Just back

Very fortunate to win by 4. Started slowly and H&S got lucky with Colbeck's injury forcing them to change to 4-3-3. Stand-out players for me would be Pond, Thomas, Thanoj, Marshall & Cook. Hatton clearly better going forward than back & when Southwell came on for Hannah he looked better suited to the system - no blame on Hannah.

Two points to note - watched both teams warm up and Woking's warm-up was far more intense than ours - could this be why we start slowly? Also, we didn't know who was supposed to take corners, Marshall was sent over and his delivery was awful. Do we honestly send a team out to play football without knowing who is taking corners? Schoolboy stuff!

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Very fortunate to win by 4. Started slowly and H&S got lucky with Colbeck's injury forcing them to change to 4-3-3. Stand-out players for me would be Pond, Thomas, Thanoj, Marshall & Cook. Hatton clearly better going forward than back & when Southwell came on for Hannah he looked better suited to the system - no blame on Hannah.

Two points to note - watched both teams warm up and Woking's warm-up was far more intense than ours - could this be why we start slowly? Also, we didn't know who was supposed to take corners, Marshall was sent over and his delivery was awful. Do we honestly send a team out to play football without knowing who is taking corners? Schoolboy stuff!

No mention of Niven? H and S got lucky because Niven came on and stopped them playing through midfield.

As for the corner taker I assume that as our regular corner taker had got himself injured and Artus wasn't on the field the team were not sure who was meant to be taking them?

Thank God we won, can't imagine how negative you would be if we had lost    

Quoted from gymadman

Thank God we won, can't imagine how negative you would be if we had lost    

Some people just aren't happy unless they're moaning

We've just won 5-1, sit 2nd in the league, with another home game next week...can we have just a ickle bit of positivity...or is that too much to ask? :/

I do feel Hannah was very good today as was Niven when he came on. Thanoj was my MOM and was great, also contributing a goal. I don't think we were lucky to win by 4, i think we could have had more. Roll on next week

They pay their money, they can have their moan, but sometimes we need to just sit back and enjoy the positives of a Saturday afternoon rather than nit pick about little things.

There was one corner in the first half when it took about 3 minutes for somebody to go over and take it.  

Quoted from siy2k5

Some people just aren't happy unless they're moaning

We've just won 5-1, sit 2nd in the league, with another home game next week...can we have just a ickle bit of positivity...or is that too much to ask? :/

Just mixing positivity with a bit of reality. If the managers want us to start brighter (which we didn't today), then they need to put the 'up' into warm-up. We didn't touch the ball in the first 5 minutes and a good team could put us to bed in that time! Of course I'm pleased with the result, yes. i'm nit-picking but I want us to go up!!

Quoted from TownSNAFU5

There was one corner in the first half when it took about 3 minutes for somebody to go over and take it.  

Marshall was talking to pearson and then took the corner...the plan nearly worked as well.

This talk they got "lucky" might be true but it's assuming they wouldn't have brought him off anyway.
Not the first time they've made early changes !

My guess is they would and the injury simply forced their hand a bit earlier with the score at 1-1. (don't think they'd have done it at 0-1 !)
I'd love to see the critics making decisions in the dugout I really would...

Quoted from barralad

No mention of Niven? H and S got lucky because Niven came on...

They sent him on. They could quite easily have sent on Artus or Southwell instead.

Quoted from siy2k5

Some people just aren't happy unless they're moaning

We've just won 5-1, sit 2nd in the league, with another home game next week...can we have just a ickle bit of positivity...or is that too much to ask? :/

It's very hard to find a post from The Old Codger that is positive about the club , the team or the managers.

Quoted from rancido

It's very hard to find a post from The Old Codger that is positive about the club , the team or the managers.

There have been several - today included - I try to be constructive and as such, having watched both teams warm up, could see why Woking started so well. Their pre-match routines and approach was so much more professional than ours and having listened to Paul Hurst state that we needed to start brighter could see exactly why we didn't.

There are several positives from yesterday - Cook, Thanoj & Marshall in particular - but if we start like that against a team that can defend a bit (by their own admission Woking can't), we would struggle to get back in. Yes, we won 5-1, but we looked second best for 20 minutes against 10 men.

Why not put Hatton on corners, obviously got good technique.

Quoted from brad_gtfc

Why not put Hatton on corners, obviously got good technique.

The angles not great....

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Yes, we won 5-1, but we looked second best for 20 minutes against 10 men.

It's a good point but just wonder if you're being a tiny bit harsh saying "2nd best" ?

In the post match interview Hurst mentioned about fans wanting to take the game to Woking more when they were down to 10 men.
I even got impatient myself but do appreciate Hurst's logic (even if I'm not convinced) about keeping things tight, keeping our shape etc to stop them getting back into it (or whatever he said).

I'm certainly not sure it's wise to risk doing it per se against 11 men or the very best teams when you're a goal up.
The more you allow the other team to have the ball, the more confidence they could get and more risk you'll concede if THEY'VE got the ball.
Not just that but there's a danger Town players go into defensive mode and through the motions. (though at the very least you're conserving energy).

Rightly or wrongly I think Hurst is a "safety first" kind of chap but don't think it's always safe to defend even if you might be able to hit them on the counter like vs Luton.
Or perhaps I'm unfairly thinking back to the days of Woods etc when our defence wasn't arguably as tight as it is now ?

I personally think we might have gone for the jugular at 3-1 with 10 men but it's swings and roundabouts I suppose.
Think there's definitely something to work on with us controlling and killing off games.
Think it we'd have scored quickly at 3-1 with 10 men, it's entirely possible we could have been presiding over an 8-1 instead of a 5-1.
But equally it could also have been 3-2 and a potential nightmare even though we should really have more than enough to deal with it.
Easy to say but we've seen how a goal can dampen our confidence before.
Guess we need to work on that too although tbf we've shown we can bounce back.

Is it me? Or is passing back at the kick off a bad move. It happened on sat with the ball being played back to our right back position. We then struggled to get it into the opposition half and gave them the initiative and of course they scored before we  even got going. Might it not be better to get the ball forward, possibly to our wide players straight from the kick off?

Their goal actually came with Colbeck off the pitch injured behind their goal-line after losing out in a challenge with their defender. Therefore, the ball had been right at their end of the pitch before they scored so I'm not sure that passing back to our full-back was really much of a problem!

Quoted from oldun

Is it me? Or is passing back at the kick off a bad move. It happened on sat with the ball being played back to our right back position. We then struggled to get it into the opposition half and gave them the initiative and of course they scored before we  even got going. Might it not be better to get the ball forward, possibly to our wide players straight from the kick off?

You mean the old "drop kick" ?  

Quoted from oldun

Is it me? Or is passing back at the kick off a bad move. It happened on sat with the ball being played back to our right back position. We then struggled to get it into the opposition half and gave them the initiative and of course they scored before we  even got going. Might it not be better to get the ball forward, possibly to our wide players straight from the kick off?

I agree with this, Also town also seem to struggle to keep hold of the ball, giving it away far to easily which like you say oldun gives the opposition the initiative, I noticed this saturday.

Quoted from cmackenzie4

I agree with this, Also town also seem to struggle to keep hold of the ball, giving it away far to easily which like you say oldun gives the opposition the initiative, I noticed this saturday.

Yup we were sh1t, we only won 5-1

Quoted from Garth

Yup we were sh1t, we only won 5-1

Who said we were excrement ?

It's not about being excrement! It's about improving I think Chris and others make a valid point! Even real Madrid need to improve. It's about making us a better team and hopefully the team and managers watch the games back and rectify the mistakes in training.

There was a period in the 2nd half that we put about 25-30 passes together,

Then having given the ball away we strung another 15-20 passes together,

So how we could be 2nd best against 10 men, baffles me.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

There have been several - today included - I try to be constructive and as such, having watched both teams warm up, could see why Woking started so well. Their pre-match routines and approach was so much more professional than ours and having listened to Paul Hurst state that we needed to start brighter could see exactly why we didn't.

There are several positives from yesterday - Cook, Thanoj & Marshall in particular - but if we start like that against a team that can defend a bit (by their own admission Woking can't), we would struggle to get back in. Yes, we won 5-1, but we looked second best for 20 minutes against 10 men.

I arrived early and saw their warm up. I thought they looked lively and said to my friend just before the goal that I thought so.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

I arrived early and saw their warm up. I thought they looked lively and said to my friend just before the goal that I thought so.

I thought they started really fast and played some nice football,

But

It did not take us long to get on top,

A really good game to watch, credit to both sides.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

I arrived early and saw their warm up. I thought they looked lively and said to my friend just before the goal that I thought so.

I thought they started really fast and played some nice football,

But

It did not take us long to get on top,

A really good game to watch, credit to both sides.

Quoted from grimsby pete

There was a period in the 2nd half that we put about 25-30 passes together,

Then having given the ball away we strung another 15-20 passes together,

So how we could be 2nd best against 10 men, baffles me.

The trouble was we got nowhere with it, it kept going from midfield to defenders and then the keeper without getting out of our half.

Quoted from Super Clive

It's not about being excrement! It's about improving I think Chris and others make a valid point! Even real Madrid need to improve. It's about making us a better team and hopefully the team and managers watch the games back and rectify the mistakes in training.

This.

Just an opinion that our warm-up doesn't look as sharp as others. If we want to get off to a better start then we need to sharpen up.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

This.

Just an opinion that our warm-up doesn't look as sharp as others. If we want to get off to a better start then we need to sharpen up.

This is nothing new, it has been like this for years. Definitely something where we could improve improve our match performance and realistically isn't that hard to implement.

Quoted from 1600

You mean the old "drop kick" ?  

Don't know about drop kick but one short back pass and then a long forward pass to either opposition corner with our wide men running into that area. Even if we lose possession we are in their final third instead of the ball bring in ours.

Quoted from oldun

Don't know about drop kick but one short back pass and then a long forward pass to either opposition corner with our wide men running into that area. Even if we lose possession we are in their final third instead of the ball bring in ours.

Yeah you make some good points.
I certainly don't see the point of passing it all the way back just to hoof it forward to the halfway line.

I call it the drop kick cos many years ago it was always the trademark we used to pass it back and chip it up in the air 10 yards or so past the half way line with someone challenging in the air.
Got to be honest always thought that was a waste of time but I can see the sense in getting it a lot more forward into the corners and pushing them back early even if it goes out for a throw in.

Tbh ideally I'd probably prefer to keep possession on the deck (especially if the game has just started) simply cos it SHOULD (what a great word that is !  ) help early confidence knocking it around.

But yeah, if we're gonna start slow, fall asleep or dilly dally or in our half then guess you're right so can certainly appreciate what you're saying.