Just back

Personally, Vernon impressed me yesterday. He's 'unspectacular' but he's incredibly clever with how he works and uses his body to unsettle the defence - this noticeably freed up more space for Hooper and I feel it's coincidence that (in my opinion) JJ had his best game for us yesterday. Vernon isn't the type of forward who's going to drop into midfield, pick the ball up, and run at the defence but his presence is just as valuable for applying pressure. It also prevents clearances from coming straight back at us as he challenges in the air, and this gives us an outlet and more time to reset on the transition.

I think we should start with the same 11, a bit of continuity and also a positive message to those who got the victory

Vernon always puts a real shift in even though he looked short of match fitness (obviously) he still gave his all. This gave Hooper a lot more freedom and he flourished. We kept their defence very busy and with Dembele,Rose.Woolford and D.J. all causing problems.

Crewe flattered to deceive but apart from a couple of lapses our defence looked solid. Osborne looked very good indeed and is very strong and quick.

Hope this is the start of good spell now certainly restored some faith in the stands.

As I said last night, I thought Mills was good. Cut out several passes, made a fantastic tackle in the second half and put in some lovely crosses. Obviously made a shocking pass that put them in but I don't remember many chances from them coming down our right hand side!

Also, I'm having a real dilemma putting Sam Jones back in the team! Can't really swap him for Hooper or Rose after their performance, swapping him for Vernon means we have to change how we play and swapping him for Berrett means we lose a bit of shape. The only other option would be putting him on the wing but he isn't very good out there.

He's shown petulance when he's played this season, presumably because he doesn't want to play out wide, but I do think that he's one of our best players and the only natural goal scorer in the squad.

Quoted from Grantley

Also, I'm having a real dilemma putting Sam Jones back in the team! Can't really swap him for Hooper or Rose after their performance, swapping him for Vernon means we have to change how we play and swapping him for Berrett means we lose a bit of shape. The only other option would be putting him on the wing but he isn't very good out there.

He's shown petulance when he's played this season, presumably because he doesn't want to play out wide, but I do think that he's one of our best players and the only natural goal scorer in the squad.

All of that - and after getting himself a three game ban, surely it's up to him to earn his place back in the team?

Berrett had a good game for me , especially 1st half when he bossed the midfield

Funny how opinions differ.

I thought we were much improved with two up top but don't think we were as good as many seem to. We were certainly the better team in the first half and generally controlled the game. Vernon's efforts allowed Hooper to show some more ability on the ball and we had more of a threat up front than at other times I've seen this season.

However, they quickly took over midfield in the second half and we struggled to get the ball clear at times - no coincidence that we committed almost twice as many fouls as them which meant we needed to do too much defending. I thought Rose was pretty poor for much of the last twenty minutes or so and was well off the pace, often punting the ball forward aimlessly. If he was struggling to breathe then that could explain it, but they broke past our midfield too easily several times and it was only some good defending which saved us.

The big plus was that we defended very well against a team with quite a few big players who were awkward to deal with aerially at set pieces. Their best chance came from a bit of luck as a hacked clearance fell straight to Porter with Mills caught out of position. Thankfully, McKeown and Osborne were on hand to make excellent blocks.

My biggest frustration was that we made too many bad decisions which were just unnecessary. Most of their attacking chances came from us losing possession for no reason as several of our players were caught dwelling on the ball for no reason. Going forward, we managed to butcher some really good counter-attacking opportunities through poor passes or decisions and we really should have made their keeper make some saves given these opportunities.

Despite these criticisms, it was much more encouraging but we need to cut out a lot of the needless errors as we are likely to be caught out by the better teams if we do the same against them.

All in all, nobody had a bad game which has to be good and Clarke certainly performed better alongside Osborne so that's probably put Collins on the bench for now.

Cautiously optimistic but hoping for a big improvement yet as there is certainly enough ability in the team for us to get a lot better.

Quoted from Grantley

Also, I'm having a real dilemma putting Sam Jones back in the team! Can't really swap him for Hooper or Rose after their performance, swapping him for Vernon means we have to change how we play and swapping him for Berrett means we lose a bit of shape. The only other option would be putting him on the wing but he isn't very good out there.

He's shown petulance when he's played this season, presumably because he doesn't want to play out wide, but I do think that he's one of our best players and the only natural goal scorer in the squad.

To build on a good result and improved performance we need to stay "as is" for a bit I think otherwise all these players who have not played that much together won't gel. I guess the only thing that may impact things is if Slade wants to play one up top away, personally I would stick with e side/shape from yesterday next week, and yes before the Old Codger chips in that does include Berrett.  

I also agree that despite the odd error Mills looked like he was really focused on his defensive duties I would have loved it though if that attempt in the 2nd half had sneaked in.

On a different aspect from yesterday. The attendance was around 1000 lower than the corresponding fixture at the same time last year and with a similar number of visitors.