Just back

Goes without saying that we were dreadful. FGR were sharper and first to every loose ball. They looked physically fitter than us. And our individual and collective errors suggest we were mentally unprepared also.

4 proper pre-season matches. 2 of which were against NPL opposition. We looked like a team half way through a pre-season. Jolley is entitled to his opinion that what happens on the training ground is more importany than friendlies, but without checking I bet there isn’t another club in the EFL 72 who played so few proper matches.

Jolley probably sees himself as some sort of visionary new coach with new ideas. However you can’t reinvent the wheel. Preseason is about being prepared for day 1. We were miles off the pace today- physically and mentally.

If Jolley is still manager in 12 months I would expect we’d have the more conventional 7-8 friendly matches.

Actually I checked FGR. They had 9 pre-season matches. They had 2 fixtures on consecutive days twice, so probably means their players all got 7 games under them before today.

Their keeper today showed why you shouldn't hand out three-year deals based mainly on sentimentality. He won absolutely everything within 20 yards of his goal - throw-ins, corners, long balls, everything. Absolutely immense and a huge presence, we never even got close to causing their defence a problemm which is a worry when most of your attacking threat comes from set plays. McKeown's been here 7 years now and his command of the box has always been a problem, but for me he's shown no improvement at all in this part of his game - are we going to be stuck with this for the next three years while potentially missing out on opportunities available?

That aside, I think FGR had us sussed from minute 1 and we never showed any sign of shaking them off. Welsh marked out of the game and if we're planning to play out from the back, that position in front of the back 3/5 is crucial to the tempo and moving the ball/oppo around. He didn't get a sniff, so you're hoping for Rose or Woolford to make themselves available for the wing-backs or centre halfs but neither really seemed to want it, or at least very rarely got themselves into a position to receive it with a view to developing the play. Players didn't look comfortable with the ball at their feet, and that coupled with the lack of options meant the easy option was to clip it into the channels or onto the heads of their centre halves.

All that said, I'm not overly arsed and I think people need to calm down a bit. Obviously it's disappointing given the build up and the fact that the back of end of last season has been romanticised beyond all recognition, but all the wailing and gnashing of teeth is a bit embarassing. Are we going to make those kinds of mistakes - 25 yard own goals, free headers 7 yards out, mis-hit backpasses - every week? Of course not.

There's plenty to work on, but if you can't look at that today and laugh then fuckinell, you're taking it all too seriously.

Quoted from TAGG

There was plenty of dog excrement out there today so why people are picking on Dixon is beyond me.

The whole team were that bad that Gunning looked a world beater 😵😵😵😵

Probably because he has been cack in just about every game he has played.

Dixon would be in my top performers today. No, I don't think he's a particularly good player, but quite frankly it's pathetic that he's getting so much focus when there were 7 or 8 worse players than him today.

On that evidence and after Jolly's scathing comments about the team not sticking to the plan I will be very disappointed if he starts with that eleven again.

We really did look bereft of any ideas. Collins was dithering with the ball unable to find a player up front and was left with passing it back to a defender or Macca or even worse sticking it in his own fecking net.

Where was the five-man midfield? where was the playmaker? where was the movement OFF the ball?

FFS Where was somebody who actually WANTED the ball? Clifton looked out of his depth, in the end, he just did not want the ball he wasn't alone in that though.

We looked a complete shambles talk about plans on that evidence it was clear the players did not.could not play to the plan the starting eleven were not up to it.

We just looked laboured and lacking in ideas resorting in long aimless hoofs feeding Gav Gunning and co.

What happened to all that good short passing and movement in preseason?

To me, Jolley has to pick a different starting eleven Hessenthaler and Venaram should be part of it. In the preseason certainly, Hessenthaler looked good better than some of the others anyway..

He made one fantastic run from the flank and cut in from the by line causing havoc and was unlucky not to score or lay it back for a tap in.

Quoted from davmariner

To add to that, Clifton had one of the worst individual performances that I think I’ve ever seen at BP. Felt for the lad as he was getting a bit of stick from the Ponny. I like him as a player but shouldn’t have been played at RWB to start with.

Not surprised he struggled, he had two men an awful lot of the time today - they’d obviously targeted our right hand side

Well that was miserable.

I actually blame the players more than anyone else. If you are playing 3-5-2 then the idea is to pack the midfield therefore you have to play through the midfield on the deck. But we didn't do that so obviously something has gone awry and they weren't playing the game plan.

For their first goal whoever was on the backpost got his body into an awful position and allowed that header accross the goal and I've got to ask why nobody was pushing onto the man to stop the cross.

Their second goal was clearly just a balls up. Entirely Collins fault.

The third goal none of our defenders attacked the ball and it was a free header and RHJ backpass was appaling for the fourth.

Davis was the best defender and although he looked technically good still had a poor game. Collins and Clifton were quite simply dreadful.

Midfield, were constantly bypassed. Welsh got MOM not sure for what, but at least he didn't make any major errors. Woolford went missing. Rose was probably our best player.

Upfront the service to Cook was truly appalling, it's clear he isn't going to win much in the air, but having said that he didn't really make much. If Hooper is our main striker this season we will be relegated.

On the plus side Hessenthaller looked decent when he came on.

it's one game, I think Jolley has made mistakes preseason, especially with the number of games FGR just looked much sharper. But young managers make mistakes, Hurst made mistakes (Parslow @Chester for example) but he's clearly a good coach suspect we will be going back to last season formation fairly quickly.

Hopefully this is a bit like Braintree 5-0 for Hurst a bit of an aberration. Roll on Macclesfield.

Awful performance, we don't have the right personal for 5-3-2, we would need Koiki left and RHJ right, at the moment Jolley has to go back to last season formation.

We just booted the ball Slade style, no guile, no creativity, the forwards don't run the channels like Amond did.

We was awful 1st half, I thought at ht if we Win it will mask poor performance, I don't believe the Mckeown kit colour being the problem Collins just didn't look.

All the optimisation has gone, after Jolley did a job marketing the club.

Also what about the loud music the club had gone back to the guy and system where you can't hear a word he says.

I keep reading about it going back to slade hoofball ... what I saw was the opposite. They’ve obviously been drilled that we will play out from the back , fullbacks get out wide every opportunity. Just looked so predictable every time that FGR came out second half with the instructions not to give any town player time on the ball . You could instantly see the panic set it and the lads heads went and FGR just stepped up the passing when they won the ball in our half and did us easy .
The equaliser came from DC trying to do a clever pass up to Hooper ( who DC then tried to blame ) and then a panicked back pass under pressure led to OG of the season . Heads totally gone led to 2 more poor goals .
Go back to the 4231 that worked so well last season and a couple more signings , 1 a proper striker please !
Fair play to FGR they look a good side tho .