Just back

Quoted from Davec

As others have said Berrett is number 7, why give him that if he won't play much.

Ask Russel Slade not me.These days I'm not convinced that just because you wear 1 - 11 you are considered to be the starting line up for every game.

There are an awful lot of people drawing some very firm and very premature conclusions and then making pronouncements based on what? Seeing one league game? Maybe two? We are gonna do this, this season, or that. It's just daft. You can't do that with any credibility. Take a look around the leagues yesterday as some of the scores. You notice Villa took a beating? Promotion favourites Blackburn lose at home? Luton lose to unfancied Barnet. My Luton supporting mate texting me and saying 'nothing has changed and Jones should go! Chesterfield lose again. They are gone! Port vale beaten at home etc etc....
There are tons of teams who are in for a bleak season of struggles and misery based on that. If you've been watching football a few years you'll wait a bit....

If you could work out what's going to unfold in a season from seeing 90 minutes of your boys against a team with some very useful players indeed then you're a modern day visionary. I think some folk need to get real. We are back in the league again now. Lots of teams have many good players. It's not like the conference when you're playing a shower of sh1te pretty much every week and not playing well. We are going to lose a few games, and draw some. Whilst the game was still in the balance I thought we competed well. Yeah we can see where it's going wrong.Yes we can spot weaknesses and yes it is frustrating, but let's see how things transpire and give new players a chance. Every club in every league will be debating stuff like this at the moment.

Quoted from chaos33

There are an awful lot of people drawing some very firm and very premature conclusions and then making pronouncements based on what? Seeing one league game? Maybe two? We are gonna do this, this season, or that. It's just daft. You can't do that with any credibility. Take a look around the leagues yesterday as some of the scores. You notice Villa took a beating? Promotion favourites Blackburn lose at home? Luton lose to unfancied Barnet. My Luton supporting mate texting me and saying 'nothing has changed and Jones should go! Chesterfield lose again. They are gone! Port vale beaten at home etc etc....
The are tons of teams who are in for a bleak season of struggles and misery based on that. If you've been watching football a few years you'll wait a bit....

If you could work out what's going to unfold in a season from seeing 90 minutes of your boys against a team with some very useful players indeed then you're a modern day visionary. I think some folk need to get real. We are back in the league again now. Lots of teams have many good players. It's not like the conference when you're playing a shower of sh1te pretty much every week and not playing well. We are going to lose a few games, and draw some. Whilst the game was still in the balance I thought we competed well. Let's see how things transpire and give new players a chance.

Well said. Teams who come down will always have better/better paid players and Robins is a decent manager at L1/L2 level. We were missing Vernon, Asante, Mills, Osbourne, Clements, McAlister, Kelly & Clifton yesterday and we were still in the game up to 68 minutes. Then we concede a soft goal and Slade becomes the Devil Incarnate because he dares to set up solid against a team with better players than ours. One up front with three supporting behind is potentially more attacking than a 442 and I suspect that Mourinho will set ManU up the same today with 3 behind Lukaku.

4-2-3-1 got Huddersfield Town to the Premier League.
Yesterday the same formation took them to the top of the Premiershite, and got them 3 goals.

Its not about the formation, its about the ability and motivation of the players and the organisation of the Management.

I could be wrong but it looked like we'd lined up with a 4-3-3 yesterday because none of the central midfielders looked to get anywhere near Cardwell or the wide players at any time so it definitely wasn't a 4-2-3-1. The fact that Dembele and Jones were often in line with Cardwell when we lumped it to them is what makes me think that the intention was a front three, the effectiveness of that tactic is clearly highly questionable though. The issue with 4-3-3 is that if you're too negative in your approach it quickly becomes a 4-5-1 and as we had no spells of possession and never really tried to get the ball to the feet of the forward men, Dembele and Jones were coming back more than they were going forward.

In my opinion there are two main issues to work on in home games. We need to get someone around the striker because no matter which striker we play, if they're as isolated as yesterday we aren't going to cause many problems. I don't necessarily think we need two out and out strikers but if we're starting with just one we need to have someone just behind them. Be it Dembele or Jones or whoever but we need someone in there to offer support but also to win any knockdowns and second balls in that dangerous area. I actually thought Cardwell did okay given his thankless task and he put the Coventry defence under a lot of pressure when clearing it but I can't recall a single time when we had someone in a more advanced position who won the second ball when it went there.

We also need to push the midfield on a bit more and actually try to use the ball quicker and more positively, yesterday was slow and predictable and it made getting the ball to our dangerous players really difficult which is possibly why we ended up booting it to them to no avail. Once we get players back fit I'm hoping this will improve naturally as Clements and McAllister are certainly better players than Summerfield and Berrett who should only be back up at best.

People are saying lets give the players a chance-they dont have one if all we do is hoof it to a lone striker a central attacking midfielder played on the wing and a 5ft kid. The manager needs to sort it out, He picks the team and the tactics, More negative displays like yesterday and we will be down to crowds below 5000.

Quoted from SteveHessle

Slades insistence on playing a sole centre forward is going to get us in real trouble this season. I cannot understand why he doesn't see what we see, it's so bloody negative & will eventually cut crowds.
Playing Jones on the wing is a waste, I reckon that he is best just behind the centre forward.
Regarding substitutions, why did he take Summerfield off, whilst keeping Berrett on ? I used to be not exactly the greatest fan of Summerfield, but he is a different player so far this season. Berrett on the other hand is the same & most irritatingly, backs out of challenges 5 yards early. Taking Cardwell off did zero, as replacing like for like & leaving the sub in the same isolated position is just plain stupid.
Bolarinwa should have started for sure & at least we would have had 2 wingers & just maybe, the penetration could have led to a meaningful cross should we actually have had anyone in the box.
I thought Rose had a poor game yesterday, probably just to the lack of tactics.
The one 'compensation' was the two centre backs, that is other than the flashes of Dembele.
Boring defensive, one man up front at home bores me stupid. It has never worked for any Town manager. Remember Paul Groves wrecking Darren Mansaram, playing him as an 18 year old against ex Premier League defenders for instance.

Agree with most of that and glad I'm not the only one who has concerns about Rose.

I would add though that I still have worries about our two centre backs, still not convinced they will do a job seeing as we conceded again with a free header from a corner.

Regarding Mitch Rose he certainly adds more energy to midfield but technically he looks rather poor

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Well said. Teams who come down will always have better/better paid players and Robins is a decent manager at L1/L2 level. We were missing Vernon, Asante, Mills, Osbourne, Clements, McAlister, Kelly & Clifton yesterday and we were still in the game up to 68 minutes. Then we concede a soft goal and Slade becomes the Devil Incarnate because he dares to set up solid against a team with better players than ours. One up front with three supporting behind is potentially more attacking than a 442 and I suspect that Mourinho will set ManU up the same today with 3 behind Lukaku.

Has Clifton been signed now? I'd missed that, how long for a year?

I get that we could be considered as being "in the game" before the first but with so few attempts on goal I never thought we could take 3 points. When everyone is fit we have a decent squad but we do need someone playing off the lead forward. Playing 1 up front definitely works for a lot of teams but until all our best players are fit and available it does not look that great and appears to encourage players trying to hit longer balls into to find them, you can be a lone striker without being a target man.    

Early days in reality but my initial view on Rose is that he appears to start games well and then fades a bit, yesterday he actually had little influence on the game after half time but hat could have been more about their extra body in mid field rather than anything he did wrong, give him time I think alongside Osborne and/or Clements he will come good.  

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Has Clifton been signed now? I'd missed that, how long for a year?

I get that we could be considered as being "in the game" before the first but with so few attempts on goal I never thought we could take 3 points. When everyone is fit we have a decent squad but we do need someone playing off the lead forward. Playing 1 up front definitely works for a lot of teams but until all our best players are fit and available it does not look that great and appears to encourage players trying to hit longer balls into to find them, you can be a lone striker without being a target man.    

Early days in reality but my initial view on Rose is that he appears to start games well and then fades a bit, yesterday he actually had little influence on the game after half time but hat could have been more about their extra body in mid field rather than anything he did wrong, give him time I think alongside Osborne and/or Clements he will come good.  

Signed a one year contract extension. Heard last week that he starts full training this week after his foot injury.