Malpas

[Reg Smeeton]

I think you took that the wrong way. I was talking about personal experience of playing in front of a crowd.

  . ........

[dell boy]

  . ........

Not sure what you are trying to say there?

[axs]

don't head the ball near a wet dog?

[JPC82]

don't head the ball near a wet dog?

hes not roy walker

[Simon Pieman]

Apart from his error, Jack Smith was one of our better players!

I think he was very poor defensively but good going forward. Seeing as we can't keep a clean sheet, I'm more worried by the defensive aspect of the game.

The worrying thing is none of the players are positioning themselves well or marking players correctly:

Their first goal - Nalis fails to pick up the man and he runs through and hits the ball from the flick on well. Had Jackson decided to square the ball there was an unmarked player where Jack Smith had gone awol.

Their second goal - Nalis is trying to chase down two players because McGovern has decided to stay in the middle whilst Smith goes back into our box and marks nobody. Regardless of his mistake, you can see a pattern here, Smith is out of position an awful lot. The other thing about that goal was Kanyuka lost his man completely, so when he gambled he had no pressure on him and Brezovan had no chance. Ifil was also to blame as he wasn't tight to his man. It simply looks like we don't know who is marking who, or are doing a bad job of it at least.

Their third was another terrible bit of defending. Peacock hasn't pressured his man and his managed to play a great ball over the top. Ifil and Kanyuka have let a man get between them and Brez had a howler.

Malpas needs to work these basics out with the players very soon or we risk even losing to teams like Aldershot and Hereford. I think Reg is spot on when he says another 4 or 5 games and we need to see progress. If I'm still seeing these kinds of errors 10 games in I'm going to be a very worried man.

[figgis]

i reckon most teams at this level once they come under preasure they tend to crack and lose their shape and tend to hack it out and lump it to the strikers. unless they score and get a lead they face the chance that sooner or later they will be on the recieving end most teams seem not to be in total control of how they play us included.

[DV]

I think we've got a capable squad that should do well in this league.

The best teams in this league can mix it up. They can play football and out play teams, they can play direct football and make it effective and they can also scrap for their points if need be.

Under Sturrock we were very much a battling team with a hint of football and effective direct football.

Under Malpas we appear to be a football side who can out play team but our direct football is rubbish and we dont battle enough.

We were harder to beat under Sturrock because we played a much more determined and battling game plan. If we were going to get beat we wouldnt go down with out a bloody good fight.

We dont have that quality under Malpas. We are easily out battled as shown at Cheltenham who on paper are much worse than us. They battled hard and we didnt.

We arent hard to beat under Malpas.

Thats the problem with Malpas he isnt expirenced at this level. Most managers and even fans know full well its not very often you get out of this division by playing total football.

Sturrock on the other hand has spent years in the English lower leagues and knows the style needed to get promoted.

[Bogus Dave]

A fully fit easton will go a long way to solving any lack of battle we show

[Iffy's Onion Bhaji]

I think he was very poor defensively but good going forward. Seeing as we can't keep a clean sheet, I'm more worried by the defensive aspect of the game.

The worrying thing is none of the players are positioning themselves well or marking players correctly:

Their first goal - Nalis fails to pick up the man and he runs through and hits the ball from the flick on well. Had Jackson decided to square the ball there was an unmarked player where Jack Smith had gone awol.

Their second goal - Nalis is trying to chase down two players because McGovern has decided to stay in the middle whilst Smith goes back into our box and marks nobody. Regardless of his mistake, you can see a pattern here, Smith is out of position an awful lot. The other thing about that goal was Kanyuka lost his man completely, so when he gambled he had no pressure on him and Brezovan had no chance. Ifil was also to blame as he wasn't tight to his man. It simply looks like we don't know who is marking who, or are doing a bad job of it at least.

Their third was another terrible bit of defending. Peacock hasn't pressured his man and his managed to play a great ball over the top. Ifil and Kanyuka have let a man get between them and Brez had a howler.

Malpas needs to work these basics out with the players very soon or we risk even losing to teams like Aldershot and Hereford. I think Reg is spot on when he says another 4 or 5 games and we need to see progress. If I'm still seeing these kinds of errors 10 games in I'm going to be a very worried man.

Spot on Si. It's not individuals as such it's the organisation of the defence as a whole. The difference between us and teams like Colchester is that they are solid and organised and we are not. Regardless of how good you can be going forward or how good your players are you simply cannot go very far in this league without organisation.

[RobertT]

I think right now I'd change to a 4-5-1, using McNamee and Marshall.  Having the 3 in the middle should allow them their freedom and hopefully an extra man in front of the back 4 should begin to help them and settle them.  It dissapoints me how little Aljofree appears to be able to LEAD the back 4, so letting one midfielder sit deep may mean they can take on that job.  Nalis behind Easton and Timlin.  With Paynter on the bench we have the option to open up a bit more but with the two wide mean given the freedom their game clearly needs, we should still create enough chances for someone of Cox's quality to convert, and one of the central midfielders will be a little more off the leash to join in.  Basically the defence is our weak link right now and this change could lead to us being a little harder to break down by simply playing the numbers game + someone else being around to sort them all out.  Can we clone Culverhouse?

[derbystfc]

I noticed at the tranmere game how shockingly we looked defensively, J Smith was caught a few times in no mans land with his defending, it was only some shocking finishing from tranmere that kept there 1 goal to that. Luckily that day, our offensive play outshone, and papered over that.

Havent been impressed with Aljofree for a while, and beggining to think the man is a waste of space personally, Hes got a turning circle of a 4x4 towing a caravan.

Most importantly, our central midfield partnership of Nalis and Timlin do lack geniune pace, so its easy for the opposition to breakthrough, and put pressure on our fragile defence. I noticed againsy QPR and Tranmere that they play very flat, I would drop nalis a bit deeper, to allow for his lack of pace, plus it will give him a bit more room to put his foot on the ball, and pass it a bit.

And I agree with Si, hes spot on.

[Lumps]

I can see that being worth a punt away from home. At the County Ground though there's the danger that it'll give out a negative message and the crowd will get arsey before they even kick off. Maybe against the bigger clubs like Leeds and Leicester you miht get away with it? I just can't see us starting with one up front at home to the likes of Hartlepool.

[Power to people]

Last season Aljofree worked well alongside Ifil, but this season I'm not sure he has started that well, and with him playing at LB on Sat I think it showed his inefficiences, I would be tempted to drop him but who do you replace him with ?

Ifil & Kanuka I don't think they are an ideal partnership and at 17 Morrison isn't ready yet to play a full season, so that only really leaves Vincent who I think alongside Ifil will be good but MM has been reluctant to use him there.

I also think that Nalis is a bit of an unsung hero, he was sitting there and a lot of play has been going through him, once he went off on Sat we did seem to lose all control of the midfield...coincidence perhaps ?

[A Gent Orange]

I also think that Nalis is a bit of an unsung hero, he was sitting there and a lot of play has been going through him, once he went off on Sat we did seem to lose all control of the midfield...coincidence perhaps ?

II think we didn't have much control of the midfield at any stage but that it got even worse when Nalis went off because Peacock came on and he still looks miles off the pace.
 

[Batch]

II think we didn't have much control of the midfield at any stage but that it got even worse when Nalis went off because Peacock came on and he still looks miles off the pace.
 

Agreed, except I don't think we looked worse with than without Peacock.

Nalis is very comfortable on the ball, but him and Timlin do not work well when we need to get the ball back/track the opposition. Too many times the oppoition midfield have got the 'wrong' side of ours when they are attacking.