Reserves Face Stags

Quoted from Civvy at last

I think the quality of the opposition might have something to do with it Pete 🤔

I suspect that our first team would struggle to score against a side from the blind Olympics.

Leaky defence in the reserves also......

Quoted from Civvy at last

I wouldn't have thought so.  I reckon he's the most talented of our strikers.  Just happens to have the worst attitude !!

Totally agree, iffy attitude but if we want someone to hold the ball and hopefully score the odd goal then think he is as good as we have, maybe not the greatest compliment but may be worth a try if we are trying to play the ball on the floor.

It’s an odd one with Hooper. I think he’s scored the same amount as Matt, with less than half of the amount of starts. So you’d assume if he’d have started the same amount of games we’d have had a few more goals!

There’s something not quite working for him though.

As for the ressies, I think we made a bunch of changes and brought on youngsters towards the end.

Quoted from sam gy

There’s something not quite working for him though.

Same thing that wasn't working for him at Vale he's lazy. All the quality in the world won't get you anywhere without effort.

I still maintain that Hooper is probably our most technically gifted striker, however he let's himself down with his work ethic at times. Unfortunately you can't coach heart!

I've never understood professional footballers who don't give 100% every game. Do they not realise how long lucky they are to be able to play football and get paid for it. Surely the very least a fan can expect is every player working their socks off and putting their bodies on the line.

How a player can walk off the pitch knowing they've given less than the required effort and still look at themselves in the mirror!

Quoted from Mighty_Mariner

I still maintain that Hooper is probably our most technically gifted striker, however he let's himself down with his work ethic at times. Unfortunately you can't coach heart!

I've never understood professional footballers who don't give 100% every game. Do they not realise how long lucky they are to be able to play football and get paid for it. Surely the very least a fan can expect is every player working their socks off and putting their bodies on the line.

How a player can walk off the pitch knowing they've given less than the required effort and still look at themselves in the mirror!

Totally understand where you are coming from, as most of us would give our right arm to play football (or have the ability to) at any decent level.

But, am sure many of us have walked into our office/workplace and thought 'what am I doing here/I can't be bothered today'

It's a shame, because walking onto a pitch in front of 4000 people in a (half decent!) stadium, should be enough to put a spring in your step

The thing I don't get with footballers not putting effort in is the potential financial rewards on offer in what is a short career. At the top end of League 1, wages can be life changing and even more so as you progress up to the Premier League.

I think Hooper probably covers plenty of ground when he plays so there isn't perhaps the lack of effort that you might think. It's just that he's not a battler - he's not going to back into defenders and doesn't get 'stuck in' in the way that some players do. This is why it was a terrible idea to try and play him as a target man, something which Slade attempted a few times. He took his goal against Colchester pretty well, as I recall - outpaced the defender, held off the challenge and finished well so he's not completely lacking in effort.

I know he played alongside Vernon in a few games, but has he ever played alongside Matt? Might be worth a punt, especially if we can get wide men putting some crosses into the box.

And to make things worse, look at the tweets from yesterday, Kelly was delivering "great balls" into the box........never seen a decent ball into our opposition box all season and if we ever do Matt would be there but couldn`t reach it as he hasn`t got the ability to jump over a snake!!....