How a team that won its last away game went down 7-1 to a a side with one of the poorest home records in the league will probably go down as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe but then again perhaps not. The way teams have been slicing through our midfield almost at will in the last few months left a suspicion we were going to get a real hiding if any team showed clinical finishing against us and that happened today. It was no fluke - only Halstead playing reasonably well kept the score in single figures. We certainly did not have the rub of the green - Brown was unlucky to be booked for the first time when the winger was pulling his shirt, the ref could surely have waited at our throw in to let Lawrence come on when Ogogo got injured just before the first goal and the first penalty looked very soft. But all this only made the scoreline a little worse and should not be used as an excuse for a lamentable, unprofessional display. Chesterfield were yards quicker than us to everything and our midfield gave the defence little or no protection. Even before they scored a simple ball over the top caught us out twice. KDS hit the nail on the head when he said we lacked pace in all areas of the pitch and that was very evident today. We did have a decent ten minutes or so either side of our goal and even threatened to make a game of it until giving the ball away cheaply lead to yet another penalty followed by someone who had been on the pitch for less than a minute being completely unmarked scoring against us for the second time in a week. Well - where do we go from here? The current squad seems completely devoid of players who are good enough to perform consistently in this league. I doubt if anyone better can be brought in in the window and , though there is a long way still to go, we will not stay up if we cannot defend. Having said all that I hope MM stays on. He has done a lot for the club and, while his recruitment has not been good recently, circumstances in the summer conspired against him. It will probably be easier to rebuild in League 2 anyway. I hope the GT detractors on B and A recognise it was only his football nous that kept us in League 1 reasonably comfortably in the first season back. Lets hope MM can learn some lessons from this season if we do go down and he is given the chance to get us back.
Depressing in it. Glad I was not there today. I was there last time we played them and 4-0 down midway through the second half. At least we fought back to make it 4-3. Where is the fight in the current team? Apart from a lack of pace, I am not sure that signing these old stagers is doing us any good...not hungry enough (wrong DNA etc !!!!) I don't think we would gain anything by sacking MM. It got us nowhere when GT resigned 2 years ago. Apparently Lawrence gave a good forthright post match interview and probably future managerial material there. At least we are still not in the relegation places...so onwards and upwards
Lawrence did OK when he came on and at least showed some passion (though perhaps not quite matching the amount he allegedly shows off it). Several Shrews fans I spoke to at the station afterwards came away when it was 5-1 and I had to tell them it got even worse. As for the position in the table if there are four worse teams than us in this division at the end of the season I will be pleasantly surprised.
I don't see the point of management change at this point of the season, either do it in November or early December, or wait until near the end of the season. MM plays a risky game as he signs lower league players, ones recovering from injury or problem players. Some will do well, others fantastically but you also get duff ones too.
