Just Back

My thoughts also, Barralad. My first game this season, and I have to say Ogbu reminded me of Serge Makofo. Hopefully he was just having an off day.

Crewe set their stall out in the first 10 mins.  Good passing, movement, pressing and pace.  They deserved their win.

Our plan A was to hit it long to Hanson.  Many of the lay-offs did not work.  Plan B to stop them having possession  was for Ogbu to run the ball out of play.

The penalty summed up our day.

Crewe were always keen to break in numbers.  They had 6 players in our box in an attack exactly on 80 mins.  They were far more mobile than we were.

We move on - after given a football lesson today.

Quoted from barralad

Owing to illness first game I've been to in the league since Morecambe..
Crewe kept the ball well first half but apart from Hendrie being under some pressure from their excellent right winger they didn't really threaten much. The back four looked generally well organised, the midfield put a shift in although looked a bit too deep at times. Ogbu has the capacity to cause delight and despair in equal measure. First half he looked on occasions like the ball was stuck to his feet. It was a remarkable piece of quick thinking which led to the penalty. Second half he looked like he'd have trouble trapping a bag of cement.
Hanson is huge in every meaningful aspect of the word. Massively important player for us and has more to his game than being the best target man since Lump.
Even allowing for any goalkeeping infringement the penalty wasn't great.
Second half we were caught cold and from then on in were really up against it. For all the times we got the ball into their box we failed to work the keeper.
The subs failed to give us the extra impetus we might have expected-particularly Wright who was eased out of the game by their defence.
The second goal was inconsequential other than to cause a mass exodus. We had to go for it and got caught with a very well taken effort.
Doubt we'll come up  against many better sides both ability and organisationally wise.

Hope you’re fully recovered Barra. Thought there was something missing from this board 😊.

What Barra said really.
Really disappointed tonight.  

Disappointed, but no complaints. Everything seemed to start with their no.2, Ng. Faster in thought and physical movement all over the pitch. Best team I’ve seen at BP for some time. Onwards. Still a very good start to the season and we may have just played the champions.

My view? We where not careful enough with the ball, passed it poorly, wasted too many dead ball situations  and allowed Crewe’s movement to break our shape on too many occasions.

I would say though that we where beaten by a better side and credit to them they have some good footballers at this level even though their manager is an ignorant tw@t.

I was really disappointed that Jolley didn’t cotton on that from early on we where struggling in the middle of the park and add a man to midfield. A mid field that at times looked a bit disorganised with Cooke being pushed back far too deep stifling any creativity.

After they scored the first I think we lacked the composure on the ball that has brought us back from behind in recent weeks but we still got into some good positions without working their keeper too hard.

Not going to single out anyone for criticism as you can’t be on top form every week but thought both CB’s actually looked solid and Hess was good once again.

So I don’t think it was even “a bad day at the office” just that the best team won.

The good thing is there is a game on Tuesday where the players can put today to bed with a good win, Mac are flying in comparison to last season so we’ll need to be much better than today, from what I’ve seen this season I’m sure we will be.

UTM!

Big disappointment was that they clearly decided to sit back for the last 15 minutes or so to defend and try to break. Our tactic of whacking it forward from our own half didn't change as we'd given up all semblance of trying to pass by then. Nothing wrong with using Hanson, but you've got to try something else as well.

Suggest the max exodus at the end was people scurrying home to watch England

Quoted from mimma

As for the penalty,  the keeper moved off the line before Henson hit it. The linesman was on the line and should have signalled it to be retaken.

What's the point of the linesman on the touchline if he doesn't do his job properly?

Just watched the highlights, keeper was ar least a foot of his line when ball was struck

Think most posters have hit the nail on the head and the better team won. Penalty may have changed the course of the game but we will never know. First half whilst Crewe managed the ball better without really creating any problems but that changed immediately after the break and after that we were at time reminiscent of last seasons team and a little clueless on the creative front.

Hendrie, Ogbu, Green & Whitehouse all below par today which doesn’t help but as others have said the big disappointment was MJ’s failure to adjust our tactics after half hour but certainly at half time. The current formation is too narrow leaving the opposition’s wide players/full backs the freedom of the park to advance play or provide the option for an easy ball to relieve pressure on their defence. Surprisingly, given we are very narrow Green & Ogbu are very rarely close to Hanson and a lot of second balls just fall to the opposition. Thought we should have switched to 4-4-2 today with Wright and Robson coming on much earlier.

Would also agree that in home matches we are not good at times in getting behind the team and tend to be reactive rather than proactive in giving verbal support, I being as guilty as everyone else but found the mass walk out a bit embarrassing as would have been good to demonstrate we are still behind the team despite this setback.

Let’s hope it is a blip and no reason tonight to think it is anything worse and a good result Tuesday would certainly help recovery.