Well.. we looked at our best when we played Tranmere on the front foot, then had a month of digging in games and nabbing results when Jolley decided that we are best as a counter attacking team which defends deep. December didn't fool me, our performances were way off the standard and the results overshadowed that. Now we're a 3-5-2 that defends deep and tries to counter. For counter attacking you need pace. For 3-5-2 you need pacy athletic wing backs and generally play more of a pressing game to avoid being pushed into playing five at the back. So MJ isn't picking pace on the flanks and we haven't got pace up front, so why are we playing this way with the sides he is picking? Why have we dropped playing our defence higher up and pressing with the midfield? Why have we dropped Whitmore who is our best front foot smothering defender? Why does MJ think Ring can play wing back when he's barely quicker than Pringle? Why isn't Ahkeem playing up front instead of Cardwell (who I've lost patience with)? Why does Clifton come on cold after an injury rather than starting, because it's far more likely to pull a hamstring after sitting on the bench for 70 mins than after a pre-match warm up? Why do we look so clueless with the ball? Why do we seem so static in our movement and it looks like we're trying to play from a textbook? Why do we overplay in wide areas instead of slinging crosses in and see what happens? These aren't questions I'd ask of the players, these are questions that I lay directly at the feet of the manager himself.

I'm not averse to 3-5-2 at all, FGR used that formation very effectively tonight because they had players drilled into the system correctly and each player had the right attributes for every position. We don't.

Russell - No chance with the goals tonight
Hendrie - Shocking distribution, lack of penetration going forward, defended ok
Davis - Did ok but the defending for the goals was shocking, not tight enough
Ohman - Won his headers but the defending was shocking for the goals and should have conceded a penalty when his mistimed challenge was in the box, let players run off him
Grayson - Hardly noticed him and looks more like a wing back than a centre half to me
Ring - Easily beaten for pace, shocking distribution, no penetration going forward
Rose and Hessenthaler - Both worked their nuts off for a lost cause but let down by constantly passing sidewards, maybe due to lack of movement in front, but still didn't drive us forward
Vernam - Played in the wrong position, much better suited as one in a partnership of two behind Thomas instead of playing two in front of him, looked lost but hardly helped with any service to feet, we sort of played a 3-4-1-2 rather than a strict 3-5-2 tonight
Cardwell - Not up to it I'm afraid, poor service or not, very slow to react
Thomas - Showed glimpses of quality but looked disinterested at times and who could blame him with the service he received

Clifton - Man of the match for us and he only played twenty minutes, probably helped by FGR taking their foot off the gas, but still showed more in that time than everyone else who played 90 minutes
Woolford - Meh
Rose - Had no chance with how we were playing

Totally disjointed, still poor in wide areas and little or no threat going forward (not solely the forwards' faults) not aided by playing an ineffective formation for the players selected, but I'm not buying that it's either the sole reason or the prime reason that we played so badly. If you look at the players we had available tonight that I think are decent League Two players, I could count twelve, yet Jolley couldn't get a tune out of them and out of that twelve four were on the subs bench. Still not convinced we're putting our best players on the pitch and still not convinced with what Jolley's trying to do. Not buying that the players lacked effort like some claim, just looked like a bunch of hardworking headless chickens without an ounce of confidence or a shred of an idea what they were doing.

I'm more worried about what goes on in the brain of MJ than the ability in the squad, well at least the best dozen or so players anyway. Just not sure MJ knows how to get the best out of them other than backs to the wall victories when we ride our luck and it seems to me that us fans and quite possibly the players are the victims of a coaching experiment at the minute.

BigDog, you are absolutely on the money...just hope that MJ and Limbrick aren't too blind or pig headed to see what's wrong...none of us have our FIFA pro licence yet 98%of us can see EXACTLY what's wrong....we just haven't got a squad suited to 3-5-2...

Thanks

Obviously there's a lot to dissect after a result like tonight's - and a fifth straight defeat without scoring - but I'm not going to get overly negative just yet.

However, one thing I will say is that it's now late January and I'm still not entirely sure what the grand plan is. Jolley has had the best part of a year in charge of us. Granted, the end of last season was a salvage job and he did really well.

After a shaky start to the season, in which we lost six on the trot, we hit on a formula that peaked with that 5-2 win over Tranmere. For a while, we were naming the same starting XI and things really started to settle down.

Now it's all up in the air again. We've made a few signings, we've released a couple of players, the squad has shifted around a bit, the formation has changed, the tactics and philosophy has been tweaked and it now feels like we're back at square one again.

Things were going well and players seemed to understand what was required of them in the roles they were playing.

Admittedly, injuries and suspensions at the back meant we couldn't continue to play the same XI, but once we got Davis and Whitmore back I expected them to start with Hendrie and left back, RHJ at right back with everyone else playing where you'd expect them to play - you know, Clifton, Hess and Embleton in the middle, Vernam and Pringle wide, Thomas through the middle.

Clearly MJ wanted to sign the two Swedish players and they may come good, but I question the wisdom of throwing them straight in when we could in the short term keep doing what we were doing in December, accumulate 50 points and then begin integrating the new signings with a view to next season.

I accept that four of the five games we've lost were against tough opposition (and Macclesfield's form is better than their league position suggests) but I'm just feeling a bit confused tonight.

Upset for the fans who made the game. Upset with the result. Upset with the way things have gone backwards in order to accommodate new signings that clearly aren't in tune with the rest of the players.

I'm hoping that in a month or two things will become clearer. But right now it feels like we had something good going and we've torn it up and started again.

Quoted from 139847

The crux of the matter is, Fenty plays God, his managers are expected to do as they are told, and I Jolley is doing that so far, the only manager who didn't do as fenty demanded was Hurst.

What a load of bollox!!

Quoted from Bigdog

Well.. we looked at our best when we played Tranmere on the front foot, then had a month of digging in games and nabbing results when Jolley decided that we are best as a counter attacking team which defends deep. December didn't fool me, our performances were way off the standard and the results overshadowed that. Now we're a 3-5-2 that defends deep and tries to counter. For counter attacking you need pace. For 3-5-2 you need pacy athletic wing backs and generally play more of a pressing game to avoid being pushed into playing five at the back. So MJ isn't picking pace on the flanks and we haven't got pace up front, so why are we playing this way with the sides he is picking? Why have we dropped playing our defence higher up and pressing with the midfield? Why have we dropped Whitmore who is our best front foot smothering defender? Why does MJ think Ring can play wing back when he's barely quicker than Pringle? Why isn't Ahkeem playing up front instead of Cardwell (who I've lost patience with)? Why does Clifton come on cold after an injury rather than starting, because it's far more likely to pull a hamstring after sitting on the bench for 70 mins than after a pre-match warm up? Why do we look so clueless with the ball? Why do we seem so static in our movement and it looks like we're trying to play from a textbook? Why do we overplay in wide areas instead of slinging crosses in and see what happens? These aren't questions I'd ask of the players, these are questions that I lay directly at the feet of the manager himself.

I'm not averse to 3-5-2 at all, FGR used that formation very effectively tonight because they had players drilled into the system correctly and each player had the right attributes for every position. We don't.

Russell - No chance with the goals tonight
Hendrie - Shocking distribution, lack of penetration going forward, defended ok
Davis - Did ok but the defending for the goals was shocking, not tight enough
Ohman - Won his headers but the defending was shocking for the goals and should have conceded a penalty when his mistimed challenge was in the box, let players run off him
Grayson - Hardly noticed him and looks more like a wing back than a centre half to me
Ring - Easily beaten for pace, shocking distribution, no penetration going forward
Rose and Hessenthaler - Both worked their nuts off for a lost cause but let down by constantly passing sidewards, maybe due to lack of movement in front, but still didn't drive us forward
Vernam - Played in the wrong position, much better suited as one in a partnership of two behind Thomas instead of playing two in front of him, looked lost but hardly helped with any service to feet, we sort of played a 3-4-1-2 rather than a strict 3-5-2 tonight
Cardwell - Not up to it I'm afraid, poor service or not, very slow to react
Thomas - Showed glimpses of quality but looked disinterested at times and who could blame him with the service he received

Clifton - Man of the match for us and he only played twenty minutes, probably helped by FGR taking their foot off the gas, but still showed more in that time than everyone else who played 90 minutes
Woolford - Meh
Rose - Had no chance with how we were playing

Totally disjointed, still poor in wide areas and little or no threat going forward (not solely the forwards' faults) not aided by playing an ineffective formation for the players selected, but I'm not buying that it's either the sole reason or the prime reason that we played so badly. If you look at the players we had available tonight that I think are decent League Two players, I could count twelve, yet Jolley couldn't get a tune out of them and out of that twelve four were on the subs bench. Still not convinced we're putting our best players on the pitch and still not convinced with what Jolley's trying to do. Not buying that the players lacked effort like some claim, just looked like a bunch of hardworking headless chickens without an ounce of confidence or a shred of an idea what they were doing.

I'm more worried about what goes on in the brain of MJ than the ability in the squad, well at least the best dozen or so players anyway. Just not sure MJ knows how to get the best out of them other than backs to the wall victories when we ride our luck and it seems to me that us fans and quite possibly the players are the victims of a coaching experiment at the minute.

BD get them minces tested fella Russell drops a shot that hits him in the chest for one of the goals so he could and should have done better with that one. The 3rd goal came through a crowd of players so not sure what his line of vision was but wtf was he doing with his wall?

What’s Welsh got to do to get back in. You don’t go from league 1 to league 2 bench warmer that quick.
The system isn’t working and before we know it we will be dragged back into the mix.

We’re a point worse off from last season - and honestly my body cannot take another feb-apr period like last season  😂

“The players aren’t used to playing 3-5-2”
“Shall we try practising it then?”
“NNNNOOO ABANDON IT!!! 4-4-2 or death!!”

Quoted from 1mickylyons

BD get them minces tested fella Russell drops a shot that hits him in the chest for one of the goals so he could and should have done better with that one. The 3rd goal came through a crowd of players so not sure what his line of vision was but wtf was he doing with his wall?

You may be right as i only had one camera angle to look at. Instinctively I felt that neither goals were keeper errors when watching. Got a strong hand to the free kick which was blasted through the wall from less than twenty yards and the third should have been dealt with by the defence at the near post and you often see those go in as the keeper has to set himself for a flick on etc. Like I said, I may be wrong and would like to see both from a better angle to back up what I instinctively thought at the time..

Second goal  the shot was hit like a bullet and not high enough for Russell to turn it over the bar, perhaps he could have turned it wide, but hardly a blatant mistake, the the third i do think you could question him for, a free kick from the corner of the box hit with little pace shouldn't go in that easily, having said that, he hasn't had much match practice, so we should cut him some slack i feel.
It's the chaos in front of our keeper that worries me most, we are becoming a confused disorganised shambles again and it's up to Jolley to do something about it and quick.

Quoted from topuphere666

What’s Welsh got to do to get back in. You don’t go from league 1 to league 2 bench warmer that quick.
The system isn’t working and before we know it we will be dragged back into the mix.

We’re a point worse off from last season - and honestly my body cannot take another feb-apr period like last season  😂

How do we know the system isn't working? We've only used it in two games against Lincoln and FGR. Games against top 6 sides we may well have lost anyway.

Welsh? He seems to have turned into a great player overnight by not playing.

The opening post sums it up really well.

It felt like a Pre season friendly.

Hardly anyone there, Zero atmosphere and Clifton & Hess aside non of our players looked particularly bothered.

Very depressing spectacle and FGR were just better all over. Gunning and friends were taking the urine at the end.

This extends our poor start to 2019.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

BigDog, you are absolutely on the money...just hope that MJ and Limbrick aren't too blind or pig headed to see what's wrong...none of us have our FIFA pro licence yet 98%of us can see EXACTLY what's wrong....we just haven't got a squad suited to 3-5-2...

There are people on here who have

Quoted from Tommy

How do we know the system isn't working? We've only used it in two games against Lincoln and FGR. Games against top 6 sides we may well have lost anyway.

Welsh? He seems to have turned into a great player overnight by not playing.

Agree about Welsh. He does not have the pace and stamina to do what Clifton does for instance.

Is 3-5-2 working? Even allowing for the opposition the jury has been back a while - no it isn’t. The question is, will it work in the future? MJ has signed players to play it. Some of them like the 2 Swedes and Grayson have played it before but it doesn’t look like many others are in tune with the manager’s thinking. Confusion reigns followed by apathy close behind. Common sense says that changing the system should have waited until the summer when the side could have been drilled in how to do it and had some pre-season games. Isn’t this why players have been signed on long contracts so that we don’t have that annual scramble to sign a team in time for August and actually spend time training a side up together for the season.

Having said that, if players put themselves about, don’t give the ball away and get forward faster, the system becomes a lot less important. That seems to be the main trouble just now. We lose possession too easily and we struggle to get it back so we sink deeper and deeper. Thomas looks like a poor lost orphan up the front.

Give the manager time? OK but it can’t last forever. Another goal-less loss on Saturday looks a distinct possibility and that would be a far worse run than even Russell Slade.

Quoted from RichMariner

Clearly MJ wanted to sign the two Swedish players and they may come good, but I question the wisdom of throwing them straight in when we could in the short term keep doing what we were doing in December, accumulate 50 points and then begin integrating the new signings with a view to next season.

.

This.

Sounds like Ohman has hit the ground running but Ring might not be up there yet. (I hope it's a case of 'yet' and not that he's yet another duffer)

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Agree about Welsh. He does not have the pace and stamina to do what Clifton does for instance.

Is 3-5-2 working? Even allowing for the opposition the jury has been back a while - no it isn’t. The question is, will it work in the future? MJ has signed players to play it. Some of them like the 2 Swedes and Grayson have played it before but it doesn’t look like many others are in tune with the manager’s thinking. Confusion reigns followed by apathy close behind. Common sense says that changing the system should have waited until the summer when the side could have been drilled in how to do it and had some pre-season games. Isn’t this why players have been signed on long contracts so that we don’t have that annual scramble to sign a team in time for August and actually spend time training a side up together for the season.

Having said that, if players put themselves about, don’t give the ball away and get forward faster, the system becomes a lot less important. That seems to be the main trouble just now. We lose possession too easily and we struggle to get it back so we sink deeper and deeper. Thomas looks like a poor lost orphan up the front.

Give the manager time? OK but it can’t last forever. Another goal-less loss on Saturday looks a distinct possibility and that would be a far worse run than even Russell Slade.

3-5-2 has been tried in 3 games this season, the opener against FGR then against Lincoln & FGR last night. The last two games we’ve been missing players central to the system, played at Lincoln with a Centre Half who hadn’t played in months let alone in England plus a left wing-back with 1 game under his belt, then played last night with another new signing who’d trained max twice with the squad. Even playing 4-4-2 we might have struggled.

Typical town though, just abandon it at the first sign of any trouble. It took the whole squad a month or two to settle into the season before we started making any progress, clearly with 3 new signings starting in a back 5 there are going to be problems at first.

The other option is play out the rest of this season making no progress at all. Same old formation, win some here, lose some there, mid table treading water and then wait until half the squad is out of contract in the summer and use guesswork to work out if they can play the formation the manager wants or not. Wait another 6 weeks and try it out against Brigg or some 16st cloggers at Clee Town. Absolutely pointless.  

Some of you fucckers will have 4-4-2 on your headstones.

The water that stands on the top of crush barriers after it rains was frozen before kick off last night. That's how cold it was.

Quoted from ska face

3-5-2 has been tried in 3 games this season, the opener against FGR then against Lincoln & FGR last night. The last two games we’ve been missing players central to the system, played at Lincoln with a Centre Half who hadn’t played in months let alone in England plus a left wing-back with 1 game under his belt, then played last night with another new signing who’d trained max twice with the squad. Even playing 4-4-2 we might have struggled.

Typical town though, just abandon it at the first sign of any trouble. It took the whole squad a month or two to settle into the season before we started making any progress, clearly with 3 new signings starting in a back 5 there are going to be problems at first.

The other option is play out the rest of this season making no progress at all. Same old formation, win some here, lose some there, mid table treading water and then wait until half the squad is out of contract in the summer and use guesswork to work out if they can play the formation the manager wants or not. Wait another 6 weeks and try it out against Brigg or some 16st cloggers at Clee Town. Absolutely pointless.  

Some of you fucckers will have 4-4-2 on your headstones.

We are too close to the bottom two to start new formations though, I think that is more pertinent. Get safe, then yes by all means drill the team into the new system ready for next season.

This reminds me a lot of last season when we took our foot off the pedal at Christmas time (then it was about offloading players to save money) and before you know it you are in a relegation dogfight.

Like RRFC said though - if the players put more effort in it would not be such a problem but to allow some players to jog around the pitch is unforgivable.

Quoted from ska face

3-5-2 has been tried in 3 games this season, the opener against FGR then against Lincoln & FGR last night. The last two games we’ve been missing players central to the system, played at Lincoln with a Centre Half who hadn’t played in months let alone in England plus a left wing-back with 1 game under his belt, then played last night with another new signing who’d trained max twice with the squad. Even playing 4-4-2 we might have struggled.

Typical town though, just abandon it at the first sign of any trouble. It took the whole squad a month or two to settle into the season before we started making any progress, clearly with 3 new signings starting in a back 5 there are going to be problems at first.

The other option is play out the rest of this season making no progress at all. Same old formation, win some here, lose some there, mid table treading water and then wait until half the squad is out of contract in the summer and use guesswork to work out if they can play the formation the manager wants or not. Wait another 6 weeks and try it out against Brigg or some 16st cloggers at Clee Town. Absolutely pointless.  

Some of you fucckers will have 4-4-2 on your headstones.

You would do much better to read properly and swear less. Like I said the system matters less than what the players are playing like. Personally I would prefer us to play a 4-3-3 because a back 4 leaves you less open to the ball across to the back post and that is the tactic most L2 sides use most often. But I am not stuck on any system, just players playing well and managers using common sense.

Very frustrating game and it was bloody freezing.  No one impressed or did themselves justice apart from 2 of the 3 subs.

Ohman - Good in the air, but loses his man easily and lunges in a lot.  Hopefully, it's just him getting used to GTFC & English football.

Ring - seemed very slow or was there winger very fast?

M Rose - Probably the worst I've seen him play, always seemed to spend ages on the ball and get tackled.

Thomas - I did not notice him lose the ball once, he's amazing with the ball at his feet but the majority of the time seemed to abandoned on his own out wide, with no alternative to play the ball backwards.

Woolford - I thought he did quite well when he came on, he kept the ball moving fast and seemed to hit a GTFC man with his passes.

What worried me the most about the game was that we did not have a captain on the pitch, no one was making themselves heard, and very little communication between the players.  This is where we have missed Collins IMO, a natural leader at the back.  Compare this with Gunning, who I thought was the MoM, never stop shouting encouragement/directions at the FGR players, he completely controlled the game from the back.

The only time I heard a Town player was when Clifton came on, always communicating, telling our players where to go.  If he stays with GTFC for the foreseeable future I believe with have our future captain.

All the above comments are very worrying, particularly when we used up most of our luck in Dec.  Jolley needs to get a grip soonest to prevent the season falling away like last season.  Our nerves could not cope with that again.  

Quoted from TheRealJohnLewis

Very frustrating game and it was bloody freezing.  No one impressed or did themselves justice apart from 2 of the 3 subs.

Ohman - Good in the air, but loses his man easily and lunges in a lot.  Hopefully, it's just him getting used to GTFC & English football.

Ring - seemed very slow or was there winger very fast?

M Rose - Probably the worst I've seen him play, always seemed to spend ages on the ball and get tackled.

Thomas - I did not notice him lose the ball once, he's amazing with the ball at his feet but the majority of the time seemed to abandoned on his own out wide, with no alternative to play the ball backwards.

Woolford - I thought he did quite well when he came on, he kept the ball moving fast and seemed to hit a GTFC man with his passes.

What worried me the most about the game was that we did not have a captain on the pitch, no one was making themselves heard, and very little communication between the players.  This is where we have missed Collins IMO, a natural leader at the back. Compare this with Gunning, who I thought was the MoM, never stop shouting encouragement/directions at the FGR players, he completely controlled the game from the back.

The only time I heard a Town player was when Clifton came on, always communicating, telling our players where to go.  If he stays with GTFC for the foreseeable future I believe with have our future captain.

How dare you praise Gunning!. All the experts on The Fishy know he is utter garbage even if he is an integral part of a promotion chasing  team.

Quoted from rancido

How dare you praise Gunning!. All the experts on The Fishy know he is utter garbage even if he is an integral part of a promotion chasing  team.

Even in the last two years, we have had enough good players to fill two promotion-winning teams. We seem unable to find the knack of a) getting them to play well for us and b) getting them in the same team.

I hope Jolley knows what he is aiming for and is able to put a promotion seeking side together for the start of next season, in League 2 I hope.