Richard O'Donnell

As a couple of others have said who weirdly are in the minority nothing more than a scape goat, he was MOM tonight and kept it respectable.

Blaming the keeper for terrible management tactics is sadly not a first on here, there’s only two to blame tonight and that’s the hard to beat imitations of Bowyer.

 

Seems extremely unlikely, but I am prepared to stand corrected.

What do you think Hornby contributed that caused the defence and therefore the whole team to look better?

 

personally I think they had more confidence in him, thus giving them the freedom to play better

 

Hes a decent shot stopper. for this league anyways. distribution Is shit il add. Wasn’t at fault for the goals today; perhaps he could of been better positioned for both goals but you only really see that quality an knowhow in premier league quality goal keepers, knowing their angles to the tee and all that. cant really blame him as hes adequate for this league an perhaps the one above. I do agree though on the point some have made here; he isn’t the scapegoat for the performances; he actually made some decent saves yesterday to keep us in it, but its clear to tell he doesn’t inspire his defence with confidence, or hes not as good of a communicator with the defence as hornby, who knows. Either way, in the short term hopefully, Goalkeeper; amongst many others; will be a position that is upgraded come summer

 

It's a banker that someone mentions Hornbys Pickford-esque distribution.

The fact that it's a myth doesn't matter, this is about ROD being crap.

 

The main difference is that Hornby is much more confident in dominating his goal and his shouting and positioning gave the back four a confidence they lack with O' Donnell, They are both good shot stoppers but it is about players getting used to what a keeper is going to do and Hornby is the better choice, Changing has unsettled the defence and was a rookie mistake by T&S

 

Yet for some reason there was a clamour for dropping Hornby after the odd poor performance. There is little to choose between our two keepers, dropping Hornby was an error of judgement.

 

A bit like the clamour to drop O'Donnell after a performance that wasn't even poor?

 

The crazy world of the football fan. The same crazy world where people were on about dropping Cooke to accomodate Rowe in a two upfront.

 

He stopped shots any decent keeper would have stopped, However he does have some fault in both goals, He was slow to react on the breakaway for the first not been on the edge of his area and not seeing the danger then caught in no mans land ( you either meet the ball first or stay on your line and make the player beat you ) and for the second was a fault he has shown before and not coming out for the cross either taking or punching away, Hornby is good at both these ( sometimes rash on coming out but better than hesitating )

 

He wasnt to blame at all for the first. Alex Gillead burst from midfield and slipped a lovely ball behind the defence. Our CBs are slow and they cut us up. That’s all there is to that one.

 

They are both bang average keepers but one is captain. So he’ll start.

 

*Shudder*

What a bad call that was!

 

Both very average GKs, we yearn for better but have to remember were in league 2 and there both probably as good as its going to get for league 2.

 

And therein lies the issue. Not only did T&S change the keeper, they also had to take the captaincy from POC who in the main had become a good leader. We can hardly say the captaincy under O’Donnell has been a success. For me Canavan is the natural leader at the back but blind loyalty prevents that from happening.

 

You wanted ROD to stay on his line when the lad is clean through and make it as easy as possible for the striker to score?

Everything, and I mean everything, you read about that situation will tell you that keepers should come out and narrow the angles giving the striker less of the goal to aim at.

 

POC is a walking Red card. There's no way he'd be getting the captaincy from me. Having said that though, there's very few options so probably Canavan as you suggested.

 

A perfect summary of the first goal.

 

At the time I was wondering where our three central midfielders were. Apparently we only play one upfront so we can accommodate the 3 and not get overrun like that.

Strange then that not one got within 10 yards of the ball.

 

No he came out far to early, If you cannot beat him to the ball outside the box then stay on the line as long as possible so the goal gets smaller before coming out and spreading yourself giving a good chance you will block it, What you do not do is what OD did and give the advantage to the striker by getting caught in no mans land