Match Thread Most liked posts in thread: Home v Oldham Athletic 3pm Saturday 20th March

They'd won 1 in 9. And conceding goals for fun. That was the ideal game for us to put in a performance after a poor patch. What good does 'not losing' games have? We're not going down and we have an outside shot at the playoffs. This is THE scenario where you can set your stall out to take a bit of risk.

I thought we'd left the mediocrity mindset behind. When I say 'we' i mean the the club. I appreciate you're always going to struggle with that idea Park.

 

Tbf we didnt really trouble them all that much all game. rowe had a shot from distance. vernham had a shot or two. that was about it. ive noticed we’re too reliant recently on teams making a mistake for us to score. examples being : Mansfield, Newport, Leyton Orient. our defensive work is solid but it seems we cant create chances or dont know how to

 

We are doing the same to Rowe as we did to Doyle, sticking them upfront on their own. They are the sort of players that need someone up front with them . Today he got in some good positions and midfield never passed to him, Why? He's the centre forward not them .

 

This constant rotation of Rowe and Cook in terms of starts and substitutions is having a detrimental effect. It must be unsettling to the players and, ultimately, the team. If Trueman thinks it's a way of keeping both happy, he's badly mistaken. Rowe's body language hasn't been great since he joined us but, as each game passes, he reminds me very much of Doyle's demeanour when we played him as a target man. It won't be the first time we've signed a player, without much thought as to where they are going to fit in. The management duo have a decision to make and, if they don't want to play Cook and Rowe together, I guess Rowe will make that decision for them.

 

Seems like the wind has gone out of the supporters sails because of the last 2 defeats. I hope the season doesn't fizzle out and that we get back to winning ways with a strong performance.

It's imperative T & S show they have the ability to turn things around because we need to start next season on the back of positives, rather than negatives performance wise.

 

What on earth have they been doing in training all week?

 

Very poor 1st half.

 

Can’t blame the striker, had no service whatsoever

 

If the fans were in the ground today, there'd be some noises of discontent. This is as poor as we've been for a while. Our performances are getting worse.

 

He has not been starting since Curle took over. I think Curle has been picking sides and formations to tighten them up and make harder to beat, rather than the cavalier approach under Kewell

 

I think that's a bit unfair. For me the squad isn't balanced well. We don't have enough proper central midfielders. Whatever formation we play we end up with Watt and Sutton in the middle and no options other than Scales or FCD possibly.

What they should be doing is switching formations really.

Watt has has a poor game with his passing and in this formation if he has a poor passing game then we play poorly, that's what today has shown

 

lets get this over an done with
O’Donnell - 4 - Wont come for crosses. Distribution is shite. Makes Hornby look like Neuer
Wood - 4 - Made one effort of his own accord. looks like a shadow of his previous self. needs upgrading in the summer
Paudie - 5 - Did what was asked of him. lucky not to be sent off
Canavan - 6 - Probably the best signing of the window. did what was asked
Anthony - 5 - Solid defensively, piss poor going forward. always looks for a backwards pass
Sutton - 4 - non existent
Watt - 4 - Shocking performance for his standards. poor passes all day
Evans 3 - he gets a 3 for actually being useful on the pitch for the last 10 mins. besides that. useless
Vernham - 6 - Probably our most focal point of attack. took a few shots; some neat touches but nothing compared to what cooke offers
Crankshaw - 5 - some okay crosses, plays too many backwards passes. dosent seem to beat his man too often in 1 on 1s
Rowe - 6 - felt sorry for the lad; no service whatsoever

subs
Scales - 6 - actually wanted to recieve the ball, did more in 10 mins than evans did all game
cook - 6 - the way we went about our game suited him more than rowe. still lacked any service

a piss poor result. a piss poor performance . no plan B. no urgency to create anything. Looks like the honeymoon period is well and truly over

 

Bull shit score for O'Donell, kept a clean sheet and made some decent saves !

Makes Hornby look like Neur ??? Couldn't read the rest of your post after that stupid, ridiculous statement

 

Losing games is part of football. lacking any urgency to get a win however is inexcusable. the managers have done so well to put us in a position where we can actually get into the play offs, yet they chose to piss it all away by passing the ball around our own half for 70% of the game?! as far as im concerned thats inexcusable

 

Too static on the ball. Every time our defence have the ball, all our midfielders and forwards stop and ask for it to feet - no wonder we don't look like scoring in a month of Sundays.

On a positive side, although Oldham looked dangerous at times I felt our defence were in control and I was never really worried that we might concede - O'Donnell didnt really have anything but standard 'easy' saves to make.

All in all a bit boring.

 

Turned off at around the hour mark not because of the performance but I've thoroughly enjoyed my sport this week. Really have. I wasn't enjoying this.

I could not agree more on expectations. They have to be measured and ain't happening here. T&S achieved the first part of their remit. To 'expect' a promotion push is unfair on these two.

 

Without Cooke the system just doesn’t work, we don’t have a midfield, desperately need a tough tackling midfield general in place of Sutton. BTW I think Sutton’s been brilliant since Stuart left but he’s not a holding centre midfielder. In fact too many of the team are playing out of position......
Evans - right wingback at Pompey left wing today!
Sutton - Right mid/ wing back/ right winger - converted to CM by City, positionally naive.
Vernam - winger, played centrally most of today, looked lost, clueless in a 10 role
AOC - Centre half as a full back, he’s been brilliant but doesn’t give enough going forward.
This system is great for a clean sheet but without Cooke in that number 10 role we have no teeth.
Frustrating, but talk of wheels coming off are frankly ridiculous.......can we all remember how bad we were before T&S took over, in fact before they came in we’d have all been over the moon with a draw against Oldham!!

 

Hes not wrong, but we're setting up too defensively. Amd whats more concerning is that we look unsure in possession. You need to be much more on the front foot, and take more risks to win games, at home certainly. A home crowd won't accept that sort of approach we saw today - and that we're seeing regularly now.

 

The formation is based on not conceding with an emphasis on defence trying to catch teams with break away attacks which is ok away from home but relies on a good CM to break out with, At home we need to be more ambitious,