I don't think since the days of Joe Martin has a player frustrated me so much... Parker! He has the ability, he can be a game changer but jeez this guy does my nut in! First 10 minutes he was finding spaces that O'Neill was delivering into, then what happened?...well in truth not a lot and the player should have been subbed by the second half. The same second half where he eventually actually wins a ball, plays a nice little lay on but what does he do, runs away instead of turning into the box. Anyway enough of the moaning - who put in a shift i was happy with...well the player i mentioned earlier, O'Neill, Reilly in the first half but Ogilvie was letting him down, Hessy again but just wished he was a bit more brutal. Eaves as always but missing that finishing touch and one of my biggest mentions after previous concern by me goes to Zak, big well done to the lad. Walsall came for a point and their game plan worked. However, it was good to see the lads fighting to the death, non more so than Wagstaff, strangely enough for the best player of the first half. Going to be a difficult one to call in Patchy's Star Player, maybe players of two halves...but Parker you should have been in my top three but you well and truly are marmite.
I can agree with a lot of that brb but Eaves was my disappointment, he is a good striker but will never be a great striker until he learns it's a team game, there were at least 3 occasions today when he could have laid the ball off to someone in a better position to take the shot. This is probably why most of the other top league one strikers have assists as well as goals to their credit.
Absolutely grumpygit. I think i was probably giving him praise more for his work rate but fair point.
Unfortunately, brb, I missed all of what you mentioned - I was too busy watching the ball - which spent most of the afternoon in orbit.............. do you think that will happen when I am at the Nou Camp next week ? I am not too displeased that we didn't win. We got a point. The team 'tried' - but - in not being able to beat a very ordinary opponent, it does show that we need to strengthen the squad for any possible promotion attempt next season.
To be honest i didn't think it was and certainly not an excuse for playing hoof ball. I'd use Wagstaff as example, he certainly managed to keep the ball on the ground and caused Walsall no end of problems by doing so. If we think back several decades, Cloughie teams always managed to keep the ball on the ground and pitches back in the day were shoddy compared to todays standards. I don't buy into all the moaning these days about pitches, i think ive said it before anyone ever remember the Chelsea v Leeds cup replay, now that was terrible! I think Walsall came set up to play the way they did and seeing the post match interviews they got what they came for.
The pitch wasn't as bad as against Peterborough. Some of the players showed their limitations - and perhaps the formation / tactics could have been tweaked differently. We had 3 centre-backs - who ( despite having done well to put us in reach of 'safety'), play a mainly 'safety first' game. Zakuani ( solid ), played the ball back to Holy too often - even when the ball was high up the pitch. Nugent - whether with head or hoof looked to put as much distance on the ball -- all very well when you're defending - but not creative when going forward. Ehmer ( improved a lot this season), was 'turned' a few times - and doesn't have pace to recover - although the formation allowed O'Neill to 'attack' on the wing - - which he did superbly at Northampton. Eaves could / should have released the ball a little sooner at times. He regularly had 3 players around him - Walsall knew he would ultimately lose the ball because of his tendency to hold onto it too long. As the second half progressed, there was a glimmer of hope that we would create the one chance that would win the game. I don't blame Lovell for sticking with the game plan - He said in the post match interview that he didn't want to see the team do something that meant all the hard work, sweat and frustration might be for nothing. Lovell took on a massive task. Safety was laughed at - let alone any aspiration of the play-offs. I don't blame him for concentrating on 50/51 points --- let's be realistic - we are NOT good enough for the top 6 ( and then some ).......... however, if we can recruit a bit more creativity, and with a bit better decision making by our strikers, there is optimism.
My first, and probably only, trip to Priestfield this season, and I had to drive back up here with neck ache from spending so much time looking up, especially in the first half. The match started scrappily and never seemed to recover from that. All the major points have been covered above, and in general I agree with them. What surprised and disappointed me was that in the last match I saw (at Wigan) Gills seemed to play better, certainly the ball spent more time on the ground, and on that day I was assured by fans who had seen more of them than me in the past 4- 6 weeks that they had an 'off' day that day. And after hearing glowing reports about Tuesday's performance I was looking forward to some exciting football. Ah well, probably not the last time I'll be disappointed. I'm not sure whether it was the effectiveness of our defence, or the general lack of penetration by Walsall's forwards in the centre of the pitch, but Holy hardly touched the ball. He really could have sat in a deckchair in front of his goal for long periods of the match. I was impressed again by Eaves' workrate, but agree that he sometimes tries to do too much. Wagstaff did make a huge difference when he came on, and under the circumstances (general lack of ambition by Walsall) I was surprised not to see made my call for a substitution - List for Parker. List will never score many goals unless he improves, but he does have pace, and can upset defenders, of whom Walsall's generally weren't sufficiently tested. I hope brb's ears have recovered from the screaming of the trainee delinquents who sat behind us, who if they learn from their father will unfortunately never understand the game.Q - When is a foul a foul? A - When any opposition player tackles one of our players. Q - When is a foul not a foul? A - When it's committed by one of our players. That said, Dobson must have been very close to getting a red card for his very late and totally considered body check on, I think, Ogilvie, and from his look as he walked away from the yellow, knew he had got away with one. Ah well, at least it's one more point towards safety that I didn't think would be possible at the beginning of October, but one thing that match should have convinced anyone who harbours aspirations to the Championship is to temper those aspirations. This is neither a Championship team, nor even the foundation of a Championship team. But it is a hard working and deservedly mid-table L1 team thanks to the work of Steve Lovell. Next up for me will be Bury next weekend, so I've got a week to wonder what tactics will be employed for that one.
Itstimupnorth also forgot to mention how bad Hessy was in his question and answer session! I will always admit to having no tactical knowledge but look at the contribution of a player. It appears the delinquents lacked knowledge on both fronts. Opinions are all well and good but having my eardrums battered by it for much of 90 minutes, i can only be grateful that im going deaf as well has blind! Anyway moving on, i was also surprised that the Walsall player did not see a straight red. However, in fairness to the ref he did not have a rush of blood to the head and took time to think about his decision, whether for or against i wish more refs would conduct themselves accordingly. Anyway due to personal situation that will be my last game for a little while. Currently eyeing a weekend in Bradford late March as a possible Away day, but that depends on many factors in the coming weeks.
I hope my earlier post hasn't set a negative tone on this thread, overall I think we were the better team. I thought we looked defensively sound, we won the midfield battle, created chances up front but failed to take them. I said in the prediction thread for this game that I had concerns after the Northampton match, we created lots of chances but failed to take them, winning meant that many dismissed that point. I believe our forwards are often too static, as with yesterday when a decent cross came into the box they were standing still waiting, rather than running on to the ball making it a lot harder to defend. I still believe that we, the team and SL are doing ok.
