Thetownend.com

Sorry fella's I realise that this is going to go down like Fallon in the penalty area but I have to get this off my chest.

Iffy,

Please see sense, when Rory's ban is over do not recall him.  Yep I accept that he has scored 7 goals and I accept his work rate has improved beyond belief, however, can you not see that when he's on the pitch all our defenders, do is lump it up to him?  We completely bypass our midfield and our wide players struggle to get in the game as a result.

On Saturday as soon as Rory was sent off, we started playing football, no more long hopeful punts up field for our target man to flick on to no one, Christiin and Hameur were given the opportunity to get involved, they ran at the Scunts defence and looked a real menace.

Come on Iffy, I thought you were supposed to be an intelligent man.

Jan

Now waiting for the TEF back lash.

What you say makes some sense .. but RF has been our best player this season and to not recall him would be stupidity!!

He's played alright, but whenever he plays our whole team plays shit football.  Hoof it up to him and Rory will then win less than half of those balls and about half of the ones he wins goes to the opposition.

When he doesn't play more of the team get involved.  We have better shape by far.  Whoever partners Rory up front looks shit because they never get the ball.

they look shit because they are shit mainly .. just because we have a big man up front we DONT have to play a long ball .. Iffy should be preaching that more!

But we've been doing that for the last two years, everytime he plays we just knock it long, will Iffy be able to get the team to change?  I doubt it, if not take away the problem.  Players like Bouazza, Roberts and Thorpe will get just as many as Rory could if they were given a decent service.

No i dont think they would .. sorry but Rory has to play! :scribe:

Bloody hell even more contraversial I agree with part of the adver match report

"Onuora was less than impressed when the New Zealander saw yellow for the second time, penalised for an aerial challenge with Scunthorpe’s Peter Hinds.

Oddly enough it proved to be something of a blessing in disguise.

A miserable opening 60 minutes saw sloppy Town pump aimless long balls at an increasingly frustrated Fallon and it was only when he left the pitch that the players were forced to think of a ‘plan B’. That proved to be feeding Roberts and Hameur Bouzza and letting them run at the visiting defence.

you have a point, but you can't drop him. 7 goals this season...says it all! there vital goals, even if we do still lose!

But against Oldham and Barnsley we still lumped the ball forward, the only difference being that we didn't win it in the air at all.. there were no quality balls to feet from midfield even though we all knew this was exactly what Thorpe and Cureton thrived on.

It seems to me that the only thing that allows our players to play good football is absolute adversity i.e 3 goals down at home with 10 mins to go or 1 nil down at home with only 10 men. Suddenly they're not expected to get a result, they play some good football and we nearly drew 3-3 with Oldham and could have beaten Scunthorpe 2-1.
You could argue that the only reason we beat forest is because no-one expected us to get a result against them.

agreed with Brighton!

Against Oldham and Barnsley though the team were still trying to get to know each other.  There should be a better understanding now.  It's a shame we've got Hudders away this weekend as whoever comes in for Rory's not gonna get much of a chance.

exactly. even if fallon wasnt in the team we would still play long balls. i expect iffy to keep the same formation against huddersfield & play shakes or roberts as the lone striker.

when ifil & gurney are playing its always gonna be a long ball game anyway.

In fairness Gurney's balls were to feet every time on Saturday without exception.  4-5-1 with Roberts (or Shakes  :?  ) as the lone striker wouldn't work in my opinion.  We just need Roberts up for it - hopefully he will be.

I thought Gurney was ok on Saturday, still far too many Beckham-esque attempts for my liking but when he moved into the middle he played alright.  CCP did well, I did think though that Jenkins was awful, Beagrie made him look shiiiiite.

It depends Jan.

If we look a threat and score at H/field then yes Fallon should stay dropped.

If we've got nothing then bring him back.

Very true BR, and it was similar with SSP up front most of the time. The trouble is that Fallon really needs a partner up front to work with, but for some reason the obvious choice, Roberts, does not get selected there, with a 4-4-2.
I can understand 4-5-1 in a way,  but it means frustrating Fallon, Roberts, probably the wingers, and some fans including me, as they don't appear to know, or are able, to play it effectively.

Thorpe and Roberts up front,

Bouazza - Gurney Whalley - Shakes in the middle

Jenkins - O'Hanlon - Comyn Platt - Nicho at the back

Heaton between the sticks

Let's keep it on the fucking deck fella's.

I think id rather see this side at mo

Heaton/Evans when fit

Jenks O Hanlon Ifil Nicho

Gurney Migz/Pook till Migz is fit Smith

Roberts Fallon Bouazza

Why Ifil?  He's been terrible all season and Comyn Platt looked steady on Sat.

It's time to drop Pook.

i can remember 1 cross-field ball to bouazza that actually found him. all the other long balls he played were just aimless hoofs.

agree with janaage that jenkins was crap on sat, should have given beagrie a kicking.

i would pick this team for saturday:

heaton

jenkins - ohanlon - comyn-platt - nicholas

shakes - whalley - gurney - smith

roberts - bouazza

bench: bulman, ifil, mcdermott, pook, thorpe

That reminds me Le God, why didn't Gurney or O'Hanlon or both take that young blonde kiddie out in the first ten, let him know that he was in for a rough ride.  Instead they let him have loads of time and space.

That's the one for Saturday in my opinion.

Sorry, swap Nicho and Smith.

I thought Smith was injured that's why I put Thorpe up top with Robbo and pulled Bouazza into the middle.  If Smith is fit, then play him defo.  I agree with the above selection.

Not Rorys fault the defence play long balls, talk to the defence about it

I hope some hapless manager comes in for him in January, cash in on him, if he's worth owt.

That sounds very fair indeed Jan.  The rest if the side are playing like mongers, lumping the ball up in the air and you want to drop Rory!!!

Maybe it's the rest of the team that needs looking at? :shock:

I know you don't like Fallon for some reason but that's ridiculous!

Jan, have you lost the plot? Rory has easily been our best striker.

It's the midfiled that worries me, crap quality. As does 4-5-1 and Iffy going on about striker options.

Maybe I have.  I'm just well impressed with the remaining 10 players who bailed us out on Saturday when Rory left us in the shit.  I've had enough of the long ball shit we play and the easy way round the problem is by getting shot of him.

You can't just drop him though as he's been our best player this season and if it wasn't for his goals we'd be even worse off.

We did play a lot better without him on Saturday, but I mainly think it was due to the fact that the crowd riled the team on. Same happened against Oldham when we got two goals back, Forest and Yeovil where we won both.

If we are gonna play on the floor, drop Roberts and put Thorpe up front with Bouazza. If anyone has STFC World watch Thorpes goals from previous seasons and you'll understand. Roberts is greedy and plays for himself.

I honestly think that if he wasn't in the team we'd score more goals.  We create more chances and someone like Roberts, Bouazza, Thorpe could reaps the benefits.

With Rory in the side we're too one dimensional.

The crowd was class last half hour, made a lot of noise for such a small number.

I understand the point you're making jan, but dropping Fallon would be suicide - without his goals we'd be really fucked.

I don't accept the point about the longballs stopping once Rory went off either, it continued with Roberts and Bouazza on the pitch as well. The problem is with the defence, particularly Gurney and Ifil when he plays.

If we started with the same formation we ended with (except with an 11th player in midfield) I doubt we'd perform in a similar manner. As others have said, we had nothing left to lose and we just threw the kitchen sink at Scunny on Saturday and they weren't expecting it, we'd been shite for 70 minutes and then we started threatening them. We went gung-ho because we had nothing to lose, if we started gung-ho against Huddersfield we'd be on the end of another 4-0 defeat at the least.

Well what we need to do is stop hoofin it up field. Simple. And Fallon could do with someone like Shakes upfront with him and Roberts and Bouzza on the wings.

But we could have actually won the game on saturday.

Rory plays better with balls to his feet.
You want him to be dropped so we play the ball to feet?

I'm sure Iffy could drum it into the lads that Rory has legs aswell as a head, and that we have two men out wide capable of outpacing most players in this division.

I think that with Roberts and Bouazza up front we would lose width and threat on the wings.

i think the system we play with now is good. 3 games - 0 defeats. its got to be doing something right hasn't it?

Rory does indeed look better with the ball at his feet. Don't know if you guys were watchin the game closely enough but there was a 2-3 minute period where Swindon played the ball short, and stopped hoofing. Whalley showed he was far more comfortable at this time, and a good balanced build up involving most of the players with a bit of slick passing ended up with...pook getting the ball which unfortunately messed it up, but i really do think we should keep it on the floor. With the pace we are blessed with we could cause a lot more problems with it on the floor. Oh and here's my team for the Huddersfield game:

Heaton/ Jenkins/O'Hanlon/Comyn Platt/Nicholas/ Shakes/Gurney/Whalley/Jack Smith(left mid if he's fit) or if not Pook i guess!/ Roberts/Bouazza

The Telegraph agrees with a lot you said there janaage...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2005/10/24/sfgswi24.xml&sSheet=/sport/2005/10/24/ixfooty.html

I tend to agree though it's the rest of the team that need looking rather than the strikers, perhaps explaining the poor form of Cureton and Thorpe, who I still think will come good this season.

Does the telegraph website always have reasonably in-depth reports such as this for league one matches?

Just for info fella's there's a new footie paper out on Sundays "The Football League Paper", gives in depth reports on all League matches and a nice touch is that they only give small reports on Premiership matches, a role reversal of the normal papers.

Nice report that btw Dazzza, I'm not entirely crazy then.

Yeah I got a copy of it .. not bad !