Well you can fully understand why the Cheltenham Town supporters sang "you can see why he joined us" re' Penn last night. It really was men against the boys out there on the pitch.
Yet again we were out-passed and out-thought by the opposition, who really did destroy us with intelligent play. The majority of their passes went to a red shirt, whilst the majority of our passes went to a red shirt.... Our central midfield two were again bypassed and how on earth does Bolder qualify for an automatic starting place given his performances since the Gillingham game? I have always been a fan of his but he really doesn't warrant a starting place right now - five yard passes going to the opposition, sliding tackles mistimed so he ends up going behind the player he is attempting to dispossess, etc. Give Dyer a chance - the kid can't do any worse and may have an intelligence about his play we are currently lacking.
The one highlight of the game was the emergence of Amankwaah in the RB spot. A very good performance and on that game alone they should start looking at tying him to the club until the end of the season. Ok he was caught out by the run for the second goal, but would Ronnie have done any better?
Blanchett just seems to be a left-footed Ronnie though it has to be said, although maybe I'm being a little unfair on him this early in his Brewers career. There still remains a tendency to hoof a ball forward rather than measure a pass, but he did get forward on a couple of occasions and offer support to Phillips who had a very good game indeed again.
I’ve been saying all along that we flatter to deceive and there is a naivety in our play that makes it very easy for even poor opposition (Bradford, Plymouth and so on) to come to the Pirelli and dictate play. It is our home ground and it is we that should be controlling games, but we just don’t seem to have an ability to do so. Whose fault this is I can’t decide; is it down to the players on the pitch or the management and coaching staff?
All in all a crap night and I now have to endure Portsmouth V Barnsley this afternoon as I am visiting family. Mercifully I get to miss the Bristol Rovers game next weekend, as I'm back in Russia for a couple of weeks, and think my next game is Hereford away. Can't wait....
Truly, Stunningly Awful
posted on 15/10/11
Spot on report.
The midfield pairing of Bolder & Magrath was the reason we were in trouble last season.
Both seem to have squareball as there middle name.
No coincidence that Pesch left magrath out of the starting eleven for our first home game were he played Bolder & Maghoma.
That worked very well & looked one of our most attacking lineups we'd had at home for a long time.
Taylor got injured.
Maghoma out right
Magrath on in middle .
Been the same since.
They play too close to each other allowing the opposition to play through them.
Penn had a field day last night & showed the pair of them how a midfielder should play.
We need a attack minded midfielder along the Penn lines because neither Magrath or Bolder look like they could open a tin of beans let alone a defence.
Apart from Southend we havn't beaten anyone thats very good.
Rotherham are on a downward spiral,Plymouth we laboured against,Bradford were 2 up before we got going.
Yes 20 points on the board looks good but we were in a simular position last year & look what happened.
Our strikeforce has been very good but last night looked very average especially second half.
Just hope Pesch has the balls to realise whats wrong & sorts it out pretty quickly.
posted on 15/10/11
As ive said in previous threads Wednesbury i am not getting carried away with our position in the league.It was there to see last night the lack of quality in the team and lack of thought in the coaching staff.From the kick off it was blatent they came to boss the midfield,operating as a unit of five.Did we try to combat that formation??? NO.Have we got the brains in our management to change things ??? NO.Wednesbury we had an idiot on your thread last week mouthing off how good Pesc is but he has never seen us play and if he has then he must have one glass eye and one stuffed with rag.If Pesc contract runs out at the end of the season in my opinion i certainly would not renew it.Russ had a good second half,but i always rated him anyway.YOU CAN SEE WHY HE WENT!!!!
posted on 15/10/11
Agree with all that's been said. Amankwaah certainly deserves a longer contract than the one he has and Jack Dyer certainly deserves a chance. Things are getting very reminiscent of last season a seemingly good start and then the downward spiral.
Why McGrath is played every week I don't understand. Against a tall side we were playing the big hoof up in the air instead of keeping the ball on the ground where we can play some good football.
There also seemed a plan by some of our players to crock Penn which didn't help matters and gave away a number of unnecessary free kicks. Bad feelings about him shouldn't have interfered with the game.
As regards Pesc as soon as he started to talk the side up and mentioned promotion I felt we were doomed. At least this time if we start plummeting down the table it will be goodbye to him as Ben is too good a businessman to see us drop back into the Conference
posted on 15/10/11
Absolutely everything that has been said on this thread so far about the game is so incredibly spot on. Well done chaps.
One or two comments really stood out for me. Pez - Neither Magrath or Bolder look like they could open a tin of beans' . Emnez - 'They came to boss the midfield, operating as a unit of five. Did we try to combat that formation? No'. Perfect assessment of where it went wrong.
Last night it boiled down to this for me. Cheltenham were hungrier, better organised, more tactically astute, more skillful and more effective. They knew how to pass the ball.
Ultimately we had the back four (and keeper) playing last night and pretty much nothing going on in front of them.
Bolder and Macca break up play. They are good at it. They seem to be a bit low on creativity between them at present. I was also aware after about 5-10 minutes that Russ Penn has been given a position or a role at Cheltenham that he should have had with us. I knew it when he was with us and last night for me it was chickens coming home to roost.
No-one has mentioned the comedy second goal. Did my eyes deceive me or did no less than 3 defenders move over to the guy with the ball on the left flank and leave 2 guys in the centre running in on goal - one of which scored the goal? And who was tracking back?
Blanchett. Said it before, I will say it again. Don't rate him.
The other player I don't rate that highly? Jimmy. Credit where credit is due he had a good game last night. A deserved man of the match and for one game I had to eat my words.
I have been to most games this season and am acutely aware that we have picked up a lot of points that we were lucky to get. I can't recall us being robbed of any points.
However, I am prepared to call it a bad day at the office and I am still a lot more happier than I was last season and pre-season. Our squad of players is so much better than our first two seasons. I am quite optimistic and a mid table finish should be easily achievable. They are capable of making the play offs. The Manager may or may not be capable of taking us to that level. He is clearly still learning and still makes tactical errors - but so do the best in the business I suppose. He has made some good signings pre-season and for that I give him credit.
posted on 15/10/11
If offerd mid table at the start of the season i would have took the deal looking back at last season`s dogfight. Not great to see your team lose at home but it was only a matter of time it would happen this season but on the upside we have been able to pick up points before this game.Maybe thats what makes football so intresting, the highs and lows make it all the better when your team is on a roll. Come on Brewers another win and all is forgiven untill the next time. Roll on Saturday.
posted on 15/10/11
Otep rightly says above that the manager is still learning his trade and I couldn't agree more. What depresses me though is that understanding the real basics of the game is not even hinted at by a large number of the team, such as pass and move. Yet again last night you'd have a Burton player on the ball surrounded by nine yellow and black striped statues. I used to teach pass and move to seven-year-olds, so how come our lot can't grasp the concept?
My other concern is that the greatest asset this club owns is hardly used. The pitch.
This season I have seen matches in all of the top five divisions in this country and our playing surface is as near to perfect as you will get, it stands absolutely no comparison to 90% of the others. So why are we so reluctant to actually play the ball on the ground for the majority of the games? It baffles me why we don't, yet pretty much all of the visitors to the Pirelli have used it to good effect. I recently spoke to a couple of Swindon supporters I work with and their view was that it looked like a carpet, such was the quality.
We spend all that money on it, but rarely use it.
posted on 15/10/11
Today the big football debate is about Alex Ferguson. The general consensus is that he got his formation, his tactics and his personnel all wrong. As I said, it happens to all managers at all levels.
We were just beaten by the better team really. The tactics, the formation and the personnel were wrong and in addition / consequently we didn't get going, we didn't create and we didn't compete.
I am still happy with our season at present.
posted on 16/10/11
It's nice to see you giving Amankwaah fairly good reviews and hope he continues to now get plenty of game time, Im sure he will become an important part of your team and I'm really pleased for him too. Cheltenham are surprising alot of people this Season and to be fair to them they deserve to be up there right now with consistently getting very good results. The pirates had a good result last night but I'll be more than happy if you take all three points against them even if it means you'll stay above us in the league.