Match Thread Home v Oldham Athletic 3pm Saturday 20th March

Hello WUM.

 

But we're not going down though, right?

Also, 2 bad 90 minutes and one bad 15 minutes... on the back of one of the best runs in our history. A bit of perspective please

 

Suttons position was rb, rwb prior to this season - leaving only Watt and Cooke. Who knows what the thinking was in the January window as it was an area that you could see needed to improve we required competition in case of fatigue, loss of form:
we thought it was not required - leaves questions;
Could not afford any target due to budget cap
Target(s) rejected us; or
we wanted to keep the budget to a certain level.

 

He wont be at Oldham long every time I've seen the lad he's looked a class above every other player on the pitch and I wonder why Curle didn't start him ?.

 

Lol unfortunately. I think we are limited by personnel obviously - tried to play higher up the pitch and pressing first half at start but quality isn't there.

I would at least change things up Tuesday and have a look at something else. What have we got to lose now?

 

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!!

 

2 points from 12..

 

I'd give Scales a start, looked bright and we need some fresh legs

 

He is right though, rather than going out into near post touch it means there is a chance of a tap in

 

I wouldn’t go as far as saying they should be sacked. Tbh they probably deserve another transfer window to see what they can achieve. but lets also put things into perspective, its a poor league. no team stands out. for the past 2 months we’ve established that we can win even when we play poor. but today is a different matter, after the first 5 mins; it seemed like everyone was fine with settling for a draw.

we arent like other teams in the division who are stuck due to the fact that they have smaller budgets an less options to play with. we bought 2 strikers an 2 wingers in the window. we have a solid defence an adequate keepers. the least that should be done is for some things to be changed up. why switch rowe for cook? whats the harm in playing them together? why keep evans on all game when he has produced nothing? why not encourage the play at a faster pace? i mean we cant use fatigue as an excuse; we’ve had a week off. with the changes we have made in the window, we should be going into every game thinking we can win, we are a different team to the one mccall used in the first half of the season. I dont see how anyone can think that with the position weve got ourselves in, how we shouldn’t be going for a shot at the play offs

 

Normally agree with your posts Bronco, however I didn’t get the hype, looked to me like a typical young 4th tier winger, headless chicken, no positional sense, his team mates have no idea what he’s going to do with the ball, not sure he knows what he’s going to do with the ball, confuses the hell out of defenders, gets people on the edge of their seats but not much end product.

 

I smell WUM

 

And that's an understatement...

 

Important not to lose says Mark, whats that suppose to mean when we have nothing to lose, we aren't going down lets have a go, poor poor entertainment.

 

Trueman said it in the first few words there - "important not to lose". Thats how we set up in games, zero interest in taking the game to the opposition and trying to win the game.

 

Congratulations. You can count.

 

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.

 

They all do, our keeper must have a magnet...

 

Midfield is too soft, Watt is good when he gets time on the ball to pick a pass, but doesn’t lack the stomach or energy for a fight and gets sloppy when the oppo press our midfield.

 

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,