Just Back

Just back to Manchester for a night out.

That was rinse and repeat of a number of games this season. Soft early goals and the game had gone. Did I hear Artell saying Obikwu had a great game? He and Wood are just not what we need in these sort of games, no guile or battle from either. Add that to daft mistakes and you are going to struggle.
Barrow had a good 3 or 4 players miles better suited than ours, Gotts and Stockdale ripped us as did Telford. Their CB also dominated us until Wilson came on and latterly Rose.
Add to that one of the worst stands I’ve ever sat in and it was pretty miserable. Two big home games then.

Sorry your birthday was ruined Trev. Enjoy Manchester.

Quoted from mariner91

Sorry your birthday was ruined Trev. Enjoy Manchester.

Cheers Matt. Always knew it was a risk…

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

Just back to Manchester for a night out.

That was rinse and repeat of a number of games this season. Soft early goals and the game had gone. Did I hear Artell saying Obikwu had a great game? He and Wood are just not what we need in these sort of games, no guile or battle from either. Add that to daft mistakes and you are going to struggle.
Barrow had a good 3 or 4 players miles better suited than ours, Gotts and Stockdale ripped us as did Telford. Their CB also dominated us until Wilson came on and latterly Rose.
Add to that one of the worst stands I’ve ever sat in and it was pretty miserable. Two big home games then.

Yes Artell did say Obikwu was outstanding. His bigging up of Obikwu in recent weeks has had me thinking he might not be the right man after all. What is he seeing that not many others can?

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

Just back to Manchester for a night out.

That was rinse and repeat of a number of games this season. Soft early goals and the game had gone. Did I hear Artell saying Obikwu had a great game? He and Wood are just not what we need in these sort of games, no guile or battle from either. Add that to daft mistakes and you are going to struggle.
Barrow had a good 3 or 4 players miles better suited than ours, Gotts and Stockdale ripped us as did Telford. Their CB also dominated us until Wilson came on and latterly Rose.
Add to that one of the worst stands I’ve ever sat in and it was pretty miserable. Two big home games then.

I have to say I didn't think Obikwu was that fantastic, he did take his goal well but until Vernam and Rose came on we were just useless upfront, as we were in midfield and defence.

But all is OK apparently it was all the ref's fault.

Nothing really expected today.  Mainly about Mon.  But the usual early errors and capitulation donates the points with the fans let down again and peed off.

There are only so many lows that we can go through in one season!

I haven’t listened to his post match interview. I can’t stomach his gaslighting and waffling nonsense any more than I can stand listening to him yelling endlessly on the touchline.
He’s just not for me.

Did a lot of running obikwu but was hugely inneffective until his goal, he was one of the reasons we really struggled due to him not being able to hold the ball or pass it to a team mate. Took his goal well when the game was done though.

We were excrement and looked unfit. Blew any hope of a result with some horror show mistakes.
The fitness thing is a major worry. Our players look knackered after 35 minutes of a half.

Two tough games gone, expect better on Monday.

Can't warm to Artell though, his nonsense about the Ref was embarrassing and I always think he comes across as a bit of a mammary.

Well I watched all the game on tv and thought the ref was consistent which is all you can ask for. Yeah he could have made a couple of bookings and given some fouls but I prefer refs who aren’t over fussy and just let players get on with it.

Ref certainly wasn’t at fault for any of the three goals we conceded.

i thought the same, couldn't really remember any real serious issues with the ref. I was a little bit suprised when Artell went off on a tangent

Quoted from StacyColdicotts_hairline

i thought the same, couldn't really remember any real serious issues with the ref. I was a little bit suprised when Artell went off on a tangent

This.
Excuse time I think.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Yes Artell did say Obikwu was outstanding. His bigging up of Obikwu in recent weeks has had me thinking he might not be the right man after all. What is he seeing that not many others can?

Hes's trying to keep his confidence up . Young players need that . Cant you,see that ?

in the M6 services, yep rinse repeat save even more of a gift to the opposition today. They really didn’t need to create anything at all to win comfortably. The game plan to beat us even with the back 5 is still let us have the ball and wait for the feck  up. The games we’ve done best in recently is where the opposition have made the mistake of keeping the ball too much…

We now need two home wins and Vernam has to start…

Quoted from StacyColdicotts_hairline

i thought the same, couldn't really remember any real serious issues with the ref. I was a little bit suprised when Artell went off on a tangent

He's getting desperate and pressured again

Quoted from barrattstandman

Hes's trying to keep his confidence up . Young players need that . Cant you,see that ?

Do that in private then. Whenever I've seen him he has offered very little.

In fairness to the lad. He’s got 3 goals and he’s 18 years old and expected to lead the line with very very little service

Quoted from mariner91

Sorry your birthday was ruined Trev. Enjoy Manchester.

They pretty much ruin everything. The club is hopeless. Happy birthday Trev.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Do that in private then. Whenever I've seen him he has offered very little.

I agree but when he gets public critisism a manager will always back his playe or he wouldnt be doing his job

Quoted from headingly_mariner

Can't warm to Artell though, his nonsense about the Ref was embarrassing and I always think he comes across as a bit of a mammary.

Nor me. He doesn’t have any redeeming features imo.

The biggest conundrum I have is the defence.

New players come on board and games 1-5 they are great. Think Mullarkey, Rodgers, Tharme, Hume…

We all agree they are mustard- a real addition to the shocking defensive  set up

Then they collectively turn bad.

Why???

I know we have big questions elsewhere like goalkeeping, strikers and midfield, but the biggest drop off in performance from start point is defence?!?

Appreciate the conditions weren’t great but I’ve never seen a team move the ball so slowly, and control the ball so badly. It was painful to watch at times, it was making my eyes bleed. Everything needed 5 or 6 touches, movement was non-existent, anything on the floor was trickled into someone immediately in front, anything over the top was hopeful at best.

Took me 20 minutes to realise Wood was playing, absolutely anonymous. He had umpteen opportunities to put the ball in and couldn’t muster a single bit of quality - this from someone at a Championship club?

3 individual errors for the goals - Rogers, Thompson & Cartwright. The third one completely kills us after we’d had the smallest flicker of hope with Vernam & Rose coming on, brain dead.

Artell blaming the ref is a joke - it wasn’t the ref’s fault we were 2 down and effectively finished within 22 minutes AGAIN. The incident he mentioned with Obikwu wasn’t a foul, was about 30 yards from goal out on the wing and there were 3 or 4 defenders covering.

We are in deep, deep shít. It’ll be a miracle if we stay up but if Vernam and Rose can get 7 full games in each, there’s a hope.

Quoted from Bigwinn1975

The biggest conundrum I have is the defence.

New players come on board and games 1-5 they are great. Think Mullarkey, Rodgers, Tharme, Hume…

We all agree they are mustard- a real addition to the shocking defensive  set up

Then they collectively turn bad.

Why???

I know we have big questions elsewhere like goalkeeping, strikers and midfield, but the biggest drop off in performance from start point is defence?!?

Think it’s simple and obvious, they have to play behind the worst midfield we’ve probably ever had and in the last twenty years that’s some achievement!

Quoted from Hagrid

In fairness to the lad. He’s got 3 goals and he’s 18 years old and expected to lead the line with very very little service

Well he's 20 and a full international,  but otherwise fair points.....

This midfield is poor. Individually and as a collective. Worst I can remember.

He should be tearing this league up

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

Well I watched all the game on tv and thought the ref was consistent which is all you can ask for. Yeah he could have made a couple of bookings and given some fouls but I prefer refs who aren’t over fussy and just let players get on with it.

Ref certainly wasn’t at fault for any of the three goals we conceded.

Considering the number of bad refs we've had this season this guy was pretty good.

It's all so frustrating and tiring.

It seemed we'd turned a corner after Donny, but now that six-game undefeated streak feels like an anomaly and this is who we really are — a fragile, badly-formed squad of sub-par lower-league players thrown together with little cohesion and no real identity.

No obvious plan of how to play, and no sign of one. Games have been lost by huge margins and way too early in games. We might play okay but we're just not staying in games to be competitive.

Now the manager is seeing things that the fans aren't. Maybe Artell sees things differently from the dugout but I didn't see why today the referee copped it from him so much.

No wonder the atmosphere is flat at BP; there's nothing to get behind. The two victories we got this month were massive. They were satisfying in that they showed fight, but the quality isn't there. We scraped two wins and, other than that, it's been a truly abysmal 2024.

I do not envy the board one bit. They sacked Hurst when I think 95% of the fan base thought it was right to do so. Artell's appointment seemed grounded in logic and, as usual, I didn't sense much disagreement.

I can understand why they didn't fire him after the Donny game, and the following run seemed to back that up. I appreciate we've just lost to two teams who could both be playing L1 football next season, so there's that to take into account.

The issue for me is that staying up isn't worthy of praise. It's the very least we should expect from a new manager. Artell had 26/27 games to achieve something and, points-wise, he's done absolutely nothing. We're closer to relegation with games running out and some of our home defeats have been record-breaking.

Personally, and I said this a while back, he went beyond the point of no return. In other words, no matter what he does now, it's just a matter of time before he goes.

We go down, he could and perhaps should go. We stay up, great, but nothing to celebrate. I really don't see how he's instilling confidence in the fans to part with more £££ for next season if it's based on what we're seeing right now.

Of course, I truly hope I'm wrong. I know we had some shocking home defeats under Buckley in his first spell before things clicked. Maybe history will repeat itself.

But that's a big worry for me. We're stuck in a loop. Once again, underperforming in L2, fighting for survival, fans not really seeing anything to truly get behind. This whole squad could go in the summer and I wouldn't care that much (bar Rose). And I'm usually someone who looks for the positive.

I just really struggle to get behind what I'm seeing. I just don't see what 1878 see. I don't doubt Artell is intelligent, but is he 'football smart'?

We're a hard club to manage, but so is everyone else! No one has it easy down here, unless they're bankrolled (and even then the manager is under greater pressure to deliver success sooner).

I dunno. I'm just fed up of feeling this way all the damn time. Sure, we might even beat Bradford next week, and that'll make everyone happy. It'd be a significant win. But how long before it's back to the same old. Going back to my earlier point, I just don't get bigger plan.

I'm not overreacting; I thought he should have gone after Donny and was happy to be proved wrong when we picked up results. But looking at his record overall, there's no sign yet that he's a manager for the long term. I'm not getting any glimmers.

I'm not saying he needs to go now, but I really do worry that we'll be stuck saying the same things again next season as soon as it becomes apparent we're not going anywhere. More clamour for him to go, more time and money given to someone to spend who won't see out half the contracts he gives to his signings.

When are Pearson and Davies going to come to the end of their Teflon free association with the defensive excrement show we see every week.?

Just one stat I’m stuck with after another poor performance and result.

Nineteen away games - one away win. Swindon have 2 and a bunch of teams 4. How the hell do we go 19 games with 1 win without the inevitable conclusion we really are this bad.

Two wins at BP and it won’t matter but huge pressure on Monday’s game as I don’t trust us to get anything away now.

Quoted from HerveJosse

When are Pearson and Davies going to come to the end of their Teflon free association with the defensive excrement show we see every week.?

I will start my response by saying this is one of the worst teams I can remember watching in my 60+ years of following town. The re-election team in the late 60’s were pretty dire but when your eleven or twelve years old your just happy going to watch a game of professional football so it’s hard to compare never mind the time difference.

Anyway re the defence I will repeat the dire quality of our midfield doesn’t help but I thought both today and Saturday v Wrexham that on the whole the defence played ok. It sounds crazy when you concede six goals but other than those goals I didn’t really worry too much about us conceding a la Walsall and Donny games. The issue is individual errors probably cost us all six goals and it’s hard for any coach to eradicate these.

First goal v Wrexham - poor control from Holohan, poor challenge when ball lost and questionable keeping

Second goal - weak tackles in and around their penalty area, failure to make early foul to stop the break, ppoor challenge by Hume.

Third goal - Poor clearance by Tharme great finish by Mullins, probably not a goal against 90% of other L2 teams.

First goal today - Rodgers - just put it in row z

Second goal - terrible control by Thompson

Third goal - poor goalkeeping.

Add the fact that these players pretty much all lack pace and composure and I’m not sure the coaches could get  much more out of them. The recruitment has been so poor they don’t have much to work with.

I will also repeat the comment I made on Saturday, is Hume really any better then Glennon? He’s no quicker, not as good going forward and defensively it’s touch and go. Losing Glennon significantly dimishes us in the attacking third but everyone seems to disagree so maybe it’s just me that thinks he should be playing. Christ I’d play him in front of Hume at least he can control the bleeding ball.

Quoted from chaos33

I haven’t listened to his post match interview. I can’t stomach his gaslighting and waffling nonsense any more than I can stand listening to him yelling endlessly on the touchline.
He’s just not for me.

More heavy headed gibberish, you do not seem to know whether you are coming or going, poor soul must be hard only having this in your life. Hope you don't go down the Aldi-01 rabbit hole

Not suggesting any of these should play but do we know the current status of Maher, Glennon and Khouri? Just in terms of giving us more options

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

Just back to Manchester for a night out.

That was rinse and repeat of a number of games this season. Soft early goals and the game had gone. Did I hear Artell saying Obikwu had a great game? He and Wood are just not what we need in these sort of games, no guile or battle from either. Add that to daft mistakes and you are going to struggle.
Barrow had a good 3 or 4 players miles better suited than ours, Gotts and Stockdale ripped us as did Telford. Their CB also dominated us until Wilson came on and latterly Rose.
Add to that one of the worst stands I’ve ever sat in and it was pretty miserable. Two big home games then.

Happy birthday Trev.  I hope you didn't celebrate in the Barrow 'Spoons.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

I will start my response by saying this is one of the worst teams I can remember watching in my 60+ years of following town. The re-election team in the late 60’s were pretty dire but when your eleven or twelve years old your just happy going to watch a game of professional football so it’s hard to compare never mind the time difference.

Anyway re the defence I will repeat the dire quality of our midfield doesn’t help but I thought both today and Saturday v Wrexham that on the whole the defence played ok. It sounds crazy when you concede six goals but other than those goals I didn’t really worry too much about us conceding a la Walsall and Donny games. The issue is individual errors probably cost us all six goals and it’s hard for any coach to eradicate these.

First goal v Wrexham - poor control from Holohan, poor challenge when ball lost and questionable keeping

Second goal - weak tackles in and around their penalty area, failure to make early foul to stop the break, ppoor challenge by Hume.

Third goal - Poor clearance by Tharme great finish by Mullins, probably not a goal against 90% of other L2 teams.

First goal today - Rodgers - just put it in row z

Second goal - terrible control by Thompson

Third goal - poor goalkeeping.

Add the fact that these players pretty much all lack pace and composure and I’m not sure the coaches could get  much more out of them. The recruitment has been so poor they don’t have much to work with.

I will also repeat the comment I made on Saturday, is Hume really any better then Glennon? He’s no quicker, not as good going forward and defensively it’s touch and go. Losing Glennon significantly dimishes us in the attacking third but everyone seems to disagree so maybe it’s just me that thinks he should be playing. Christ I’d play him in front of Hume at least he can control the bleeding ball.

I was thinking as I was watching that I wish Glennon was on.

Obikwu was ok during spells of the game.  He did well at getting possession then he invariably panicked and ran into somebody or went down to get a free kick; which IMO is pointless because we can't do sweet FA with them.  I wish he's just go for it.

The fact that Glennon and Maher haven’t even been on the bench despite us being told they were largerly uninjured when the other driver drove into the back of them weeks ago now suggests to me that there absence is financially motivated( insurance claim) rather then wholly performance related. The fact that the interviewers never ask how they are and Artell never says just confirms to me discussion is off limits . I agree Hume is very average and there will be games at home against weaker opposition where we need more going forward where Glennon should  be preferred . Just another example of us all been taken for a ride by present shambles at our club

Hume is definitely quicker than Glennon (which isn't difficult), but I'm not sure how it is that he's a player who has spent the rest of his career at a higher level than League Two. Probably one of those who does well in a more capable team, but whose weaknesses are exposed when there is a shitshow going on around him.

If the unthinkable happens and we go down, I'll still put most of the blame on Hurst as his summer recruitment was so bad it was almost off the scale. I do think Artell's signings have strengthened the squad a bit, but he's not done his job of getting them to play consistently well (or even consistently decently). Haven't seen the goals from yesterday, but it sounds like it is the usual litany of individual errors. We've played well in a number of games since Artell arrived (mostly away from home), but have failed to win enough of them. We were very poor against FGR, but won in spite of it. We still ought to be able to get enough points to drag ourselves out of trouble but I'm less confident than I was a couple of weeks ago. It's almost as though the players have 'relaxed' and reduced the short-lived intensity we had discovered after thinking we were safe. Let's hope they can rediscover this. Those 2 points dropped due to the dodgy penalty decision (and missed chances) at Sutton look worryingly as though they might come back to bite us on the bottom.

Quoted from Mayaman

Happy birthday Trev.  I hope you didn't celebrate in the Barrow 'Spoons.

Cheers Man, I did dodge that bullet.

Now watched the highlights. Spectacularly bad touches from our players for the first two goals. Professional footballers shouldn't be controlling a relatively simple ball so it lands 5 yards away from them. No real awkward bounces that I could see, just rubbish control. Pretty much what we've seen all season, I suppose. Given that Thompson is an experienced player who generally looks capable in possession, it's just an indication of a lack of concentration throughout the game.

What I did think was that with the chances for those first two goals, if the boot had been on the other foot, we might have managed to convert perhaps one of them? We're just not good enough in any area of the field. If we go down, it will be the chances missed as much as the goals conceded which will have led to it.

Back when we were in the Conference, I was always happy to see teams come and play a possession - based game and try to play it out from the back as they invariably made a few balls-ups which could be exploited. We've got a lot of Conference-standard players.

I think it’s clear Hurst missed out on a few signings. I’m only guessing but I also think the plan was for Conteh to stay a season and then get a big step up from a well placed Town side. Clearly there was no plan B. Conteh was advised gtfo sharpish by his agent (fair enough) when the wheels fell off and the rest of it crumbled.

I’ve defended Hurst on here to my detriment. Pretty obvious he blew it with recruitment and panic signings. How he ever thought Eastwood was an improvement on Crocombe I will never know. I hate pointing the finger at players, but clearly Hurst and Artell agree.

I’ll be there on Monday. I don’t think we’ll get a win. A point maybe. We never beat Bradford and they got a decent win against Tranmere yesterday. Also, the crowd will be nervous and then angry if the early goal(s) kill it before 1.25pm.

Ugh.

Quoted from 140381

I think it’s clear Hurst missed out on a few signings. I’m only guessing but I also think the plan was for Conteh to stay a season and then get a big step up from a well placed Town side. Clearly there was no plan B. Conteh was advised gtfo sharpish by his agent (fair enough) when the wheels fell off and the rest of it crumbled.

I’ve defended Hurst on here to my detriment. Pretty obvious he blew it with recruitment and panic signings. How he ever thought Eastwood was an improvement on Crocombe I will never know. I hate pointing the finger at players, but clearly Hurst and Artell agree.

I’ll be there on Monday. I don’t think we’ll get a win. A point maybe. We never beat Bradford and they got a decent win against Tranmere yesterday. Also, the crowd will be nervous and then angry if the early goal(s) kill it before 1.25pm.

Ugh.

We absolutely cannot concede early on Monday - it would be disastrous, possibly season defining, sucking what remaining confidence is left in this shower and the crowd. Pull 11 behind the ball and use Vernam and Rose as outlets and hope to scrape a 1-0, it’s our only hope.

The Sutton penalty is looking more threatening.  But, we scored just 1 goal from 8 shots on target.  Shocking.  3 points were just begging to be taken.

Away teams at BP seem to score with every shot on target.  Plus one in one game when an OG went in as well.  

Hume isn't the issue. He's looked decent. To be fair to Glennon, he was also very good at wingback.


I think it was a mistake letting Efete go if we were going to switch to 3 centre halves. He'd have played ahead of a few.

Hurst recruitment in league 2 had always seemed to be solid/adequate but this season it was abysmal and maybe the issue was that he was targeting players who he thought could pass the ball around and play abit more which was certainly the preferred style of play at start of season which is abandoning his usual method, that and he had more money than he is used to, if he kept with his usual method then I feel he may have recruited better