If Saturday was Dr Jekyl then we certainly saw Mr Hyde tonight

Spent the whole match in the Scnuthorpe end with a mate from work which was an experience to say the least ... some of their lot are total nut jobs ... but anyway.

I disagree that we deserved a share of the spoils tonight. I thought that we were very poor, offered very little endevour and a lot of the fears expressed in the close season came home to roost; not the least of which was the Defence.

We couldn't cope with simple crossing tonight and both full-backs, particularly Austin (as much as I hate to say it as I like him as a player) were absolutely mullared tonight. The Scnuthorpe fans were screaming for the straightforward ball to the corners every time they had it because it didn't take them long to figure out they were getting past almost every time. Any other teams scouts watching that tonight will know exactly what to do against us unless we sort that defence out pronto.

Colgan - To blame for the penalty??? - Don't make me laugh. The kick was a little awry but that hardly excuses a static back-line failing to react and an x-rated challenge from Carbon. I thought he was lucky not to walk for it. Other than one error coming off the line in the 2nd half I thought he was solid and made two excellent saves. My man of the match today.

Carbon - I think his head was still at Oakwell. He didn't make a right decision for most of the first half and I wasn't sorry to see him taken off at half time.

Kay & Vaughn - Kay did his usual round of bollock dropping although in fairness he did making some recovering challenges. Once Vaughn was alongside of him they spent more time arguing with each other about who should be marking who than they did actually concentrating on the game.

Aussie and Tonge - Not at the races tonight, Aussie in particular. If it hadn't been for McPhail covering for him at left-back some times it could have been worse.

I was severely disappointed with the tactics tonight. I don't know if we'd scouted them and decided that their were slow at the back but we seemed intent on playing a long ball over the top and it plainly wasn't working. After the 2nd Scnuthorpe goal I timed a 12minute period where we failed put more than two consecutive passes together. I would have thought that at some point we would have realised that the ball over the top wasn't working. We hardly brought Suker, Hayes or Nardiello into the game at all.

I read someone else having a go at Nads for waving his arms about .... frankly I don't blame him, there was little thought in any of the balls 'played' forward tonight, I'd have been frustrated an all.

Final moan ... you lot! - The travelling fans. I know that the team hardly did anything to inspire us but there was little or no noise coming from the away end except for brief 2 minute periods. Consider the amount of times I've read about what great support the away 'regulars' give there wasn't any of that tonight.

About the only bright spark for me today was Hayes again. He worked very hard, often chasing lost causes and managed to carve out some good chances for himself that were down to nothing other than his own endevour.

It was very disappointing to see all that teamwork that looked so good on saturday disappear so quickly.

I fear that the Defence could really haunt us this season if we don't address it and address it quickly.

Oh well, it's only the 2nd game but I'm dreaming of any promotion challenges on what I've seen tonight.

 

'Away' support vocal chords.

Have to say Dazza that, from all the Reds' away games that I've attended (and that's been in the hundreds!) - whenever we've taken a lot of support, there's rarely been much noise made. I'd give our trips to places like Huddersfield, Bramall Lane, Hillsborough and Leeds as exceptions, plus our trips in the Premiership of course.

There are a hardcore of around 250 regular travelling fans, that is - the ones that attend every away game, and in my experience, whenever the away support has been around that figure, or a couple of hundred higher - there's ALWAYS been good vocal support for the team, regardless of the performance on the pitch.

1655 there tonight, plus your comments, appears to give weight to my theory. Maybe the answer is for the
'regular' 250 to try and encourage the others a little more??!

 

Apart from your assessment of Colgan I think that is not a bad reflection of the game as I saw it. But Colgan as motm - I think you may be in a minority of 1 with that opinion. I think he has to take a share of the blame for the penalty as the static defence would not have been needed if he could kick a ball properly. And, as you pointed out, he fluffed another attempted jump in the 2nd half which could have had the same consequences as Saturday's bolloc. A goalkeeper that you can trust should not be making mistakes with that regularity - the only thing you can rely on with Colgan is that he WILL drop at least one or 2 ****** every game. Some of them cost us goals, some don't - but they are ALWAYS there.

Other than that - fair assessment. I know that it is only the 2nd game and traditional fair play suggests that we should not be taking pot shots at the players at this early stage and I have no intention of having a general whinge. However, what depresses me, as you suggest, is that we can see what the weaknesses are, we discussed them before thge season started and they were all on view tonight.

How many years do we have to spend in this division before we realise that, to succeed, you do not necessarily need to be gifted footballers, but you must work, and mix it with the cloggers. Scunny knew their limitations tonight and made up for them with very hard work, closing us down, never giving us an inch, fighting for every ball, and playing to their strengths. Other teams do it time and again and we nevr seem up for a scrap. If any team does not roll over, then we don't know how to respond. For me, the midfield was bloody anonymous tonight, but that is because scunny worked harder than them, and we let them. That's what dissapoints.

Although I keep going every week, I do not see anything different to previous dissapointing years. We may improve, but my money is not on it. We do not have the players we need to succeed in this division. We have some good ball players but they will be allowed to play by the opposition some weeks and not others. Hence the inconsistency that will see us drift. Until we toughen up and stop teams from out muscling our football then it will be Mid table obscurity at best, I'm afraid.

 

reading back what I've just posted I said that I wasn't going to have a general whinge and then I had a general whinge. :S

What I should have said was that I was not going to have an aimless unconstructive pop - i.e. "We were ***** tonight and its not good enough".

I'm not giving up on the season, or getting one defeat out of focus - I, oh I don't know, can't find the enthusiasm of previous years for this season because I can't see that anything has changed. One good performance, one iffy one, one bad one etc etc. Consistently inconsistent - that is what will see us still here in L1 next season.

 

They had one shot on goal in the second half,we could have had five goals with half decent finishing.We dominated two thirds of the game and thats with Nardiello only attempting to play for 15 minutes.If Nads only wants to play for a few minutes he might as well be a sub and let Bazza or Jarmen put the effort in for the majority of the match.Overall we should have won a point at least,definitely didnt deserve to lose.

 

You say we didn't deserve to lose but that is based on small periods of superiority, such as the 15 minute spell in the 2nd half.

Other than that we were poor. We deserved a point only on the basis that we were as bad as scunny football wise. If that's good enough for a point then fine, but it is not good enough to do anything of substance this season.

I thought that scunny out fought us throughout and for that alone they deserved the points tonight. They could have had 3 in the first half. I was glad when half time arrived. If you have to say that against teams like scunny then you will not achieve. I'm not being disparaging when i say 'teams like scunny' - what it means is that we all know they will be a bottom half side.

 

I know its difficult to assess a game sat in a dugout behind the goal but second half we created 5 or 6 good goal opportunities,they scored with a good finish after an Austin mistake (or was he fouled).Some comments about us being 'woeful' and poor are wide of the mark.Ritchie ended up with 4 strikers on the pitch so at least he was prepared to have a go when we went behind

 

Durker they had two one-on-ones in the 2nd half and I lost count of the number of crosses that made their way across the box!

Like I said in my original post I timed a 12minute spell where we didn't make more than two passes ... and they were usually sideways followed by a lump upfield.

We could have created much more actually working hard and playing a bit ... which we just didn't do.

I'm not predicting doom but lets not kid ourselves that we were unluckly last night, there was no thought from the players on the field and the ball down the middle clearly, clearly, wasn;t working but we persisted with it.

 

Suppose you are one of the "real fans" eh? FFS

Crowd was quiet and always is when the team fail to perform..

and that is an actual fact.
That is the end of that!

 

Footballer's cannot play without the ball. Cloggers can always run around

A stopped Nardiello is faster than a full pelt Conlon

But it's only game two...three points sat and were back on song

 

Serious question ...

... do you think Nardy is quick?

I think he's slow.
I don't think we have any real pace up front.
Hayes is the quickest, then Nardy & Conlon just behind him ... in a non-homo kind of way.

Chopra could beat them all with Ameobi on his back.

 

Quicker

than Conlon..miles quicker

Hayes is quicker than em both