On way back/Just Back on the bus (merged)

The keeper needs dropping. He’s absolute junk and anyone saying “he wins us more points than he costs us” got a perfect display of why that’s such garbage tonight.

At 1-0 we were having our best spell of the night and looked almost nailed on to score soon. Their keeper saves 1-on-1 from Efete then somehow gets a hand to Taylor’s effort from a yard out, 20 seconds later they break and McKeown watches another pea roller trickle past him into the middle of his net. Game over.

Anything in & around their 6-yard box their keeper claimed, snuffed out our attack and killed our momentum. Anything coming into McKeown’s 6-yard area was either flapped at or left completely hoping it would drift past everyone. It keeps us under pressure. Absolute garbage week in week out.

Quoted from barralad

I should probably wait until the morning for this but here goes.
That was truly woeful. The performances against Wrexham, Altrincham and Woking are a distant memory.
If you are going to play Pearson and Waterfall together then their simply has to be some cover with a bit of pace.
The first goal came from the best single pass of the night but the defending from the eventual cross was abject.
Solihull didn't have to do much apart from wait for us to give them the ball back which we did with alarming regularity.
Gone are the inventive, incisive moves from the likes of Clifton, Sousa and Hunt. They've been replaced by monumentally poor first touches and wayward passing denying the team any momentum.
When we did get within striking range the new all too apparent lack of confidence restricted attempts at goal. Their keeper made a couple of reflex saves from goal mouth scrambles but other than that had a far more comfortable night than he should have had.
For once Mcatee was unable to stamp his mark on the game-despite having longer to try to do so than Hurst normally gives his subs.
The second goal was hysterical in its ineptitude. Yes we were pushing for an equaliser but considering the experience in the team the right to expect someone to have covered the possibility of the such a break was obvious. I'm not keen on singling out individuals but Clifton merely escorted their lad towards the goal. The Clifton of a month ago would have done far better. The least said about Maccas contribution the better but it was akin to your favourite pet dog laying down expecting to gets its tummy tickled.
There was still time for a Solihull player to run along the goal line swatting away "tackles" before Macca partially redeemed himself to prevent a salt rubbing in third.
Not many positives but Bell looked more than useful in patches until he was confronted with the reality that Town's forward line have to be expert foragers able to fashion chances out of pitifully weak service.
Towns MOM (at least in my view) by a country mile was Efete. Defended more than adequately and offered a real threat going forward which Solihull found difficult to deal with.
Borehamwood Saturday. Not sure where Hurst goes to try to get tonight's players "up for it" but I'd put my mortgage on Mcatee starting.

Agree with all of this.

Macca needs a rest. His positioning for the second was terrible leaving the near post and half of that side of the goal gaping wide open. Solihull had yet another keeper in this league that's far better at coming for crosses than McKeown. Crocombe needs to start. He must be competent or else why would Hurst have signed him. Efete was tremendous tonight, a nine out of ten performance in a team of fours and fives. The first was easily avoidable if we stop ball watching in our own box and start picking up men instead.

Looking at our team objectively, we probably need a bit more pace and a bit more physicality to push for the top spot. We've got decent players but it's clear there's a lack of confidence and a clarity of thought. What also doesn't help is we seem to have lost our identity. When the players were firing I don't think it mattered much about how our team set up or our style of play as player for player ours were mostly better than the oppos, but lose a bit of form, confidence or one or two key players we need a playing style to fall back on. Are we going to be a front foot high press high energy team winning the ball high up the pitch? Or are we going to sucker teams in, sit deep and hit them on the break? At the minute we look neither, we look lost and end up playing ponderous pretty triangles and endless square passes as our opponents use the time to assemble their two banks of five as Solihull did tonight. Our defenders were at least ten yards too deep tonight as were our midfielders, we hunted in ones and twos instead of threes and fours and made it so easy for them at times. And we're so static and rigid positionally when we have the ball in forward areas.

If we play the high pressing game we need our quickest centre half pairing which will be Towler and Longe-King and if we play a deep lying counter attacking game possibly the pair that played tonight as there will be less space behind them to get caught out for pace and the need for their aerial superiority. The players haven't turned into bad players overnight, they've just turned into a bad team. As McAtee has returned, I'd like us to revert to the high press and if so hope that Hurst plays the most suitable centre half pairing for us not to be outdone by hopeful and hurried punts upfield..

Quoted from Davec

Paul Hurst said he feels we did enough to win tonight

Trying to look at the game as a neutral.. on balance of play, chances created, possession etc, a draw would have probably been a fair result. I agree with one or two who have already said that if we'd have scored just before their second, we'd have gone on to win. They were on their knees at that point. But in no way should we have won or am I excusing that highly frustrating performance.. We should be so much better than this..

That was poor tonight. Too many players nowhere near the level we needed. I was surprised that their keeper got MOM as I didn’t think he had too much to do. We need a spark and hopefully a big home crowd can give us that on Saturday.

Did anyone else get back to the car to a parking ticket? Topped off a bad night.

I did hear about the tickets before going to the game - I left my car on the housing estate just up the road past the stadium - where you leave yours?

Another ground off the list and always good to get to a night game but wow what a depressing soulless place And a disappointing away game yet again and second best to quite a drab but solid looking side

And Efete being our most dangerous player going forward tells it all really - all round we was second best to everything all night

The rot needs to stop and soon
Two massive months ahead which will shape our season

On the plus side, I thought Bell looked really tidy with a decent touch, awareness and enthusiasm. He’ll do well if we don’t revert to type and start punting it long for him to chase.

At the height of our good run I’d heaped praise onto Hurst, I said that he’d turned a corner and we looked far more progressive and he came across very upbeat which was reflected onto the pitch.

I look now and it’s exactly the same now as it was in the bad old days, it’s taken a matter of weeks to revert to type. Struggling to get back into games when we go behind and seemingly only having one idea, on top of that sounding absolutely flipping dour in interviews with no real spark at all. I don’t understand the dropping of Towler when the mistake of playing two slow cbs was the root of us leaking goals at the start of the season. I also don’t get why Sousa is walking into this side when Bapaga was improving with every game, I don’t think we’ve won a single penalty since he was benched? Macca needs dropping immediately too.

I think it’s become increasingly obvious that we’re a 1 man team and without McAtee in the team we look bang average. McAtee is not your classic Hurst player, he’s a maverick who causes a real spark for the rest of the team which drags them away from this shite ‘do not lose’ brand of football. Now he’s back, I feel much better but we need a severe kick up the bottom.

Fine margins in football. We had a couple of half chances in the first 10 and didn't take them. They carved us open down our left, which it looked like they'd targeted and took it very well. Thought we then had the better of the half but were too sloppy to make much though Waterfall should have scored from a corner. Second half started poorly but we were just getting on top. Had two very good chances which we didn't take and ten seconds later it was game over.

Have to add that it was an awful, awful experience as an away fan regardless of the game. Arrived at 5.45 to be told the car park was full and redirected to an NCP car park over a mile away. Arrived to signs saying it closed at 9pm and confused Town fans trying to get some guarantee it wouldn't.

Quick pint in a soul destroying Holiday Inn and then the fun of trying to get two kids across an extremely busy dual carriageway with no pedestrian crossing. Zig-zagged down another busy road having to cross repeatedly, dodging the heavy traffic heading to Land Rover as there was no single footpath. Finally a pedestrian crossing to get to the ground except no path on the other side of it so a final cower from the oncoming traffic.

Finally back at the ground to find a car park with plenty of spaces free and spoke to people who'd arrived after 6 and been able to park. Into the ground and just insufficient facilities for the number of away fans. Queued for 30 minutes for food and 10 minutes for a urine. Then a excrement game before the return to the car. Basically see the above paragraph but in reverse and without the pint.

Those who claim the only thing that matters about the 'matchday experience' is the result should go to Solihull Moors and then see how they feel. A win would have massively improved the trip but I would have still had considerable misgivings about ever going there again.

The wheels seem to have come off at the moment but the fact is that we are still only 4 points off top spot and a win on Saturday will move us up to second place. So all is not lost.

The players we raved over a few weeks ago don’t become bad players in a month. We know they have ability, we have all seen it.  So a turnaround in results is certainly possible.

This will be a test of Hursts ability to instil some confidence in the squad. But I believe that one morale boosting performance might kick start the team again at a time when we have some tough fixtures ahead.

I hope Saturday is the game which turns us around.