just back

Quoted from pontoonlew

Astonishingly a large proportion rate Hewitt more than Hendrie.

Then again, our fans do have a proud history of rating poor players.

Perhaps you should apply for the manager job next time it's available.

Quoted from DB

Team selection for Orient on Tuesday :-

Eastwood

10 anothers

who must have Black and white shirts, football boots and ability to ignore managers negative instructions.

Somebody suggested Hewitt?

The way I saw the match was Eastwood oused composure, ability, control and looks to be a first class goalkeeper in the making. He wasn't perfect but he's still learning.

I didn't see any outstanding class players in the other 10. They are paid to do a professional and failed miserably. No composure on the ball couldn't make a decent pass and played like a Sunday league side. I didn't see one bit of passion motivation or leadership. If they were paid on results they'd in the dole queue for hand outs.

Quoted from dapperz fun pub

Totally agree seems to be able to produce a winning under 18 team but getting them to full time pros seems a step to far. Woods job is to produce players for our first team he’s not delivering

I would argue it is not Woods role to develop them once they leave the youth team and sign professional terms. This is were things seem to go wrong, players don't progress. The youth team have good results, this can't be a fluke, it's because the players are good. The problem is there is no one to develop them once they join the first team. To be fair to Holloway he highlighted this and I think would have eventually done something about it. We need a manager/ coaching team capable and more importantly wanting to develop them at this stage. Hopefully this will happen with the new owners. I think Woods does all he can and gets good players to a certain stage. It's what's after that needs looking at.

Quoted from Vance Warner

Strange comment. Can think of more good players that haven’t been rated than poor ones who have. I rate Hewitt more than Hendrie who I think has really regressed this season. More pace and better going forward especially with his long throw. Sign of the times that he was signed as a squad player 18 months ago and has become increasingly important as we’ve got worse.

Fair comment, I think it’s a bit of a split personally but I see your point. Especially given the sheer number of players who have gone onto better things after fans not rating them but in the same breath they’ve happily seen some managers flog dead horses who’ve then disappeared into the abyss.

I guess when you’ve been served up shite for long enough you stop recognising it.

Quoted from pontoonlew

Fair comment, I think it’s a bit of a split personally but I see your point. Especially given the sheer number of players who have gone onto better things after fans not rating them but in the same breath they’ve happily seen some managers flog dead horses who’ve then disappeared into the abyss.

I guess when you’ve been served up shite for long enough you stop recognising it.

Totally agree with you. Eastwood has shown us what a professional player should do

Quoted from HarrogateMariner

I would argue it is not Woods role to develop them once they leave the youth team and sign professional terms. This is were things seem to go wrong, players don't progress. The youth team have good results, this can't be a fluke, it's because the players are good. The problem is there is no one to develop them once they join the first team. To be fair to Holloway he highlighted this and I think would have eventually done something about it. We need a manager/ coaching team capable and more importantly wanting to develop them at this stage. Hopefully this will happen with the new owners. I think Woods does all he can and gets good players to a certain stage. It's what's after that needs looking at.

It’s a point I grant you that theirs no one to transition them to the next stages but even without that nobody as come through surely not everyone misses the net.  

Quoted from pontoonlew

Astonishingly a large proportion rate Hewitt more than Hendrie.

Then again, our fans do have a proud history of rating poor players.

I rate them both equal, both are way below the standard we need.

Even nearly 48 hours on my eyes are still bleeding from one of the worst games of football anyone is ever likely to have witnessed.  Absolutely dreadful.

Sadly our performance matched the quality of the game.

First off, I kinda get what Hurst was doing in his team selection.  Harrogate are a big unit of a side who relied very heavily on the long throw of Jones.  Hurst simply tried to combat this by putting out his most physical side.  Sacrified his two slight wingers for bigger players, Coke in for his extra height over Rose.    On paper and just in terms of nullifying their threat from set-pieces, I've no issue with this at all.  The only player we had who wasn't a big lad was Matete.

The problem is that it totally limited any threat we had, Hanson and Payne up front with absolutely no support was painful to watch.  Neither is much of a mover and whilst Hanson won the odd flick-on, it never came to anything at all.  Really could have done with LJL on earlier, maybe even starting, to offer more movement up top and a press on their defence.  Was frustrating watching either their centre-back or full-backs carry the ball out 40/50 yards.  

In an ideal world we wouldn't worry about other teams but unfortunately we're absolutely pants so we have to.  Had we started with Adams and Morais, that's two bigger guys out the eleven and puts us under a lot more pressure from their long throws.

I think Hurst got it wrong but I'm not gonna hang him out to dry as I can see what he was thinking.  We're crap and grinding out points away is probably the best we can hope for.

We've got to find that right balance.  I don't trust us defensively and I don't have confidence in our attack and/or midfield to create chances.   From my mind we've got 3 players who look capable of creating something.  Morais, Adams and Matete.  I want to include El Mizouni in there but he feels a bit of a luxury player, probably a proper No 10 type who you have to accommodate into the side.  Few occasions when he went running at their defence he caused problems, but he didn't do it often enough.  

If we go 5 at the back we're completely penned in, 3 at the back with attacking wingbacks is far too open.  So it has to be a back 4 for me.  In midfield we need at least one to protect the defence and then up top I've been disappointed by Payne after his debut goal (crap service acknowledged) and Hanson isn't mobile enough to play up top alone.  That leaves LJL to either do the thankless task up front on his own or partnered with one of the other two.

The three creative players I've mentioned (Adams, Morais and Matete) are, in my opinion, our best hope of survival.  We have to get them on the pitch and involved in play further forward.  With Matete it creates the issue of who plays deeper.  You can have Coke holding and then (if going with one up top), Rose.  But that's incredibly defensive minded.  I'd be tempted to gamble with Matete alongside Coke, accepting that you're losing his attacking ability but at least you've got him on the pitch, bringing El Mizouni in with a remit to be out there to attack and hurt teams, playing completely off the striker.  Adams and Morais high and wide to support.

I suppose it's 5 guys out there to defend (back four and Coke), one guy just doing what he can (Matete) and four (as our attacking threat (Morais, El Mizouni and Adams + striker).   Basics but it's the only way I can imagine we start to have a hope of picking enough points up.

After the Crawley game I was genuinely convinced of survival.  I thought we had enough heart to battle our way out.  After Saturday I've never felt quite so flat, well a long time since anyway.  Really disappointing that we didn't seem to have any real leaders out there.

that's an excellent post/summing up diehard.
ps think it'll be coke and morais doing the leading and i think they're both capable of doing so

Quoted from DB

Somebody suggested Hewitt?

The way I saw the match was Eastwood oused composure, ability, control and looks to be a first class goalkeeper in the making. He wasn't perfect but he's still learning.

I didn't see any outstanding class players in the other 10. They are paid to do a professional and failed miserably. No composure on the ball couldn't make a decent pass and played like a Sunday league side. I didn't see one bit of passion motivation or leadership. If they were paid on results they'd in the dole queue for hand outs.

Easy tiger! I played in a brilliant Sunday League side and we had some players who were very composed on the ball!!! It was only carthorses like me who let the side down.