Colchester Utd v Swindon Town official match day thread

[Super Hans]

Moronic leaving your better players on the bench.

You can't ask the subs to save the day week on week. Scrapping around mid table isn't good enough IMO. I'd be looking at a change ASAP. Don't think it's going to work.

[BambooToTheFuture]

He doesn’t watch the games imo. You could tell this a couple of weeks back when we played Cambridge. Kept on giving stats about how Town were dominating yet everybody who watched the game thought town were shit and Cambridge deserved their win. Just take his comments with a pinch of salt.

How's about fucking do one.

StefTroll doesn't want Town to win imo. You can tell this every single match and even more so when we lose. Keeps on giving the same negative lines Just like your pal Processed Meats. Just take his comments with a pinch of salt.

I do watch the games. I admitted when I did the Cambridge game that I struggled to watch and comment on the game.

[4D]

We've got our traditional winter lull starting soon too.

[BambooToTheFuture]

Are you his mum?

Yes. I've been his Mum all his life.

[Flashheart]

All those calling for Brown to be sacked - serious question - what makes you think Power will make a decent appointment in his place? He’d probably go for the cheap option and stick Taylor in charge for the rest of the season - if that’s what you all want then fine. We should not be sat in 16th place in the 4th tier, but in my opinion our position reflects the decisions of only one person and that’s the chairman. The buck stops with him.

This is tiresome.

Brown was a reasonable appointment for this division and probably did not come cheap. Flitcroft was also a decent appointment on paper. Ling was doing well. Cooper has us one game away from the Championship. Williams was a punt (the problem there being that Power dithered).

It's all very well being able to be critical of appointments with the power of hindsight, but there's not much else that can be done. Unless you have a magic ball that you could lend to Power.

[Super Hans]

All those calling for Brown to be sacked - serious question - what makes you think Power will make a decent appointment in his place? He’d probably go for the cheap option and stick Taylor in charge for the rest of the season - if that’s what you all want then fine. We should not be sat in 16th place in the 4th tier, but in my opinion our position reflects the decisions of only one person and that’s the chairman. The buck stops with him.

Agree to a point but Brown has decent enough tools at his disposal to have us doing better than we are.

It's not Power's fault Phil Brown keeps fucking up on a match day. It's not like we're scraping a fit XI to play each week. It's Brown's squad and he's getting nothing like the best out of them.

[RobertT]

Just not good enough from the Manager.  That game in isolation wasn't that bad, we could easily have got a point or sneaked a win, but it's the context of the other games around it - we are losing the good things we had earlier in the season.  We look less ropey at the back but still likely to have a moment like today where a few players fall asleep, putting us behind.  We clearly cannot soak up a game - last week we got the win by reverting to type - i.e the way we set-up early in the season.  Brown is tinkering and making a dogs mess of the team.  Players falling over each other, having to think far too much about what they are being asked to do now.  We must have played six formations over the past two games alone.  He's has long enough to have developed a pattern of play, he hasn't, it's all on him.  There are moments in games where we show we have more than enough to be a team that should be up the top end, it's his job to extract that for longer in games.

On the players, Adebayo is worrying me, I don't know that he has a position.  We already have Anderson who has no natural position on the pitch.  The chopping and changing isn't helping them, but Adebayo is playing himself out of form right now.

Dunne has done alright the past few games - that's good news for him, but probably highlights our issue because he is one of our worst players!

McCourt seems steady but little more.

Taylor wasn't exposed today - but didn't really offer much either.

Thought Knoyle had one of his poorer games.  Not bad, but not offering much threat going forward.  You'd think he'd work well with McGlashan, but the latter hogs the line and prevents Knoyle getting forward I think.  Plus McGlashan is clearly useless and falls over at a hint of breeze.

Alzate looked useful, just as he did last week.  We have to get him n the team and use him to his advantages.  he is the most creative player we have and we should be trying to build our attacks around him.

Nelson was ok, Conroy ok bar one silly flick that put Romanski in trouble, and Romanski looked ok at left back but isn't going to do much going forward other than getting himself out of position - which he did a couple of times.

Smith was probably the best player for us over the 90 minutes.  He does waste a few balls, and I think if he squared the ball we had a tap in rather than shoot at the keeper.  However, he pushes the team forwards.

[diggers]

Its a fair question. If the answer is Taylor then maybe we should be a bit cautious...

But 6 points, 8 games. It can't carry on. The clock is ticking for Brown.

Yep totally agree - it’s not good when you still don’t know your best lineup in November! Some of the selections just seem to be clutching at straws looking for it to click...and it clearly isn’t.

[BambooToTheFuture]

For the third time, do watch the games and if so, do you think this is OK?

I do watch the games. Mainly on ifollow due to location. I'll get to as many "live" games as I can though.

I've already said I don't think it is ok and I don't think it is good enough but reality says we're in our 2nd season in L2. Largely not helped by Power not being divisive in sacking Luke Williams when in L1. We're here now. Most important is we figure a way out (upwardly).

[Flashheart]

I'm all for going for an up and coming non-league manager or retiring player. That would probably be a 'cheap' option, but the cost is not a deciding factor for me. Obviously, because I'm not paying. I just feel it's the best option.

It's all very well bemoaning 'cheap' appointments, but how many 'expensive' managers would manage in L2? How many 'expensive' managers are there in L2 currently?

[BambooToTheFuture]

You're really clutching at straws now.

I don't agree with booing players but we're not crap because of the booing, people are booing because we're crap.

I'm purely talking about booing our own players, when on the ball, during the game. At home. If that's your bag, fair enough but I won't boo my own player on the ball.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

You can wash this any way you like, but the basic truth is we are currently dreadful. How much of that is down to the manager or the players the manager recruited doesn’t really matter.

The end result is the same and my finger is pointing at Brown - and it’s vertical and not horizontal.

[Nijholts Nuts]

IMHO Brown has created a rank average Lg2 side, having been given the means to create a squad capable of being promoted and he isn't capable of galvanising them to over achieve. This team will amount to mediocrity at best under Brown, best case scenario.

[RedRag]

starting away games with a more defensive, limited team and then bringing on the likes of Alzate and Anderson as the game opens up generally in the 2nd half doesn't sound shocking in itself.

Don't feel Bayo is up to being a target man and Richards certainly isn't.  Someone like Nile Ranger could open things open a lot more for the two we have though as well as the midfielders.

Could be Vigs out for a fee and a striker in. I'm still hoping to be proved wrong but it looks like Brown has run out of time to deliver and STFC should not be caught short as we plan a 2nd half to the campaign.

Shame.  Hated Flitcroft but like Brown.

[Reg Smeeton]

 Well not a bad afternoon, Flitcroft's lot pulled out a last gasp equaliser at Whaddon Road, which keeps them 10 points below, we need a cushion there as they've 6 bonus points coming along.  Notts also lost a late winning position.  As at the start of the thread, I said today was a free shot, and by all accounts we nearly nicked a point.

Bambi is wrong on his assumption that we can't go down.... that will hinge on the home form turning around, as this run of winless games is our worst ever in Div 4, and will need to change pdq, if we're not to get dragged in, I don't really want a campaign where our FL future is in doubt.  

Although Macc look booked in for 1 slot, plenty had Morecambe booked in for the other a few weeks back now they're 4 points off of us.

Still a cup game coming up, so no need to worry about things for a fortnight