What do we need in January

An absolutely outstanding central defender. Tall, authoritative, not injury prone. Will cost money. No need to scapegoat any of the existing players because we play a style that invites attacks and league 1 forwards are slightly better than league 2. Keep our attacking style, improve our defense.

 

Two number tens to compete with Pointon and Sarcevic. The drop off in quality when either of them doesn't play is huge.

 

Defence is a must. Only Plymouth, Barnsley and Blackpool have fewer clean sheets than us so far this season, 2 of those in the drop zone. At least one CB.

I'd be 100% looking for a forward too. Humphrys & Swan dont look to have much consistency lately.

Might depend on the outs too really. Could realistically have a pool of players like Halliday, Richards, Byrne, Kelly, Lapslie, Kavanagh & Powell who are either not up to scratch, not getting minutes, or are out of contract in the summer and barely used here as it is and might want a new home sooner.

 

Can we stick Andrew Davies in a time machine? Someone like him would be just the ticket.

 

A football who is at least a step up on T Wright.
Shouldn’t cost much or be hard to find

 

Anyone who is an upgrade on the shite that is kavannagh and Humphreys

Kelly can defend but can't pass the ball. Depends what you want, either replace him or stop passing the ball to him

On top of both of them, a fitness coach who stops killing all our players in training

 

A bonkers mad billionaire who knows nothing about f all.

 

I've noticed since Kelly came in the team, when we have a goal kick Max Power is dropping into the LCB slot when Walker has it and Kelly pretty much sits on the touchline about 5 yards from Touray until the ball is moved out and Power trots back into the middle. They know he's guff on the ball and willingly let the midfield sink deeper to avoid giving him it.

I dont think McIntyre did a lot wrong when he played and looked comfy on the ball. Time to admit Kelly is done and move him on in Jan. Think the Irish leagues pre-season starts up in December......

 

Hence why he got a one year deal, even the club was dubious he would make the step up, as did we ALL?

Pay him off , create a place in Jan .

 

Seriously what do you expect Kelly to do in that situation? Dribble past the guy pressing him? I agree he's a very limited footballer but time and time again yesterday he was left with little option other than to hoof down the line. Power et al should be taking more responsibility.

 

It's not what Kelly is expected to do though really. It's the clear instruction to avoid the ball going to him, we've done it everytime over the last 4 or 5 games so it's a clear tactic by GA to not give it to Kelly when the press will be at its highest. If we have to alter the way we play to accommodate one guy who is limited as is, why are we doing it?

I don't think it's a knock on Kelly, we know what he can bring to the table. It's more a knock on the setup yesterday and previous games because we are giving ourselves an obvious crutch in that LCB role and we aren't learning. It worked better when he could hoof it up to Cook and Humphrys.

 

I have calmed down now, but I still think that first half was abysmal. GA agrees, then why didn’t he change it at half time? I know he brought Cookie but that midfield was weak, they were going through us at will, and they were sloppy and making wrong choices. When confidence goes like that, you might as well sub them and work it out in training. I would certainly have Leigh with Pattison at half time, he frightens players as he has pace in the middle of the park. Our wingbacks were heavily marked but also the balls they received were poor. In the air their lads were all six footers and physical and were winning most of them.

it was deja vue where allegedly poorer teams than us have a field day at VP!! I thought those days were behind us. Hopefully this is a one off. We have a big squad, but it is time for a re-think. We play our best 11 at home no questions asked. If they are fit they are playing!!

I thought young Metcalf did well in midfield when he eventually came on. Humps is out of sorts, either bench him or leave him out, likewise with Leigh. Cook played well when he was given a chance. I would rather we had Swan playing in the three. I would have Power and either Metcalf or Pattison. At the back I would have McIntyre, Pennington and Wright until Baldwin and Tilt are back.

Last season we were crippled with injuries and our performance dipped dramatically and it is happening again. I think GA is wrong, we don’t have two teams that we can exploit, we have one team and handful of good replacements. Those that are not picked for match day can play in the various cups that are around.


Having said all that they played a lot better in the second half as the players were replaced. Onwards and upwards.

 

Well said. The problem we have is the rotation is killing any momentum we try to build. McIntyre has done nothing wrong but finds himself out of the team. Is it because he's a loanee? The constant switching of centre backs is resulting in the lack of clean sheets. I don't see another centre half coming in because we've enough on the books, but we definitely need a slightly older version of Metcalf in the middle. As you say set up with the strongest 11 at home and keep rotation to a minimum. We're slowly seeing who they are, but in fairness to everyone, being given 2 full games and 70 or 20 minutes in the next, then dropped, doesn't help. Is GA trying to be too clever for his own good?

 

He tinkered all the time in L2 as well and it worked in the end, I assume he's thinking he can do it again in L1? I had a look a few weeks back and Baldwin & Shepherd were our two CBs that played the most L2 minutes last season, but they only started 11 games together out of 46.

So far this season, Pennington and Wright are our CBs with the most minutes and they've only played together 3 times in L1 this season, yesterday being the first game together since Northampton matchday 2.

 

Quite probably imo. I've never liked the tinkering. In fairness, successful teams build from a consistent spine, but injuries have forced some of the changes, eg Baldwin going down during arguably our best performance of the season.
We are never the same team creatively when Sarc is missing, but unfortunately we have to accept we'll be lucky to get 30 games a season from him at this stage of his career, so need to ensure we have a plan b for when he's out-the gap between the back line and front 2 in the first half yesterday was gaping!
We do have cover in the centre half positions but as has been said, 2 of those are nowhere near League 1 standard. I agree that of the fit players we do have available, GA chose totally the wrong line up yesterday though, and didn't rectify it anywhere near soon enough.

 

The lack of a consistent spine is starting to grate. It'd be great to be confident in knowing who are best XI are. Thinking back to any successful spell in our history our first XI has pretty much picked itself. 98/99, 12/13, even our last league1 play off season and the back end of last season we had more or less the same XI every week.

 

I think he'll do the same again this season. Keep rotating until the new year, then (injuries permitting) keep a regular 7/8 players if he can. It's frustrating because we all know who those players are right now, but GA seems to think they're all of the same standard. That's obviously not the case and his frustration in the post match interview was telling. There are players who aren't doing what he wants. I'm not sure who he was talking about because I didn't see the game, but the result didn't surprise me. We'll see more of this until a settled side is in place.

 

We can use the loan market too.. I'm thinking someone like Joe Taylor, out of favour at Town but scored 21 goals in 44 games across loan spells at colchester and lincoln.

 

Really disappointed with Humphreys. I expected good things from him and so did GA obviously but we're stuck with him for another 20 months unless we cut our losses and ship him out on loan and hope he pulls up some trees for another team and someone comes in for him. As it is, he doesn't look good enough for the National league.