Just back

Richardson may be better coming off the bench...for what i've seen of him so far he looks like he's very tidy in possession but he's either easily outmuscled or just not in the right positions because i honestly felt like he barely touched the ball on Sat.

Efete....deffo didn't have the best game, but comes into the firing line because for some reason he was our main attacking outlet. We seemed hell bent on all of our play coming down that right side and it was obvious he wasn't having much joy. Not sure why so much of our attacking laid on the shoulders of our right back.

All in all...it was a drab game, we looked devoid of ideas until the end, but agreed they didn't exactly carve us open much at all.

I preferred having 3 in midfield like we started the season, but i think to carry on playing that we perhaps needed to sign another (possibly younger) Taylor. Not a criticism of Taylor as i really like him, but he can't play every game.  

Quoted from Mariner_09

With Green and Morris out of the side particularly having been replaced with Hunt, we’re less physical and smaller. This manifests itself in being ‘bullied’ or ‘overrun’ in midfield and in our diminishing threat from set pieces.

I think this sums up quite nicely our biggest problem on Saturday.  We've looked at our best when we've bossed the midfield, we simply didn't do that against Swindon.  

Khan was very good until he was sent off, he was Chesterfield's best player by a mile when we beat them in March and I was surprised when he was subbed.  Less surprised when he got a move to a higher level this summer.

Without the physicality of Morris and Green I'm not sure going to a 2-man midfield really suits us.  I know second half we changed to more of a 4-5-1/4-3-3 but it felt like the damage was already done.

I actually like the look of Richardson but I'm unsure as to what role he best suits.  It feels a bit like we're trying to give him that McAtee role but he doesn't know how to play it.  He's fairly quick, got a low centre of gravity and has the ability to run at people.  Rather than expecting him to do those bits of magic that McAtee produces in a free role, I think he'd be better served operating in and around Taylor.  Certainly closer to him than he was on Saturday anyway.

That said, a return to a 3 in the middle will suit us better in my eyes.  We don't only lack a bit of physicality without Green and Morris in there but the energy too.  I'd like to see Clifton in there on Tuesday with Hunt and Holohan, then Otis Khan and maybe even JMD pressing high and wide.  The only issue is that without Morris and Green we may lack a natural sitter, unless Hunt can do the role he did 12 months ago.  

Kiernan unfortunately is petering out at a quite alarming rate after a promising start.  Definitely showing why Walsall were prepared to loan him out to a side in the same division.    

Otherwise it was a case of too many stinkers, but this isn't the first time we've said this after a home game.  Smith probably produced his worst game in a Town shirt, compounded by two absolute shocking misses in front of goal.  Both fullbacks look off the boil and would benefit from a rest.  I know Cropper is back soon but was Amos' injured at the weekend?  

I always feel it's best to have a game straight away after a stinker, so tomorrow couldn't come sooner.  As we enter the darker and colder months, the home crowd need a performance to give him encouragement.  It's not a crisis, far from it, but there was enough grumblings on the way out to raise an eyebrow of concern.  I know we've got 6,000 season tickets sold and that's money in the bank regardless of how we play.  But we want all of those to be entertained and enthused when they come to games, to the point they're prepared to renew in 9 months time.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Going radical here but…..

Crocombe

Maher
Waterfall
Smith

Clifton
Hunt
Green
Khan
Glennon

Taylor
Simmonds

Is that Clifton and Glennon as wingbacks with Khan operating slightly ahead of Hunt and Green?

If so, I like the idea of that especially in the midfield.  My only worry would be how effective Khan can be in that central role when we've only seen two halves of him in wide positions.  Even last week I said I couldn't see a deviation from a back four because of how effective it has been.  Part of that, was the ability of our fullbacks to influence the game from deep.  That hasn't happened for a bit which arguably negates the need for a back four.

Pretty obvious why we lost the game. Smith had a stinker and create their second goal for them. The first goal wasn’t much better regarding our defence sleeping. All this over analysing the team where other than the goals they didn’t penetrate us very often and Crocombe had very little to do. We had our chances but didn’t take them, on another day those chances would have fallen just right. Not much of a change needed for me on Tuesday night. UTM!

Regarding physicality in midfield, we did a little better with Clifton in the middle in the second half, but we just couldn't get near to tackling their massive No. 7 in the middle a lot of the time. He was decent in possession and used his body so well, we rarely got into a position where we could get a foot in. You don't get many 6'3" midfielders...

Who is this Cropper that everyone's talking about? Can't be the one we played last season. That one is ok defensively, not as quick as Efete, not as good in the air as Efete, can't beat a man, is not a good passer or crosser of the ball but has a long throw. Solid enough, but we certainly haven't got a Trent waiting in the wings. Efete's ceiling of ability is far higher than Cropper's but his confidence is low. For what it's worth, he wasn't even our worst full back on Tuesday, and with Smith's performance he was pushing Waterfall for being our best defender, although that was a low bar. He did check out a couple of times but we had no one in the box or just Taylor with four or five Swindon back. In the first half we were struggling for any possession, so instead of going on a fanciful run and eventually giving the ball away with a cross to no one, he probably did the right thing by settling the game down for us. He definitely looked better second half with JMD down his side, whereas Kiernan is a workhorse who flatters to deceive. And it was Efete that put in two extremely good crosses near the end, one that we nearly got an equaliser from. If you think long throw ins are the answer then great, but if you think a confident Michee Efete is far better than Cropper could ever be, then be a little fairer in your analysis. Reading this thread it seems to me that he's being singled out when over the past couple of games there have been several in a Town shirt that have given far worse performances than him, midfield and advanced wide areas especially. Green, Maher and Khan are going to play larger roles in our starting eleven going forward as are McAtee and Morris and that's going to help one or two others that are under par at the moment as our starting eleven becomes stronger and more like PH envisioned it as he put the squad together..

Quoted from oochiad

Pretty obvious why we lost the game. Smith had a stinker and create their second goal for them. The first goal wasn’t much better regarding our defence sleeping. All this over analysing the team where other than the goals they didn’t penetrate us very often and Crocombe had very little to do. We had our chances but didn’t take them, on another day those chances would have fallen just right. Not much of a change needed for me on Tuesday night. UTM!

Not an outrageous take on the game by any means, my only issue with it is that it slightly overlooks the fact that we've not really taken the initiative in any of our home league games so far. You can put Swindon down as a bad day at the office, we need to become more of a threat ourselves at BP.

I believe we have the makings of a squad easily capable of making the play-offs this season but we're not going to do that if we routinely fail to win our home matches. I do think we might see the most drastic overhaul of our line-up so far tomorrow night.

Quoted from oochiad

Pretty obvious why we lost the game. Smith had a stinker and create their second goal for them. The first goal wasn’t much better regarding our defence sleeping. All this over analysing the team where other than the goals they didn’t penetrate us very often and Crocombe had very little to do. We had our chances but didn’t take them, on another day those chances would have fallen just right. Not much of a change needed for me on Tuesday night. UTM!

It’s not just one game though we haven’t won a league game at home this season and there is a clear pattern that  needs a shake up. Second home game in 4 days is the ideal time to do it. If it doesn’t work we are not losing a lot up because we are not winning at home anyway.

With our excellent away form (apart from the opening day) it's strange to think that we haven't won a league game at home this year yet.

We do need to rectify this very soon, tomorrow hopefully, or the longer it goes on the tighter that monkey is going to hold on to our backs!

Quoted from Bigdog

Who is this Cropper that everyone's talking about? Can't be the one we played last season. That one is ok defensively, not as quick as Efete, not as good in the air as Efete, can't beat a man, is not a good passer or crosser of the ball but has a long throw. Solid enough, but we certainly haven't got a Trent waiting in the wings. Efete's ceiling of ability is far higher than Cropper's but his confidence is low. For what it's worth, he wasn't even our worst full back on Tuesday, and with Smith's performance he was pushing Waterfall for being our best defender, although that was a low bar. He did check out a couple of times but we had no one in the box or just Taylor with four or five Swindon back. In the first half we were struggling for any possession, so instead of going on a fanciful run and eventually giving the ball away with a cross to no one, he probably did the right thing by settling the game down for us. He definitely looked better second half with JMD down his side, whereas Kiernan is a workhorse who flatters to deceive. And it was Efete that put in two extremely good crosses near the end, one that we nearly got an equaliser from. If you think long throw ins are the answer then great, but if you think a confident Michee Efete is far better than Cropper could ever be, then be a little fairer in your analysis. Reading this thread it seems to me that he's being singled out when over the past couple of games there have been several in a Town shirt that have given far worse performances than him, midfield and advanced wide areas especially. Green, Maher and Khan are going to play larger roles in our starting eleven going forward as are McAtee and Morris and that's going to help one or two others that are under par at the moment as our starting eleven becomes stronger and more like PH envisioned it as he put the squad together..

good coz he cant defend for excrement