Macclesfield Town v Swindon Town Official Matchday Thread

[walcot red]

ended up going to cribbs with the wife xmas shopping, heard we were losing 4-0. Disapointed yes, but it wasn't a league game. It wasn't a loss to the pox, gas or shitty so I'm ok with it. As for people wanting refunds if you went to watch a film at the cinema and it turned out to be utter gash and asked for a refund, the cinema would say 'go fuck yourself'

sounds like macclesfield just wanted it more.

[joteddyred]

he really doesn't like us very much does he?

Seems not, so I don't imagine he's the answer to our need for a tighter defence.

[tans]

he really doesn't like us very much does he?

He's a cunt

[DarloSTFC84]

He's a cunt

[tans]

Saying that if we brought him back from injury we could be the first team in football league history to have a centre back playing a game in a mobility scooter

[Sir Pissalot]

Just got back home from watching "A Nightmare on Moss Rose II (Return of the Chihuahuas)".  There's not much I can add to the brief reports that other attendees have already posted.  It really was a totally dismal, embarrassing performance apart from the first 15 minutes of the second half, where we tried for a while until they caught us on the break and scored their second goal.  None of our squad looked 'up for it'. You only had to see the half-hearted way they all warmed up before the game. That set the scene for what was to follow.

I'm a little surprised about the way that some posters above have dismissed this woeful performance as just a 'bad day at the office'.  You wouldn't be so dismissive if you had been there to witness it.  I do NOT want a refund.  Nobody held a gun to my head to make me attend today.....but they may have to do so to get me to go to another away game anytime soon!

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

Just got back home from watching "A Nightmare on Moss Rose II (Return of the Chihuahuas)".  There's not much I can add to the brief reports that other attendees have already posted.  It really was a totally dismal, embarrassing performance apart from the first 15 minutes of the second half, where we tried for a while until they caught us on the break and scored their second goal.  None of our squad looked 'up for it'. You only had to see the half-hearted way they all warmed up before the game. That set the scene for what was to follow.

I'm a little surprised about the way that some posters above have dismissed this woeful performance as just a 'bad day at the office'.  You wouldn't be so dismissive if you had been there to witness it.  I do NOT want a refund.  Nobody held a gun to my head to make me attend today.....but they may have to do so to get me to go to another away game anytime soon!

Spot on. My worst ever performance.
The whole day was shite.
Hate the M6, hate Maccelsfield, hate football today.
Trying to laugh and say it could get any worse.
We were absolute garbage.
Body language, tactics, football everything was woeful.

[JoeMezz]

Just got in and that was the worst performance I have ever seen.
Players didn't show any heart or desire and Macclesfield had that in abundance.
Feel sorry for Belford who was exposed for all 4 goals and actually had a fairly reasonable game.
Cooper got tactics horribly wrong. To play, in my opinion, our best centre-midfielder at wing back was totally the wrong call as he was clueless as to what to do all game. 3 at the back doesn't work, Hall get's exposed too much on the wing, Ward is too slow to play that central and have a lack of cover and McCeverly isn't a centre half. About time we had 4 in defence again and a change of tactics, certainly away from home.
As for the refund debate, you don't go to a movie and see an actor not trying, some-days players are shite but to have such apathy that the players had today, there is a angle to say that players certainly don't deserve their weeks wages. Just the views of a very pissed off person anyway.

[BruceChatwin]

I'm not exaggerating when I say that was one of the worst defensive performances I've seen a Swindon back-line put in. You could have sailed a ceremonial flotilla through the gap between goalkeeper and defence. Ward and Hall reminded me of those penguins in the Falklands who fall over when they watch jet-planes passing overhead.

Individually, Hall will probably cop a lot of the blame (and would surely be dropped were it not for the absence of competition) for an individual performance riddled with goal-costing errors, but on the scale of the match, the blame should fall squarely on the set-up, and Coopers apparent desire to shoe-horn all our best players into the team at the cost of our balance and shape.

It was clear from the first ten-minutes that the Luongo wing-back experiment wasn't working. After twenty minutes the fans were shouting for Cooper to move him back to the centre and put a proper defender on the right. After thirty minutes we should have been 3-0 down but persisted nonetheless throughout the rest of the first-half and wave after wave of attack to the increasingly angry bewilderment of the crowd.

The 3 at the back with wing-backs can work, and when it does work it can be extremely productive. However, I think if we start playing it every week, and the other team knows that's how we're going to set-up from the start, it becomes very easy to counter with diagonal balls in behind and balls slid down the wings. Walsall dismantled us like that. Macclesfield have just done the same. It seems to me it's worked best when we've switched to it having started with a 4-5-1, and caught the opposition off-guard second-half. Playing it week after week is too predictable, and especially dangerous when we've got two lumbering centre-backs who haven't got the pace to catch-up with a player who gets in behind.

Having sat through that, I have to give my backing to calls for a return to the 4-5-1 (oh the fickle irony of football). As much as anything, Kasim, who was universally acclaimed as our best player for the first ten games of the season, seems to have struggled to wield any influence at all since coming back into that formation, and the midfield as a whole seem unable to dominate in quite the way we were seeing at the beginning of the season.

Away form is now becoming a serious concern. I'll repeat what I said after the Walsall game, that Cooper should be looking at the way they set up as an exemplar for us to aspire to. We need to be less open, even if it's at the cost of fluid football at times, and try to start building from a solid defensive base, which was at the heart of our good away form last year.  

In summary for today, the players came in half-hearted, the formation, and the players deployed to execute it, were wrong, but to give credit where it's due, Macclesfield played extremely well, exploited those frailties fully, and would probably still have beaten us playing like that in the absence of the issues listed above.

Good luck to them in the draw. Back to the drawing board for us.

[Ardiles]

I'm not exaggerating when I say that was one of the worst defensive performances I've seen a Swindon back-line put in. You could have sailed a ceremonial flotilla through the gap between goalkeeper and defence. Ward and Hall reminded me of those penguins in the Falklands who fall over when they watch jet-planes passing overhead.

Take a bow, Sir!  Best line ever.

[Batch]

Thanks for the reports match goers. Appreciate it even if it's  not pleasant reading.

[DarloSTFC84]

So, with all that's been said in mind....what line-up/formation would you play on Tuesday?

[sonicyouth]

Take a bow, Sir!  Best line ever.

Sadly, it's a myth. Penguins don't give a fuck about aeroplanes.

[Ardiles]

Have to confess that I have not read through the whole thread today, but our away form is simply embarrassing now.  Coops: we need another plan.  Whatever you are advocating away from home simply isn't working.

I do not want to disrespect Macclesfield by implying that their decisive victory today was entirely down to our own ineptidude, but sure it played a part.  At home, yes: good report card.  But there is something woefully amiss away from the County Ground.  Saw it myself at Oldham...if the midfield distribution engine is nullified, the passing game doesn't just fall apart: it fails to exist.  Plan B, C & D needed, and urgently.  That's not to say I'm not a fan of Plan A when it works, because I am.  But for Heaven's sake, let's have a few alternatives, please.

[Ardiles]

Sadly, it's a myth. Penguins don't give a fuck about aeroplanes.

You would appear to have a point.  I stand corrected.  (And please pardon the pun.)