another tough game Fleetwood have won five drawn two and lost two i dont see big changes to the team but i would expect Cummings and lang to start with Whalley coming on as a sub. as Vincelot is fit he might come on as a sub for laurent in the second half . Fleetwood are the third top goal scorers in the league , so i wonder if that might influence ricketts in which players he picks. opinons seem mixed on the Rochdale forum about Flletwood but they seem to view Fleetwood as a good passing team with some threat up front but blame there teams lack of fitness for running out of steam and conceeding so many late goals. as Fletwoods ched evans scored in the 87th minute .
two halfs with two very performances from town. in the first 6 minutes Goss tried a long range chip, he mad a wonderful diaganole pass to Giles who's first touch let him down and a curling free kick with some pace. first 25 minutes towns midfield had a lot of energy switching play but more importantly pressing high up the park compressing the midfield and stopping Fleetwood play , we had a number of half chances but no goals. i thought Giles and cummings first touch was poor leading to moves breaking down. when Fleetwood scored against the run of play town did really get that inensity back. when you start the second half a goal down you need to strike a balance were you dont get caught out by a counter attack, what you dont do is conceed early especially such a soft goal goal early in the half and town just run out of energy and ideas, the midfield created very little, the defence suddenly looked very wobbly, hte normally solid O'leary distribution whent adrift and he looked indecisive. far too many silly errors by a number of players created town problems, fleetwood looked in control and at times it was embarresing to watch. i think it was giles who lost the flight of the ball the cut back resulted in a well taken shoot and this games was over , but it felt as if it was over after the second goal. it took town till the 89th minute till we looked like we might score. i was hoping to see Thompson come on with some charging runs ( ironically it was pierre charging run that re$!uted in town opening fleetwood up Fleetwood did the perfect away game take the sting out of the game, score with your only chance , hten kill hte game off early in the second half and be clinical in front of goal with the chances you get. in the second half we had no tactical responce and we got punished for not taking chances in the first half the ref made some bizare decisions it was irksome to watch Fleetwood players going down like they were poleaxed to try and players booked( best example was hed evans late in the half who was holding his head and kneck after minimal contact, equally) irritating was the ref fell for evry one. after Norburn booking they tried a number of cynical taps/ pushes and got in his face to try and get a red card. i was suprised ricketts did not sub him. Lang was getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of supply.
Yes Zen it was a bad day at the office. It shows the importance of taking chances when they come along - we dominated the first half and did not score and they scored with their first effort. It was alarming how we fell apart after going one down and did not rally again until it was too late. The Fleetwood team is packed full of streetwise battle hardened players and they did not look like conceding after they went ahead. They do the ugly side of the game like closing down the midfield very well and also they are constantly in the face of the ref trying to bully and con him (and they had some success with the weak ref today). For the second home game running we have conceded three goals and I think Giles needs a rest as he is constantly caught out of position when he should be defending. Perhaps the people on B and A who say this is a squad as good as Hurst's was will think again after this display - it looks as if we have some way to go before we can be competitive against the top teams in this league. That said, I have been encouraged by some of the passing football we have played since Lang and Cummings joined us. I can see what Ricketts is trying to do so it is important we do not panic after one poor effort against a team with a much bigger budget than us. I believe our team can improve and should be capable of a mid-table finish.
in the league this season we have lost by three goals twice both teams are in the top three,Ipswich have not lost this season and fleetwood have only lost twice whilst the second half was poor and town did not really get going after conceeding the second. whilst i am not complacent i dont see there is any reason to panic,did anyone seriously think we were going to be chasing for promotion? since signing the new forwards town have more options up front, the whole squad is not fully fit. for me i would hope we can have some more variations in our attacks as we do look rather predictable, we also need to be more resilient after conceeding a goal and manage the game better.what is key is that town need to get points from games with the teams below and around us if we can do that we can be a midtable team. we need to bounce back against Tranmere www.shrewsburytown.com/news/2019/september/sam-ricketts-post-fleetwood-town/ " during the second half, Sam made some changes throughout the game and with a change of formation in order to get some attacking players on the pitch. “Changed for attacking reasons but also because of Ro-Shaun struggling as well, so we chose to go to a back four but when you do that, you’re losing a little bit of rhythm and understanding when you change shape during a game especially something we’ve not really worked on, 4-3-3. " depending on your viewpoint you could either say not training with other formations is a sign of Ricketts inexperience. or Rickeets has built his squad around one formation and been unable to smothly change to another formation to adapt to how a game is unfolding is poor managment / choaching
Rickets said brought in his own coaching team over the summer so it is up to him to get things right on that front. Perhaps we should not judge ourselves against teams like Fleetwood or Ipswich who have several players we could not afford. Overall mid table at the moment is better than it might have been but the fans are rightly expecting improvement as we have some talented players in the squad.
true and i would be happy with a midtable place and avoid hovering over the religation zone.whilst i am not a fan of ricketts he deserers some credit and people seem to forget he is an inexperinced manager and he will make mistakes, however i dont have blinkers on and we were awfull in the second half and the players whent into there shells.
We were playing really well and with a slight change of direction we could've been at two nil up before they scored themselves. The game plan involved Giles and Love charging and chucking in low crosses. Unfortunately a poor defensive error initially caused by Beckles led to their goal. Losing Ebanks and the goal led to heads going down and second half we didn't seem to get much of a look in as they dealt with our wing backs successfully. As was mentioned the ref started causing issues after Norburns foul and Fleetwood played up to it big time. Lang was constantly being pulled about, I know was him exaggerating it however the ref and lino failed to spot several fouls, not the foul on their keeper when he got his foot kicked as he went to kick the ball out from his hand! A depressing second half and the obligatory Madden goal caused many to leave early. Most leaky goals have originated in the left hand side, coming though Giles and whoever is behind him. That needs sorting out.
yes that left side is a weakness i know giles is only young but the coaching staff need to tell him to track back more,but when he is defending he does get done a lot.
