Just back

OK, I've had a few sherbets but wasn't it flipping BRILLIANT to see us win with a little bit of skill, style and panache for once in too flipping long of a long time! 😁
Black clouds lifting! 😁 ☀ 😎

Quoted from ginnywings

According to their manager, it was our "cup final". Morecambe FFS.

Same said by one of their players in a post match interview, who intimated we didn't play much football.

More digs than British Coal “long ball” “cup final” never mentioned “3 points last as we couldn’t be @rsed to play until the last 10 minutes” 🙄

Can I add I have enjoyed reading the fishy tonight with most posters only saying positive things.

How does Adams know every teams budget to say his is the lowest in the league ffs

Quoted from Hagrid

How i knew you’d respond when Hunt’s name is mentioned. I support the whole squad. I go week in week out home and away. I never boo, and I never will, I just dont think its going to work out for him here thats all I was saying

Really? Last weekend you were claiming "you cannot play Glennon" (receipt here - https://forum.thefishy.co.uk/Blah.pl?m-1699190067/s-210/#num215) and today it was a toss up between him and Green for man of the match. Writing off Hunt on the basis of a brief cameo while we're defending a 2 goal lead is ridiculous (and the goal we conceded while he was on the pitch had nothing to do with him and at least two other substitutes were at fault for it, yet you've not mentioned their names, funny that).

Just back in foggy Leeds. Wow. Turns out you can still enjoy football.

I woke up up this morning with an overwhelming sense of “I don’t think I can be ársed”. A three hour round trip to witness almost certain defeat, and probably a turgid one to boot? What would be the point? Alas, like an alcoholic with a stinking hangover, the power of habit and an illogical sense of necessity got the better of me, and I made the journey. Did I mention I had a stinking hangover? It had better be good…

I was approaching the end of the A180 when the team news arrived via JT on the radio. Blimey. 6 changes!? No fúcking about there. It took some time to mentally process the changes made. No Clifton or Conteh? Bold. Pyke starts? Very fúcking bold.

But did it give me confidence in a result? Not really, no lineup would have. I posted in the week, in response to the idea that the crowd should arrive loud and proud to back the team, that it would ultimately come down to what the players did on the pitch. Start poorly, concede an early soft goal, as I thought we might well, and you lose any good will those in the stands arrived with.

So what did we do? Ironically, 69 seconds is all it took for our defence to part like the legs of a Lithuanian hooker, giving Morecambe a golden opportunity and receiving heavy blow at the same time. Get me. Wasn’t I prescient? Time for the crowd to turn nasty, and the players to wilt.

Except none of that happened. The crowd stayed behind the team. The players knuckled down and got on top of things. Perhaps I wasn’t so prescient after all. As it would transpire, I definitely wasn’t. But fair play to all concerned for that response.  

The effort levels on the back of that early goal, quite literally the last thing we needed, were incredible. Glennon, Khan and Andrews linking down the left were superb, and all Morecambe had to offer was a series of niggly fouls that eventually began to draw yellow cards due to the quantity of them.

But there was still something important missing. For all the effort, for all the guile, for all the confidence you could see steadily building, we couldn’t score for toffee. With our best chance of the half, Holohan cleared the bar by a good 6 yards when it was surely easier to score. Would we ever score?

Just as I was suggesting that we most definitely would not, fresh from a half-time pint, their ‘keeper drops the ball on Kieran Green’s head, it falls to Danny, Danny Rose, and he sticks it into the gaping net. Of course he does.

And then before I can even take stock of that goal, there’s the second. The fúcking second!! Get the fúcking fúck in!! I didn’t see that coming. What a great ball in from Glennon, the header from Rose and the calm, casual, side-footed volley from Green. This isn’t taken from this season’s script, is it?

And then, before too long, there’s the third! The fúcking fúcking third!! What’s going on!? I’m sat at the perfect angle in the lower as Holohan picks up the ball on the edge of the Morecambe box, and I can see the opportunity on play the ball through to Glennon on the left opening up, but it’s so tight, it needs threading through two Shrimpers defenders with such precision it’s a huge ask. But thread it he does, and Glennon plays it first-time into the six-yard box for Pyke to bundle home. He almost got another shortly after, too. His selection vindicated. Completely.

Morecambe’s late goal made things a bit interesting, in a game that had everything really, but I have newfound confidence in young Harvey Cartwright in goal, who stopped everything he had a right to today. Chuffed for the lad. He made a couple of brilliant saves, and looked confident in general.

In context, the most enjoyable league game at BP since our return to the EFL. It was a win, and performance, we needed. It was a win, and performance, I needed. Way too early to be suggesting a Pearson / Davies combo as a viable option as our next management team; but today they were asked to manage a game, and boy did they manage it well - from start to finish. Everything they did was logical and absolutely spot on.

Well done, gents.

Nothing much to add, other than that I’m really pleased for Shaun and Ben who I know will be putting the hours in.

A couple of observations in that I thought Maher once again looked shaky initially but did grow into the game. Is there a confidence issue with him? More generally I do feel that defensively we miss that strong, commanding, leadership presence at the back.

Easy for me to say in hindsight but thought moving Clifton to left back and bringing Hunt on was perhaps a sub too far and made us more vulnerable (and cost us that second goal). If we were making changes to shore us up at the back, I’d have brought Waterfall on to win those headers and get the ball away from the box into row z.

Well done to Harvey Cartwright too, who has stepped up, proving people wrong who’d written him off and provided us with that solidity when it looked as if we were heading towards a real goalkeeping crisis.

Just remembered another thing from today: whoever it was who was so desperate to beat some pedestrians crossing to get into the road coming out of Sidney Park that you went straight into the car in front of you: well done 🤪

Quoted from LH

Just remembered another thing from today: whoever it was who was so desperate to beat some pedestrians crossing to get into the road coming out of Sidney Park that you went straight into the car in front of you: well done 🤪

Similarly the male private who thought it was clever to race in front of my dad who is struggling with a stick at the moment, now has a lovely dent in the back of his shitty little car. I may or may not have done that.

I
d barely parked my backside and flipped the lid off my bottle of beer and we were one down. Bloody hell!   We had a couple of scares at the back after that, but going forward you could see a difference. There was some excellent running off the ball and the link up play on the left was magnificent. I forgot we were losing because it felt we would equalise soon.  The ruddy ball just wouldn't go in.  Maybe their goal being so early was a blessing in disguise.  It gave us fight and time to do it. We just needed the run of the green , which we had had  little of the games this season. Then came that fumble.  I half expected a whistle for a foul on the keeper. The spirit was back.  The players seemed to know where they were. They moved the ball quicker. They played the ball out of the back but were less pedestrian.  And if you couldn't play it out the back, they played accurate long balls. They were playing less predictably.  They were threading ball to feet and following the pass, reminiscent of Buckley's teams. My usual Saturday night posture of slumped, turned more animated.  Well done Town.  

Cartwright looked better, he started to command his area.  Khan played a blinder but was overshadowed by Glennon and Green.  Pyke's best game for sure.  Some of the players looked dead on their feet, but they kept running.

We can't rest on our laurels.  We need to put Slough to the sword.  It will build our confidence.

UTM!!