Just Back

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Running a sustainable and successful Football League club is a laudable ambition but I’m not convinced that it’s possible without serious investment in the infrastructure as well. By that, I mean tens of millions not the odd million here and there.

Either that or we lower our sights and accept that we will yo-yo in and out of the league. I don’t think the owners would want that as a legacy.

I think we do okay with season ticket sales as long as we are in the football league. Drop into the National League and it will be a crisis as most that I know would not renew. The idea of supporting a yo-yo team between the National League and the lowest division is not acceptable to most of us, and that is the challenge for the owners as there will be a huge drop-in numbers
For me, there is 10 times more satisfaction in a one nil win against Swindon than an eight nil win against Eastleigh, this is the challenge of the National League, generally it is very easy to win games, but unless you are top of the league it is tedious

I like JS and AP but it’s obvious they are not going to put any more money in or don’t have any more money to put in.
If they had they would of bought the training ground at Immingham that would of been seen as a massive step forward.
So what’s next i don’t know probably league 2 strugglers until we eventually drop through again.

Quoted from pen penfras

He's not really in charge, is he? Had no choice in any of his staff, not even his assistant manager. Signings were all players we'd spoken to in the summer.

Hurst was sacked because he signed his own players and didn't play passing football. Yes, results contributed but the statement was that the data was good and we'd been unlucky in several games. When that was the case 12 months earlier there was no consideration in sacking him.

Artell brought in to play passing football and sticks to it religiously until a meeting happens. He's apparently not told to change the style but we do and revert to the type of football he was so critical of just 2 weeks earlier.

A mess is spot on. Never gets any better for us.

No, PH was sacked because our results were sending us towards NL. We never had the luxury or even discussed the style of play as we were busy looking over our shoulders at the looming NL and virtually from the off. I started panicking in early September. If we played oomper looper style, but got the results he would have still been at Grimsby.

I can understand Wrexham fans filling out the away end, they were on a high and smelt blood. But what drove Town fans for a sell-out crowd? To catch a glimpse of "Hollywood" to roar on a revitalised Town, or some masochistic bent to watch our team lose, as quite a lot on this forum can't believe people are ventilating as we weren't going to beat them anyway!  I expect a lot had in their mind that there was a cunning plan.
Someone on this forum counts our passes and has concluded that we can't pass more than or four times before losing it. He's so right, we can't pass, and yet DA assumes we can and plays the matches that way. He belives his hype. There was another way of approach, but I feel DA hasn't managed many teams and understands that sometimes parking the bus is required and going for an extended unbeaten run and not erode our goal difference which could be vital at the final analysis. Not very entertaining, I agree, but a 0-0 draw would have been much more palatable.
All in all a bad day at BP, and I can't console myself that we played well, indeed I can't think of a match where we dominated and looked comfortable on the ball compared to the opposition.
Yet we have games in hand a 6-point lead, and a better goal difference than the others so onto Barrow and hope we do indeed have a Good Friday.

Looking at the game from Cartwright’s viewpoint.   First goal, good shot against the wind.  Error.  But he would reasonably expect someone to stop the break.  A tackle or foul.  This was their first attack.

The defensive cover unnerves him probably more than he undermines the defence.  

Second goal:  second attack.  Cartwright possibly having a breather as we had a corner.  5 seconds later he had half the red army bearing down on - at pace.  Similar to United v Liverpool at the end of the FAC match.

This much have been frightening,  again no cover.  They scored with a great shot, hit hard.

Cartwright was ok for the rest of the game.  A young keeper will make mistakes.  If you don’t want this sign a better keeper.  A good defence and midfield would improve his confidence and performance.

A Wrexham fan on here said that we need pace.  Absolutely. And clinical finishing.   We made this worse by building so slowly.  

He also said we needed a big striker.  If so, more balls would have gone into the box and their defenders would have dominated.

We needed the guile, movement and intensity of Danny Rose to try and unsettle them.

Wrexham were as good as they needed to be. No more.

Whenever we have the wind behind us (last couple of seasons) we often overhit passes.  We do
Not learn.  This even continued sometimes against the wind in the second half.  Crosses to keeper or not beating a defender.  

Cartwright put his usual 4 or 5 kicks straight into touch.  Yes very windy,  but put less power on kicks.  Wrexham. Got it right.

A positive:  Thompson has the skill and the nous. Good players like Peter Reid and the Liverpool midfielder signed from Blackpool eg did not have pace.  As others have said, add energy and youth alongside him.  Not Clifton.  

Quoted from TownSNAFU5

Looking at the game from Cartwright’s viewpoint.   First goal, good shot against the wind.  Error.  But he would reasonably expect someone to stop the break.  A tackle or foul.  This was their first attack.

The defensive cover unnerves him probably more than he undermines the defence.  

Second goal:  second attack.  Cartwright possibly having a breather as we had a corner.  5 seconds later he had half the red army bearing down on - at pace.  Similar to United v Liverpool at the end of the FAC match.

This much have been frightening,  again no cover.  They scored with a great shot, hit hard.

Cartwright was ok for the rest of the game.  A young keeper will make mistakes.  If you don’t want this sign a better keeper.  A good defence and midfield would improve his confidence and performance.

A Wrexham fan on here said that we need pace.  Absolutely. And clinical finishing.   We made this worse by building so slowly.  

He also said we needed a big striker.  If so, more balls would have gone into the box and their defenders would have dominated.

We needed the guile, movement and intensity of Danny Rose to try and unsettle them.

Wrexham were as good as they needed to be. No more.

Whenever we have the wind behind us (last couple of seasons) we often overhit passes.  We do
Not learn.  This even continued sometimes against the wind in the second half.  Crosses to keeper or not beating a defender.  

Cartwright put his usual 4 or 5 kicks straight into touch.  Yes very windy,  but put less power on kicks.  Wrexham. Got it right.

A positive:  Thompson has the skill and the nous. Good players like Peter Reid and the Liverpool midfielder signed from Blackpool eg did not have pace.  As others have said, add energy and youth alongside him.  Not Clifton.  

I see things very similar.

Could be argued that the first came from Holohan not properly winning a ball in midfield & nobody from that part of the pitch getting close to the scorer.

The second goal came when Wilson didn’t have the conviction to keep/win the ball bark on the edge of their box.

Our strikers couldn’t get the ball to stick and Thompson carried the midfield until the subs came on.

They are better than us 1 - 11 but we’re better (just) than yesterday’s performance

To add:

Comments that we were mentally weak after the first goal.  Not sure.  We conceded again soon.  At 2-0 so early in the game it was very difficult, They had some good players back.

We were out-muscled though.  They were stronger in the tackle, at keeping possession and regaining possession.  They were also still working hard in the last 20 minutes.  They moved into space well,  overlapping at pace.  We had few answers.  

We should still have put a foot in more. We are too nice.

Besides having a very young keeper we also had a teenage loan striker, who was marked out the game (bar his one shot).  Our realistic hopes was probably no more than another home defeat.

A clear out needed.  Far more difficult will be getting the  numbers in and the right mix of players
in.  

Quoted from cannylad65

I know I will get hammered for this but, Artell should play Clifton in midfield, he is better there than Green, Holohan, Wood and Andrews. Play Smith at right wing back, he did very well when coming on as a substitute.

I would like to think that both Bramwell and Braithwate will get a chance at some point.

Clifton is as poor in midfield possession as Holohan and Green - everything 100mph and no control, composure

If you mean yesterday then Smith did not come on as sub

Bramwell and Braithwaite have virtually no experience at L2 level and you wouldn't throw them into a relegation dog fight

Apart from that I agree with your post!

Think we should put our efforts into the next, and last 8 games and forget about next season.

Hopefully both Sutton and FGR have enough difficult games ahead to lose most of them, leaving us to scratch six points or so from somewhere.

Surely we have shown enough battling qualities to survive this time.

Artell has set us up so we are very difficult to beat  OK, didn't work yesterday (largely down to players not been quite sharp enough and their multi-thousand pound quality) but over past 6 games it has worked pretty well
But therein lies the problem
When we need some class, composure and that elusive bit of quality we are sadly lacking

Had FGR or MK drawn level in recent home games I honestly feel there'd only have been one winner

We should have enough to stay up but if we don't it won't be because of the disastrous spell of 21 goals in 5 home games it'll be down to an overall lack of quality in the final third throughout the season

Quoted from rancido

In that case do you expect JD and AP to " invest' or donate tens of millions to help the club maintain it's league status?

I'm saying that, without a massive windfall or a serious level of investment, we need to accept that our ceiling is much lower than many want it to be. Who's JD by the way?