I honestly don't understand the love in for Davies from a lot of our fans. He was decent, id rather have both Collins & Isted. He got saved a bit by how many good defenders we had at his time here
Not sure on that, Bobby Thomas has made a fair few errors recently leading to goal and people have highlighted him. It is slightly unfair though because if a keeper makes a mistake, we concede, a striker misses an open net gets less stick. I think the reason is because all his mistakes are similar and majority seem at near post, if not all. I do like him and we have to remember, he's 26 and barely played any football at all. His most appearances is for Wealdstone in national league South and even the league below that. He played less than 5 times in professional league football before joining us. Hes good now, so after plenty of experience and training, he'll be ever better
Harry palmed the ball out & the striker put it in with defenders next to him - not just Harry there. We defended well throughout & should have won. I’d be much more worried if I was a Bolton fan / they were 2nd best at home
I I'm talking about this game, and Troff saying Isted seems immune from criticism yet only Isted has a negative thread about him today, out of all the players. It's unnecessary. It's not about who is the better keeper, or this person has criticism and this person doesn't. My main point is we've just had a great result away at Bolton (when a lot of folk were predicting a 2 goal deficit, and questioning whether it would impact ticket sales for the second leg), and as soon as we concede It's heads down, straight on Isted's back, knee-jerk reaction for the scapegoat. We need to start to get behind them more, recognise players make mistakes, and that constant criticism of individuals ultimately does no good.
Immune from criticism is probably the wrong way of putting it in fairness. What I meant is when he is criticised, you get people piling on telling you he hasn’t made an error, he’s the best keeper we’ve had since 1763, he’s this, he’s that. I’m just calling for balance. His first seven or eight games he was absolutely outstanding for me. Faultless. Looked an absolute steal and made Luton look foolish for taking Walton and letting him come. Since then I’ve noted him to look more shaky on the odd occasion, and he’s made several errors, all of which have his near post as a common theme. If he didn’t make errors he wouldn’t be at Barnsley at the age of 26, having made a grand total of three football league appearances before joining us. But he has made errors. Including one today. I’m not apologising for mentioning that. Nobody calls me out like this when I suggest Devante Cole is sometimes a bit lazy. (He wasn’t today, put a real shift in and his pace worried their back line). People don’t all agree but I don’t get arguments like we get for Isted. Nobody calls me out when I’ve said Liam Kitching generally has at least one poor decision or aberration per game. Sometimes costly, sometimes not as much, but still there’s a brain fart most games. Again, some disagree, but you don’t get the pile on of defence like I see for Isted. I’m a little confused about it. There are people who have absolutely mullered Brad Collins, and go on about how much better Harry Isted is. Things can be subjective I know but Isted has made more errors directly leading to goals than Collins has this season. He has just conceded 10 goals in five games. That isn’t just on him obviously as the team have eased off - but those stats wouldn’t be accepted for Collins. I don’t think it’s just at this club. There’s players who get away with more as they’re fan favourites and players who don’t as they’re not. None of this is particularly aimed directly at you redarmy - you seem to not criticise anyone and I’ll accept that. That’s fair, just praise. It’s the people who call out everyone else but constantly stoutly defend Harry Isted I get confused by.
Isted is another player of ours who on his day is good enough for us in a higher league But like others he has off moments which mean he is not consistent enough Front stick is a big problem for him. That’s not inconsistency. That’s a problem
I've watched it again now. I'm still not sure I agree it was as big an error as some people are saying, but I really enjoyed reading that post - very measured and well-argued.
My number one pet hate is conceeding in the six yard box. He cost us again today but Duff keeps sticking by him.
I must admit, I would expect a keeper to deal with that cross a bit better. Either catch it or push it out clearer. But I also think it was unlucky too. No way would I be changing keepers at this stage anyway. We have 2 good keepers and I would be happy with either come the start of next season.
The irony is if you did start a thread saying 'Cole is sometimes a bit lazy', I have no doubt whatsoever that the one who started this thread would indeed call you out in defence of Cole. No doubt. I do of course see individual errors, and they can grate on me at times in the moment, but I just don’t like to call players out. I know this is a discussion board, but my feelings are the same in the ground. When we were getting pumped every week in the Champ for example.. the bloke in the ponty screams at Woodrow from his first touch of the ball, his main artery popping out of his neck, straining to lean forward, 'come and sit up ere Woodrow!!!' and calling him every name under the sun... I just don't get it. I find it counterproductive. I know, it was ever thus.. What can I say, we're all different aren't we. As I said, all players make mistakes, I prefer to hold my tongue. As for today, I'm very pleased with the result and performance. I thought every player put in a shift and it was a good, solid team effort. I like to focus on the positives going into the second leg, not single out an individual player for a goal in which there were a number of our players involved.
That's why players are with us in League One. Tedic's touch when played into the box first half... Phillips not keeping his shots down... Cole picking the wrong pass... Isted for the goal... If they got it right almost every time they'd be top Premier League players.
