If anyone cares, this is how I saw it today

It will be much shorter than my normal match reports. To be honest I wasn't going to bother, but maybe putting a few words down will make me feel better. Then again, maybe not.

Launching into cliche-speak immediately, that was a banana skin just waiting to happen. Four defeats on the trot for them. Three successive home wins for us and now entertaining the bottom of the league team. Certain away win, surely? Well, maybe but it shouldn't have been. They looked like the Crewe Under 18s mostly, with the odd bit of experience in there such as David Fox. Our team is young but we made them look like babes. And yet, they still beat us. How did that happen? I'm not going to go through the team rating each player as I normally do. I just want to make a few obvious points - well, they are obvious to me.

At half time I posted on here that Smith on, Watkins off was a good thing to do from the start of the second half. LJ ignored my silent plea but brought him on for his usual last ten minute cameo. Lee - what IS the point in that? He's supposed to be a 20 goals a season big striker who will cost us a lot of money if we sign him. Surely this has to be in doubt now, unless things change in the next couple of months. Watkins swanned through the first half and continued to do so throughout the second. What does this lad have on our manager, because it must be something. He has had a couple of decent games, no doubt about that, but he is ready for a rest. He was totally and utterly clueless today and was a prime target for taking off. So, obviously, the manager takes Harris off instead!!

Harris had his usual game. Running, dribbling, threatening but.....no real danger posed to the opposition. Ok, he gets the odd cross in and has a shot or two but you can't see him ever scoring for us, or beating his man and laying the ball back perfectly for an onrushing Reds player to slot it in. He's a frustrating player, no doubt about that. I would have left him on though, but only because of Watkins being ineffective on the other side.

The two goals against were just unbelievable. The first was a free kick from the centre of the goal which seemed to cut straight through our "wall" and then past a stationary keeper. Hard to blame any one individual for this. It was just awful defending. Their second falls into the same category. Possibly their only attack of the second half and they manage to smuggle it in at the near post. Again, poor defending. I'd like to suggest that a defender such as Marc Roberts, on his early season form, would have got a block in there. Time to recall him I think.

Someone has already said that our man of the match need not have been there. True, he had a good game and sprayed some lovely passes. Trouble is, we did nothing with them. Against such a poor side as Crewe there really was no need for Ben at all. But LJ sees things his way and there is nothing we can do about that.

Not much more to be said really - we were beaten by possibly the weakest team we will see all season. Fair enough, they knocked the ball about nicely in midfield. Just like us really! But when they played the final through ball it more often than not went into touch (again, just like us!). You have to credit their manager for giving them licence to play their football despite being anchored to the bottom of the league but a bit more aggression on our part would have blown them away. Had we gone two or three up in the first half we would have won at a canter.

We could and SHOULD have scored a bag full of goals today. So many crosses fizzing across the six yard line and not converted. So many wasted floaters from CH when it was crying out for a bit of variation. That free kick just outside the area in the second half for example. Better position than a corner, being much closer to the goals so what does he do? He FLOATS it to no one in particular. It was crying out for a hard and low shot at goal. He would have either scored or it would have bounced off someone else into the goal, or not. Why not just try it Conor? You can't find Lewin's head, or Alfie's, every time.

Ok enough from me. Losing to another poor team is not the end of the world but, from my window, it feels like I can almost see it on the horizon

 

Good read Mr Prince

 

Thank you Doctor