Match Thread Home V Grimsby Saturday 10th April @ 3.00pm

The three points was welcome, the performance was not. The standard of the game was National League. The ball was up in the air more than the RAF and the pass completion from both sides was very poor. Apart from a 10-15 minute spell half way through the second half, I cannot remember any fluent passing moves from us that lasted for more than three or four passes. Want much more from City. Want some joy!

 

I think the point that some are (rightly) making is that if we play like that again then our play-off hopes WILL most certainly fade.

 

If we play like that again on tuesday, we'll get beat. So little pace but more importantly, so little sharpness, speed of thought, decisiveness. We were sluggish and slow, mentally as well as physically.

 

It's been a season squashed into 2 games a week - we've done fantastic from rock bottom to a hopeful play off push - some teams (above us) are starting to implode with the pressure and fatigue of it.

 

He's including the play-off semi's and the final

 

One thing I don’t want to see too many times is 3 at the back. It didn’t work under McCall and it was unconvincing yesterday.

 

We haven't got the players to suit the system either. FCD is still learning the right back role and to ask him to play as a wing back when he clearly doesn't have the tools is unfair on the lad and not great overall for the team.

I realise we're down to the bare bones but surely that's even more reason to try and keep the players in a familiar role.

 

To play Devils advocate, was the problem the three at the back or the lack of mobility and passing in central midfield and the general lack of pace until the subs came on?

I don't feel that playing three at the back caused us any more problems defensively than a back four would have done, it seems to be the knock on effects up the field really.

 

Evans at RWB? Played it before. One advantage of 3-5-2, for those who want to see it, is that you can get Rowe and Cook in the same side. But I agree, it's a bit late in the season to experiment.

 

A torch for the positive. Poor performance..good result. Much better than poor performance..bad result. Still something there to build on and with players returning..may be timely.

 

What was unconvincing about it exactly?

 

It could and should’ve been used to attack comfortably against a 10 men bottom of the table side, but as @NorthernMonkey said earlier, we didn’t have the right players to play this formation on Saturday.
With the exception of Donaldson, Cook, Clarke and Evans (who has played most of the recent past in defence) the rest were defensively minded, hence why they were reluctant to push 10 yards further up the pitch or break the lines. We’ve also seen that Wood is a better defender than a wing back and FCD is a central defender, come right back, come wing back with very little league experience. His first thoughts will be defend and not get caught out going forward. He needs to be protected at the minute which then puts Clarke under pressure not to leave him, rather than supporting the attack.

 

So your problem was personnel rather than the system.

 

Partly, but my preferred system would be 4-1-3-2

 

On account of having my hand slapped and my last reply removed I'd just like to mention what a well thought out reply this is.

It's not even remotely close to wind up material and I'd formally like to apologise with the upmost sincerity for suggesting the poster used that style of posting on the site.

 

Never knew you had criticised my style of posting.

 

Trigger happy moderation doing all our thinking for us I'm afraid.

It's almost akin to a North Korean forum on here at times.

 

Haha Monkey got told off by a mod. Come on own up, who did it?