I am dissapointed but dont feel as dejected as i did last saturday! We seemed to play slightly better, following from tuesday night a little, just with 2 massive errors which cost us.

Lee Clark's post match comments about Oggy??? Totally out of order again and the pressure seems to be getting the better of him!

Its another hard trip on tuesday night, but i wouldnt change the team too much from today. Not sure about going for 4-4-2 but we just need to be solid in defence for a change!!!

We need to snap out of drawing games fast as we are already 4 points behind the leaders and draws cost us promotion last year! Lets just start being more positive and finishing teams off!!!

First half quite encouraging at time especially down the right hand side. Second half not so good.

Vital decisions by players cost us dearly and am including Wardy not passing to Arfield in this not just Roberts fancy chest down to their player for second goal. We also gave the ball away under no presuure too many times.

Quite a lot of booting it up to Novak who I thought played his game extremely well today.

Thought he might have subbed Roberts for Ward - in the end I wish he had done!

Wonder if there will be any more changes for Hartlepool?

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Firstly,we didn't play that bad today at all,in fact at times we looked a good team.The formation was fine and the team selection was fine.What wasn't fine was the first goal and most definitely the second goal was not fine.The first goal we are guilty of ball watching,Rochdale got a lucky break with the ball flying up into the path of their striker.The second,Gary Roberts what are you doing??Having said that what was everyone else doing,the lad had time to pick out the corner and bend it in.I don't think Rochdale deserved that today,but we need to kill games off,why was Ward so greedy when we broke away?All he had to do was lay the ball through to Arfield and he was clean through on goal.Thought McCombe had a good game today as well as Novak,again,but can't help feel that that's 2 points lost.Gobern has his worst game for Town but Miller was ok again.McDermott was fairly anonymous,Roberts gave the ball away too much.Naysmith should have buried the ball when clean through,he's not a striker so can't knock him too much.How we didn't score form the rebounds I will never know.All in all another disappointing day but not like last Saturday,many positives but things still need ironing out.Hopefully we can get the 3 points on Tuesday and follow it up by beating Wycombe.

ARTTERRIER

the only positive was novak..

the rest was just a re run of loads of games from last season..

the difference this year is that rochdale are quite awfull...

not many sides got much at spotland last season, they will this..relegation possibilities...we will be just outside the relegation spots with 46 points!!!!!!!

Just got in -
I shouted out "cmon Clarky get 2 up top and we will rip em to shreds" when we were one up, Someone in front shouted "give over, we are ripping em to shreds" , Not even a minute had passed and they equalised !
I am not happy, Of course we are going to boss the game, have more possesion etc etc We had five in the middle !

I have had enough of Clark n his mob, How much do they get paid ? How much do they actually earn ?

We have played Bury and Rochdale for godsake, Two sides who are more than happy to be in this division, Little money, Little income from crowds, Both have novices in charge !
No dis-respect to either but they are little clubs, with little ambition from little towns surrounded by bigger towns and cities with clubs who grace the premier league charging not a lot more on the entrance fee.
Fair dinkum to both clubs supporters,
But, If we are spending more money, as we have, shouldnt our players be of a better standard ?
I think they should be, So surely we can play how we want, Surely our midfield two should be more of a match than either of theirs ? Games are won by dominating midfield in division three more often than not.
WTF, Clarky signs players, This is his team, Does he not trust those he has signed to perform ? Obviously not.
451 against Dale is not good enough, I bet our eventual promotion adversaries wont play with one up v Dale or Bury, I bet our eventual promotion adversaries will take more points than us v Dale n Bury in their corresponding games.
4 points lost, But we remain unbeaten, but we couldnt beat Bury or Dale.
Clark is making it too complicated for the players, Who said they dont care what systems or formations we play ?
The players obviously do, Play them to their strengths, 442.

JimboHTFC said:

"Lets just start being more positive and finishing teams off!!!"

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With our 'so-called' "strike force", Town couldn't even finish my dinner off.

Bryce commented:

"Clark is making it too complicated. Play them to their strengths, 442."

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Bryce, with the quality of players that we have available for selection 4-5-1 is our strongest formation.

We don't really have 1 striker good enough to waste a place in the 11 and we certainly can't afford to waste 2 of the 11 places on 2 of our completely woeful strikers.

I'm pretty sure that there'll be no back fours losing any sleep at the thought of facing Towns insipid forward line.

If it were down to me we would always play 4-4-2. I also feel Clark yet again has signed far too many players. However i did see positives in what Clark is trying to achieve yesterday.

We did dominate possession with that midfield and if you swap Johnson for Miller and Robinson for Gobern that is very strong in the middle of the park. As long as Arfield is allowed to push up like he did in the first half i think it could would.

The first 44 minutes were great, that was 4-5-1 with Novak playing brilliantly up top and Arfield just off of him - it worked. We had both fullbacks getting forward and looking dangerous, Roberts and McDermott both put a couple of cracking balls in, Gobern came close from a header, and both he and Miller looked strong off the ball and composed on it. Clarke and McCombe didn't have anything to do and Bennett was a spectator. If we can manage to do that for 90 minutes regularly we won't drop many points this season, but the management needs to make sure we play 4-5-1 that way, not how we did in the 2nd half with everybody told to sit back and get narrow.

Positives yesterday were Novak, Arfield, Hunt and Naysmith, as well as the first 44 minutes as a whole when we did look brilliant no matter what anybody says, we were doing all the right things. The negatives were the defence once again looking shaky, Clarkes continuous poor run of form, Goberns inability to pass to a team-mate (perhaps because he's so one footed), McDermotts ineffectual display, messing about with the ball in our own half again, and of course Lee Clarks lack of any real tactical nouse.

cryer..

if we had two up top, one being novak..if any clubs were watching us yesterday, they will be worried about playing him.. he ran, quickly, for 90 minutes, chased every ball, dropped both centre halves and a full back in challenges and scored one and made the other...I dont care who we were playing, he did that without much assistance and he does not moan, push his bottom lip out or let anything put him off.. 3rd division centre halves hate it, ours most certainly do when they get chased and challenged all the time..
Point is , with 2 strikers up there and novak doing what he does I know we would be more threatening...lots of times yesterday novak ran wide/into the channels, won the ball held it, played it off and it was then crossed to "nobody" in the box!!! it was very annoying..we have to hold the ball up twice to wait then for our "striker" to get in the box...sh-t!!!!

No, no...LC's plan is the that Novak lobs the ball into the box high enough so he can then run and get under his own cross, not rocket science..

I actually found it a little boring yesterday. As if they were trying to coast to a win. I'd rather see them hounding the opposition maybe even picking up some bookings on the way. How brilliant to see Jack Hunt running at them, nothing fancy, just direct attacking football.

I can see lots of potential in this team/formation but yet again it's going to take weeks for new players to "gel" and get used to tactics and know their jobs. Let's just hope we are not too far behind by the time we become a team. One of the promotion places had aleady gone last season before we had any idea how we were going to play.

Same as last season, boring...in my mind...not enough 'up and at them for me, not enough fight or compassion...I'm sure the players are 'up' for it, and dedicated, it's just that the way we play is lightweight and ineffective, too defensive minded. I don't remember Clark being lightweight when he played, he sort of got stuck in didn't he, so why this lame stuff ?

jacko..

the word you are looking for is sporadic..

our attacks are sporadic and rarely does the opposition get penned in..

once it breaks down our holders are off back towards the halfway line, the wide players drop off and novak is left to chase the other team around.. we always allow an out ball for the opposition, meaning they dont have to just lump it away and we therefore cannot press them..

i havent a football coaching badge to my name, maybe the amount of badges clark has gets in his eyeline????

if we dont score with the first attack, we wont score in that passage of play.. we actually pressed hard once yesterday with enough players to hold them in, naysmith should have scored, novak could have scored with the next chance and arfields effort was cleared off the line, we had 3 chances to score in the same incident because we pressed up and had bodies there.. I dont mind missing chances, i mind when we dont play/press enough to make any..

jacko... u know all that because u was there yesterday i take it?

comment by jacko (U4503)
posted 6 hours, 28 minutes ago

Same as last season, boring...in my mind... not enough compassion.

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Jacko why do we need to be more compassionate?



.

who died?

Hmmm...freudian slip...maybe the slow demise of HTAFC...or at least LC.

Tez, no I wasn't there, but I know many things without having to be there to see them..

maybe u do but not town related unless you have a habit of getting things wrong!