Given our decent performance on Satuday in beating Burton,and the return of Wotton and some decent individual performances,from Young,Hemmings and Walton in particular-can we beat high flying Crawley?.A month ago would'nt have'nt given us a cat in hells chance.What do you all think-any chance?
IF we get ourselves another competent striker........to fill in for Chadwick......assuming that he is still not available......we have a stronger team than when we first played them. Also Crawley are having a blip in their form at present.......so if we play well and score early.......who knows what might happen.
Change the record with this "another striker" thing plymborn. You need to go and watch us and not rely on commentary or computer website match snatches. On the face of it a point would be a good result and nobody would be very shocked if we lost. From what I've heard Crawley are a very good side. We have not been turned over badly by anyone for a while now and have definately improved. Can we win? Well yes is the short answer of course we can but it is back to the normal statements of only if we play at our best or at least keep up the improvement we have achieved lately. I do not however think this is a match to judge Argyle as being at a turning point or not. If we win it or should I say IF then perhaps we should start to believe a bit more. We are no longer a pushover albeit we will lose games.
No chance sensible............you don't need to be there to relize that a good striker keeps the oppositions defence occupied..........and is the best form of defence..........we can't depend on Walton all the time...........he's not far off a ban with is bookings. Chadwick will have his share of injuries............he did last time around..........so we need another similar player..........it's rather obvious.
Having seen Crawley demolish Torquay earlier this season I still hold the opinion they are the best team I have seen this season.They very much gave the impression of being in a different class given the quality of their attacking play and the goals scored,and the Gulls are not a bad side as we know.Their ability to launch fast counter attacks from defence is stunning,every player seems programmed to have a crack at goal on site.Obviously tubbs and Torres are standout players,and the whole team are physical and are big buggers as well.But any team can get beat and Bristol Rovers held them to a draw at the weekend.If we can disrupt their game we have a chance but we really can't afford to give them any space in front of goal which is a weakness of ours.So given the Burton result on Saturday,I am feeling slightly more optimistic of taking something out of the game.
Have a look at the BBC video excerpts of the Bristol Rovers-Crawley 0-0 draw to see what I mean about their attacking abilities.
But any team can be beaten aka whoever they are and whoever their opposition are. I have no doubt they are a good side as their league position suggests but we can be good on our day too. You have to hope. plymborn, you do have to be there sometimes to form a proper view. No reflection on non attendances either but there is no replacement for seeing. Why will Chadwick spend time injured just because he had injuries before? You can't know that and any player can be injured and others are as important. You cannot double them all up. As for goal scoring I remember when we were promoted twice that a certain midfielder called Friio banged in more goals and if you add in Coco from defence as our top scorer one season they why shouldn't Walton continue to score and some of the others chip in as well. Most sides that do really well get contributions from all over the pitch.
Agree sensible,as i said above,any team can get beat on the day.I think a lot of people are getting caught up with the belief we will loose if Chadwick is not playing.It's all about confidence and belief if the mood is right bottom teams beat top teams e.g recently when Blackburn beat Man utd and as you said we have other players who can score right now.Scoring is not a problem for us right now,defensive play still is,anyway I'm sure Fletch and Larieu are watching the Crawely videos right now and working up a plan.
That's what gets me about goal scoring or rather forwards. Take Mickey Evans as an example. Goal scoring record for us on his second visit? Rubbish. Importance to the side overall emmense. Other people scoring from around the park? Plenty and it was spread out throughout the squad. Ergo who needs a 25 goal a season player in reality. Well would like one but it is not neccessary to be successful. Chadwick is important but not essential as last weekends result proved. Could we find another Chadwick? Well if not then what would be the point in looking for another striker anyway. Agree we can score but still can't defend at times. Lets be positive, we WILL beat Crawley.
Admire your optimism Sensible and have a sneaky suspicion myself that it will be a good day for us. Lets face it we now have a good team on paper and should be able to beat anyone if the defence can hold up. A win on Sat. could be the crucial turning point!
Sensible.......your argument about scoring goals.........from other areas of the team..........proves my reasoning.........your telling us about the value of Mickey Evans......... not too many goals from him.........but his presence as a target man was all important. That can be the same with Chadwick.......or when he is injured another big striker...........at present no Chadwick no big target man.........no one able to engage with their defence and keep them busy.........hence stopping them being an attacking force...........Feeney is game for it..........but he is dominated by bigger defenders because of his size...........without that big target man our attackers up front look a bit powder-puff...........thats all I'm saying sensible.
I imagine Steve Kean had this chat with the Blackburn players before the Man U game. See how that worked out. If Chadwick is fit I would be happy but I would be pleased if we played the same team as saturday, Hemmings and Young were exceptional. As sensible says - anyone is beatable.
The good thing is that most of us think we CAN get a result. Maybe we'll have to be at our very best and they'll have to be a bit below - but not many would have given us any chance even 2 months ago, which is a measure of the improvement that has been made. Still more to come though we hope!
Where would you get this player you so desperately want, how much would he cost and how much would we pay him. All that and include how often would he play? It is not cost effective to have two same players for every position unless you are Man City or something of course. You seem to have little faith in the other players yet I repeat we beat Burton on Saturday without him. Feeney is not a target man that is true so we therefore have to devise a different way of playing to accommodate that. If you can't go through a team then the answer surely is to go around them. Ergo Hemmings for example. We are not completely dependant on one man. Another striker would be nice I agree but I maintain that it is not essential.
We have had better form than them recently so of course. They have won one away game since October, another reason why. And i hope we stuff them as they did to us back at there place which gave us nothing to cheer about.
