I think Devante is off form and nothing is going for him but there was certainly no lack of effort from him yesterday.
Wouldn’t surprise if his form in the first half of the season earned him a contract somewhere. However I didn’t particularly see a lack of effort yesterday. I thought him and McAtee (like normal) worked quite hard. Also if Marsh wasn’t from tarn and our academy he wouldn’t be mentioned in these threads. 2 failed non league spells and only ever offered us “running about a bit”. He might be another Danny Rose that drops down a bit to get his career going.
1st touch and control of all our forward players is awful, the amount of times this season we`ve seen any one of them have a ball played to them, things look promising then, they can`t control it and they lose it. The Charlton game was a perfect example, look how Alfie May played V our forwards, He got the ball under control and either held up play to try and bring others in or, looked dangerous to cause damage on his own. Why on Earth do we even play a long ball too, when non of our forwards look to even be able to challenge for these headers?
Jalo isn’t a centre forward, I don’t care what anyone says. He’s best cutting in from the wing. If the new manager comes in and decides he’s gonna play a 4-3-3, he’d absolutely suit that system. I’m not entirely sure we’re using him to his strengths at the moment. Keep him around if there’s gonna be a change in system or loan him out if we’re sticking with a 3-5-2.
That’s the exact opposite of what I’ve seen from Marsh. When he got games in the cups early in the season he scored & got assists & when he came on at Blackpool he deserved an assist for about the only moment of quality we had all game with a brilliant cross for Cosgrove. I think two failed loan spells is very harsh as well. He got injured after about 2 games at Scunthorpe & we recalled him from York as we were short on players & he went straight into the side at Horsham (the less said about that the better).
To be fair, I probably am being harsh on the loan spells. He didn’t have that many games I suppose. I just think calls for him to start are way over the top considering you’re picking out games from months ago where he’s done something. And I maintain that if he wasn’t a local lad, nobody would be asking for him to start.
I agree about calls for him to start. It’s hard to justify that given the senior forwards on the books. I think he’s a bit unlucky in that the whole squads been set up to play 3-5-2 & we’ve got loads of strikers. If we played 4-3-3 I reckon he would’ve got a fair bit more game time as a wide forward off the bench.
It does & it did yesterday mate, they didn't score from a corner or indirectly from a corner. We did almost break twice from it though. For what it's worth, I don't like it personally either but to suggest it doesn't work is just not true. I'd rather us leave at least one lad up but who am I to go against the thousands of hours of study & statistics lol
I think if we start Marsh & Jalo our 'slim' chance of getting to Wembley drops even more imo. Jalo is extremely raw, clearly, but seems to have incredible potential & great talent when on the ball, off the ball he struggles, as expected, and until he learns his trade more & more there's no way we should throw them both in under the pressure of the playoffs. He puts pressure on the midfield when he loses the ball because he doesn't know how/where to close down the space to stop a counter attack. I think he's by far the best academy product in an attacking position we've had in years & years, so I don't want to ruin him like we did with RNL & Moon by throwing him under the bus. Or it could be a masterstroke and we walk promotion, who knows
To be fair i think we have some of the best strikers of a ball in the league but for some unknown reason they seem to be discouraged to shoot, don't know if that was collins, or someone higher
It's not just merely about not scoring though mate for me. We haven't enough nouse or ability to break, as the opposition are already placed strategically. But can throw more men in and around the penalty area. Cambridge/Cheltenham/Blackpool were all aware of our inability to break and used it to their advantage. It's not like we havent conceded, with the same boring tactic either in other games.