Just a quick thread starter as off to a photography meeting in village... Shrewsbury had a good result on Saturday although possibly should have been a lot better! Oldham won by the same away at Gillingham. We haven't had a good time against Oldham recently and we got thumped last meeting. Wildig and Taylor are injured, I guess bradders is fit. Hopefully Jones is fit as I heard he limped off at the whistle on Saturday. It wouldbe good to walk out of the meddah with another win under our belt but it'll be a tough game and I hope we get some points. Will try to update later! Floreat Salopia
Cannot go as I am working in London but I wish the lads well - how about another 1-0 victory with Ugwu opening his account in front of 4800 fans.
Some pretty scathing comments on B and A re substitutions etc. Can anyone who went give us their view, please?
After the game I felt more deflated than I have done after leaving a game since the 3-0 humbling against Bury, which is strange considering the circumstances. Oldham were clearly a reasonable side but we played them off the park for the first half an hour, at which point Johnson made a switch and the change seemed to baffle our defence. Putting Parry on at left-back is clearly understandable given the circumstances, and if Turner doesn't think McQuade is ready yet then so be it. D. Mac offered nothing offensively (I would have stuck him at LB rather than Parry once we went behind) and nothing defensively after he was booked, albeit harshly. All through the second half we were crying out for a tactical change, as we didn't threaten Oldham's goal at all and both the forwards looked drained (I still maintain that McAlinden isn't physically ready to start games at this level) and I was fuming that it took so long to bring on Bradshaw, who for all his faults is our top scorer by some distance, and always looks to get into goalscoring positions which neither of the centre forwards who started did - ironic considering their greed on the weekend. About a minute after Bradshaw's introduction, we saw why the change was necessary as he actually made an intelligent run behind the defence (showing his [relative] experience) and got a snapshot away which - I think - forced their keeper into his first save of the half. He gave the midfielders someone to pick out, and McAlinden clearly has excellent technique but doesn't have anything like as good movement as Bradshaw without the ball despite being a far better natural footballer. Ugwu does bits and pieces when he looks excellent, but then others when he looks like Heskey in League One. For the last ten minutes, the chants for Marsden's introduction grew, but Turner was annoyingly unmoved - even a gamble, taking off a centre half for the last ten minutes or something like that, would have given us a shout. What annoyed me most was the lack of passion showed by everyone bar Goldson, Jones and Bradshaw (for his little cameo). No urgency to get the ball back in quickly or take a chance at the end. However, we weren't anywhere near as bad as people are making out on B and A and, in all honesty, Oldham couldn't have complained if it was a draw. We certainly missed Wildig and Taylor, although I thought Goldson actually played fairly well at RB. Looking at it with a bit more perspective, I'm slightly less annoyed but have slipped one notch closer to thinking that GT's time may be up come the end of the season - I certainly don't think a sacking, with the compensation fee that would incur almost certain to be deducted from any potential transfer budget, would be advisable mid-season. I also still think we'll stay up.
Lenny has done a very good summary. In short Turner can't make substitutions that make any difference to the game as we ain't got depth/variety in our squad. Is McQuade a LB or a CB? I seem to remember some confusion over this a while back. Radio Slop seemed to be giving MoM to Wroe which I thought was amazing as we didn't seem to notice him for large patches of the game. I sit in block 12 and have a good line of sight down the west stand side of the pitch and Goldson made several mistakes that weren't noticed by the radio commentators review after the game. Reach looked a real handful in the first half and seemed to get lost in the second. Their substitution in the first half brought on a lummox of a player (no.14) into CM and although he didn't seem to have too much attacking prowess he certainly added strength and height to their central line. This one sub seemed to cause us an awful lot of trouble, admittedly it came around the same time as Jacobson being taken off so both might have had an effect. Perhaps leaving Parry where he was and putting either McAllister or McQuade at LB would have been better. Parry did some really good runs forward in our good patch. Admittedly having Parry and Reach on the LW meant they could both get forward to cross, but it didn't seem to great a change.
The major turning point was not Johnson's substitution but the injury to Jacobson. I was more disappointed for McQuaide than the actual replacement by McAllister after all Parry did play left back for Preston for the whole of his last season at Preston in the Championship and received many plaudits. Bradshaw, though, should have come on much earlier to show what could evolve from a partnership with the more robust Ugwu (something that he has not had all season apart from briefly with Agassi). I agree Wroe was intermittently poor and very good, predominently the former. I thought McAllister did OK and came close to scoring on a couple of occasions. By and large the defence cost us centrally, not wide.
I also would have thought Reach in front of Goldson and Parry behind D. Mac would have given us better balance on the flanks.
