), believe the reintroduction of ROD has weakened it. We've now reintroduced FCD & ROD and the defense is back under pressure and incoherent. Could it be coincidence? We saw on Monday how POD berated O'Donnell for not coming out to catch the ball coming into the box, so we know it's not just the fans who have this opinion.

My only hope is that we're talking about a victory on Saturday evening and not pointing out or singling out ROD's performance, other than in a good way.

 

Let’s not exaggerate the problem in the last three matches we have conceded two and scored 6

 

I actually think it started against Cheltenham, even though we kept a clean sheet. Their long through caused us plenty of problems which no doubt opposition picked up on, since then I feel teams have targeted putting high balls into the box against us even Eoin Doyle had a free header against us. For all the stick R’OD gets, although it is his main weakness, we looked absolutely pathetic against the long ball against Carlisle with Hornby in net and I think teams since then will have seen that as the best way to score against us. A keeper does need to be more demanding in the 6 yard area, but the defence have to take a lot of the blame. A’OC ducking a long ball which a Stevenage player ran on to and forced R’OD into a fantastic save on Saturday was one of the most pathetic pieces of defending I’ve seen in a long time. A bit more evidence is just how poor we are in the opposition box at attacking headers, it’s a weakness of ours but a team weakness that has been found out recently.

I don’t think Hornby should have been dropped on the back of one game, but that’s on the management team not the replacement keeper. I think both are capable keepers with obvious weaknesses that you’d expect at league 2. Time for the team to take more responsibility as a whole for defending, because we are actually getting away with it a bit atm even though we are conceding we could be letting in even more.