Just back

Quoted from ackomariner

Correct Pete. You still sat on the fence  

Four games ago I said I would give Hurst 4 more games before I said if he should go,

Well in them 4 games we have won 2 and drawn 1  before tonight,

We have gained points by hard work not by playing good football,

So tonight I say if we stay with Hurst we will be nearly a good team,

BUT

We will not get promoted, So it's up to John Fenty to decide,

Are we going to be nearly good enough to get out of this league ,

Or are we brave enough to say Hurst is not the man to take us up,

We need to look elsewhere,

Come on John, you have been quiet on here lately, speak up/

Oh dear we were excrement tonight, it was clear that their shape was causing us problems, why didn't we go 433? Not good enough tonight!

Truly dismal performance. Southport were up for it, committed, and in Brodie had a candidate for MOM for all that most Town fans don't like him. At half time we said that we needed to increase our momentum because none of us could see where an equaliser would come from if they got a goal.

For me the first half wasn't so much about banging the ball up to Lenny as our wide players failing miserably to do anything with the considerable share of the ball they were given-particularly MacReth who looks increasingly like Colbeck-without the odd goal or two. Although to be fair to the lad he had a much better second half when he put the left back under all sorts of pressure. Neilson is an enigma. On his day-unplayable but spent all game today cutting inside amongst the massed ranks of their defence.
Big Chris is right IMO about a lack of intelligence. The big ball up to LJL when employed was meat and drink to Clayton. What is unforgivable is that those balls were still being played after LJL had been subbed-but to Hannah!
The midfield didn't get their customary grip on the game with Clay in particular out of sorts.
I listened to the phone in on RH on the way home and some lad said that Hannah was Town's best player. For me there was none of the hard running and harrassing of defenders that he did to such good effect on Saturday. His night was topped off by the absolutely woeful free kick in stoppage time.
Town's MOM? For me Magnay by a country mile.

Though Hurst should certainly have made changes earlier than he did, it was the players themselves who were utterly dreadful tonight.

Blaming the presence of LJL (who was well out of sorts) for the team's hoofing seems a little harsh as the defenders seemed to be just whacking it roughtly towards anybody in a black and white shirt, not just Lenny. Playing so many long aerial punts towards Hannah and Mackreth at times was just ludicrous, especially against probably the biggest and strongest back 3 we will face this season. That said, on the rare occasions we attempted to pass it along the ground, we invariably cocked up after a couple of passes as the passing throughout the team was embarrassingly bad.

I thought Pearson did OK, Magnay wasn't bad and Hannah worked very hard with little joy but the rest ranged from poor to terrible. The midfield 4 in particular were useless with Brown, Clay and Neilson all having probably their worst games for us. Mackreth started to cause a bit of a threat by running at the opposition during the last 15 minutes. Why the intercourse didn't he do this earlier? Hate to say it, but Neilson should have been subbed off after an hour as he achieved absolutely nothing and held onto the ball so long that they always had time to get their defence well set. I simply couldn't believe that he was awarded sponsors Man of the Match tonight - comical!

Toto looks a liability way too often and I think we need another option at centre half if Doig isn't going to be fit enough to play often enough. I lost count of the number of stupid free-kicks he conceded when he couldn't possibly win the ball and, for a team like Southport, that's just what they want as set pieces are their game. His passing and decision making is dismal as well. The less said about Parslow's performance tonight, the better. One simple 5 yard pass to Mackreth which went into touch about 2 yards from him is a good indication of how poor he was tonight. Amazing, considering that he looked capable on Saturday.

A couple of good saves from McKeown earlier in the game but then he goes and fluffs the weak shot completely for their goal (though it was awful defending that let them take the short corner unchallenged). What was all the moaning about from our players for the goal? Was there an offside or a handball, or something? Couldn't really tell from my seat. Also, I thought Toto's header hit Hannah on the line but there seemed to be a claim for handball there as well. Again, I was too far away to see what really happened.

No complaints about the result. We should probably have still got a draw but they were up for it more than us and probably deserved the points. You have to worry when you have a game where Brodie (despite all his usual twattishness) was probably the best player on show tonight. He didn't play like that for us!

As I mentioned, Hurst should have made changes earlier, but is limited because we simply don't have enought attacking players fit and available. Arnold's absence throughout most of the season so far means that we have absolutely no specialist 'Plan B' on the wings when Neilson or Mackreth aren't doing it. Pittman's injury was unfortunate, but the fact remains that we don't have enough attackers on the books and this is a major intercourse-up by Hurst, something which still hasn't been resolved. Oates will do his best, but you can't really see him achieving too much.

The gulf in the performance between Saturday and tonight was so massive that I'm just baffled how so many players could be so bad. Incredible.

Quoted from barralad

Truly dismal performance. Southport were up for it, committed, and in Brodie had a candidate for MOM for all that most Town fans don't like him. At half time we said that we needed to increase our momentum because none of us could see where an equaliser would come from if they got a goal.

For me the first half wasn't so much about banging the ball up to Lenny as our wide players failing miserably to do anything with the considerable share of the ball they were given-particularly MacReth who looks increasingly like Colbeck-without the odd goal or two. Although to be fair to the lad he had a much better second half when he put the left back under all sorts of pressure. Neilson is an enigma. On his day-unplayable but spent all game today cutting inside amongst the massed ranks of their defence.
Big Chris is right IMO about a lack of intelligence. The big ball up to LJL when employed was meat and drink to Clayton. What is unforgivable is that those balls were still being played after LJL had been subbed-but to Hannah!
The midfield didn't get their customary grip on the game with Clay in particular out of sorts.
I listened to the phone in on RH on the way home and some lad said that Hannah was Town's best player. For me there was none of the hard running and harrassing of defenders that he did to such good effect on Saturday. His night was topped off by the absolutely woeful free kick in stoppage time.
Town's MOM? For me Magnay by a country mile.

Agree with Magnay, guess it's all my fault?

Quoted from timmo

IMO them tactics were completely wrong. We saw after 10 / 15 min there knew how we would 'play'  we should have tweaked it. IMO move scotty behind the front 2. Take Mackreth off.

We were flat boring and predictable.

They definitely did not come and park the bus they were just more organised and had more fight.

On another. How come everyone chanted more about Brodie than grimsby tonight. Give him 5 min of shite and cheer on our team.

Timmo


UTM

Unfortunately Timmo, his 5 mins of being a tosser was 4 min 54 seconds longer than we had anything to cheer our team about. (I've given 3 seconds each half for us coming out the tunnel)

Totally agree about Magnay, barralad, i thought he played well, made some fantastic runs and could of scored too.

Quoted from grimsby pete

The manager picks the players,

The manager chooses the tactics,

The manager is not to blame ?

Smell the coffee Chris.

He sure does but I am sure he didn't tell the midfield to play in a line across the pitch and never even attempt to make a run beyond the strikers. We lined up like a table football team

Players too have to take responsibility.

You could tell after 10 mins that  when we had the ball Southport would have 8 behind the ball, we were too slow to get at them, passed it in front of them. If players can't do anything to change things on their own then the manager should have changed it much sooner. Even switching the wide men over, moving Nielson ( who was very lucky not to get a red card) into a totally free role, take Parslow off  and play another striker. The fact that neither the players or the manager tried anything until it was too late says it all.

BTW I can't stand coffee

However poorly we played we did however create the two best chances of the game at 0-0, LJL on both occassions failing to finish.

It's just getting so boring now this consistent inconsistency . It's obvious if we're going to get out this league we need 2 new strikers cos Hannah and LJL will never score the goals we require . Pitman is ok but will always be injured , which was obvious when we signed him . All summer to bring in some quality up front and he failed basically .