Just Back  (merged)

Quoted from always grimsby

Saturday must have took a lot out of us
Not the easiest place to go on on Tuesday night
But we deserved nothing out of the game
Waters is the type of player we could do with UTM

Yes

Quoted from MarinerDevil

Probably our worst performance of the season.

We outwork most teams but Barrow were prepared to fight just as hard as us and we couldn't get a grip. Taylor won very little, while Holohan and Clifton were often outmuscled.

The enforced changes didn't help. Efete actually had a solid game but he's never going to offer much on his unfavoured side, while Cropper looks like he's still getting match fit. A few players, Holohan and Green in particular, looked a bit off the pace which is surprising given our usual fitness standards.

The subs made us worse. Taking Khan off actually created the opportunity for the goal as the cross came from a position where he would usually be. Richardson was much slower to get across from his no. 10 position. It was a good finish from Waters but he was able to run across Smith far too easily for me.

I think the games we've been chasing at the end have shown us how bad our decision making can be. We find it so difficult to break into the final third - we seem to spend so long stroking it across our back line to no end - and when the ball finally drops for us we almost always do the wrong thing. I completely lost it when Richardson decided to turn back into three Barrow players when Hunt was available for a simple lay-off.

I'm not really sure where that performance came from, but I think when we're not able to outwork an opposition's midfield we're going to struggle as we have little guile to make the difference.

This. We have failed to look after the ball in the final third all season. Unless we can get the ball into Taylors feet he has no chance against two big CB's. Hurst seems to think that putting him on the field is job half done. If we can't match the physicality of teams like Barrow then we have to move the ball quicker and play to the strengths of the other forwards like Khan and Richardson.

Waters is a skilful and confident player who Barrow look for. The pass was deliberate and well executed. Playing Taylor in all games makes it easy for opposition coaches to match us up and stifle our play.

Have always thought Billy Waters should be playing for us, especially with his local connections.

I think this shows that we're firmly midtable right now.

https://twitter.com/sjwillerton/status/1585016109635620864/photo/1

I can’t remember the last time we were as bad as that, certainly not this season. We barely strung two passes together, we got nowhere near their goal all night, at no point did we look remotely threatening.

I thought Michee did well playing out of position, Morris did ok, Crocombe made that excellent pen save but apart from that we were abject. Harry looked spent, Khan was irrelevant and nothing came off for Holohan. We looked leggy in the middle of the park and I think Hursty made an error in not changing it earlier given it clearly wasn’t happening. We were poor before the goal and abysmal after it.

We have to say, on the evidence of the season so far, that that is a blip. We now need a response on Saturday and stop it turning into a slide. This is the same Tuesday as the Wealdstone game last season. It better not be a repeat!

Quoted from Limerick Mariner

Yes

We could quite easily have beaten Northampton, Salford and Bradford given slightly different circumstances and could easily have taken fewer points from games against Rochdale and Walsall. I think that stat is a quirk as much as anything, we’ll score plenty of points against the promotion chasing teams.

OK, no massive rant here, because as much as I loved the match Saturday, the same issues were present tonight as were visible then.

1. We are solid and have a good shape in midfield with Green, Holohan, Clifton, Morris occupying the 3 centre mid spots on rotation etc. But 3 in midfield means less of a threat from an attacking perspective unless you have a real threat from your striker.

We don’t.

Taylor works hard but it was telling that when we needed a goal, we took him off. He is not going to solve our lack of goals in this or any other formation at this stage of his career.

2. Both fullbacks on Saturday looked vulnerable and were got at and in behind by Bradford. Tonight, Cropper and Efete also looked vulnerable and this is where their threats looked more likely as well which is the same as Saturday.

Why? Connected to a lack of genuine wide players imho as Khan more a number 10, Clifton is not a wide player and this is the reason Hurst picks Kiernan  when fit as he is and he does consistently track back and support the full backs who are not great defensively 1 on 1.

3. Hurst does prefer hard working and physical midfield players and has a mindset of protect the goal and build from there. You can’t argue with that and the principle of keeping it tight.

However, more technically gifted attacking players are just not being selected because of this cautious approach and hence, Hunt, JMD, Wearne and even Richardson not trusted to start as Hurst is clearly worried about being unpicked when we don’t have the ball - which is a genuine risk.

Getting the balance right between having an attacking threat, whilst also being defensively solid, is a balance I know and a balancing act.

I just feel that Hurst hasn’t hit that balance quite right yet and as a result, look at how few goals we are conceding, but then look at how few we are scoring.

Got to find space for more our more attacking flair players, whilst not becoming a side that ships goals somehow.

Over to you Paul, as do think you have more talent in the squad than we are seeing in some of our tight but cautious displays.

Extremely disappointed with tonight’s performance. I listened to Pete Wild’s interview with Radio Cumbria on the way home - he basically said he warned his players they would need to out compete us and not let us dictate the play and they succeeded in doing that. Can’t argue with that assessment.

He also said it was Barrow’s best 90 minutes of the season. That combined with one of our worst meant there was only going to be one outcome.

Write this off as a bad day at the office and go again on Saturday.

Quoted from Mariner_09

I can’t remember the last time we were as bad as that, certainly not this season. We barely strung two passes together, we got nowhere near their goal all night, at no point did we look remotely threatening.

I thought Michee did well playing out of position, Morris did ok, Crocombe made that excellent pen save but apart from that we were abject. Harry looked spent, Khan was irrelevant and nothing came off for Holohan. We looked leggy in the middle of the park and I think Hursty made an error in not changing it earlier given it clearly wasn’t happening. We were poor before the goal and abysmal after it.

We have to say, on the evidence of the season so far, that that is a blip. We now need a response on Saturday and stop it turning into a slide. This is the same Tuesday as the Wealdstone game last season. It better not be a repeat!

Can't remember the last time we were as bad as that? Of the matches I went to last season...Wealdstone away, Southend away, Weymouth away and Solihull away all for sure and maybe Maidenhead away and Dagenham away too. We're gonna play bad sometimes, I don't think we need to be too worried especially off the back of such a high tempo match on Saturday too. Worth noting that Bradford conceded late tonight.

Credit has to be given to Barrow as they outfought us and not many teams have done that last season. Good to see a lot of praise being given to Waters for them who was a constant threat and is a player that continually impresses me. I thought Whitfield also looked a threat.

I thought the subs we made weren't great tonight, a distinct lack of experience once Pepple, Hunt, Richardson and Simmonds were on. I'm not sure why Wearne and Orsi are being overlooked so much for People and Simmonds. Was JMD not fit too?

Glennon phoned in sick this morning, Kiernan was missing for personal reasons and JMD and Orsi were both injured in training.