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well some cunt should start a thread about this. yesterdays performance was arguably the best not just this season but in the last few years, we played football, passing creative football on the floor, we tore apart  promotion contenders and if only cox had some confidence would have won by a hatful.

if we play like this week in week out malpas will be my fav manager since hoddle (judas cunt).

im not a Malpas fan but fair play we played good football yesterday and Timlin was class

:goodpost:

Well said that man. I get sick of cunts having a pop all the time.

Well said Mex. Also the ref was a cunt of the highest order.

play offs here we come

\ :D /

Well said sir. What happened? I actually enjoyed the excellent play with little hoofing, finding our men usually, and a wonder winger. I did not think we could play like this, even if it's only once! If only... imagine not being bored and frustrated with head tennis and hoofing every game!

We had a good game, but I am sorry guys it only papers over the cracks.  Do you honestly see the players taking to Malpas? I feel there are some very unhappy players and do not think this is the man to take us up this or next year

We played really well, best performance in a while indeed. Every player on that pitch had a good game. Mid-table finish this season, next season maybe we can think about the play-offs.
I have been critical of malpas over the last couple of weeks but he seems to have sorted things out now and hopefully we'll have a good finish to the season.

And you know this how exactly?

Well if that's the case then I hope Eminem gets rid of the underperforming tossers in the summer then.

How about these so called professionals listen to a bloke who did more in one season of his career than any of our current crop have ever achieved.  

Seems to me because Malpas is another "jock" (and another "miserable jock") some of our supporters aren't willing to give the bloke a chance.

As Mex said excellent performance yesterday, I left the ground with a buzz, we had just seen our team play entertaining footie and rip a team to sheds, shame we didn't get the 3 points but these last three performances have made me realise things are about to get a whole lot better.

LO away was not a bad performance, Hudders we did well and yesterday was brilliant.

Eminem's red and white army!!!

1 game does not make a season, we done well but let's see how we finish the rest of the season.

Oh and please someone tell Malpas that JP is not a centre midfileder, he is better when he is putting in crosses like Mcnamee

P2P I fed up of all the negative vibes man, positivity's the way ahead.

JP is a bit shit, I don't think it matters where he plays. Hopefully he can pick up some form and learn how to tackle

I thought JP did a very good job yesterday. He seemed to sit in front of the back 4 whilst Timlin and Easton did all the graft.

The system actually worked well. Defence to JP, JP to Cox or Sturrock's feet, little lay off to Easton or Timlin, ball in the channel or out wide to MacNamee.

MacNamee turned their right back inside out and basically took the piss. Superb crosses as well.

Carlisle found us out in second half (having nobody on the right) and played everything down their left. Credit to Malpas, he saw it and brought Easton over to the right.

I just hope that when Paynter & Corr are back that we go back to playing hoofball again.

Don't worry, it was just a blip - Malpas will osrt them out - get Vincent playing again at the very least  :D

"I just hope that when Paynter & Corr are back that we go back to playing hoofball again."

You hope we do?


I wouldn't drop Blair after the way he's played in his last two games, Paynter doesn't deserve to replace him.  Cox and Sturrock play well together.

blair is immense

'I feel' is an opinion not a factual statement.  Body language is one thing

Not immense, but playing well.

Whoops, should have a been a "don't" in there somewhere  :oops:

He's not the best player technichally, but he runs around a lot and has a good footballing brain. He's alot like peacock, only people don't like him for some reason. He's my favouritist player  8)

Cracking performance yesterday. I make that 3 decent / excellent home performances in a row after the Walsall debacle.

Cant wait to see Barry Corr getting on the end of Macnamees wonder crosses.

And fuck me, how the hell did we ever sign macnamee?  Last 2 home games he has been fucking superb, looking like a top quality Championship player in league 1

I see JPM is now the new scape goat.

He was one of our best players yesterday if not, the best....he collected the ball from the back 4 time and time again meaning they didnt have to hoof it.

He played the simple pass out wide or into the strikers feet. He was always available and got stuck in.

Only critism was not putting in a tackle before the cross for the first goal.

I was shocked when Malpas had Easton wide right and JPM in the middle but it seemed to work pretty well in the end.

Still reminds me of Arnold from Different Strokes though,

Now the world don't move, to the beat of just one drum

i thought MC govern started poorly, and got into things a little as the game went on. I still dont think easton is a right winger, a lot of the time he was cutting inside too often, the perfect example being for their first goal. I think the graft of easton alongside timlin in the middle would be a much better pairing

I was as surprised as anyone to see JPM and Easton "transposed" from their normal positions yesterday. But it worked. We played damn well and completely mullered one of the best sides in this league and played some fantastic football. I think that's it's own answer to "Why doesn't Malpas see ......"

My sauce (sic) says  Malpas makes McNamee call him Mr Drummond.

One man is born, he's a man of means,

Then along come two, they've got nothin' but some jeans.

They don't write them like that any more.


What's happened to the emoticons???

I really enjoyed us using all available channels to get forward - rather than just the hit and hope down the wing, Timlin in particular but even Hasney had a couple of goes straight through the centre of their defence.

Timlin certainly offered something a bit different. It's what Malpas had wanted all along. Someone in the centre of the park who can actually pass the ball well and find the gaps to create chances. Now we have that (fingers crossed) we can start playing football like we did yesterday every week. If we play like that 9 games out of 10 next season we'll challenge.

Fuck me Mex, a 2-2 home draw to cunting carlisle is our best performance for years?

He said performance, not result.

Ignore him Paul. He always wants to be controverial.

If we start playing like that every week, I'll soil myself with delight. FACT!

I can't wait for our next game now!

I said performance as well, just in case you didn't notice.

Good result, good performance but somewhat OTT to call it the best for years.

name one better

Cheltenham at home was a good performance

Ones that spring to mind straight away, ironically we didn't really get many results in these either... both games against Brighton in the PO's, winning at Ashton Gate with Darius Henderson, Leeds away in the cup a few seasons back, fuck me we were excellent at Leeds this season, stuffing Wycombe 3-0 away, Walsall away last year when we pissed all over them

Nowhere near this performance though.

I'd say home to Gills, though the opposition was poor. Away to Walsall last year before that IMHO.

May I just clarify - I'm not slagging yesterday off!

I know IOB missed the point but then that's not unusual.

we played damn well, Sturrock was ace and finally some fans are seeing that he may not be a natural born striker but the bloke never stops running and has a great footballing brain. WE ARE STURROCK'S RED AND WHITE ARMY!  :wink:

Hmm, anyone else expecting us to get dicked by Brighton now?

(you decide what I mean by that)

yes

Yes, as I am going it'll be 0-1 for the next two games. I went to Yeovil at home and Leeds at home.

All of which (except for Wycombe and Walsall and I think you could argue the merits of them against yesterday) were years ago so would fall well outside the "best performance for years" criteria.

All of the games I mentioned were in the last 4 seasons? I don't understand your point Mr Davis, or to be more precise I don't think you know what you're on about.

 8)

Yeeeesss. But a game four years ago would still allow for a game last week to be the best in years. Because it was year ago. Do you see?  :roll:

Re Blair Sturrock

I believe that he could be an excellent "No 10" playing in the hole behind Cox & Paynter.

the white Pele - Blair Sturrock

well done on Saturdays performance --- I agree with Mex .. shame we didnt get what we deserved

To be honest, no, not really.

Notice the s on the end of year, Dave. This makes it plural (ie, more than 1). So, 'best performance for years' (theres that nasty plural) would usually imply more than 1 year... At least I think thats what Pauls saying. Some of the games you mentioned were 3-4 years ago...

I think young David's just being deliberately obtuse for the sake of it Tails. But it doesn't really matter anyway. It was a good game on Saturday and a good performance.

It was the best performance at the CG since our last victory over Carlisle, in the cup last year.

They must hate coming down to Swindon!

They've never won at the county ground apparently.

3 or 4 years is more than 1 year ago. Just so you know.

Good performance, if Brez hadn't 'done a Taibi' we'd have got a deserved win. I wonder if Smith would have gotten off so lightly...?

Sssh! - we're not allowed to  criticise St Petr. I think they're both on a par at the moment, but brez is more marketable.

Thought he got everything spot on saturday so fair play to him .

Sturrock played well but it is a catch 22 with him as alot of the crosses that was put in saturday sturrock was no where to be seen. That said it was his best performance i have seen from him.

McNamee is finally delivering and looks a great prospect for next year .

Looked very good saturday

I don't go to many games, but i went to that one, taking quite a few others, and I have to say I must have picked right, excellent game.

thought we looked very dodgy to start with under pressure from carlisle, but played our way back into it extremely well and they must have been more than happy to go back up the M1 with a point.

everyone i went with, most of whom support champ or prem sides, saw McNamee and asked where we found him from and how much would it cost to get him to play for them, he was absolutely superb.  Have to say the minge behind him did very well too and without him he wouldn't have been able to get forward as well.  MOM for sure, tied their RB in knots and his crosses were excellent - would have loved to see him doing that when Parkin was here.

thought JPM looked lost, he seemed to spend a lot of time slipping over, giving away passes or getting in other peoples way, but they clearly were trying to play it on the deck so maybe he'll get more used to it, and i don't think any of his misplpaced passes caused us too much trouble becasue the back 4 - especially Ifil - had it well covered.  good laugh when JPM just outside their area in the first half - crowd shout "shoot!", shot goes 10m wide, crowd shouts "don't shoot !".

Brez did well although not really sure what happened for their second, thought it was an o.g. actually.  Their keeper kept them in it though, made a triple save in the second half.  Sturrock worked hard and deserved his goal, really well taken as we've all hoofed a few of those over.

ref was gash, made some very strange decisions - was it cox that got blatantly elbowed in the face in their area in the first half ?  Think he was fairly even handed in his shitness though.  We had a good penalty shout at the end, but you could see the ref bottle it, clearly nervous that if he gave that it would decide the game - a draw suited him nicely.

floodlights went off 5 seconds after final whistle, must be trying to save money !

Didn't see it clearly until "The Championship" replay on Sunday. it was a clanger, though it's hard to tell how much he saw of it  through the 'crowd'.

Other than that, I thought he did well, except the one he dropped!

"they must have been more than happy to go back up the M1 with a point."


I wouldn't go that far, if they were going up the M1 I would imagine they'd have been pretty pissed off, m5/m6 to Carlisle shag!

oh yeah, fair point !  Perhaps they were so happy with their point they decided to go the scenic route !

Exactly... the games I mentioned were in recent years (plural), Which is what Mex said. Ergo, Saturday wasn't best for years (plural) imo because I rattled off some examples from recent times

Certainly up there for performance of the year, yes.  As you said yourself tails, the plural means there's scope to go back further than one year which is what I was saying?

Does it really matter .

Its somebodys opinion

Good point, well made.

i couldn't go saturday but was it better than the swansea and forest performances?
as for malpas he aint proved himself yet imo.
people are waiting for the littlest opportunity to slate the bloke. so he has a tough job to win people over yet.
it is all about how we start next season imo.

Didn't go against Swansea but defo better than the Forest  match as the lads were actually playing decent attacking football.  Forest had a horrible off day when we played them, but we made Carlisle look poor, they weren't that bad but we outplayed them.

there was a lot more football played than against florest

so if we made a team look rubbish isn't a draw a bit of a let down?

yes. it was just two defensive lapses though, which we can hopefully erase. Going forward we looked the best i've seen us for yonks

Very much so Arriba but it was mainly the performance from the keeper .

Their keeper was immense. His quality triple save is on the highlights...

Carlisle defended as if their lives depended upon it at times as well, there were at least 5 last ditch defensive blocks

Anyone got a link to the highlights ?

The Carlisle manager is reported as saying that if they look off form it was down to Swindon playing them off the park, or words to that effect.

Obviously that's not enough for some people though and Malpas will never get any credit, even when we play well.

It's his fault when we play crap, but nothing to do with him when we play well.......................................................

http://www.football.virginmedia.com/page/leagueonevideo/0,,12555~1266966,00.html
Super finish from Blair 8)

Cheers chris

im a massive fan of Brezovan but hes gotta do better for their second goal, id still have no problem with him playing in the next game tho

Blair's goal was absolute class!

I still don't think Sturrock is good enough though and should be released come the end of the season.

I'd grudgingly admit that he has done ok, but he is still not a 15 goal a season striker if Cox is the 20+ striker we need, can;t see him getting sny more than single figures in a season which for a striker is not good enough.

Not even enough to keep him in the squad? Don't be daft. I criticised him a lot before but to be fair he's been perfectly adequate recently. I'd have Cox and Paynter as the first choice pairing as they seem to work well together, but wouldn't get rid of Blair

Paynter wouldn't get recalled this Saturday if I was in charge.  There's no way Blair should be dropped this Saturday.

Like I said before A man, against Forest I think they genuinely had a poor day where we capitalised, whereas on Saturday we played fantastically well, Carlisle literally couldn't handle us, we scored twice, looked dangerous every time we went forward, they defended like warrior poets, and got lucky with their goals.

I have never left the CG so happy after a late opposition goal robbed us of 2 points.  If the ref was a man and gave the certain pen in the last minute I'd have been on cloud nine.

I wouldnt either. The key to saturdays performance was the defence and midfield playing decent balls into the strikers feet. Both blair and Cox did well in showing for the ball all the time, and keeping possession when it reached them. The addition of Timlin to the midfield and JPM waking up a bit in the 2nd half allowed us to do this much more than the centre mid partnership of Peacock and Easton, who both work hard, but lack the eye or technique for a clever pass.

As long as the rest of the team keep the ball on the deck for longer than we are used to we should do alright again.  Paynter is the same though, he's not that great in the air for a big-ish bloke but has good strentgh and touch.

fuck me, if that was smith conceding that second goal you'd never hear the end of the boos

Disagree there Jan. Paynter is a better player and any manager would be stupid to not play their best team. If Paynter had been playing on Saturday we'd have had 1 or 2 more maybe? Now i thought Sturrock played very well but i just think Paynter and Corr give us more quality.

Agree to disagree Richard.

Was a great effort.....but i also feel Brez should of done better for the second goal.

Glad there's some positive things being said about Saturday. I thought it was fucking superb, we played the most attractive football i've seen for about 10 years. And i won't debate that, because i fail to recall 90 minutes with the ball so often on the floor since i've supported town (1998).

I was delighted and if the players can play the Malpas way on a regular basis, Malpas will win the negative fans over and he'll be a seriously good manager.

The ball barely left the playing surface and the way we controlled the game through patient and varied use of the ball was sexy. Brazil Stylee.

I just hope it's not a one off and Malpas' style of football is starting to bed in the players heads.

I missed the game saturday, but I can see people are overwhelmingly positive about the way we played. To say a 2-2 draw with Carlisle is our best performance for 10 years is just plain depressing though.

Ive been waiting a long time for signs of improvement under Malpas. The general intensity of our play collapsed after the Barnet cup game and hasnt really improved up until this game. He has failed to get any player to play consistantly well and this is what has worried me most. Its like a revolving door of individual players doing well and then switching off. Like I said hopefully this is the signs of improvement weve been waiting for. Il back Malpas 100% at the start of next season, and then we will see what happens. But to be honest 9 out of 10 games I have seen with Malpas in charge he doesnt look like he has a clue.

I love Fitton as much as anyone. But Ive got to question his philosophy. My opinion is you spend the majority of your money on a talisman of a manager and his own backroom staff. Then the manager gets you the players he wants on the cheap. Either free transfers or knock down prices on players who want to come to you. Fittons dream is a production line of youth talent from the local area, which is a very noble concept. But in my opinion it is extremely expensive and long winded. Its also extremly risky. Some years you get a youth team with 3 or 4 players who could make the grade (like we had 2 years ago) and sometimes you dont produce a player of league standard for years and years. Obviously I hope it comes off as much as anyone, but I think this is going to end up all a bit messy, huge squad, massive wage bill.

I dont mean any malice against Fitton or Malpas. But over the last 10 years we have been far far more successful spending most of our money on the managment rather than the players. Its no accident that Wise and Sturrock can do things that Malpas and King cant. Its just the way it is. You need your big man at the top. Im not a Malpas hater, just someone who has an opinion.

I see your points Spencer. I'd just say that Wise had the benefit of a full preseason and trawl for players, who's to say at this stage that Malpas wouldn't be as successful ?  

I agree that that didn't happen with Sturrock, who dealt mainly in players he'd had knowledge of before, and the timing of his appointment was more helpful re the January window.

The advantage of Fitton's approach, as described by you, is that we don't have the "big name" at the top, who as soon as we get success becomes a target for 'bigger' clubs.

As you say, it's all opinion though

And you think Malpas wont be a target for other clubs if by some miracle we are 10 points clear next christmas? Of course he would be.

He has signed players and he did have the january transfer window. I also think there sometimes isnt much point in signing more and more players if the ones you've already got are underachieving. You have to sort them out first.

Obviously you cant say Malpas wont be successful. Im not saying it. However automatic promotion does not come about by accident. Everything has got to be right. In the past weve been looking for mid table as a success, but that isnt the case anymore. You do get a feeling of how something is going, and to me this just looks all wrong at football management level. Youve also got our points talley under Malpas and some utterly dire performances. But then I didnt go saturday, and I didnt see the first signs of improvement weve had under Malpas.

Hopefully Ive got it all wrong.

Don't be such a negative nancy Spencer.

Only kidding, I think you make some valid points, especially the one about it being a one off performance for the time being. I saw us sometimes passing the ball beautifully when Byrne was in charge. It didn't always happen though.

What I enjoyed under Bryne was our team spirit. Players like Barry Corr, Ifil, Easton, Paynter. They all looked like they were taking responsibility, leading the team. Im not asking for wonderful flowing football.

That points per game for Malpas is 1.14 now by the way.  :wink:

Meh I can't be fecked to change it. As long as we don't go down it's all a bit irrelevant where we finish this season.

In 2002-03 we finnished a mid table season with a really strong run and that set us up for the 2003-04 season. You could really see the team comming together. Good team spirit. I put £100 each way bet on us that summer. What would you put on us each way for next season then? On paper this team is better than that 02-03 one. And weve got better resources. These competitive games are far far more useful than any pre season friendly.

Unfortunately we cant just right this season off and hope next season will be alright. I feel like a right cunt being such a doom mongerer I really do.

How about this?

Bryne under Dunwoody. Wages unpaid. Club under threat. Points per game - 0
Bryne under Fitton in charge. Wages Payed. Jobs secured. Points per game - 1.8
Malpas - 1.14.

Malpas - 1.06.