Woeful, inadequate.

The manager had the opportunity to change it at half time, match up, replace Parslow with Paddy ( technically best player at the club) and be positive. It was still nil- nil after all!

bloody hell how many threads do we need?

The more threads our chairman reads the more trigger happy he's going to get hopefully

Erm, replace a right-back with a left-sided central midfielder? So we only had 3 defenders on the pitch?

That's some crayzee excrement you're smoking.  :)

Some changes were certainly required earlier in the second half, but that's not one of them. Personally, I'd have taken off the utterly ineffectual Neilson for Paddy who couldn't have been any less use going forward than Scott was tonight.

The fact that we didn't have any other attacking options on the bench (other than the lad Oates) shows how poorly balanced the squad is at present with the current injuries.

They played 352 and Neilson was our only attacking threat all night, were you there? Their 2 strikers gave our 4 defenders more problems than our 2 strikers gave their 3 defenders. Big Clayton didn't even break sweat.

Quoted from Maringer

Erm, replace a right-back with a left-sided central midfielder? So we only had 3 defenders on the pitch?

That's some crayzee excrement you're smoking.  :)

Some changes were certainly required earlier in the second half, but that's not one of them. Personally, I'd have taken off the utterly ineffectual Neilson for Paddy who couldn't have been any less use going forward than Scott was tonight.

The fact that we didn't have any other attacking options on the bench (other than the lad Oates) shows how poorly balanced the squad is at present with the current injuries.

The fact we dont have any more attacking options is that hurst is probably hoping he spots a akinfenwa peter crouch love child somewere...

The man has had plenty of time to sort out his loans or permanant striking options but refuses to bring what we need which is pace!

Quoted from MuddyWaters

They played 352 and Neilson was our only attacking threat all night, were you there? Their 2 strikers gave our 4 defenders more problems than our 2 strikers gave their 3 defenders. Big Clayton didn't even break sweat.

Are you sure you were there? Neilson was utterly hopeless tonight, probably his worst performance for us that I can remember. I think he made 1 good pass in the first half for LJL's chance but otherwise did absolutely sweet F.A.

The general way things went was:

Neilson is passed the ball. He turns inside, tries to take on a man, ends up crabbing across the pitch, twisting and turning without getting anywhere and ignoring simple passes to teammates. He then eventually loses the ball after running into a blind alley, loses it by attempting a pass which is never on or makes the simple pass long after the opposition has had time to get back to defend in depth.

He was hopeless tonight. Just the way it is with him, unfortunately. When he's good, he's very, very good, when he's bad he's pretty useless. If he was more reliable, he'd be playing at a higher level.

As you noted, their two strikers (ably supported by their midfield) caused our back four problems tonight, but you're saying we should have removed a defender a half time when we were still level? Sorry, I still don't get this, especially as our wingers aren't the types capable of playing as wing-backs.

Quoted from jonnyboy82

The fact we dont have any more attacking options is that hurst is probably hoping he spots a akinfenwa peter crouch love child somewere...

The man has had plenty of time to sort out his loans or permanant striking options but refuses to bring what we need which is pace!

Oh do get real man! Crouch has scored a few.

Casting vote from me - Neillson was poor tonight IMO but still won MOM???!!!!

We are very weak up top - final third lacks spark and cutting edge

Two words

YOU'R     FIRED  (gunfight2)

Quoted from jonnyboy82

The man has had plenty of time to sort out his loans or permanant striking options but refuses to bring what we need which is pace!

Sorry but apart from the LJL chance left side, how would a pacy striker have made any difference to their 5 defenders camped out across the back ?
If you ask me we need a striker who is skillful, tricky, can feed in others, hold the ball up AND score goals.
Not easy to find I imagine...  
Is Tony Rees still available ?
Cos unless we get down the flanks, that's what we need to unlock these teams ala Buckley IMO.

Even pre-season before returning, I was reading all this talk about "pace" and wondering how on earth that would help to unlock defences who park the bus.

Quoted from 120797

Sorry but apart from the LJL chance left side, how would a pacy striker have made any difference to their 5 defenders camped out across the back ?
If you ask me we need a striker who is skillful, tricky, can feed in others, hold the ball up AND score goals.
Not easy to find I imagine...  
Is Tony Rees still available ?
Cos unless we get down the flanks, that's what we need to unlock these teams ala Buckley IMO.

Even pre-season before returning, I was reading all this talk about "pace" and wondering how on earth that would help to unlock defences who park the bus.

Against a 352, it's up to the 2 attackers to work the channels and move the back 3 out of position to make room for running midfielders. Big Clayton didn't have to move all night and we don't have running midfielders.

In response to Maringer, I didn't say Neilson was good, I said he was our only attacking threat.

Don't you think these formation re-shuffles would appear to be a little too complicated for a team who 'forgot' about defending a short corner?

Quoted from MuddyWaters

In response to Maringer, I didn't say Neilson was good, I said he was our only attacking threat.

Well, I thought he was awful and offered pretty much no threat all game. In fact, he held onto the ball so long that he actively helped Southport get back to defend lots of the time.

He's got a lot of skill, but doesn't have the intelligence to keep it simple when things are tight and not going well for us. Needs to make the ball do the work instead of trying to beat every man - the number of times he ignored an easy pass to Magnay to instead go on a mazy run achieving absolutely nothing was incredible last night.

Quoted from RoboCod

Don't you think these formation re-shuffles would appear to be a little too complicated for a team who 'forgot' about defending a short corner?

Listening to PH interview, it's clearly beyond him.  :o

Should have changed to 433 or 4312 at half time or even earlier, but then we know that PH has no idea how to make early changes!!
We rarely start games on the front foot, which is frustrating, especially when up against struggling teams. 442 led to very predictable, pointless hoofball towards LJL. This just doesn't work cos we've not got any pace and Hannah has no idea how to stay onside. A change to 3 up front would have stretched their back 3 and hopefully led to more chances as we might have played it around more!

The two words I have in mind about our team and performance fit perfectly with this song...

Usually we'd sing it for the opposition but there's no getting away from it, we deserved everything we got last night

[youtube]ryQdiB5tGJA[/youtube]

Three words for me, that fill me with dread/despair...."Corner to Town.."

Quoted from gtfc82

Should have changed to 433 or 4312 at half time or even earlier, but then we know that PH has no idea how to make early changes!!
We rarely start games on the front foot, which is frustrating, especially when up against struggling teams. 442 led to very predictable, pointless hoofball towards LJL. This just doesn't work cos we've not got any pace and Hannah has no idea how to stay onside. A change to 3 up front would have stretched their back 3 and hopefully led to more chances as we might have played it around more!

Bang on the money for me too. It was screaming out for someone to take the ball through the middle and stretch the defensive 3 as the one time it happened (Toto sauntered through the middle 40yards of the pitch from our box to near theirs 2nd half) they parted like the red sea. Neilson should and could have been moved to the middle and the just as innefective Mackreth replaced with Paddy to shore up the middle. That would have allowed the forwards more space to exploit and Neilson room to work his magic. As it stood, he was marked out of the game at every opportunity and looked to me to be frustrated by that. PH must have seen what we all saw but chose to react by replacing like for like players and the system stayed the same, with a predictably poor end result. Substitutions are meant to change the team for the better albeit more defensive or more offensive. Neither happened.