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5th best defense in the league, 18th best attack in the league says it all for me, yet we have a multitude of midfielders and keep signing more with the latest two siting on the bench and Clifford can't even get on the bench - I must be dumb as I just can't see the logic :0(

Have we EVER had such an unbalanced squad?
 
What exactly is this poacher going to poach ?

We arent creating the chances for a poacher to convert.

Commentary throughout said we played well but there wasnt any quality in the final third, no final ball, no decent cross. I was hoping Payne was going to provide the key but sadly not. With him Hurst and Worrall Id hope for more.

Sounded like we played well over all but just didnt have the ability to unlock the defence when we get there.

I think the problem is with just Corr up top they just done have the options to mix it up, they can only sling it in rather then try a through ball. Everyone did their jobs ok today (except for Weston when he came on, and hurst who was anonymous for last 85 minutes) and I thought we controlled the game and put in some decent crosses (mainly from free kicks out wide) but we are just not taking opposition players out of the game enough through a bit of skill or a turn of pace. Last year leonard would make surging runs to do this but doesn't seem to be doing it so much at moment.

We will be in the play offs come the end of the season, as a solid team.
 
Match Report:

£21 wasted.
Weston isn't a footballer.
Bloody freezing.
Do something different Brown!

That is all.
 
Phil Brown - "I thought that was a good advert for second division football"
Hope he doesn't go into advertising then, when he packs up football management

I thought we huffed and puffed, and knocked it around nicely, but our 4-5-1 left BBBC so isolated. They came for a point and our predictable formation couldn't break them down. Still it's another point.

Bentley 6.5 Did ok. Not much to do really
White 6.5 Solid
Coker 7 Great to see him back. Looked good for a first game in a while
Bolger 6 Some wayward passes and a couple of hiccups, but stuck to his task
Prosser 6 As above
Worrall 6.5 In and out of the game. Works his nuts off though.
Leonard 6 Needs to use his left foot more if he wants to play in the centre. Up and down game
Atkinson 7 My MOTM. Covered a lot of ground and played some nice stuff. Surprised he started instead of Timlin, though
Hurst 6.5 Not at his best, but was better than of late
Payne 7 Their centre mids got very close to him. Only got away from them a couple of times, but looked lively
Corr 7 Worked so hard on his own. Some nice flick on's, but to nobody.
Sub : Weston 6.5 Wasn't on long. Had a couple of half chances
 
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The first half was incredibly dull with the second being only marginally better. Our lack of goals shows clearly that playing just Corr up front is not working. Brown left it late to make a change and then made a bad one as playing Weston up front was even worse. We really need to sign a decent forward or ideally two in January.
 
Burton haven't changed have they? Another astonishing example of diving, cheating and long ball. we played right into their hands and aside from a couple of coor headers their keeper had nothing to do. Again. I don't think its a bad point and I do think it is important to get a clean sheet after Saturday but I do worry how we can turn the corner with the current attacking shyness. I think we need to bring back Williams from Chelmsford dad hope to God he can do a freddy. The shape of the team was much better tonight although the Weston substitute baffled me somewhat. Brown once again making odd tactical changes. Cambridge game is must win now.
 
Didn't understand bringing Weston on to play on his own, aswell. Was PB happy with a point ?
 
I think PB has destroyed the team and confidence of last season, this formation is not working at all. If changes are not made soon we will end up just plodding along in mid table!
 
Whether you play 4-2-2 or 1 up front with just one behind, as every team does in this league, or any combination you can think of, you still need genuine strikers who can run off and between the back line. I think Elliot Lee will bring this. You also need players with the imagination to play the ball through the channels for intelligent, pacey strikers to run onto, and not for one legged folk who fall over the ball.
 
A diving, cheating, bullying Burton team and a referee who gave us no protection. This wore us down in the end. The FA have got to get tough with teams like Burton and ensure their best referees are put in charge of these matches for the good of football and the paying customer. Football was the loser tonight.
 
We're no different when we're away from home. It seems to be creeping through football and it's ruining it. I mean, the fella who went down in the first half holding his face was 2 yards from the touch line. It didn't look a bad head injury. He could have just told the ref and gone off for a minute to get attention.
 
A diving, cheating, bullying Burton team and a referee who gave us no protection. This wore us down in the end. The FA have got to get tough with teams like Burton and ensure their best referees are put in charge of these matches for the good of football and the paying customer. Football was the loser tonight.

I can't believe how long it took the ref to start booking them!!

Don't even get me started on that blatant dive by the 12 that went unpunished :angry:
 
Good defensive performance. Great to have Coker back. But..

Crossing was awful.
Set pieces were awful.
Shooting was awful.
Weston was awful.

So same old story at home. Without a massive injection of creativity and goals we will not get promoted.
 
Whether you play 4-2-2 or 1 up front with just one behind, as every team does in this league, or any combination you can think of, you still need genuine strikers who can run off and between the back line. I think Elliot Lee will bring this. You also need players with the imagination to play the ball through the channels for intelligent, pacey strikers to run onto, and not for one legged folk who fall over the ball.

Spot on (except the 4-2-2 bit)...as a pacey striker creates space and are a bitch to mark. This would then create the space that Payne needs to really trouble them. The boy is a class act we need to be much smarter in how we use him.
 
A game that was there to be won, but yet again a lack of cutting edge has cost us. First half was awful, second half better with only Us really looking to win the game. Corr unlucky with a header, Payne had a good effort but straight at the keeper. Baffled by the Corr/weston substitution, thought Corr battled hard. Weston had two really good chances and ****ed them both up, we so need a striker or two with the instinct to shoot at the goal without having to think about it or take four touches. Thought Atkinson ran his socks off, white played well, hurst looked better than of late, Worrell not at his best but ok. Lenny, seemed a bit in his shell. Payne played well but struggled towards the end, gets out muscled way to easily at times. Mom for me was Ben Coker by a country mile, played really well considering time out injured and showed what we have been missing. As for burton, a was hugely disappointed by them, for a team second in the table I thought they were poor, as for their fans ...... A grand away figure of 64, pitiful. A good point, but should and could have been better. Striker or two a must.
 
I must have been watching a different match to some of you....I was unhappy that, despite a managerial change, Burton are still the same cheating, diving bunch of fairies they were last season, I was obviously disappointed we couldn't score and I really struggled to understand the substitution. However, I was very pleased to see Coker and Atkinson back in the side, both of whom gave excellent performances. I didn't think Hurst was as bad as some, he really worked hard.

Bentley - 6, did little so can't mark higher
White - 7, got down the wing and mixed it with their defence, got chopped and hacked a few times before the ref eventually gave a yellow card to the opposition
Bolger - 7, one mistake apart, I thought Bolger had a good game
Prosser - 6, not Luke's best, and a shocking challenge to earn the yellow card
Coker - 7, welcome back Cokes! Delighted to see a totally naturally left footed player out there
Hurst - 7, worked hard both defensively and offensively, some neat work. I don't think he's out best choice for set pieces or corners though
Leonard - 6, took the more defensive role today which didn't work as well as it probably should
Atkinson - 8, my MOTM, worked bloody hard, never gave up and got some good results from that
Worrall - 6, quieter game but kept it going
Payne - 7, worked hard
Corr - 6, better than the weekend but still gets out muscled too easily

Subs:
Weston for Corr - 6, saw no benefit in this

Officials:
Generally a good solid 7 out of 10. Main gripe was failing to get the cards out earlier.
 
What exactly is this poacher going to poach ?

We arent creating the chances for a poacher to convert.

Commentary throughout said we played well but there wasnt any quality in the final third, no final ball, no decent cross. I was hoping Payne was going to provide the key but sadly not. With him Hurst and Worrall Id hope for more.

Sounded like we played well over all but just didnt have the ability to unlock the defence when we get there.

See I think you've got this the wrong way around. If there is a poacher on the pitch, then chances will be created for him. You can't expect our creators to create chances for somebody who's not there. And you can't sit there and tell me that we were lacking creatively tonight. We had 2 out-and-out wingers and proven assisters/creators in Hurst and Worrall, and Jack Payne in the hole. The problem of course is playing one up-top. Especially when that one striker is looking increasingly immobile, slow to react and slow to move.

When crosses go in, you need more than one player in the box to effectively double the chances of someone getting on the end of it, but once again we only had one player in there and he is unable to jump or to move/react quickly enough to lose his marker often. When you have a tricky/quick-footed attacking midfielder riding tackles and running forward towards the edge of the area with the ball at his feet, you need a forward in front of him who is quick enough to run into space, or to break the offside trap, or to play off the shoulder of the last defender and get in behind. Or if you are going to play Corr, play him as part of a 2-man strike force and make sure the second striker can do the above things if not to score, then at least to pull defenders out of the way to leave space for Corr.

Either way, playing with 1 up front is a major problem at the moment. You won't hear me denying that the squad lacks a 20-goal striker, but playing with 1 up top each game is effectively halving our chances of scoring and I just don't understand the logic. If we had a goalscorer who was quick and could get into space, run in behind defences, pull them about etc. then perhaps 1 up front could work but no striker that we possess can play the lone striker role effectively and so it's increasingly becoming a situation where the manager is trying to shoehorn his players into his desired tactics rather than choosing a system which fits his players. That for me was one of the biggest things on display tonight - the players aren't playing with freedom, don't look like they are enjoying their football, and on occasion don't seem to be on the same page. None of them seem to be playing their natural game, apart maybe from the defence, and that I'm afraid is a legacy of what they are being asked to do.

To a large degree I think he is over-complicating things. I couldn't work out tonight what he was trying to achieve or where he wanted his players positioned. Jack Payne seemed to spend 60% of the game in the hole and 40% in CM. Ryan Leonard seemed to divide his time between a defensive midfield position just in front of the back 4 and a CM position and sometimes he even dropped so deep that he was level with his centre backs. Every time Bentley or one of our defenders lumped the ball forward, Corr raced all the way back to the half way line to try and get on a head on it, and Payne, Hurst and Worrall all moved beyond him in anticipation of a flick-on. Invariably Corr failed to get anything on the ball and so the 3 aforementioned players and himself were all out of position. It just seemed like they were being instructed to do some odd and over-complicated things. I can't agree with the whole “4-4-2 is dead” argument. There's no reason why that formation can't work. He is trying to be different for the sake of being different rather than being different because it works – unfortunately that's a theme at the moment, being different for no good reason seems to be in vogue in English football. This is League 2 football and the players are mostly that standard so get back to basics and play it simple, stop over-complicating things.

Thought we played some nice stuff up until the edge of the final third, but with only one striker (who can barely move) in the box to try to get on the end of crosses, and no penetration due to a lack of movement up front when the ball is coming through the middle, we never looked like scoring. I thought having Payne, Hurst and Worrall on the pitch was heading in the right direction and I think that's the way forward but there must be two strikers on the pitch so that these creators have someone to thread a through-ball into or to put a cross into. Coker was excellent and Atkinson not far behind with his industriousness.

Bentley 7 – Little to do but made a good save at the end
White 6 – Solid defensively but the aimless long balls up the line are frustrating
Prosser 7 – seemed comfortable
Bolger 5 – maybe harsh for a member of a defence which kept a clean sheet, but arguably could have given him less. Made 2 glaring errors tonight. Scares the **** out of me. Has little in the way of positional awareness, concentration or decision-making skills – 3 important attributes for any centre back. League 2 centre backs will be lacking in these areas, that's why they're at this level, but he doesn't even seem to be L2 standard in these areas.
Coker 8 MOM – excellent comeback, didn't put a foot wrong all game until he surrendered possession on the left flank in the 80th. Won lots of headers, tackled well and got up and down the line.

Leonard 6 – expected better, passing was poor, played too deep and when he did try to run forward with the ball, he was tackled too easily.
Atkinson 7.5 – covered lots of grass, tackled and passed well. Industrious and effective.
Hurst 6 – seems to be lacking confidence a bit and didn't get over as many crosses as you'd like but worked hard, got forward and helped out defensively.
Worrall 6 – worked hard. Was a nuisance out wide, got some crosses in, tracked back well.

Payne 7 – tried to open them up but had nothing in front of him to lay it on a plate for. Showed some nice passes and spread play well.

Corr 5 – woeful. Won little in the air and for such a big guy, gets tackled and muscled off the ball far too easily. Had 2 chances with headers which luckily he was left unmarked for, because he didn't actually jump for either of them! Just can't do what is expected of him.

Subs:
Weston 5 – not a striker. He can say he prefers playing up there as much as he likes but he doesn't have the brain or positional skills of a striker. His instinct was to keep dropping deep or peeling out wide so for the final 10 minutes of the game it seemed like we had no striker on the pitch. The moment when he received the ball on the edge of the area, wouldn't get a shot away and then just fell over was embarrassing.

As a last note, what is going on with our set pieces? We don't threaten at all from any dead ball situation. I can't work out whether it's because the balls in are poor (shouldn't be with Hurst, Worrall, Timlin and Coker at the club), or because we have nobody who can lose or out-jump his marker and get a good head on the ball (we really miss a 10-goal centre back a la Phillips and Cresswell), or whether it's because they aren't being practised on the training ground and there is no set-piece plan in place. It needs to be worked on though because that should be a source of some goals for us.

Some changes need to be made in the January transfer window but for me, the biggest change still needs to be the management team.
 
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