Swindon v Accrington

[DiV]

If Wellens didn’t get lucky last season why couldn’t he put together a decent team this season?

Any facts to back up that Accrington have the lowest budget in the division?
Not that, that even matters. We should know by know the league doesn’t finish in budget order

[Bob's Orange]

Haven't read back yet (have that to look forward to, yay!!) so here are my thoughts.

From start to finish, an absolute mess. A gift of a goal for their first which kind of sums up our defensive/goalkeeping issues over the season. We did have gilt-edged chance to equalise after a stunning slide rule pass M.Smith, but sadly it was J.Smith at the end of it and he is having a hideous time in front of goal. Lets not dress it up, Stanley were so much better than us all over the pitch and 3-0 at half time was totally deserved.

Not losing the second half is a small crumb of comfort, but lets not kid ourselces, we were shit in the second half also and it could in reality have finished 6-0 had Stanley wanted to. For an old dinosaur, John Coleman has done a tremendous job there, they look a decent side.

For us? Where on earth to start?

Defence and GK is a shambles. We have gone from having a superb all round keeper in Benda last year to having 2 bits and pieces keepers, 1 is a young'un that is composed and good with his feet but seems out of his depth with the other parts of goalkeeping. The other is a 25 year old that seems to be pretty average at shot stopping and is extremely limited with his feet. Given how much the game has changed, is it too much to ask that a modern day keeper should at least be able to do fairly basis things with the ball at their feet? I know the first goal hit a bobble but when the ball is rolled back to Fryer and he tried to kick it, its generally sliced, hooked or shanked high into the air. How hard can it be to clear it properly?

Odmimayo is a very composed player but I have to question his positioning at times and Grounds has been a disaster unfortunately, which is odd as he has played a lot of football at Championship level, yesterday was his worst game. We need Fryers back ASAP as well as a mistake-free Baudry.

In midfield apart from M.Smith who keeps the game ticking over, its all very meh. Anthony Grant has gone from being 'the general' to being 'generally shit'. He absolutely bossed League 2 last season but aside from a few glimpses, seems to be playing above his level unfortunately. He is almost certainly missing Doughty, a hammer blow not having him in the side. Rob Hunt, another who shone last season hasn't hit those heights either. Have to say J.Grant has impressed me so far, I was expecting him to be a bit part player but he has done well. Last night, there was a phase where he had the ball and was looking for an out ball, clearly the movement of other players requires work as he still had the ball a minute later!!

Up front, well when Hallam Hope is your bright light you are going to struggle. Pitman has been a massive disappointment, he had one big chance in the second half and fluffed his lines, looks to me that his heart isn't really in it. J.Smith continues to work hard but its just not happening in front of goal, massive chance to equalise and he put it wide. Fair play to him for not hiding after that.

I am caveating all this negativity with the amount of players we have out at the moment, Conroy ,Fryers, Donohue, DJ, Tyler Smith would all add something to the side, sooner rather than later hopefully!

Last word on the lack of fans, can you imagine the abuse the players would have taken last night for that performance? It would have been toxic. You would hope that they might have responded to the fans being on their back, but with nobody there the players get off lightly.

[THE FLASH]

Why is it that due to no match day i have cut back on the booze but this morning i seem to have a hang over.....

Truly awful..

The Pox match will be like two drunks in a pub trying to land punches.


Its November and we are certainly not alone at the bottom...so enough to time to haul ourselves out...urghh...

[4D]

I think this too about lack of fans, almost like a training match.
It's a shame that all the momentum we built up last season has disappeared, we're back to where we were for the previous 5 years. Shite.

[Boeta]

Sheridan is going to need time on the training ground to work on defensive shape. He has probably only had a couple of training sessions since coming in on Friday.

That's how the relegation firefighters like Hodgson or Allardyce do it. Work on shape and positioning and keep repeating until it sticks and becomes habit. I suspect we will have to go ugly for a bit if we have the players to do that.

I don't think all is lost but if does feel like one of those low points such as Cheltenham away in 2002. It's recoverable but the team need to realise they are in the shit and not sleep walk to another relegation.

That would make sense if Sheridan's intention was to change formation but it doesn't sound that way. No way you can be defensively solid with 4231 - we weren't last year and always looked a better all-round team when we played 433.

Without Lyden we might lack the personnel for 433, but surprised he hasn't mentioned going back to the 343 that Hunt used vs FGR

[ronnie21]

Watched that and went straight to bed feeling very depressed only to find the valium supply had dried up!  Read through the after game comments, seem fair to me in the majority.  The thing that pisses me off is thinking back to games last season like Plymouth away, big partisan crowd against us, go a goal down but had the will-power to work our way back into the game and in the second half outplayed them - I don't think the majority of this season's team have the bottle to do that.  Lacking leaders on - and off - the pitch.  Unless there are funds made available in the new year this will go down as another awful season and back to where we came from.

[4D]

When you look at the stats in our matches they actually tend to look better than the team we are playing. Accurate passes, possession, tackles won etc. Is it just the gifting of goals that is the difference? 2.1 goals a game at the moment, which is dire.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

I was thinking about that Plymouth game on NYD, too. Both them and Cobblers who we beat away last season haven’t really got much better from last season and they’ve both beaten us but we absolutely stink the place out and have rapidly gone backwards.

Anyone hankering after a Woolery, Anderson and Isgrove? No? Me neither. Yates is struggling with playing in L1 and without Wellens, Doyle would be average.

Whatever the reasoning behind binning them ( financial, I’d guess) their replacements haven’t really stepped up - Smith J, being noticeably better than the Woolery,Anderson, Isgrove triumvirate.

It’s really those players who remained that haven’t kicked on after looking good in L2. God, we miss Benda.

[Peter Venkman]

When you look at the stats in our matches they actually tend to look better than the team we are playing. Accurate passes, possession, tackles won etc. Is it just the gifting of goals that is the difference? 2.1 goals a game at the moment, which is dire.

This.

There has been almost without exception (FGR away the only 1 that wasn't) at least 1 to 3 individual mistakes per match in the league.

Every defender and goalkeeper we have played have made absolute howlers, Grounds, Baudry, Kovar, Fryer, Caddis, Odimayo, Donohue and Hunt. In L2 those errors were still happening to the defenders but were rarely punished. In L1 almost every howler is being punished and a goal resulting from them.

I haven't looked back at stats but I would say that both Kovar and Fryer single handedly have cost us the most goals/points.

If you don't have a solid keeper you don't have a solid defence, and yes visa versa but if your keepers consistantly make mistakes then no defence in the world can stop that.

Goalkeeper is the one position on the pitch that almost entirely every error is punished with a goal, defenders can get saved by their other defenders and keeper if they fuck up.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

But it’s just not the mistakes that lead to goals that are the problem. In the first half last night I lost count of the number of times they crossed a ball in right across our box which, fortunately, nobody got on the end of. That’s a sign of a general malaise throughout the side. There appears to be no game plan, no shape to our play. There are still many times when the defenders are receiving the ball with the opposition already breathing down their necks.

The only advantage of a CB being able to beat his man outside our own penalty area is if leads to a decent attack,  but the odds, with these players, is that they will usually mis-control it, get caught in possession or hoof it anyway.

Risk-reward ain’t worth it with these players.

[Peter Venkman]

In simple terms we are all over the place.
You cannot keep gifting goals every game like we are currently doing. I am struggling to recall another season where I have seen so many defensive errors leading to simple goals against.
Unfortunately both keepers are not up to it. Both cannot command  their area and just leads to a lack of confidence at the back. Constant changes at the back equally are not helping. Central defenders lack mobility and positioning awareness and as a result we are getting picked off by teams pressing, as we did last night.
Matt Smith is running the midfield on his own, Grant would be better off sitting deeper just to support the weak central pairing.
Drop Pitman, offers fuck all and is a waste of a shirt. Sadly this may not go down well but Hope is at best a decent league two player. Tyler Smith needs a run out, even at the expense of Pitman.
Desperate to get DJ back, A fit Lyden if that actually exists and Conroy and Fryers to give that stability and some much needed pace.
However maybe a tad thought of desperation as we look a shambles in shape.

Another concern is the muscle injuries we are getting. Surely just can’t be down to coincidence.

All is not well and we were simply outclassed for 90 minutes against the team with the smallest budget in league one. Credit where it is due, they did their homework on us last night and exposed every frailty we know we have.

Not throwing the towel in just yet but some of those senior professionals need to take some leadership responsibility. Wellens didn’t get lucky last season he simply assembled a decent side. Another complete rebuild has caught us out, it happens and will likely happen again until we get different direction (if ever in my lifetime) at the very top.
We have definitely not replaced players that have left with better players, a shadow of the team from last season. Sheridan has a mountain to climb but has to be given some time.

Right now I want to believe there are 4 teams worse than us that’s all I want for Christmas.

I agree with that pretty much word for word.

I would sit Anthony Grant in between 2 centre backs in a sweeper position giving the defence more cover and tell him to stay there, in a Ross MacLaren style role, don't wander around the pitch just stay back all the time.

We showed that without Payne we had no genuine creativity in the middle, let Matt Smith do his thing and have Payne the run of the middle.

I agree although Hope shows glimpses as does Joel Grant for me both are out of their depth in L1 with will have 1 decent game in every 4 or 5 and look totally lost in the rest.

Pitman looks so unfit but is pretty much the only option up front due to Wellens unwillingness to get another striker in on deadline day, when Tyler is fit Tyler needs to start.

The defensive pair or Baudry and Grounds do have a lack of awareness but as soon as Conroy and Fryers are back then things should improve. Whenever that is likely to be.

Its blatantly obvious both keepers aren't cut out for the 1st team, and we need someone half decent to come in ASAP. Hell I would even try Archie Matthews for 1 game, thats not saying both won't get better but our first team is not the place for them to learn their trade when we need solidity.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

I’d go 352 with

Kovar
Baudry Broadbent Grant A
J Smith Payne M Smith Odimayo Caddis
Hope Grant J

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

If Wellens didn’t get lucky last season why couldn’t he put together a decent team this season?

Any facts to back up that Accrington have the lowest budget in the division?
Not that, that even matters. We should know by know the league doesn’t finish in budget order

Andy Holt their owner told me

[horlock07]

Andy Holt their owner told me

Accy seem to be a very well set up club with a decent manager punching quite a bit above their weight, good luck to them.

[DiV]

Andy Holt their owner told me

Maybe he lied?

How does he know everyone’s budget?