Match Day Mega Thread

Definitely hope he learns from this defeat ESPECIALLY that first half,i can't remember owt as bad as that.

 

Cole and Cosgrove both had a pair of good chances each. Could have won with a bit more composure.

 

Looks like playing both Russell and Kane against the better teams leaves us short on pace and mobility.

 

No, we’ve been poor defensively against every team we’ve played, it’s just the good teams that take advantage. We best Port Vale 7-0, but could have been 3 down after 15 minutes. Port Vale put us under more pressure than Portsmouth did early on. And even games that we won we have given the opposition tons of chances. Most teams have had more shots than us. Difference is, Burton, Cheltenham, etc don’t have Devante Cole. Wigan should have been ahead when their player got sent off. It’s a good job we have Roberts. I don’t know if he still has, but a couple of games ago Roberts had made the most saves in the division.

But like yourself and others have said, replacing an outstanding League One central defensive trio with non-league players, reserve players and players from foreign lower leagues is very unlikely to have a positive outcome. Collins was a centre back at a decent level. He’s now a coach. I would expect him to at least be able to coach the defence to do the basics. The standard in League One, most weeks, isn’t great, but we shouldn’t be getting to game 8 and knowing the outcome in advance, depending upon how good the opposition is. Bolton, Derby, Exeter, etc will be rubbing their hands with glee when they see our name coming up on the fixture list.

Sorting this defence out is the difference between doing well enough to leave us for a better club, like all the coaches who do well, or getting the chop, like the others. Let’s see what Collins is made of. Can we class Blackpool in the decent bracket? They’re next up after Northampton. We need to see an improvement by then. If Blackpool come and stick three past us we might want to ask Huddersfield for Warnock’s number…

 

Dropping him from the bench? I’d be dropping him off at the train station, with a single ticket to Luton

 

I'd have Watters playing 1-side with Iseka on the car park during matches; jumpers for posts en all that.

 

I thought Kane was brilliant in the second half when he was 30 yards further up the pitch, he's wasted playing on the edge of our own box.

 

Agreed we don’t need two handbrakes in the midfield.

 

That’s true against everyone, not just the better teams.

You can’t play them both, you just can’t.

And if it’s a choice between them, then Russell misses out.

It can’t come as a surprise what happened in that first half: it has been coming.

There was a thread about Russell the other day with some lauding him as our best player and some saying he was too slow and ponderous, one poster described him as a handbrake, which I agreed with wholeheartedly.

His selection against Portsmouth looked daft in advance: it looks downright idiotic in hindsight.

 

Totally agree. Cadden is easily one of our top players. It's hard to understand why he was taken off, and how on earth did Dodgson, his replacement, get the Player Of The Match award?

 

Dodgson did ok when he came on. Wasn’t as instrumental as Styles in the improvement in my eyes nor was he as big an improvement as O’Keeffe was over Cotter - but still, he was decent.

But the night was summed up when he was announced as the sponsors man of the match, just as he overhit a cross abysmally and it went straight over everybody’s head and out for a throw.

 

I'm certainly not a Watters fan, but he did get what seemed like an important goal at the time v Wednesday earlier this year.

 

I'm not sure we've seen much yet to expect many goals from Watters, Cosgrove and McAtee. I think Marsh and, in particular, Jalo might provide more grounds for optimism.

 

Would you play Dodgson instead of Cadden? I certainly wouldn't.

 

I agree with all that.

 

That's the more difficult one of the three but I don't think Cadden's been playing well, particularly defensively. He got away with it last season with the excellent back 3 we had but now with an inexperienced back 3, he needs to do better.

 

I agree he needs to do better. I don't think he got away with bad defending last season though, I think he was playing a lot better than he is at the moment. Certainly in the second half of the season.