Royston's Ratings: Rudd 6 - nothing to do Solly - 7 - played well Fox - 6 - has had worse games Konsa - 6 - got caught a few times in possession. Improved. Pearce - 6 - solid Foley - 4 - tidy but offers nothing Crofts - 3 - awful passer of a ball Jackson - 4 - another game by passed him, apart from goal Holmes - 7 - lively again Magennis - 7.5 MOM- worked hard, brick sh1thouse, touch not the best Ajose - 5 - disappointing again
I sat in the empty Upper North. First half I was right behind Crofts and Foley as they got the ball, looked up , and saw 10 Northampton Players in front of them with zero movement from ours and even fewer options to pass to I thought Slade had managed 500 plus games - surely he can see the problem ?
Franco's Ratings: Rudd (6) - Decent enough, could do nothing about the goal. Solly (7) - Can do nothing wrong in my eyes. Rock solid throughout. Fox (6) - Played well by his standards. Gave opponents too much space at times in wide positions. Konsa (6) - Encouraging performance from our young CB. A little wasteful in possession on a couple of occasions, but his positioning was good and he looked comfortable with the ball at his feet. Pearce (7) - Solid. Constantly talking to Konsa and bossed our backline well. Foley (5) - Retained possession reasonably well but everything is sideways. No ambition whatsoever in anything he does. Crofts (4) - ABSOLUTE PONY...!! Jackson (6) - Did ok. Took his goal well. Holmes (8 MOM) - Ran his b0!!ocks off. Brave in possession, always looking to get at the opposition. Delivery from set pieces a little hit and miss. We looked far less of an attacking threat when he came off. Magennis (6) - Did as well as could be expected considering he's only been at the club a couple of days Ajose (6) - Worked hard, always looking to sniff out an opening. Had three half chances (at best) and went close on each occasion. I've no doubt the fella will score coals for us. He just needs to forge a partnership with Novak or Magennis. Subs...: Lookman (7) - Always a threat. Constantly looking to make something happen. Too good for League One and will be gone before the end of the transfer window. Botaka (1) - I gave him a 1 for putting his boots on the right feet. That's about the only thing he did right today. No football brain whatsoever and doesn't look to posses much footballing ability either. Novak (5) - Couple of decent touches but not long enough to make any real impact. At least 2 CM's are an absolute must before the window closes...!! Preferably a couple who can carry the ball and pass it forward...!!
I thought Ajose had a solid game, he's tiny and we have idiots kicking the ball long at him, his few touches before his pass to Jackson for the goal were great.
Just seen the highlights (29 ruddy seconds!) nice build up for our goal. Can't really comment as haven't seen us since pre season, but two CMs a must . Will be there on Tuesday and hope to see a new cm by then, Bauer at CB and two wingers from the start. No offence to Shrewsbury and Northamlton, but we should be battering teams like that at home, not playing three old non entity's in midfield who provide nothing. I an only bothering as I'll be in London, so if I don't see a convincing win, I won't bother turning up again.
The real attendance was well below the 10,000 mark They included as attenders all of the 3,000 comps that had reportedly been issued. The North was well below 50% full - more like 30%, the West even worse at below 20% full. Northampton brought 1,200. That makes the real attendance around 9,000 IMO, many of whom won't have paid as they took advantage in the East Stand of the "SE7 offer". The Club must be losing money faster than Reams in his local off licence. Tuesday's attendance will be an absolute cracker as they will have no comps to include, a very small walk- up on the night, and not many Shrews fans.
Okay. Poor result taken on the relative size of the clubs, and their history, but sounds about right on the day. To me it sounds as if the players are starting to gel a little. The second half sounded way better than the first. Holmes sounds like a fantastic buy, and Magennis sounds as if he will slot in too. I'll skip the Leeds loanee for the time being- anyone can have an off day. We seem to have successfully peeled off another generation of fans so big thanks to the regime for that. Bexleyboy over on ITTV is happily attacking the fans on a daily basis. It would be nice if he could just send a CV to the comms team, as his talents in seeing everything as perfect are right up there with Meire. All that aside, we need a new centre midfield. If we can find players of the level of Holmes, ee may yet play some enjoyable football this season. It's about time.
We should have signed George Moncur when we had the chance, but then again we had no manager or Chief Scout at that time. He is precisely the sort of player we are crying out for, someone with a spark of creavity and a few tricks in the middle of the park. Jacko was absolutely shocking yesterday despite taking his goal with typical aplomb - I don't understand how Right Said Fred has managed over 500 games yet still picks Jacko and 2 Jacko clones in the middle.
I called Northampton a pub team which angered loads of Northampton fans may be a bit harsh...BUT..they won League 2 woopy do so we should rate them should we. Shows how far we have fallen when you get people describing yesterday's performance as excellent on Twitter. The first half we were bloody dreadful as bad as we can be we had nothing and neither did the pub team! Probably 1 chance in the half they took it that as that. Second half we came out a lot better scored had one or two other chances and the game fizzled out . Northampton were bang average at best we should be stuffing the Northamptons of the world. The big geezer up front battled hard back four pretty solid midfield awful apart from Holmes . Wonder how our fans are gonna big up the mighty Shrews before Tuesday's game .
that was sh1t. there was not 8000 there even. the first half we were awful, we almost considered leaving and going to lidl instead. second half only marginally better - i say marginally as northampton came for a point or more. a better team would have attacked us and scored a few. we are still awful at crosses and set plays. why are we not practising drills with these? every other team for the last two years, with worse players, have looked better than us because they practise formations and set plays. we dont seem to value them at all yet they cost us every game. i was especially disappointed with the crowd. not one roland song.
I suppose the Roland thing can be attributed to the season ticket boycott? Well, a percentage of it anyway.
