Green

The positive news about Green is that he was not on for 90 mins.  He can improve the team by not playing.  We would have been better off today with only 10; men.  He contributed nothing, won nothing and wasted the passes he did receive.  He is consistently poor.

Harsh but true sadly.  Tough decisions need to be made for next season.  Green needs to be encouraged to leave with his contract paid off if necessary.

Without Waterfall today i think we would maybe have not given away 1 soft goal.... but actually conceded a few more, mistake aside he did an awful lot of the dirty defending in keeping Oliver under wraps and winning the headers when defending their No.1 route of set pieces.

As a unit we havn't been defending well, sitting in the upper you can see there is either alot of schoolboy defending going on...ie players chasing the ball around rather than picking up players ...or...we have changed to a more zonal system. Plenty of times today we had players closing down the player on the ball while they had spare players in and around our box.

Quoted from 28195

Can’t agree more, confidence not there, bang out of order to slag off players like this.

The problem is he had been poor in every game he has played in recently.

Quoted from promotion plaice

Agree about Waterfall and I think Ohman was taken off because he was on a unjust yellow and he is always a sending off in waiting.

I think he was taken off because he was having a crap game and definitely at fault with one of the goals.

Quoted from arryarryarry

The problem is he had been poor in every game he has played in recently.

Exactly the point and it’s not slagging him off it’s posting that he is playing very poorly which he is. Personally I think he is going through the motions and puts in token challenges, half hearted runs (as witnessed late on when he let their keeper get their first) and is totally incapable of holding the ball up, he makes Jamile Matt look like Didier Drogba.

That might be me slagging him off but he’s a professional footballer and it comes with the territory. He has scored two memorable goals this season and for that thanks Matt but I think next year you will be playing in the Conference North, not personal but your career in the football league is over. Happens to everyone so hope you enjoyed your career and I wish you all the best for your future. As others have said 5 years too late I’m afraid

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Better than Ohman but probably not Davis or Pollock.

Agree

I'm guessing if Green is released he will probably end up down the road at the Linden Club, on the bench for Cleethorpes Town because with his current form that is all he is capable of!

I'm sure Ollie has his little book, with a page for each player, with plenty of choice words or comments, good or bad, under each one.

After today's no show, I'm guessing his red pen has run out.

Clear to see Green wasn't good enough in preseason. Imo
But what do I know. I don't think he's anywhere near good enough for conference north either. No where near. When he's up against players like a young Liam Hearn. No chance. Master stroke getting a 2year contract at this level
Not convinced by Waterfall either. I imagine he'll stay due to lack of funds. Sounds like it will be a busy summer
Fact is we need better next season if we want to improve. We'll need a replacement for Hanson as well by the looks of it.

Green is utterly ineffectual, no better than  cardwell now unfortunately, tries but that is it. Awful control, terrible passing, not strong or quick, weak in the air, gives way too many free kicks away. Certainly not capable of playing league football. A total waste of space whenever he comes on. Must certainly be paid off in the summer as he is now cringingly bad.

Waterfall had another member up similar to a couple of weeks ago but was strong other than that. Won lots in the air against their giant's and had a couple of runs into midfield too. Would have been more joy for them up front if not for him. All about opinions but for me he is our best centre back. Pollock will become better than him in time though.

Ohman was badly exposed for their second goal and if the rumours are true that he is one of the highest earners that's not Good, he is another that will need paying off in the summer.

We need more pace and passing ability in central defence the way Ollie wants to play. A higher line needs pace. We have CBs who are strong in the air to defend high balls Macca won't claim but are slow and need to drop deep. They are also not comfortable with knocking it about at the back and I think they are being asked to do too much of That, hence we've dropped a couple of clangers recently and hit away with a few more. We need 2 new quicker CBs, so we have one speedier player in central defence most games. That means 2 of our current 4 need to go. Davis is out of contract so I'd expect him to be one, some feel he is quicker and more comfortable on the ball than the others but not sure about that myself. Pollock is an asset with being so young, he actually has value, so we'd be crazy to not offer him a contract. Waterfall is the current best of the 4 for me and certainly better than ohman so I would imagine we will be losing the big Swede in the summer. Definitely not a bad player but not quite what Ollie will need there I think.

We know the high standards that we need to reach next season,  assuming we are serious promotion
contenders.

Crewe, Swindon, Exeter and even Northampton have been much better than we have.  This has been on our own patch.  All these teams have counter-attacked at pace, in considerable numbers.
(qualities we currently lack). They clearly get results from this approach, and have the players to do it.

Any good team should win most of their home games.  This leaves the away games to pickup the crucial points to get promoted.

I know Hanson went off injured,  But we did not have an effective replacement.  We need a plan B and plan C  next season for having other goal-scorers.  Other teams have injuries to manage.

Fitness:  it is not that we are not fit enough.  However,  I had the perception yesterday that their players had more running in them.  They had played last Tuesday as well as us.  2 away games for them.

When Exeter won here this season they had 4/5 players breaking at pace in the last minute.  All this from our corner,  They had already won the game.   (Northampton were at their most dangerous breaking when we lost possession in the final third).

I would be interested to see different views on this.