Mark Hughes your football is...

Take those naughty thoughts out of your head. You should be celebrating another solid away point.

 

I wanted him out back in January and he has yet to prove me wrong. Failing so often at home is sackable in my mind and he is wasting what was a perfectly respectable squad in our division.

The club will pay a heavy price in ST sales for next year and will almost certainly go backwards as a result. There .... I feel better now

 

At times we utterly painful to watch, mainly due to a set up of pragmatic defence. That first 45 minutes was pathetic, a crowd of 18,000+ and most were in a deep sleep by half time. Great cure for insomnia. Second half better but couldn't be worse. We look a good bet for the playoffs but it's a hell of a tough watch.

 

It's completely beyond me that MH can't see that we need to start with our most attacking line-up at home. It's not as if his timid approach at home hasn't been shown time and again to be self-defeating and ineffective.

 

I'm all for keeping a successful line up but it's one primarily set up to play away from home, which has been very effective to the point of getting us in the playoffs. At home however.its like having teeth pulled. We've yet again managed to make a below average side struggling near the playoffs look way better than the sum of their parts. To let a team in that position dominate the first half when you are battling for top three is unforgivable. Yet to be fair that first half didn't surprise me, I don't think we've played any different to that in most of the games I've seen this season. We've just been lucky teams haven't taken their chances.

 

Negative

 

Sloth-Like

 

Don't expect to see Walker on Tuesday night,so Mr Stubborn will be forced into at least one change to the starting eleven.

 

Walker looked like he was carrying a knock from the start of the game or at least very early in. Still won’t sub him and now it looks as if he’s out for Tuesday.

 

Everyone seems to agree that this season has been one of fine margins, and it's now likely that we will miss out on automatics, and have to settle for the play offs lottery. A massive shame given how "bad" the league has been this year

My question is, what tweaks does Hughes need to make to change is into a side capable of a crack at automatic promotion next year.

Major stumbling blocks as I see already are,

Three sides on a modest budget disappearing to be replaced by two non league clubs how will chuck money at everything.


As is proven at this level over the years, even if he stays it's unlikely Andy cook will be as prolific.

Our next three top scorers wright, banks and young will not be at the club.

Critchlow will likely be back at Huddersfield and is it possible that we will have a fight on our hands to keep Lewis.

All of a sudden, those minor tweaks now seem as though they could be another rebuild.

I just see the play offs as our sliding doors moment. We need to win them, other wise we look set for another few years in the god forsaken league.

It could be one of those we look back on in a few years and think this year was our most realistic chance

 

The tweaks I think are needed, largely at home:
Drop the goal kick routine. It causes more problems for us than the opposition, prevents us getting up the pitch and maintaining pressure and gives encouragement to the opposition.
A smaller squad with more quality. Get some proper pace into the side.
Play with greater intensity at home.

Tbh, given our home form, our style of play at home needs more than tweaks.

 

Carlisle played the 352 system really well last night. Feeney and Mellish especially, were excellent.

I think we've got the personnel that naturally suit that system and would like to see us try it. Platt, Stubbs and Crichlow would be an excellent back 3. Gillead and Banks as wing backs - both have the energy to cover the flanks and whilst neither are natural defenders, I think they'd get the cover they need from that back 3 and then have Clayton and Smallwood, or possibly Clayton and East as a midfield 2. Walker in behind Cook and A.N.Other. I'd like to see us give it a go.