Just Back

Quoted from diehardmariner

Same old story isn't it.

Let's not kid ourselves, Stockport let us back into that game.  They were about fifty levels above us in the first 20 minutes and it was only when started pissing themselves laughing at the quality of their second penalty that they stopped playing and we got a kick.

Holohan aside in the majority of the first half we were flipping awful.  He was the only one who looked to the balls about him to get on the ball and try and do something with it.  

We can whinge about their third goal all we like but Amos practically dribbled the ball like he was Michael Jordon for Wilson's goal.  

The performance did improve and whilst it was definitely more about them letting us back into it, why does it take for us to go a couple of goals behind to wake up?  As the game went on a players improved, Conteh went from looking like someone who had won a competition to stand aimlessly as a fourth centre-back to slightly resembling the player we signed in the summer.  Clifton got the bit between his teeth and looked up for it but his touch and general form has just abandoned him altogether.

Losing Holohan did us.  Soon as he went off we lost our intensity and a little bit of drive from midfield into attack.  I can kinda see why Hurst went with Khan as the change, probably thinking someone a bit cuter on the ball but with 20 minutes out that game was going to be won or lost by grinding it out in a a similar way to how Gav had done for the previous 70 minutes.  I'm not saying Andrews or Hunt would have replicated his role, but probably more so than what Khan did.

That we then went 20 more minutes of chasing the game without making a change was incredibly frustrating.  Didn't get the feeling that they believed in themselves and we definitely didn't play like a side who were chasing a point, a badly needed point at that.  We just fizzed out as the clock ran down.  

If Hurst somehow turns it round and survives the chop, that missed penalty is the turning point for him.  The crowd had already gone toxic and you could feel it brewing away in the stand.  The miss and then Wilson's goal did enough to really stop it boiling over.  

Louie Barry is a cheat-code in this division though. That's up there with one of the most dominant performances from a player I've seen in an opposition shirt, certainly in the first half.  To say he tore our right hand side a new anus is an understatement.