Match Day Thread Shrews v Town

Sorry Hampy, but that goal was fantastic, no way you can criticise the defense for that!

 

‘course you can! Just as deflections are never unfortunate. None of our players were switched on to the danger. But goals happen and it goes without saying we should have been well out of sight by then.

 

What an absolute crock of **** you are talking, time of the month maybe?? You are wrong, just accept it!! As for 'deflections are never unfortunate' omfg, you really have lost the plot!!

 

Bloody good job you’re not our defensive coach eh Spanish?

 

Well i would say i would do a lot better than you, you say our defenders stood off for that goal yesterday, what a stupid thing to say, the ball dropped to him off a header and he hit it first time, even Usain bolt wouldn't have had time to close him down, ffs!!

 

As for 'deflections never being unfortunate' i can't believe anyone who has an ounce of knowledge about football would think or even worse, say that!

 

My opinion,it was a freak goal.9/10 that shot ends up in row Z.Doesn’t excuse the fact that we should be finishing off teams well before it gets to that stage.

 

It’s our player who heads it down to him. And of course nobody can close him down because there’s nobody picking him up and acres of space. Walton is not set either. Baffled how you don’t think competing in the air, control, positioning and reading the danger are crucial ingredients of defending.

 

Obviously if you position and then react effectively it will be blocked instead of deflected, won’t it? There’s no such thing as an unlucky deflection. We hear it said all the time at our level when a defender has turned instead of facing the shot but it’s never ‘bad luck’. Top defenders get criticised for making mistakes but the laws of physics apply just the same in League One.

 

Point is we’ve been defending really well for months but the last couple of games we’ve got sloppy at the back.

 

what an absolute joke!! Basically you are saying every goal scored is avoidable, it's never down to good play, our players should win every single header, should position themselves perfectly to block every shot without it deflecting etc etc. I played at a decent level but I was a right winger not a defender, i scored plenty of goals and am now gutted as it's just been pointed out to me that all my goals were defensive errors, none were due to my ability......gutted!!

 

The English language obviously not one of your strong points either Spanish. Nowhere have I said anything that could be stretched to be interpreted as the above. The equivalent of me interpreting your argument as ‘no goals are avoidable’. We might as well play Thompson at centre back because goals are inevitable anyway, right?

 

It's definitely not our defensive play which is costing us points at the moment

 

Totally the attack that needs addressing. We all know that. But it was really disappointing not to hold on Saturday. We were a complete shambles at the back for the last fifteen minutes.

 

Now calm down chaps, what we can all agree on is:

1. We are disappointed not to make the top 6
2. If we hadnt thrown 2-3 of our recent games/points away, we would be up there
3. Our perfomances have been at championship level for many of the matches
4. Our defense has been rock solid, a great platform, and excellent Keeper at the heart
5. Recent injuries have upset the balance
6. A few poor selections from KM for the Cambridge game
7. Overall a hugely improved Club in all aspects on and off the field
8. Astonishing support home & away, which is wonderful to see
9. KM and MA will know the areas to strengthen, especially Forwards and LWB
10. We need to hold most if not all the players for next season
11. We can be optimistic about competing at the top of L1 next season

Mystic Megs tea leaves were thrown all over the place!
We are all enjoying our footie once again and this 73 yr old gaffer is delighted to have his and our club back.

 

It’s 11 I have a problem with and here’s the thing - if the promise is not fulfilled next season with a top two finish then we could see 7 and 8 start to unravel. What we’ve seen the last two weeks has been nowhere close to good enough.

 

There are no guarantees for next season and the past couple of games (plus over the course of the season) has given me enough to have some doubts about whether a title challenge is realistic next season. We appear to be amassing a quality squad and team both on the field and off it and appear to be putting some good foundations in place.

One of my biggest concerns is as they say football is a simple game and I feel perhaps both on and off the pitch for the level we are at are we over complicating things?

After the superb performance vs Gillingham where we played Norwood and Bonne upfront together we pretty much have not seen 2 up top since. Whatever we say about our forwards and needing to replace them they are good enough to have scored more goals this season. I find it hard to think of a team who has a stronger set of strikers in the division. For me the main issue under McKenna has been not playing to our forwards strengths, he has been so good at doing this for other positions e.g. Donacien, Burns, Woolfenden, Morsey but not the strikers who are being asked to play how he wants rather than like the players mentioned to their strengths. For me the problem has mainly been the supply to the strikers and this despite how many goals we scored with Cook in charge predates McKenna. We have not been able to consistently enough put pressure on other teams in the box whether that be through set pieces, getting the ball in the box, strikers holding up the ball better and attacking midfielders keeping hold of the ball for longer, I feel we lack an attacking playmaker to control the game higher up the pitch. We have too many runners who play at 1 pace not enough players to put their foot on the ball and dictate the pace of the game.

I think bar the GK and the right side of the team there are arguments for strengthening all over the team but this has to be balanced with having a manageable squad. For me we have more than enough quality in attacking and forward positions we just either need to find a formation/way of getting the best out of them or bring in a couple of players to give us a better balance in forward positions, it might even be we bring in a striker who's strengths aren't necessarily about scoring goals but actually more about bringing others into play.

 

The big question for me is why did we not address the striker problem in January? Obviously getting Walton’s signature was a big deal but we didn’t improve anything in January. We will have to see what happens with summer transfer business, but if McKenna agrees with you that our forward options are already strong enough we’ll be going nowhere fast. All of them have the ability but none of them have shown the mentality to be successful. Norwood would be first out the door for me.

- Norwood knows where the goal is but he’s unfit, easily bullied off the ball, slow and has the turning circle of an ocean liner. His temperament is always an accident waiting to happen.
- Bonne’s attitude and psychology is preventing him being the striker we all know he could be. If things are not going his way in a game he rapidly loses his head.
- Jackson blows hot and cold. When he’s on fire he’s dangerous but most of the time he’s not delivered.
- Piggott shows glimpses of promise but consistently fails to take his chances and at times is truly awful.

 

I guess I agree to a certain extent that we could improve on the strikers we've got even if for this level I feel they're good enough but for me we have a bigger problem no matter who the strikers are is supplying them and consistently creating more chances in addition to getting goals from other areas of the pitch. And apart from Bonne none of the strikers have been given a consistent run in the team.

The majority of games I've seen this season the striker has been isolated and I don't recall too many occasions when they've missed a glut of chances. To be fair it feels like 90% of the goals I've seen this season has come from down the right hand side with either a combo of Burns/Donacian crossing to the goalscorer or Burns scoring himself with other 10% coming from a bit of Celina magic.

Perhaps this is no coincidence but I feel like we currently play very similar to how Man Utd do, where their front 3 aren't particularly effective constantly chopping and changing and none of them really sure what type of player they are, are they a winger, a wide forward, a number 10 or a number 9. And whilst teams like Man City and Liverpool play a front 3 very well in part due to the fact they all press Man Utd don't seem to be able to do this and like us would probably be more suited to a top 2.

 

Scoggy, Yorkie won't agree with number 4n!!!