The highlights are up (on Player) and here is my report on yesterday

Good highlights package again - 11 minutes - probably covering all the major incidents. Seeing as there is no terrestrial TV coverage of it I'm glad I'm a subscriber! Nice to get a better view of incidents I missed.

Take, for example, our near miss in the second half when the keeper made a mess of it and nearly punched it in. Corner came in from the west stand corner and instead of catching (like he did just about every other time), Maxwell punched it back towards his goal. Two defenders on the line somehow managed to keep it out by bundling it onto and away from the post. Definitely didn't go in but I did wonder if it had yesterday.

Then there was the Williams/Winnall booking incident. As we all know, Ryan Williams has no physique about him at all and it looked to me as though he just half jumped and barged into their defender, who went down as if he was concussed. Now MAYBE he did that to get our man booked. If he did, it worked, so it's cheating. Williams certainly had his arms down so there was no question of an elbow or fist. Then Winnall chirped up, like he does, and made it a double booking for a nothing incident. Stupid!

And then comes their goal, with Williams involved again. Isgrove made a surging run into their box and cut back a perfect ball for Williams who had to hit it hard and true. He scuffed it barely five yards in front of him, and they charged up the field to score. This seemed to happen time after time yesterday - their charging up field after our attack has broken down I mean - only this time they scored a lucky one. A low cross went in from the left and Davies seemed to dive over it and it squirmed under him and backwards towards the line. Aidy White seemed to have got his foot behind it in time to hook away, but the linesman flagged for a goal straight away. He didn't endear himself to the ESL crowd for that, or for a few other incidents afterwards. I'm on the half way line so could not see if it had gone in, but others say it did so fair enough.

I was really disappointed that we had gone behind but fortunately it didn't take too long to get back into it. Williams, for me, should have been off at half time after a fairly ineffective game (out of position maybe, but still). Big Ashley Fletcher came on for his debut but not until twenty minutes from the end and within five minutes he scored. A rare bit of magic from Hammill (quiet-ish game yesterday) got him free of his marker and he angled in a perfect cross for Fletcher to run onto. The timing was spot on, the headed connection was perfect and the ball whistled into the net off the underside of the bar. An absolutely cracking way to score your first professional goal.

Other than that, what can I say except that we gave them far too many chances to beat us yesterday. They were quick on the counter attack, no doubt, but our defence just wasn't quick enough to match them most of the time. They could have had 3 or 4 goals. Our chances were a bit limited really but let's put it down to one of those days. It was a crackling cup tie (eventually) with loads of physical challenges, shots on goal, good saves at both ends (mostly by Davies though) and a fair result at the end. Shame we didn't win but we didn't deserve to.

We had too many weak links yesterday. Nobody had a good game really and I didn't bother voting for a MoM because I couldn't think of one! As many others have said Brad Abbott struggled throughout but that's not surprising having been thrown in at the deep end like that. I know it's messing with posititons but I think Mawson might have done a decent job there with Roberts back in at centre half. Pearson's departure was badly timed for us, but that can't be helped.

Hammill struggled to keep up his recent form (good full back against him) and Winnall wasn't so super as he usually is (can't call him SSW today). But, then again, he was shorn of a strike partner and, as we all know, he can't do it all himself up front. I was looking forward to seeing how Ryan Williams fared just behind him, but it didn't work did it. Not sure what his best position is but he is desperately short of game time anyway so we will have to wait and see with him.

Overall, a decent match, a good crowd and optimism for a winning second leg. It will be a different game and, hopefully, we will have one or two bodies in to replace some of those from yesterday. Josh Scowen needs to get his boots back on, and quick!

 

Good summary that, PoR, and I agree with all of it. You have to give Fleetwood credit for breaking quickly as they did. Our defence seemed bewildered by their 4-3-3, yet Fleetwood have played that formation since Pressley took over, I believe.

 

Thanks. Yes, they certainly looked like they knew what they were doing and we couldn't cope with their speed.

On the other hand, when WE tried to get motoring they knew just how to stop us and very cleverly managed to share the bookings out so no one got sent off

 

The were very good a professional fouls the one in the second half springs to mind white was motering through their middle when one gave him a little push in back as he went past all very clever.