Steady away at win, top scorer in league, top scorers…….but……..

It's not pretty to watch. Compare it to other recent promotion chasing seasons under Stendel, Val and MLH and it's absolutely dire. I think our style is promotion by any means necessary. It's anti entertainment industry.

 

Dont disagree with you there mate. When cotter was starting earlier on in the season, when okeeffe came on as a sub for him, I thought okeeffe was excellent, however since starting a couple hes been off the boil

 

Christ, some people are never happy.

 

It's a difficult one because I think Jordan Williams is the best right centre half in the League. I rate Bobby Thomas highly but I think Jordan is a better player.

However, when they're fit, with either McCarthy or Lopata at right centre half, and Williams at wing back, we're a much stronger team. The team has fewer weaknesses if we move Williams out of position and bring in a centre half than if we keep Williams in his favoured position and play O'Keeffe or Cotter.

That's not to say O'Keeffe and Cotter don't have something to offer. They do, but I think they're better being brought on as a sub against tired legs.

Start strong with Williams as right wing back. Put both O'Keeffe and Cotter on the bench. If we need them, with 20 minutes to go, introduce them both, one on either flank, put Williams back to centre half, and tear the opposition apart.

 

If you are unwilling to accept Val was anti entertainment industry then I’m not sure what you are watching?
Stendel had a championship team and failed to win league one.
What was the score last season against Shrewsbury?
If a 3-0 win at home is dire then I think you’re watching the wrong sport or supporting the wrong team.

 

I did notice at times we were getting the ball forward quicker.
Difficult to complain at 3 0, killing the game seeing it out.
How many times on here have we heard ,why can't we just see a game out at 3 0.
Comfortable win imo , another game coming around Saturday.

 

I think finishing in the top 2 is more of a priority for myself.
Saturday ,if it is anything like tonight and we win 3 0.
I will take that till the end of the season.

 

Anybody would think we’d lost

 

But then again I'm easily pleased , after watching us outplay Fowls at Wembley with 10 men ,to lose in injury time.

 

It’s really not.

 

Surprised at some of the comments on this thread. We were decent tonight and a thousand times better than that turgid stuff on Saturday. I thought we were getting the ball forward a lot quicker. And if the final ball had been a bit sharper, we could have had 3/4 more. I take the point about our ‘style’. Still not really sure myself, but then maybe the Coach isn’t sure yet either!

 

I genuinely think we're playing some good stuff. What annoys me more is when fans start moaning when we put 3 or 4 passes together in our own half. If it was man city playing this way we'd all be raving. 3 nil win, 3rd in the league with what looks an average squad on paper, top scorers in the league and our main striker has 10 for the season. Not really sure what more people want.

 

I’ve been very critical of us this season and remain to be convinced but we were excellent at times in the first half. We did invite them on to us second half but I think it was intentional with one eye on Saturday

I still think we are about a 3 out of 5 / in third gear or some other metaphor representing 60%. However our points haul is excellent. If we can build and improve in the same way we did last season we have half a chance of automatic.

The playing style and improvement under Duff was much more apparent this time last season. However Collins’ playing style is becoming a little clearer to me now. I think.

 

Only problem with having a set "identity" is you get found out at some point. Let's stay unpredictable and under the radar

 

We won 3-0 tonight, but our best two players were Williams and De Giveney. After MDG’s horror debut, surely none of us expected him to turn into our best centre half. Although Williams just shaded it for me today. The defence has been a problem for us this season, so it’s great to see signs that we are getting settled in defence. We couldn’t go on giving teams so many chances, like we did in the first 10 games.

What annoyed me the most tonight was that period at the end of the first half when we passed the ball about 50 times and got nowhere with it. Shrewsbury then got the ball and two passes later were in our box. I’m not saying route one is the way forward, but there needs to be some point to all that possession. We need to try to carve out chances when we have the ball like that.

Actually, no, I’m forgetting something. Cole and Styles needed their heads banging together at half-time. When someone has the ball and is about to take a penalty, don’t go up to him and start arguing someone else should be taking it. We’ve seen this before and it resulted in JCR missing it. If Styles was the designated penalty taker, which Cole seemed to be arguing, then the manager can have a word with Kane at half-time, but bickering just before the kick is taken is stupid. Of course, as I was texting mates, pointing this out, Cole and Styles made up for it with an excellent goal, but the point still stands.

What’s also worrying is that Kane and Styles now join Russell on 3 goals, behind Cole’s 10. Not worrying because we have goals coming from midfield, as all our successful sides had goals all around the team, but worrying because they are all ahead of 75% of our strikers. Cole is our main man, no denying that, but there’s another place that is there for the taking, since Norwood left. Surely the other strikers should be playing out of their skin to make it theirs, but none of them are. Cosgrove has had his moments, but has wasted so many chances. McAtee put in some excellent pressing work today, but never looked like scoring. And Watters…

I was disappointed Jalo didn’t get the chance of 15 minutes from the bench today. He played for the U21s instead and got another two goals, but with Cosgrove out, and knowing our strikers rarely play the full 90, I was expecting to see him on the bench. Imagine Cole or McAtee getting an early injury today and we could have regretted only having the one striker on the bench, against a team that we would have expected to beat. Thankfully it all worked out okay, but with us 3-0 up it would have been an ideal time to bring Jalo on when Cole went off.

Great to see Cole move into double figures after his mini drought. Hopefully he can go on a little run again. And isn’t it good not to be moaning about the ref! There were a couple of little moments, like giving the ball to their keeper after their player took the ball in his face, but that apart he reffed the game well. And it was good to see that Shrewsbury have cut out all the gamesmanship since they got rid of the awful Steve Cotterill (who came close to getting the Reds job on more than one occasion). They were disgraceful last season.

But a comfortable win and if we can keep Fleetwood’s players out of Bomb Alley, etc, we should see another one against Lil Lee’s lot on Saturday*

*unless SYP move it to Friday!

 

I can't imagine what you want... a comfortable, in fact relatively easy 3-0 victory is what it is... would 4 or 5 goals to 0 made it more exciting?
Had we been desperate to get out of the bottom three against a team above us, that result might have excited a few more people... probably me included, but all the players can do is go out and win.. if it's easy it might be seen as boring, but drawing or losing when you're 3rd in the league is worse than that surely?

 

Have I logged on to PorkTalk?

 

Not sure really what people want, i for one thought we looked really good in patches in the first half(only watched first half as i had to set off to work), more incisive passing, transition was much quicker and we had much more forward passing from Kane, who i have been critical of but fair play to him he has been much better recently. It was a big improvement on Saturdays match against Orient. I will be more than happy if we keep improving, along with staying in the play off zone, top 2 would be a big bonus for me, but not sure we are good enough for that. If you want boring football come over here and watch the A league, i went to Adelaide United's season opener on Friday night and although they also won 3-0 that was boring as batshit , nearly every team plays the same way in the A league!

 

It reminds me of watching internationals, watching England play possession football. We do it well, at least against teams that stand off us like Shrewsbury. It's quite a skill I think, and it's a trait of modern football. I suppose the English game has become more Europeanised and teams more technically adept. It's the first time in my lifetime that an England team I would say is better than an Italian team. I fully get why some supporters are bored with it though. You don't see too many blood and thunder games these days, in the English tradition. Some games every player seems so tactically drilled it saps the life out of it.

 

league table looks good vs last year...