Crewe 5 Morecambe 0 LIVE iFollow Thread

[fulwoodshrimp]

Sadly it is becoming obvious that several of the team are not good enough to play at this level or do not have the heart for the fight. There is a glaring weakness down the left side of our defence and other teams exploit it to the full. Unfortunately, Luke Conlan is nowhere near good enough and continually leaves his man unmarked. I also think at the moment Steven Old is a shadow of himself. Is he out of form or coming to the end of his time at this level? Midfield is weak with Alex Kenyon and Andrew Tutte out of their depth and Tutte clearly struggles for fitness. I also include Aaron Wildig in this. People tell me he is a good player but I don't see this. He plays the easy balls all the time and when it's time to dig in he is nowhere to be found. I am unconvinced about John O'Sullivan. He drifts in and out of the game and huffs and puffs with no great effect. Shaun Miller has been totally ineffective on his return and you can see why Crewe loaned him out for the season. Cole Stockton hasn't had much good service but he does seem ponderous and slow to react. Not sure if he is good enough at this level. We have sadly neglected the younger players and I think there is nothing to lose now by giving one of two their chance. Frankly they could not do any worse than some of the "more experienced" players who seem to be here for one last pay day.

[BerlinWaller]

I agree with your views on Luke. He looks over coached to me. By that I mean that he looks like he is over thinking all the time, you can see this in his demeanor. He doesn't look comfortable at all. He does have some quality though. I think he is the best tackler at the club and some of his recovery tackles are brilliant. It is just a shame that he really struggles tactically. I think DA will replace him in Jan with some experience.

I would like to see some youth in the line up but DA will go out and bring in tried and trusted in Jan. There is a 5 point gap between the bottom 2 and the rest and that could be more by the time Jan comes around. It is stay in the league at all costs and gambling on youth is too dangerous short term.

[Keith]

We can only get rid of players if they want to go (apart from a couple who are on short term contracts until January). When people talk about 'letting Kenyon go in January' they'd have to pay him until the end of the season anyway, unless someone else wants him.

And bringing players in... we've presumably saved some money by existing staff/players taking on roles here (Baz & John) but that's not going to be huge. It may fund one player. To bring in more than one, two if cheap, we need cash from the owners.

[Posh]

To dig up the Jim Bentley debate I will always think he was a good manager and had lot of other qualities. The one thing he has really failed on was player acquisition this season. This is the worst squad since we’ve been in the Football League. I know we’ve a very small budget compared to other clubs but some of the decisions to bring in players past their best and give new contracts to players that are not at the standard required defies logic.

Beyond Tom Brewitt, who took the captain’s armband today, there isn’t enough young players of talent coming through. The 4-0 reserves defeat with a team including Jiagne and Mendes Gomez shows just how weak the squad is.

Derek must be wondering what on earth he’s done. We need to get through to the January window and hang in there. At that point we’ll have saved on two salaries, Alessandra could go and hopefully the owners will understand our position and give money for at least one player. However Rod’s pre-season pleadings show this is unlikely. That may give us room for up to three players.

Going to be an interesting ride. The amount of people saying the word Macclesfield to me shows that people aren’t confident we can dig ourselves out.

[redrobo]

Sadly it is becoming obvious that several of the team are not good enough to play at this level or do not have the heart for the fight. There is a glaring weakness down the left side of our defence and other teams exploit it to the full. Unfortunately, Luke Conlan is nowhere near good enough and continually leaves his man unmarked. I also think at the moment Steven Old is a shadow of himself. Is he out of form or coming to the end of his time at this level? Midfield is weak with Alex Kenyon and Andrew Tutte out of their depth and Tutte clearly struggles for fitness. I also include Aaron Wildig in this. People tell me he is a good player but I don't see this. He plays the easy balls all the time and when it's time to dig in he is nowhere to be found. I am unconvinced about John O'Sullivan. He drifts in and out of the game and huffs and puffs with no great effect. Shaun Miller has been totally ineffective on his return and you can see why Crewe loaned him out for the season. Cole Stockton hasn't had much good service but he does seem ponderous and slow to react. Not sure if he is good enough at this level. We have sadly neglected the younger players and I think there is nothing to lose now by giving one of two their chance. Frankly they could not do any worse than some of the "more experienced" players who seem to be here for one last pay day.

I was going to say roughly the same about players so you've saved me the time,my only slight disagreement would be about Cole who I believe will only get better with more and continuous game time. I would also include Kevin in the list of players who are past their best and as much as it will annoy many we can't afford to have any player whose contribution to the team is not what it was.

Another player on my 'exit' list would be Sutton but like others in the squad it comes down to contractual circumstance as to whether we can replace them ASAP.

[BerlinWaller]

I have just seen the goals and they look very soft. The old habit of just jogging after their players was evident. We looked like yellow traffic cones.

[HALMA 1983]

To dig up the Jim Bentley debate I will always think he was a good manager and had lot of other qualities. The one thing he has really failed on was player acquisition this season. This is the worst squad since we’ve been in the Football League. I know we’ve a very small budget compared to other clubs but some of the decisions to bring in players past their best and give new contracts to players that are not at the standard required defies logic.

Beyond Tom Brewitt, who took the captain’s armband today, there isn’t enough young players of talent coming through. The 4-0 reserves defeat with a team including Jiagne and Mendes Gomez shows just how weak the squad is.

Derek must be wondering what on earth he’s done. We need to get through to the January window and hang in there. At that point we’ll have saved on two salaries, Alessandra could go and hopefully the owners will understand our position and give money for at least one player. However Rod’s pre-season pleadings show this is unlikely. That may give us room for up to three players.

Going to be an interesting ride. The amount of people saying the word Macclesfield to me shows that people aren’t confident we can dig ourselves out.

This is Morecambe NOT Accrington stanley! what do you expect?

[Little Shrimp]

Thought we were very disappointing initially in this game. Our 3-5-2 was a bit disastrous against their 4-3-3. Too often we let ourselves get pushed back into a flat back five, which meant Crewe's full backs had lots of room to overload into midfield - hence the sheer amount of crosses/long shots. Crewe's first two basically came about from law of averages.

Thought we did start to be more aggressive as the game went on though, which was troubling them. When our wing backs pushed high and our centre backs were brave enough to come out and hit their attackers when they dropped to receive the ball, they quickly ran out of ideas and lumped it long. Then came the sending off, ironically from Lavelle stepping out. Never a red for me. Forceful, but he won the ball, wasn't showing studs, wasn't high, wasn't late and was in control. Ref bottled it with their player's rolling about and the rest of team surrounding him. Oh how I've missed Accrington Stanley...

I could see a route back into the game with 11v11 if we continued to press higher and be brave (Alessandra and Stockton link up nicely I think), but it was game over after the red.