Sorry aj, I nicked your prematch post from elsewhere... Saturday at Fortress Prostar, town entertain Southend Utd. they are in 4th place 4 points behind vastly improving town . the shrews have in their last 10 games won 6 and drawn 3 , 1 defeat . Southend have taken 19 from 30 and town 21 from 30, and have considerably strengthened their squad up front. I suspect MM will field our new 6 figure striker Tyrone Barnett in a strong side that should have the edge over the shrimps.. I go town 3 southend 1 Collins Barnett and woods att 6656. Finally a personal thank you to Mr Shrewsbury, Roland Wycherley for making cash available to MM to improve the squad particularly up front. I do hope thanks is recorded in town,s attendance on Saturday.
Who will get the nod to start on Saturday? Will it be Mandron, Barnett, JLAA, or even Vernon who starts up alongside Collins.
Barnett will start alongside Collins and, if we go two goals up, I can see an all-French replacement strike force coming on. 2-0 to Town with Collins and Barnett scoring. Come on lads -lets hang on to top spot this time.
A pretty disappointing afternoon though credit should be given to the opposition. Southend adapted better than us to the bad pitch and were always ready to push forward in numbers. We had far too many players off their game and tamely passing the ball to the opposition. We fell asleep from a dubious free kick and at that point it looked as if our home record was going west. The subs perked things up a bit and it was a great finish from Barnett who looked quick and decisive in his cameo. It does beg the question why he did not start. Mandron clearly has ability but looks more of a hold-up centre forward than a finisher and this is no time in the season to be developing other teams young players when we have better players sat on the bench. I would always start Grandison - I think he is both the best centre half and the best wing back at the club. He seems to be moving well now and his presence just gives the rest of the team a lift. The most puzzling aspect of the day was how Grant managed to go through the whole game without being subbed as he had a complete mare from start to finish - please play Clarke at Carlisle (or even put Akpro out wide against his old team). It is a bit worrying that our most unconvincing performances (granted against strong opposition) recently have come after we went top and I hope we are not going to bottle it if we do go top again. The teams around us are all picking up points and two wins in the next two games is vital to see if we can keep the chasing pack currently in the play-off positions at bay.
I think Grant would have been subbed if we hadn't used up the early replacement for NKP. It limited MM's options. I, too, was baffled by the start for Mandron having seen his display at Newport where he showed to be out of his depth at this point in his career.
