Home vs Swindon Town 5th October

Best overall team performance ive seen for a long time. Ismail looks some player for tbis level. Special mention to Cooke. We have looked far better since he has come into the team, and I thought he was outstanding today alongside Alpan, who had best home performance since joining us.
Very hard working performance from Captain Clayton, who deserved a goal for his efforts.

 

Get good players in, and the formation isnt really an issue.

Cooke has made a huge difference.

 

Played well today. Probably the best and most controlled performance of the season. Totally dominated a decent team for the full 90 minutes and should have won more comfortably if we had been a bit more clinical with our final ball/cross and hadn’t switched off to gift them a goal.

I said before the game that is like to see us try 433/4231 and we did something of the sort today and it paid off. Would happily see us stick with this system going forward.

 

Enjoy the game with one up front today?

 

Most complete performance of the season for me today. Formation switching between 433 and 4231 worked a treat - we dominated the ball at times and their midfield didn't have a sniff. Swindon were absolute dog shit by the way, was expecting a much harder game but it was a comfortable win and the game would've been done by HT if the crossing was better.

Biggest homer ref I've seen for ages but it's about time given the absolute stinkers we have every week.

Shouts to AOC and Akpan, very good today. Let's hope akpan can keep that level of performance up and it's not just a flash in the pan.

 

It will be interesting to see if Clayton's goal was offside, he took it well off side or not.

 

Really enjoyable match everyone had a decent game today the effort put in was immense. We made Swindon look very average.

Delighted for Shay I thought he might have been peed off at not getting a start but that's how you let the manager know you want in the team.

I've been pretty scathing of Akpan and I still feel he deserved it but today he impressed and if he keeps going like that he can cup his ear in my face.

 

Both Akpan & McCartan enjoyed their goals at the Kop end.

 

As already mentioned previously, one small criticism of today was the quality of the crossing and itsnotjust one individual. There were numerous occasions when a player got himself into the box and instead of drilling it low and hard, floated a high ball beyond everyone. Surely now and again that low ball would wreak havoc. I suppose the one excuse for not doing it our strikers rarely make the near post run

 

Yeah I did, it worked well. I'm not sure we created as much as we would have liked but I'm happy to hold my hands up, it was a good performance and the system worked well against a decent side.

I thought Cooke was superb at the base, his ball retention was exactly what we've been missing in some games and both Akpan and Pritchard worked their balls off both defending and supporting Donaldson when needed.

 

Very pleased with the result. I was "disappointed" with Swindon, well not really, but I thought they did themselves no favours. Lots of fouls and when they were losing right at the end they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot by giving away even more unnecessary fouls, eating into the time.
Woolery should have been booked for a shocking dive in the first half.
I want to see Donaldson's offside goal again, I thought it looked close.
Cooke was my man of the match, but nobody had a poor game for us today.

 

Next 4 games we should be looking at 10 points minimum starting away next Saturday at Morecombe, two home wins (we have to make Valley Parade) a fortress where teams don't fancy their chances.
Morecombe away
Crawley Home
Port vale Home
Macclesfield away

 

35 years old. He'll love every minute. Just the fella we need to get us out of this cesspit.

 

It's far from a criticism of Donaldson I just thought he did a lot of the dirty stuff with very little support certainly first half, we were better second half and could have won by a bigger margin.

 

Agree.

 

I know it's not a critism. Just think it's last chance for a bit of glory.

 

Yes, credit to Akpan, he played very well today but he played very well in one game last season as well. Lets hope that wasn't this season's offering from him and there's still more to come.

 

The whole back 4 stopped, presumably waiting for an offside flag that never came

 

Well that was the best all round performance I can recall at home for some considerable time.

The whole team EXCEPT Mellor were a credit to the shirt. Mellor was gash today and could have cost us that game. Lost count of the times he lost his man in the box when defending corners.

ROD 6-why won't he distribute the ball quickly?
KM 3-gash
POC 7- struggled from early injury
AOC-8 won every header
CW-6 crosses a bit wayward and goal came from his side. Needs a bit more composure on the ball
CC-9 calm and ran midfield my MOTM
HA-8.5 best ever game in a city shirt at home? Like a new signing.
ZI-7 great wing play at times but crossing wayward
DC-7 ran his legs into the ground but crossing let him down
HP-7 effective game
CD-8 Played the lone striker role well. Won lots of headers and hold up play was good.

SM-7 good goal even with a slight deflection and took up some really good positions.
TF and DD 6 for being part of a winning team.

I liked the way we often quickly won the ball back and started another attack.

What is really satisfying for me is we looked like a team that is balanced and very hard working. NO prima donnas no arguing just getting on with it.