Just Back  (merged)

Gutted, thought we played well tonight but we just couldn't get it over the line could we.

Blame who you want but I thought Carlisle were the worst team we have played all season, you can see why they are on such a poor run of form.

Gutted.

Well what can you say, hope that kills you, we’re fools for thinking otherwise?
Feel so sorry for the 11 out there tonight who to a man showed fight desire and belief. We had a perfectly good goal ruled out but kept going and deserved our lead.
The 2 front men and 2 centre backs were superb. And Carlisle didnt threaten

Enter stoppage time.

I think arryarry posted why take Lamy off- he was copulated. Couldnt run. No qualms on that one.
Waterfall substition, im gonna say i get it. 4 mins left. Away from home, shut up shop. All teams do it. What we did was invite pressure from a very poor side and i could punch waterfall. Ducked out the way, cost us 3 points. The final nail in the coffin. Because the lads will be devastated, they deserved more.

Im gutted but not how i usually am, im almost resigned to the inevitable, last minute equalisers ( waterfall Stevenage .....) and the goal from the corner. We arent meant to be

Proud of the lads efforts and PH for me got it spot on. Can i see why he will have his critics for the way it ended. Yes i can. But for me he did what most teams in our position would do

Quoted from Hagrid

Well what can you say, hope that kills you, we’re fools for thinking otherwise?
Feel so sorry for the 11 out there tonight who to a man showed fight desire and belief. We had a perfectly good goal ruled out but kept going and deserved our lead.
The 2 front men and 2 centre backs were superb. And Carlisle didnt threaten

Enter stoppage time.

I think arryarry posted why take Lamy off- he was copulated. Couldnt run. No qualms on that one.
Waterfall substition, im gonna say i get it. 4 mins left. Away from home, shut up shop. All teams do it. What we did was invite pressure from a very poor side and i could punch waterfall. Ducked out the way, cost us 3 points. The final nail in the coffin. Because the lads will be devastated, they deserved more.

Im gutted but not how i usually am, im almost resigned to the inevitable, last minute equalisers ( waterfall Stevenage .....) and the goal from the corner. We arent meant to be

Proud of the lads efforts and PH for me got it spot on. Can i see why he will have his critics for the way it ended. Yes i can. But for me he did what most teams in our position would do

Morais was copulated from the start, Lamy was still a worry for their defence.

Centre mid on for left winger, centre half on for winger he had already worked out he would go 532 at the end, 15 mins before he did with the Clifton sub. Negative,negartive negative

As others have said. Carlisle were absolute flipping shite.

But good enough to draw against us.

Quoted from RonMariner

As others have said. Carlisle were absolute flipping shite.

But good enough to draw against us.

Have to agree as do many of their fans.

I still believe PH got the substitutions wrong and we should have won.

Oh we should have won comfortably. Admittedly idk how there player missed the Open goal when his header was saved and that i think made PH bring on waterfall

A truly numbing end to what was a very industrial performance.

Did we drop too deep, too early? Probably.
Should Waterfall have come on?  Probably not.

And there is so many other questions that could be asked but ultimately hindsight is a wonderful thing and emotions are still very raw so the last thing anyone needs to be doing right now is playing the blame game.

We need to lick our wounds and do it very quickly. A point away from home against Carlisle is not a result that will get us relegated and if we win Saturday, 4 points is a good week.

The fear has to be the implications that such a late goal has on the players morale but if we continue to show that fight, desire and commitment maybe we’re not dead yet.

Hurst to blame again, why on earth does he never learn? Oh well, it’s a point I guess and one we’d have taken at 7pm.

Hewitt is great at CB, Lamy & Matete add real quality. Front two good but aside from his goal, LJL could’ve offered a bit more for me.

Yeah i’ll give special mention to Hewitt who i thought was excellent

Quoted from pontoonlew

Hurst to blame again, why on earth does he never learn? Oh well, it’s a point I guess and one we’d have taken at 7pm.

Hewitt is great at CB, Lamy & Matete add real quality. Front two good but aside from his goal, LJL could’ve offered a bit more for me.

Don’t think we can afford to be taking a point, we need wins!

Quoted from Hagrid

Yeah i’ll give special mention to Hewitt who i thought was excellent

thought Bunney was shite again, but the other 11 & Clifton were excellent to a man.
thought the first substitution was ok - clifton did a bloody good job when he came on.
so frustrating - i threw the laptop across the room (luckily it hit the settee!)

at least they played well (an improvement on FGR, which in itself was a big improvement on what's gone before) and gives us a lot of hope for Saturday

Hurst never ever flipping learns does he

My only hope is that Haberghams injury isn't serious, thought the back 4 is the best we've had all season.
Still we are lacking enough threat in front of goal though.
Midfield looks stronger, Coke is better than we realise, really assured on the ball, keeps it simple. Matete is quality, thought Lsmy had a good game until his legs went, Hanson looking fitter game on game.
Now for the substitutions, that's where it fell apart, Green offers absolutely nothing, why not bring Payne on for Lenny?..

Hurst out. I've had enough of our negative managers, negative tactics, negative subs and negative results.

We deserved to win that game we played so well all 11 of them, but Hurst desperation to defend 1 nil wins instead of going for the kill has cost us all the way back to our conference days, hell we were taking the urine out of Scunny while he was there because we new what they were going through.

A CM for a Winger a CB for a Winger he just can't help himself, he has to make the Parslow Manuever  defend from the 6 yard box and invite teams in. Then act shocked we didn't  come away with a 3 points.

Quoted from Hagrid

Oh we should have won comfortably. Admittedly idk how there player missed the Open goal when his header was saved and that i think made PH bring on waterfall

I think Waterfall came on just before that

I read a post that blamed the players for our problem, it more or less said they didn't do as Hurst wanted.

Today they gave their all and you couldn't fault anyone, including Bunney and I'm not a fan of him, but they were severely let down at the end. Knackered adrenalin pumping winning looking forward to the long journey home.

Minutes and seconds for that precious win and then Hurst decides it's time for a change. Can't say any more than he let the team down and us down by his pathetic decisions. Today showed a reasonably good team with players in round holes supported , again, by poor management.

Hurst should walk, we'd be better off without him.

I’ve calmed down now, just.

Overall in terms of hard work on and off the ball that was so much better than what we’ve seen. I can’t think of a player that had a bad game.

I’m gutted we didn’t get 3 points as we’ll be in the bottom 2 for a week longer now at least.

I hope the players are not too down, they should t be.

Thought we played well and the midfield were dominant for 85 minutes. We haven't had a dominating midfield for many years, but was it because Carlisle were so poor.

Thought Matete and Coke work well and its nice to see wingers for once. Lamy's legs had gone, so was the correct decision and I thought Clifton looked assured on the ball when he came on, which is positive.

Front 2 worked well, but for me we didnt capitalise and get the 2nd goal which would have killed them off. 2nd half we didnt do enough going forward, which ultimately gave them some confidence to push forward and get the equaliser. Its the sign of a team without confidence that we sat deeper and deeper allowing them to punt balls into the box and we started to struggle with it. Their right back had a wicked left foot and it was causing us issues in the last 1-0 minutes.

This led to the Waterfall sub. It was the right decision to make, we had lost the midfield by this point and they were pumping balls into the box, so an extra defender would have been my choice. But unfortunately it didnt work and it was a killer blow, but it was down to the lack of confidence to push out rather than site back.

Its 2 points dropped, but a better performance that might mean we win a game further along the line that we should have lost. Thats the way football goes, the problem is we desperately needed that win, but it wasnt meant to be.

Taking the positives from the game, we look so much better than 3/4 games ago. But it is going to take a little bit longer to get the full performances we want, problem is we dont have any time. UTM.

The manager is a total excrement house. I wouldn't say that to his face   but he is. Luckily for him I  wouldn't acknowledge the man.

I can't remember a manager who's decisions have been questioned so much. First and second spell

The team basically picks itself. The picking the team bit is fairly simple. You play your best players. Not the crap ones. It picked itself when he first arrived too but he spent a couple of months playing all the crap players, just to make sure.
The one time (literally) he's picked his best team and he felicitations around with it at the end.

EVEN THE FUCKIN CARLISLE COMMENTATORS CALLED IT FFS. They were dying for us to sit back. The only way they'd get back in the game they said
Who were the commentators incidentally? Give em the job

To those idiots that say he did what any other manager would do - Rubbish. Fuckin rubbish
What you do is, another manager would put two capable players on. Those two excrement houses are exactly the reason why we are where we are. And still the experienced manager who knows everything about the game still can't work it out. We're bottom of the football league because of waterfall and green, and the another half a dozen

The man's a shithouse!
Matt Green should have been released a long time ago. Why the intercourse is he still at the club
Waterfall isn't good enough to travel with the team - surely we have better? Pollock?

Sorry but a point is nowhere near good enough. I feel that was us at our best. That's the best we're gonna get. That's it.
Hoping that we get abit of luck and every team we play from now on has a shocker
Oh and we suddenly start scoring goals.
After all, It was Paul Hurst the cocky little excrement who told us how it was about the whole team weighing in with goals, not just the strikers. Yeah? How's about having some then

Much as I dislike green , I fail to see what he had to do with the eventual result. I doubt he even touched the ball.
Having calmed down I take on board what others have said.there was the header and then that incredible miss ,so the writing was on the wall before waterfall came on
Well done to the players for showing that they do have some potential and fight.

OK, plenty of positives from that to be honest and I was getting quite a bit of hope back up until injury time.

No arguments with the starting line-up. 2 up top, Lamy on the wing.

Decent performance too for a team at the bottom.

Defence mopped up everything for 90 minutes, Hendrie was good at right-back. Hewitt (who I don't rate in other positions) had a good game at centre-back.

Lamy really gave us a new dimension. Something we've lacked since Edwards went back to Bristol City in terms of someone who can hold onto the ball and carry it up the pitch, evade a tackle and draw players to him. Need him to stay fit as he gives us something no-one else can give us.

Matete and Coke battled well in the middle. Matete seemed to get stronger as the second half wore on as he started to make a few surges forward and dominant runs in the last 25 minutes.

Hanson and LJL put a real shift in and were a real handful. Both worked hard to close down and not allow Carlisle defenders too much time to pick their passes. Both were a strong physical presence in and around the box, able to hold players off. They just helped the ball stay in the opposition half for longer, even if it wasn't through silky touches and lay-offs.

So then, the substitutions.

IMO the subs made in injury time cost us the win. Having got the starting line-up spot-on and clearly said the right things in the dressing room before the game, PH got it wrong with the late subs.

Lamy was looking like he was gassing a bit so didn't have a problem with bringing him off, even though I thought he did well. Clifton didn't do too bad on the right either really. It probably nullified the attributes that Morais has by putting him on the left though, he's a touchline-hugger who likes to get it, make half a yard and cross it. Bit difficult for him to do that on the left.

It was the last two subs that killed us and cost us 2 points.
Carlisle weren't playing through us and weren't creating chances. They wanted to pump balls into our box to push for an equaliser, but still being 442 they couldn't do that so easily because we were there in front of them not allowing too many crosses. Going to 5 at the back with Waterfall in there just invited pressure un-necessarily. It then allowed them loads of time just inside our half to be able to come forward and chuck balls into our box. Just like our 5-3-2 set up at Harrogate the other week, we allowed a team to do exactly what they wanted to do, hoping to just defend against once they'd done it.

Several are saying - yeah but loads of other managers would bring on an extra CB to see out injury time. Yes, some might, but I think it's lazy to just think throwing another defender on will work.
Bring an extra CB if you're playing against a team that are trying to play through you and don't particularly just sling the ball in the box (in the Prem, for example). But in L2, it played into the oppositions hands, especially with us being a team that must have conceded umpteen goals from crosses this season so shouldn't be content to encourage a team to come at us and back our ability to defend crosses.

Woke up, the dust has settled and I've reflected on last night
Whilst I think most will agree the performance was certainly a lot more like we would have expected I'm still not convinced we are creating anywhere enough chances to put teams to the sword.
Carlisle were woeful, even their commentators said as much, but we still only had one shot from open play on target
I'm not saying we should be peppering their goal but we should at least be putting 3/4 good attempts in and making the opposition keeper earn his corn.
One thing I will say, Hurst has stumbled across our best back 4, though Hewitt stood out and him and Maneyese look a solid pairing
So in summary, I think we've shored the back line up, but will still concede a goal but our lack of attacking precision will cost us this season.

There’s still a lot to be chuffed about from last night absolutely no doubt.

We look to have improved, but Hursts decision making at times has cost us dearly. You could say sometimes we’d get away with it, let’s face it, we’ve been punished for any mistake and then had two terrible decisions go against us. I just wish we could have one game in which Hurst doesn’t chuck away a decent start with a bad decision.

I’ve woken up still thinking we can stay up based on the performance but very concerned at how many times we can set fire to vital points.

Our run in is horrendous. Whilst last nights performance was good, we still didnt pick up 3 points. All eyes on barrow friday night at a walsall side in poor form.

Quoted from Tommy

OK, plenty of positives from that to be honest and I was getting quite a bit of hope back up until injury time.

No arguments with the starting line-up. 2 up top, Lamy on the wing.

Decent performance too for a team at the bottom.

Defence mopped up everything for 90 minutes, Hendrie was good at right-back. Hewitt (who I don't rate in other positions) had a good game at centre-back.

Lamy really gave us a new dimension. Something we've lacked since Edwards went back to Bristol City in terms of someone who can hold onto the ball and carry it up the pitch, evade a tackle and draw players to him. Need him to stay fit as he gives us something no-one else can give us.

Matete and Coke battled well in the middle. Matete seemed to get stronger as the second half wore on as he started to make a few surges forward and dominant runs in the last 25 minutes.

Hanson and LJL put a real shift in and were a real handful. Both worked hard to close down and not allow Carlisle defenders too much time to pick their passes. Both were a strong physical presence in and around the box, able to hold players off. They just helped the ball stay in the opposition half for longer, even if it wasn't through silky touches and lay-offs.

So then, the substitutions.

IMO the subs made in injury time cost us the win. Having got the starting line-up spot-on and clearly said the right things in the dressing room before the game, PH got it wrong with the late subs.

Lamy was looking like he was gassing a bit so didn't have a problem with bringing him off, even though I thought he did well. Clifton didn't do too bad on the right either really. It probably nullified the attributes that Morais has by putting him on the left though, he's a touchline-hugger who likes to get it, make half a yard and cross it. Bit difficult for him to do that on the left.

It was the last two subs that killed us and cost us 2 points.
Carlisle weren't playing through us and weren't creating chances. They wanted to pump balls into our box to push for an equaliser, but still being 442 they couldn't do that so easily because we were there in front of them not allowing too many crosses. Going to 5 at the back with Waterfall in there just invited pressure un-necessarily. It then allowed them loads of time just inside our half to be able to come forward and chuck balls into our box. Just like our 5-3-2 set up at Harrogate the other week, we allowed a team to do exactly what they wanted to do, hoping to just defend against once they'd done it.

Several are saying - yeah but loads of other managers would bring on an extra CB to see out injury time. Yes, some might, but I think it's lazy to just think throwing another defender on will work.
Bring an extra CB if you're playing against a team that are trying to play through you and don't particularly just sling the ball in the box (in the Prem, for example). But in L2, it played into the oppositions hands, especially with us being a team that must have conceded umpteen goals from crosses this season so shouldn't be content to encourage a team to come at us and back our ability to defend crosses.

Brilliant summary Tommy.  Especially about the inviting pressure.  It cost us.  

Don't think there's anything more to add from what everyone else has said.  Just absolutely gutted!

Hewitt was awesome at the back, that looks far and away his best position.  In fact that back four was the most comfortable I've seen us for a long time.  

Anyone know what's happened with Payne?  Gone from a potential saviour to behind Matt Green in the pecking order.

Before the game I think most of us would have taken a point.  Yes we need wins but on the road a point is always good.  Just the manner of the late goal makes it feel like a defeat.  

Woke up this morning just as gutted as when I went to bed however loads of positives to be taken.

Centre back pairing were great finally found our best centre back in Hewitt.

First time this season our left flank looked threatening and in lamy we have a player who can deliver a killer through ball, habergham pin point deliveries from set pieces too.

Centre midfield were excellent , won everything Coke’s tenacity has been lacking in that position all season. First time in 5 games we have seen matete driving forward on so many occasions.

The problem we have going forward is can our ageing team play 3 games in 8 days or are we going to see a weakened midfield and forward line due to resting coke , Hanson , the shop.

Also listening to Hurst our injury list is mounting , scannell and wright injured again ?!?!? Mizouni potentially out for season . Biggest concern is loss of habergham as I don’t want bunney as our first choice left back ever again.

Good summary Tommy,

As ever, I guess we dust ourselves down and look forward while there is still a smidgeon of hope.

We need to keep that starting 11 for the next few games, or minimal changes at least.  My concern is that with games coming thick and fast will players stamina allow that?, particularly as some have played so few games recently.


Edit:  Only saw the previous post after posting

Would of taken a point before the game.
But the way it happened was the killer.
Hurst IMO, got it spot on.

LJL played well, and as i've previously mentioned, Hanson when fit, is our best striker, he gets about, and is so clever at what he does.
Lamy was a breath of fresh air, and played well, but come off due to match fitness, again, no problem with that.
Hewitt has given Hurst another headache, as he actually played very well, and will be utterly gutted with the way it ended. Albeit, no fault of his own.
Matete is great

If he didn't bring Waterfall on, and we conceded, Hurst would of been slated.... He brought him on. The player made an individual error, and cost us. Nothing on Hurst at all.
I see numerous people screaming on here and twitter for Hurst to change it... so it seems that for a lot of fans, he's getting the blame no matter what happens.

Take away the fact it was a killer in the last minute, there was plenty of positives.
We have 14 games - 42 points to play for, so far from over.
Having said that, i'm resigned to going down, and the only thing that is keeping me from feeling the way i did in 2010, is the potential for new owners, and the old '1 step back, 2 steps forward'

Quoted from Hagrid

Our run in is horrendous. Whilst last nights performance was good, we still didnt pick up 3 points. All eyes on barrow friday night at a walsall side in poor form.

Not even looked at that until now.  I've said before that I think there's very little in this division that's outstanding, but April onwards looks very daunting.

How does it look for those around us though?, are their run ins much easier on paper?

(I do believe anyone can beat anyone though in Lg 2, and perhaps if we somehow manage to still be in the fight towards the end of April maybe some "top" Teams could start resting players for the play-offs if position allows?)

Quoted from Jarmo.Is.God

Would of taken a point before the game.
But the way it happened was the killer.
Hurst IMO, got it spot on.

LJL played well, and as i've previously mentioned, Hanson when fit, is our best striker, he gets about, and is so clever at what he does.
Lamy was a breath of fresh air, and played well, but come off due to match fitness, again, no problem with that.
Hewitt has given Hurst another headache, as he actually played very well, and will be utterly gutted with the way it ended. Albeit, no fault of his own.
Matete is great

If he didn't bring Waterfall on, and we conceded, Hurst would of been slated.... He brought him on. The player made an individual error, and cost us. Nothing on Hurst at all.
I see numerous people screaming on here and twitter for Hurst to change it... so it seems that for a lot of fans, he's getting the blame no matter what happens.

Take away the fact it was a killer in the last minute, there was plenty of positives.
We have 14 games - 42 points to play for, so far from over.
Having said that, i'm resigned to going down, and the only thing that is keeping me from feeling the way i did in 2010, is the potential for new owners, and the old '1 step back, 2 steps forward'

I've seen this a lot and I don't agree at all. There's no way if we'd conceded without Waterfall on anybody would've said 'why didn't we bring Waterfall on'? Anybody watching that game would've known that we were doing absolutely fine, they got in once but aside from that Carlisle were shite.

The commentators and the majority of fans knew that if we sat back, we'd be in much bigger trouble than we needed to be, bringing Waterfall on was obviously going to hinder. The fact it was him who made the mistake was irrelevant, I didn't actually know it was him until after the game but I was still in my living room absolutely livid that he'd made that sub. If it had been anybody else who made the error the sub would've still been the wrong thing to do at that time IMO, the fact the sub was at fault for the goal just made it 10x worse.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Woke up, the dust has settled and I've reflected on last night
Whilst I think most will agree the performance was certainly a lot more like we would have expected I'm still not convinced we are creating anywhere enough chances to put teams to the sword.
Carlisle were woeful, even their commentators said as much, but we still only had one shot from open play on target
I'm not saying we should be peppering their goal but we should at least be putting 3/4 good attempts in and making the opposition keeper earn his corn.
One thing I will say, Hurst has stumbled across our best back 4, though Hewitt stood out and him and Maneyese look a solid pairing
So in summary, I think we've shored the back line up, but will still concede a goal but our lack of attacking precision will cost us this season.

I agree with what you've said and attack is the best form of defence. JLL and Hanson are the best paring so far and for once the midfield started to show promise.

90% of Hurst's decisions were right but why did he go negative. The team as a unit were coping well and Carlisle were huffing and puffing but looking more and more dejected. I've never been a fan of Bunney, and hope Hab's ok for Saturday, but he did a reasonable job. I still have no idea why Hurst persists with Waterfall and Green and even have them on the bench. Clifton had one of his best games for along time so I hope his form is coming back.

We still have that lack of creating openings for a shot on target. You don't score if you don't create any chances.

Wasn’t far off roaring last night, not much better this morning but that was probably just general existence negging me out more then the match.

I still think we’re down, and have been for a while, but there’s always hope when realising that we only have to better Barrow and Southend over the next 15 games or whatever it is. Can we do it? Probably not, but you never know.

Seen people saying we need x number of points, or y many points per game, but the reality is we need 1 point more than both Southend and Barrow and that’s it. Not saying we’ll get them, but there’s a chance.

Some of this squad need firing into the sun though.

Quoted from DB

I agree with what you've said and attack is the best form of defence. JLL and Hanson are the best paring so far and for once the midfield started to show promise.

I think that pairing is what allowed the midfield to get in the game as much as they did in the last couple of games. They have more presence up front and having two forwards makes it harder for their defence to contain. That and Hanson's ability to win headers and hold up the ball gave the midfield more space to work with. I think just levels of desire just felt up among most players. Lamy and Matete were almost egging each other on by example by using their pace to run around players and take the ball from them. The final product of the moves could always be better but it felt like the foundation of what makes a game winning player was starting to show with just the desire and initiative shown.

Quoted from ska face

Wasn’t far off roaring last night, not much better this morning but that was probably just general existence negging me out more then the match.

I still think we’re down, and have been for a while, but there’s always hope when realising that we only have to better Barrow and Southend over the next 15 games or whatever it is. Can we do it? Probably not, but you never know.

Seen people saying we need x number of points, or y many points per game, but the reality is we need 1 point more than both Southend and Barrow and that’s it. Not saying we’ll get them, but there’s a chance.

Some of this squad need firing into the sun though.

Exactly what I've been saying for a while now. Need to make up a few points on those 2 sides and finish ahead of them. Nobody knows how many points that will be but when we concede like that in the last minute, it's infuriating and doesn't help the cause.

I mean we’ve got a chance but we shoot ourselves in the foot too often for anyone to be too optimistic.

Thrown away points in the last minute against Stevenage and Carlisle and lost to a Newport side that were down to ten men for an hour in the last few weeks alone.

Only time will tell I guess

Quoted from ska face

Wasn’t far off roaring last night, not much better this morning but that was probably just general existence negging me out more then the match.

I still think we’re down, and have been for a while, but there’s always hope when realising that we only have to better Barrow and Southend over the next 15 games or whatever it is. Can we do it? Probably not, but you never know.

Seen people saying we need x number of points, or y many points per game, but the reality is we need 1 point more than both Southend and Barrow and that’s it. Not saying we’ll get them, but there’s a chance.

Some of this squad need firing into the sun though.

There’s also the rather galling prospect that those two need to play each other again, meaning somebody is picking up at least a point

I would never want Waterfall on the pitch for 1 minute longer than was absolutely essential.

He is one of the reasons (or even a main reason) that we are conceding a lot of goals and are bottom of the league. He should not even be an option to come on.  Maybe harsh, but I think that this is true.

Quoted from DB

I read a post that blamed the players for our problem, it more or less said they didn't do as Hurst wanted.

Today they gave their all and you couldn't fault anyone, including Bunney and I'm not a fan of him, but they were severely let down at the end. Knackered adrenalin pumping winning looking forward to the long journey home.

Minutes and seconds for that precious win and then Hurst decides it's time for a change. Can't say any more than he let the team down and us down by his pathetic decisions. Today showed a reasonably good team with players in round holes supported , again, by poor management.

Hurst should walk, we'd be better off without him.

So no praise for Hurst in the 11 players he initially fielded that played well but condemnation for a playing a player who made a mistake and cost us 2 points. What Hurst did , in trying to shore up the defence  in the closing stages , is a tactic that virtually all managers would have done in the same situation. His tactics were right but it was an error from a player that cost us.

I thought we played very well for the first 30 minutes, and should have gone 2 or 3 up against the worst team I have seen this season. Unfortunately, it seemed to me that we went far too deep for the rest of the game. I texted my sons at half time predicting that we’d concede in injury time because that’s the Grimsby way. We’ve been doing it for the last decade or more, regardless of who’s been the manager. I’ve noticed that almost all season our opponents have played a pressing game, never giving us a moment on the ball, while we have allowed them far too much time and space. In the Spurs documentary on Prime, Mourinho was constantly telling his players to get up the pitch and press the opposition in their own half, not sit back on the edge of their area and await the inevitable. Bielsa has got it down too a fine art at Leeds with his “Bielsa methodology”. I agree that the last couple of performances have been a big improvement on what’s gone recently, but a shift towards more of a pressing game would make all the difference. If that’s forthcoming, I think we have an excellent chance of avoiding relegation.

Quoted from AndyGTFC

I mean we’ve got a chance but we shoot ourselves in the foot too often for anyone to be too optimistic.

Thrown away points in the last minute against Stevenage and Carlisle and lost to a Newport side that were down to ten men for an hour in the last few weeks alone.

Only time will tell I guess

Totally agree. We are just not making the most of opportunities that come our way. It is so wasteful and will prove so very expensive.

Quoted from rancido

So no praise for Hurst in the 11 players he initially fielded that played well but condemnation for a playing a player who made a mistake and cost us 2 points. What Hurst did , in trying to shore up the defence  in the closing stages , is a tactic that virtually all managers would have done in the same situation. His tactics were right but it was an error from a player that cost us.

So 11 games gone and you tell me his tactics were right. Absolutely fantastic brilliant tactics they have got us 1 foot in the NL, 5 points out of 33 and a lucky win.

If you look back at the goal that they scored you will see Hanson failed to clear an easy header, Waterfall and Hewitt both let their man cross while Menayese did not follow their goal scorer. Not 1 player but 4 players made errors.

Quoted from lee65

How does it look for those around us though?, are their run ins much easier on paper?

(I do believe anyone can beat anyone though in Lg 2, and perhaps if we somehow manage to still be in the fight towards the end of April maybe some "top" Teams could start resting players for the play-offs if position allows?)

But not us