Yesterday’s Highlights

As I only have the radio to listen to for games can someone please post any highlights so that myself, and others can judge what people are writing about for ourselves.

Quoted from Gaffer58

As I only have the radio to listen to for games can someone please post any highlights so that myself, and others can judge what people are writing about for ourselves.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08x4whw/the-fa-cup-202021-fa-cup-first-round-goals

40 minutes in.

First, poor play by Pollock not getting close to their no.10

Second, dopey pass by McKeown

Third, Clifton poorly losing the ball but it was another backwards pass to him when we should have been going forward looking for an equaliser..

I clicked on the link just to see Jamie Devitt putting away another goal from distance (before our game started playing)

He'd already hit the post too before his winner

Still got it at 30 and now doing the business for Newport

Also take a look at Newport's first goal.... their keeper at fault for that one without a doubt. It's not just Macca madness that gifts goals

Thanks Arry x 3, now seeing the “member up” there are a couple of things I noticed, first, why is Macca passing to someone in the middle of the 18 yard line, right in front of goal, a pass to a defender should always be towards the side line, less chance of the opposition creating something from there, plus second, Morton basically failed to control the ball first time, his 3rd touch was a good one by the way, but by then he was under pressure and lost the ball. I wouldn’t blame Ollie too much as like us he expects a professional footballer to be able to control with one touch a ball gently passed to him.

I only see the highlights but it does seem to me that Ollie is asking too much of the players. He really does not understand what is required in lower league footie. Playing short passes to players on the back foot is going to cost you in most games. Players like Windsor and even Green have pace and need the ball early in front of them. Surely Green’s run for the pen should tell Ollie something about the style of play we need.

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

I clicked on the link just to see Jamie Devitt putting away another goal from distance (before our game started playing)

He'd already hit the post too before his winner

Still got it at 30 and now doing the business for Newport

Also take a look at Newport's first goal.... their keeper at fault for that one without a doubt. It's not just Macca madness that gifts goals

Maybe whoever disagrees and gave the x for the above comment can't have watched the highlights.... either that or they've just got a totally sad life  

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

I only see the highlights but it does seem to me that Ollie is asking too much of the players. He really does not understand what is required in lower league footie. .

Whether playing out from the back is the right thing or not in Div 4 I don't know (personally I'd rather Macca hoofed it up to halfway as the opposition have to come a bit further to stick it in our net!)

What I do know is that the current squad are simply not capable of playing it out safely from the back and I don't think Holloway is going to change that however much he coaches them and the sooner he realises that the better.

Thought the body language of the town players once the goals had gone in was very telling. Resigned, heads down, shoulders being shrugged. Would have thought that a second round tie would have been a big incentive. But then, I'm in the Roy Keane camp when it comes to player motivation.

Totaly threw the game away,, Macca should know better he is captain on the pitch and should show the way by booting that strait up the pitch that late in a game. Ollie should also know that is a dangerious way to play and cut it out,  as this must be his instructionsand have cost us points and a lot of much needed money

Quoted from denni266

Totaly threw the game away,, Macca should know better he is captain on the pitch and should show the way by booting that strait up the pitch that late in a game. Ollie should also know that is a dangerious way to play and cut it out,  as this must be his instructionsand have cost us points and a lot of much needed money

Holloway's instructions are to play out from the back, pass and move the opposition about but Macca needs to understand that's not ALL the time...at 31 he experienced enough to know when to just smack it upfield and take the pressure off the back line... unfortunately it seems he cannot think for himself and does exactly, to the word, what Holloway says!..sorry to say but Macca needs to wake up, think quicker and smarter, great keeper but I'm starting to think he's costing us more points than he should do in this new style of play.....answers on a postcard, maybe time to give Battersby a go,??

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Holloway's instructions are to play out from the back, pass and move the opposition about but Macca needs to understand that's not ALL the time...at 31 he experienced enough to know when to just smack it upfield and take the pressure off the back line... unfortunately it seems he cannot think for himself and does exactly, to the word, what Holloway says!..sorry to say but Macca needs to wake up, think quicker and smarter, great keeper but I'm starting to think he's costing us more points than he should do in this new style of play.....answers on a postcard, maybe time to give Battersby a go,??

Agree with most of that apart from Battersby.  Macca is from what i have seen is a lot better keeper  but like you say he has to take command on the pitch being captain and say  sorry boss but safety first  and it me thats getting the stick for doing what you want all the time, when it does not work

Quoted from denni266

Agree with most of that apart from Battersby.  Macca is from what i have seen is a lot better keeper  but like you say he has to take command on the pitch being captain and say  sorry boss but safety first  and it me thats getting the stick for doing what you want all the time, when it does not work

Battersby should play in the next two joke cup games

First of all he deserves a chance, secondly Holloway will be presumably be giving some of his 'poor exhausted stars' (I use the phrase loosely) a rest and trying the young 'uns who haven't had a chance yet and finally it would give him a chance to see if Battersby understands playing it safely out from the back more than Macca who clearly doesn't.

Quoted from Ipswin

Battersby should play in the next two joke cup games

First of all he deserves a chance, secondly Holloway will be presumably be giving some of his 'poor exhausted stars' (I use the phrase loosely) a rest and trying the young 'uns who haven't had a chance yet and finally it would give him a chance to see if Battersby understands playing it safely out from the back more than Macca who clearly doesn't.

Bob on 'swin...I've not seen Battersby play yet, he could be garbage, that I don't know...and if I'm honestly, from what I've seen of Russell he's got better delivery but isn't as good a shot stopper....all I know is we need "proper" competition for Macca, he's too comfortable with no pressure on him to perform 110%...

Just watched it on the BBC and even a bloomin' girl commented on how bad our defending was for frigs sale.

The players have to get used to playing out from the back. There is no future at all in smashing the ball upfield for it to come straight back.

You cannot play out from the back only when it is safe to do so, anybody can do that and that is exactly what has been happening for the last umpteen years - pass across the back 4 till the opposition put the pressure on, and then back pass to the keeper to wallop it upfield.

These are professional players and the idea is to play out from the back and through the opposition leaving them outnumbered. They might not be great at it at the moment, but they have to learn it it is as simple as that. Of course, clearing the ball for a throw-in or corner when we are under real pressure of conceding is the right thing to do, but at all other times we must persevere with playing out from the back or we will be left even further behind. It is a completely different style to what we have witnessed over many years, but playing it long and "picking up the second ball" is never going to work.  

Bad results such as yesterdays will happen sadly, but we have to learn to do it till it becomes second nature. This team is not representative of a Holloway side due to the pandemic, but he is right to be committed to a passing game from front to back.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

The players have to get used to playing out from the back. There is no future at all in smashing the ball upfield for it to come straight back.

You cannot play out from the back only when it is safe to do so, anybody can do that and that is exactly what has been happening for the last umpteen years - pass across the back 4 till the opposition put the pressure on, and then back pass to the keeper to wallop it upfield.

These are professional players and the idea is to play out from the back and through the opposition leaving them outnumbered. They might not be great at it at the moment, but they have to learn it it is as simple as that. Of course, clearing the ball for a throw-in or corner when we are under real pressure of conceding is the right thing to do, but at all other times we must persevere with playing out from the back or we will be left even further behind. It is a completely different style to what we have witnessed over many years, but playing it long and "picking up the second ball" is never going to work.  

Bad results such as yesterdays will happen sadly, but we have to learn to do it till it becomes second nature. This team is not representative of a Holloway side due to the pandemic, but he is right to be committed to a passing game from front to back.

Agreed. It's not the system that's wrong, it's the execution. Practice and more practice needed.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

The players have to get used to playing out from the back. There is no future at all in smashing the ball upfield for it to come straight back.

You cannot play out from the back only when it is safe to do so, anybody can do that and that is exactly what has been happening for the last umpteen years - pass across the back 4 till the opposition put the pressure on, and then back pass to the keeper to wallop it upfield.

These are professional players and the idea is to play out from the back and through the opposition leaving them outnumbered. They might not be great at it at the moment, but they have to learn it it is as simple as that. Of course, clearing the ball for a throw-in or corner when we are under real pressure of conceding is the right thing to do, but at all other times we must persevere with playing out from the back or we will be left even further behind. It is a completely different style to what we have witnessed over many years, but playing it long and "picking up the second ball" is never going to work.  

Bad results such as yesterdays will happen sadly, but we have to learn to do it till it becomes second nature. This team is not representative of a Holloway side due to the pandemic, but he is right to be committed to a passing game from front to back.

No doubt there are players in the squad who can do what the manager wants but having the ball and doing something useful with it are two different things. The aim has to be to get your strikers free with clear grass in front of them. I don’t advocate route one but I do think the patient build up is a wast of time and quite often dangerous because of the sideways/backwards passing. So there are 2 alternatives, either move the ball to forwards faster with a longer pass or run the ball out of midfield to draw defenders and make space for forwards.

That kind of passing game may look pretty but if it does not result in making and taking chances then it is no better than a route one battering ram.

Quoted from Ipswin

Battersby should play in the next two joke cup games

First of all he deserves a chance, secondly Holloway will be presumably be giving some of his 'poor exhausted stars' (I use the phrase loosely) a rest and trying the young 'uns who haven't had a chance yet and finally it would give him a chance to see if Battersby understands playing it safely out from the back more than Macca who clearly doesn't.

A large proportion of the team need to have played the previous game or have a decent number of pro games under their belt so I wouldn't expect to see Battersby play.

Good idea though and the kid needs to experience competitive football at some point.

The system is wrong. Playing it out from the back every time with our keeper and defenders has already proved to be a bad idea. Sign a new keeper and some new defenders then try. These ones are 100% not good enough to do it.

Quoted from ginnywings

Agreed. It's not the system that's wrong, it's the execution. Practice and more practice needed.

Hard to do when there are wholesale changes every game! That and less training time due to playing two games every week.

Quoted from GrimRob

Hard to do when there are wholesale changes every game! That and less training time due to playing two games every week.

Wholesale changes? I’d have to check but the back 5 from yesterday have played plenty of times together this season. Beyond that, it was Moreton for Taylor and Green (plenty of apps this season) for Gibson. Wright too? Hardly wholesale, in fact I’d say we’ve been reasonably settled for the last 3/4 games. The days of the same 11 starting week in week out disappeared years ago.

Quoted from ginnywings

Agreed. It's not the system that's wrong, it's the execution. Practice and more practice needed.

If you need to start teaching a 20 something year old professional footballer how to control a football in less than three touches and how to open/position his body when receiving a pass then it may be a little late in the day.

I’m all for playing out from the back, but in th 90th minute you play the percentage game. The naivety we showed was staggering, no game management at all.

Quoted from moosey_club

If you need to start teaching a 20 something year old professional footballer how to control a football in less than three touches and how to open/position his body when receiving a pass then it may be a little late in the day.

I suspect you know what I mean. Drilling the players in a certain way of playing until it becomes second nature. Any player can mis-control a football at any level. Steve Gerrard anyone? IH wants to play in a certain way and I agree with it myself, but it takes time to develop on the training ground ( which we haven't had much of as Grimrob points out) until the players are comfortable with it.

They may never get comfortable with it, then IH has to decide whether to persevere with the system, or the players he has to execute it. Maybe it is time Macca was moved aside for someone more comfortable with the ball at his feet?

I've said it before but I will say it again. It took Buckley until season 2 to perfect the pass and move game we all knew and loved. Plenty in BP were moaning like fook in the first season, calling it tippy tappy nonsense in the main. Slade mk1 went the other way from passing football to a more direct style in season 2, when the former wasn't working.

Point is, he can't just abandon it, ten games into the season. Well he can, but I don't think he will and I personally feel it needs more time to develop.

There are other problems too at the other end of the pitch, with Edwards and Tilley missing, we can't press as high and we are not getting as much possession in the final third as we should. We are not scoring enough either, all of which impacts what goes on at the back. The team is twitchy and lacking belief at the moment.

Quoted from ginnywings

I suspect you know what I mean. Drilling the players in a certain way of playing until it becomes second nature. Any player can mis-control a football at any level. Steve Gerrard anyone? IH wants to play in a certain way and I agree with it myself, but it takes time to develop on the training ground ( which we haven't had much of as Grimrob points out) until the players are comfortable with it.

They may never get comfortable with it, then IH has to decide whether to persevere with the system, or the players he has to execute it. Maybe it is time Macca was moved aside for someone more comfortable with the ball at his feet?

I've said it before but I will say it again. It took Buckley until season 2 to perfect the pass and move game we all knew and loved. Plenty in BP were moaning like fook in the first season, calling it tippy tappy nonsense in the main. Slade mk1 went the other way from passing football to a more direct style in season 2, when the former wasn't working.

Point is, he can't just abandon it, ten games into the season. Well he can, but I don't think he will and I personally feel it needs more time to develop.

There are other problems too at the other end of the pitch, with Edwards and Tilley missing, we can't press as high and we are not getting as much possession in the final third as we should. We are not scoring enough either, all of which impacts what goes on at the back. The team is twitchy and lacking belief at the moment.

Absolutely agree with the word twitchy and definitely lacking belief. Having watched most the games on iFollow you can see it just needs something (I don’t know what) to click,

When it does one team is in for an absolute tonking.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

No doubt there are players in the squad who can do what the manager wants but having the ball and doing something useful with it are two different things. The aim has to be to get your strikers free with clear grass in front of them. I don’t advocate route one but I do think the patient build up is a wast of time and quite often dangerous because of the sideways/backwards passing. So there are 2 alternatives, either move the ball to forwards faster with a longer pass or run the ball out of midfield to draw defenders and make space for forwards.

That kind of passing game may look pretty but if it does not result in making and taking chances then it is no better than a route one battering ram.

Morning Ron! You and I both know the aim of the game is to win football matches, and although I much prefer a passing game every win no matter what the style is fine by me if the manager swears by it.

I totally agree that having loads of possession and not doing anything with it is counterproductive, but Holloway doesn't want that. He wants an expansive open passing game that slices through the opposition leading to goals and plenty of em!

At the moment we are in a transition phase; just like Buckley took time to mould a team of separate parts into what he wanted, it will be the same with Ollie I think. Of course, he is not working with the players he would have chosen in a  normal year, but some will still be here next season and it is important to get them playing his way now.

There will be mistakes, there will be member-ups but any pro player should be able to receive the ball under pressure and do something positive with it. I think there will be longer passes as well, as we can already see with the centre-halves passing it out crossfield.

In my opinion the way to go is not to compromise on the style because when it clicks it will be devastating. I watched Harrogate the other week  slice open the mighty Bradfords defence time and time again with slick passing out from the back and it was a delight to watch and very effective. This is what is happening now - even practically unknown clubs are playing it out from the back and they are doing with intent to get up the field quickly - not like so many teams have done in the past namely pass it around the back for a few minutes only to launch it and give away possession.

I have painful memories of watching the early Buckley games with fans calling for his head because we lost a few; things take time but eventually I hope history repeats itself. I hope it does, otherwise when will we ever get out of this slump??

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

I have painful memories of watching the early Buckley games with fans calling for his head because we lost a few; things take time but eventually I hope history repeats itself. I hope it does, otherwise when will we ever get out of this slump??

Exactly, I have vivid memories of being at Cambridge, early in the new year of Buckley 2nd season. I think we were langusihing in mid-table and had only won 1 of the last 7 or 8 games.

We went 2-0 down and one idiot was walking up and down the front of the away terrace berating Buckley and calling for his head. He did get shouted down by the majority of the Town fans there that day but some were agreeing with him. Thankfully, not long after that we went on that great run clinching promotion by hammering Wrexham in our final home game and went on to a 2nd successive promotion the following season.

Who know what would have happened if the idiot at Cambridge that day had got his wish.

Quoted from ginnywings

I suspect you know what I mean. Drilling the players in a certain way of playing until it becomes second nature. Any player can mis-control a football at any level. Steve Gerrard anyone? IH wants to play in a certain way and I agree with it myself, but it takes time to develop on the training ground ( which we haven't had much of as Grimrob points out) until the players are comfortable with it.

They may never get comfortable with it, then IH has to decide whether to persevere with the system, or the players he has to execute it. Maybe it is time Macca was moved aside for someone more comfortable with the ball at his feet?

I've said it before but I will say it again. It took Buckley until season 2 to perfect the pass and move game we all knew and loved. Plenty in BP were moaning like fook in the first season, calling it tippy tappy nonsense in the main. Slade mk1 went the other way from passing football to a more direct style in season 2, when the former wasn't working.

Point is, he can't just abandon it, ten games into the season. Well he can, but I don't think he will and I personally feel it needs more time to develop.

There are other problems too at the other end of the pitch, with Edwards and Tilley missing, we can't press as high and we are not getting as much possession in the final third as we should. We are not scoring enough either, all of which impacts what goes on at the back. The team is twitchy and lacking belief at the moment.

I think they clearly are being drilled/trained in the way of the manager....so much so in fact they seem to have lost the power of independent thought.
Macca shouldn't have made the pass in that area, at that time of the game with the set that Daggers had in place but he is clearly under orders / following procedure that he did anyway........over coaching is just as pointless as no coaching
It was similar against Harrogate, they set the traps and we continually walked into them as the players didnt know what else to do.

Quoted from moosey_club

I think they clearly are being drilled/trained in the way of the manager....so much so in fact they seem to have lost the power of independent thought.
Macca shouldn't have made the pass in that area, at that time of the game with the set that Daggers had in place but he is clearly under orders / following procedure that he did anyway........over coaching is just as pointless as no coaching
It was similar against Harrogate, they set the traps and we continually walked into them as the players didnt know what else to do.

I thought it was maccas fault too, but watching the highlights again and Morton was a long way from any of their players. They were quick to press, but if his first touch didn't go up 3 feet in the air, he'd have had enough time to turn

Quoted from pen penfras

I thought it was maccas fault too, but watching the highlights again and Morton was a long way from any of their players. They were quick to press, but if his first touch didn't go up 3 feet in the air, he'd have had enough time to turn

He hasnt turned on the ball since has been here so why did we think he would this time ?

Doesnt matter now, it will be somebody else's turn to fck up next week as it looks like Ollie is going to persist with it