Thetownend.com

breakdown

first half an hour we should've turned pressure into goals (as with pboro first 30 mins)

second half we conceeded a shit corner and then a shit goal. then the panic button got pressed and we rushed all passes and nothing worked.


personal attacks

now c roberts didn't look like scoring or putting in a decent cross all day...yet was prefered right wing to shakes.
zaboob looked decent on the left...but dropped to left back and weston left wing. this to me was strange.
pook sadly cannot buy a decent passage of play (no i don't know where he could possibly buy one, perhaps another club or intensive sessions on the training pitch).

all in all pretty disappointed with today. we didn't look like scoring at all and i'm pretty confident the chucking strikers on does not equal scoring goals

 :cry:

Christian Roberts was a useless lazy waste of space today.

He better be dropped for his week.

His crossing was shit, the way he delayed everything did step overs and cut back was shit. One on one with the keeper and he didnt shoot. 20 yards out with 3 players round him and he does.

That was shocking. Pook isnt good enough and Timlin has been here too long because he now looks like a proper Swindon player, utter rubbish....couldnt pass at all today.

We looked less dangerous when Shakes went off  :shock:

Listening on the radio it didn't strike me that we were creating enough chances. Nico unlucky again not to score. Just one of those days. We must get over it.

I blame the good weather!

we didn't take our chance(s) and they took theirs. simple as that.

The  twat of a ref didnt help.

should have taken that one on one first time, instead of trying to round the 'keeper. and how many times did he come back on to his left foot, when jack smith was available and in acres of space? i was fully expecting him to get pulled, can't believe he lasted the full 90 minutes!

ah agreed compo. he was particularly special.

the assistant that gave their striker offside when jerel headed it was just hilarious

which is exactly what i said Tuesday night and again today

Utter shite....drop him

Agreed, Roberts, Pook and Timlin were appaling with Zaboub and Nicholas pushing them close- that's 5 players having poor games in one of our biggest matches so far. Pathetic display.

The only half decent player today (Shakes) was taken off.

How that waste of space Roberts stayed on the pitch is beyond me! oh i can pass it back to Smith to put a cross in but no i'll try and take 4 players on instead, what a Cunt.

I wasn't there today, but from what I heard, would it be fair to say that Shakes, as per usual, used his pace well to get in the place at the right time, but then wasted it by hitting the front man?

No, Shakes actually put in some decent crosses.

Roberts was utter gash. Our midfield was completely useless.

Thought Williams had a good game. Shame we conceded from a set piece, AGAIN!

he did put in one really good ball. but as per usual there was peacock in there marked by 3 and roberts er strolling about somewhere and no one from the midfield gambling. the rest wasn't that good but i felt he had the beating of fatty humphries

where as roberts did absolutely fuck all, despite being on the pitch for longer and getting the ball in better positions

just imagine if roberts was anywhere near as good as he thinks he is...

corr, what a player he'd be.

He was awful today and his body language did not impressed with me. He was like a teapot with his hands on his hips. He tries to do on his own. He never played the simple ball to Smith, Roberts just wanted to do it his way.

Roberts had a shocker! terrible performance from him. no one really played too well in the 2nd half though tbh. i was impressed with shakes in the first half. Zaaboub and Peacock for the whole game. thought them two played quite well.

Agree with what has been said about Roberts, a massive argument broke out in the Nationwide about him.

Ifil was MOM for me seemed at times to be playing in 4 or 5 positions to cover for the wasters around him

I didnt go to the game, but it sounded like a tight game where a 0-0 or 1-0 was always going to be the likely result.

From the sound of the radio, it seemed like  Swindon edged the game overall, but in a game where very few clear cut chances were created, Hartlepool scored their chances, whilst Town missed theirs.

Apparently we have the easiest run in our remaining games in comparison to Walsall, McDonalds and Hartlepool.  I reckon its between us 4 teams to fill the top 3 positions.  I'm jst hoping we can get back to winning ways next week and continue our recent decent form.  A win next week is vital, especially with Hartlepool playing Walsall.  Gives us a chance to gain points on 1, if not both our rivals

There's no doubting Roberts has ability but for fucks sake put a cross in and stop trying to round everyone!
And also shoot when in and around the box and stop playing it backwards and forwards accross the edge of the box.

Rant over.

i have to agree with you there. i can't see Lincoln finishing in the top 3 now. we dont have an easy run though i don't think. Rochdale next up and that won't be easy at all. although you would expect us to win!

Think Sturrock got it wrong in the 2nd half today - changed the personel too much and the system suffered as a result. The long ball from the back just doesn't work against a good defence like Hartlepools - and they were a good defence. Williams for one just pumped the ball forward at every opportunity and they're defence dealt with it easy. They clearly had a game plan, they stuck to it and were better than us.

Don't think Roberts can be blamed - he's a striker after all and is better cutting in from wide positions. Thought Jack Smith offered him very little support, he didn't make any over lapping runs at all. Worth remembering that Roberts isn't a winger - yes he should do a job for the team - but why slate him for not getting crosses in when thats not what he is best at.

All in all, not a very good performance today. Timlin very poor, Shakes didn't make the most of his pace at all against fat boy Humphreys. Zaboub good in the first 10 mins, Peacock worked hard again but couldn't win much in the air.

I thought Sturrocks tactical decisions were poor today. Zaboub is undoubtedly our most dangerous winger, so why move him to left back and put weston on left wing? Particularly when Weston is a centre mid.

Secondly, taking off shakes for Sturrock, OK if you're going to play 3 up, but not if you're just gonna stick with the same formation and move roberts out wide.

 :evil:

.. and then he thought he'd done enough and stopped thinking as a team player. They were well organised and so good at blocking our moves and tracking runners that we struggled to  get anyone free and Zaaboub ignored them when they did overlap.

I think you are being pretty harsh on Roberts personally.  Should have got his shot away though.

For the definition of lazy see Monkhouse.

Agree Shakes shouldn't have come off. After the switch around we looked about as threatening as a blamanche.

Lost our shape completely. Too many out of position and getting in each other's way.

Okay Roberts has bad games and looks slightly apathetic at times but HOW THE HELL can you say he is a crap waste of space?! He has scored more goals than anybody else for us this season.

Okay fine slate him for a bad game but don't go round sayiong he is crap constantly. Bandwaggon jumping if I ever saw it

He's scored 3 more than Peacock and taken what? 8 penatlies? Fallon last season 14 goals in a much worse team that created less chances. Parkin would be well past 15 by now as well. Different players I know, but just because he's our top scorer doesnt mean he is any good or has a divine right to play.

I call him a waste of space because he is.....

i'm glad i couldn't get to the game now.oh and roberts always looks lazy to me

I agree with that.  :nod:

I feel we just came up against a team who were far better organised than us, played to their strengths and got the result.  Unfortunately for us so many of our players seemed lost out there today, complaining they do not understand the system.  They are professional footballers for fuck's sake, I think it just showed our limitations! :?  :?

Agree Roberts was gash today, finally had enough of him.
Yes, he has bags of potential and can play well on his day, but his day does not come often. I'd happily replace him with a proper striker.

so we've lost.deffo to one of the better sides in the league, and we are going to lose a few more yet.
but slating players the way some have is daft imo.the team will bounce back and we will get promoted, so chill dudes.

Yep.

The team that has got us to 2nd in the league is crap and Sturrock is useless.

FFS! It was one game!

A game that we lost by one goal!

Hartlepool weren't better than us, we made a mistake at a set piece and we failed to capitalise on our chances.

Those of you who think Sturrock did 'this' wrong, or 'that' wrong, FUCK OFF!

Sturrock will get us out of this shite league THIS SEASON.

FACT!

I felt that Hartlepool played to the potential they showed at their place back in August .... big strong side ... no attempts at any fancy football .... massive back line with Nelson commanding so much in particular (I hated him when he was at Bury too - but only because I wish we had him!) ... whereas we had at least five or six players below par and looked like the confidence was not there as well (in fact like we did for most of the last hour at Peterborough) ... something is definitely not quite right ... perhaps the team needed to lose so that Sturrock will make changes for next week ..... they looked a bit like they were a team who think they will get picked to play regardless ... let's hope today has taught them a lesson ..... in fairness nobody will beat Hartlepool convincingly in my opinion ... and we still have Evans and Vincent and Noubissie .... the sooner I start that drive up to Rochdale the sooner we can put today behind us ..... sigh  :cry:

Roberst alwas makes things diffcult for himself, He always takes the hard option. AND CROSS THE BALL FFS, INSTEAD OF DOING FANCY-DAN STEPOVERS.

Shakes hustlied and bustled well, but his crossing was also poor. I dont think any of them got of the ground.

Bit confused when sturrrock dropped peacock into the midfield. He was the only holding the ball up, and he did well bringing people into play. But when he moved to midfield, every long ball just came straight back at us

And where was the fecking marking for their corner. Simple stuff, buts its holding us back, and costs us points (again).

Yeah, and laying it off to who? There wasn't anyone there, was there?

Peacock was my MOTM. If Roberts played a bit more centrally as a striker, I think we'd have scored.

IIRC he was playing the ball out wide quite frequently, including some brilliant cross field passes to shakes in the 1st half

I was refering to laying it off close, to his striking partner.

Yeah, his long range passing was great. The problem was that the recipient didn't manage to repay the favour.......IIRC!

Oh bugger it. lets just blame roberts and pook

Yes, lets.

And while we're at it, lets blame 'the board' for not inserting a clause into Monkhouse's transfer deal that he couldn't play today.

 :groan1:

 floghorse

i thought we did alright, they were good, we were nowhere near our best.

they only had one decent chance and they put it away, whereas we had a few, on another day atleast one wouldve flown in.
fair play to nichos for his effort but what the fuck was zabooub doing just before it, that was an absolute sitter.

So if Monkfish had still been here he would probably been our best player

I tell you the shittest performance of the day..............

Our fans. Only 6800 and a crap atmosphere. Well dissapointed. And kids singing 'want our money back' in the Town End. Fuck off. Ive had it with that stand now, I doubt il be back in there this season.

On the pitch thought it was a typical tight shit game. Too defensive. We had 2 guilt edge chances to score and missed them both. They had one chance and scored, they won the game. Monky was their best player and proved his point to Sturrock (not that I think Sturrock was wrong to let him go). Il always stick up for Roberts, but he needs to score more from open play. Missing that 1 on 1 was criminal, and he does deserve to be dropped on saturday for that.

Best to just ignore football for a few days, forget it, and get on with Rochdale on saturday. Cmon You Reds.

Just saw the highlights - how the hell did zaaboub miss?

Nicho's shot was a cracker, but it was he who lost Monkhouse for the goal

I thought it was Nicholas.

I'm sure santini will log on and tell me it was Ifil

Never logged off. Always watching.

You're 24 hours too late. Said this yesterday.
"He was marking him. In front of him and had hold of him!"

Do try to keep up old chap :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

yeah Nicholas was supposed to be marking him. With Nicho shot did it the post or the bar.

Post i think, due to the way it spun across the goal.

It was a cracking shot though. He has 2 great efforts on goal, right in front of Town End in successive games. He was unlucky on both.

Both, in the angle.

if that had gone in santini would've emptied his loins for the first time in 35 years.

Top post and 100% agree.  Also Herthab is right - forget it and move on, we had a bad day

Totally fucked off with the team at the moment, ok were still 2nd and doing ok but not enjoyed more than five games this year.  Glad to have next weekend off, might even watch bushey rangers or st albans

It was a crap game and the fans were crap too, just a complete waste of time.  I think everyone bar Peacock and Ifil were below par.  
However, all teams have their off-days and as long as that's all it was I'm sure we'll put it behind us soon enough.

It was utterly dull though, I have to say.

Roberts was shit....but he has been lately. He has missed so many one-on-ones this season, it is unbelievable. In fact, I cannot remember him scoring one of them.

He is NOT a striker. Even PS admitted as much on RS on Friday night, but he still plays him there anyway, and his body language says to be that he couldn't be bothered.

I think it was a very close game, Not that dissapointed as we're still second and we played generally quite good but hartlepool looked incredibly strong. They're a big side, good defence and thats just the way it went.
People chanting monkhouse were foolish, but that sums our fans up. Like when they booed Paul ince. Whats the point ? Bloody grow up. (you get that everywhere though). Yes it pissed me off when he celebrated infront of the townend but it was to be expected and fair play to him because he had nothing but good words to say about us in the daily press today and said he think we'll definately go up.

Roberts had a poor game as I think everyone agrees but I won't slate him too much because he has had some brilliant games and has hit the back of the net on more than one occasion and we don't very often score more than 2 goals! He's getting a bit inconsistant though and I don't think thats a good sign.
But don't just slate him, he is not the only one capable of scoring. People expect him to score and when he does'nt they throw a hissy fit.

On a positive note, Nice to see brez back with a smile on his face!!
 :)

4th time cos I have 3 lads ... No, actually 5th cos the last time was when Nicho told me where he got the bra from in Asher's avatar!

Perfect irony!!

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Pray tell Santini, where'd he get it?

Oh lord.