Shrimpsvoices

I found last night's performance a thoroughly depressing affair. The team had no shape and didn't seem to have any clear on field organisation. Players didn't seem to know what position they were playing and the whole thing was a mess. Players in possession of the ball were not supported and there was absolutely no fluency. Our total dependence on Rose is clear for all to see and teams know if his effectiveness is reduced we are a poor side. Fair play to Newport. They are fighting for their lives and showing spirit. We didn't in my opinion show much fight and spirit. Apart from Evans hitting the bar I can't recall us creating good chances and can't remember the Newport keeper making a save in anger. Our build up play is slow and cumbersome and performances like last night suggest we have some players either not good enough to be playing at this level or sadly reaching the end of their playing careers. Assuming we survive the ownership fiasco there is a huge job to be done in the close season recruiting new players if we have the necessary finance to do this. If we don't......

Effort wise I thought we tried hard. Their keeper made two good saves in the first half and a belter from Mullin in the second half, and they cleared it off the line twice!!

However we cleared one off the line and Baz did make some good saves also.

Soft pen for me, and in the end that's what did for us.
Thought Evans showed some nice touches, but our passing was off all night.

Agree with the Rosey comment.

On wards, its only Plymouth at Home Park on Saturday, what can possibly go wrong?

We had been on a good run which moved us from just above the relegation zone to a safe mid table position so it's not all bad. The problem at this level is motivation and confidence. I thought we would get relegated this season and until December this was looking likely. It was at this time our off field problems were made public and the players started to perform. Why did it require the future of the club to be in doubt for the players to start performing? Now we are safe it looks like the players have switched off again.

Teams like Morecambe wrote: It was at this time our off field problems were made public and the players started to perform. Why did it require the future of the club to be in doubt for the players to start performing? Now we are safe it looks like the players have switched off again.

On the face of it that does tie up

Anyway we can look forward to our next rejuvenation when contracts are up for grabs, if and when we know who the ringmaster will be

marky No.1 wrote:

Teams like Morecambe wrote: It was at this time our off field problems were made public and the players started to perform. Why did it require the future of the club to be in doubt for the players to start performing? Now we are safe it looks like the players have switched off again.

On the face of it that does tie up

Anyway we can look forward to our next rejuvenation when contracts are up for grabs, if and when we know who the ringmaster will be

That depends if any of the players want to remain with the "circus"

I thought after the first ten minutes it was a matter of 'when', not 'if' we would score. Then they settled, and for the next twenty minutes or so, there was only one team in it. Then it settled in to a bit of a slog, back and forth. If we'd had that little bit of luck and gone ahead instead of hitting the woodwork twice, it may have been a different story. Also worth pointing out that Turner was in full flight with the ball, running at their penalty area when he was tackled by the pitch! The ball bobbled up, he lost control, they countered and won a penalty. Yes some of the passing was woefully inaccurate, but the pitch didn't help, which in turn leads to players lumping it rather than passing it on the deck.

I had a bad feeling about this when 'Medal Winner' Westley got sacked last week instead of this morning as planned!

The "feel good factor" that we seemed to have in January and February had well and truly gone last night.

I thought Molyneaux should have been on from the start to give us some width and pace as well as some decent crosses. Wildig too should have been starting and why did he bring Peter Murphy on ?

Let's hope that the ownership is settled soon.

I thought first half we gave them far too much time and failed to close them down, which in my opinion has been one of our downfalls. Second half we were much better and Molyneux was a threat. From a neutrals point of view it was a good game to watch.
Onwards and Upwards..............

My own observation to add to the above comments...

In the first half Turner seemed to have the measure of their defenders with some good runs, but little was seen of him in the same manner in the second half. Not his fault as from my position on the Berlin wall much of the play seemed to go down our left side.
At times every outfield player was confined to a strip from the left side of the centre circle to the touchline, making it difficult to open up play.
If Turner had come across towards the right touchline he might have looked well out of it, but they would have had to put one and possibly two defenders over towards that side because of his good play in the first half. Hopefully this could have opened up space.

As I said , just an observation, but good football is not just about when you are directly involved in the play. You can make things happen without going near the ball.

For me we lacked width on both wings and a distinct lack of pace. I did not think that we had any outlet down the flanks so everything went down the middle which Newport soaked up all night. It appeared we had an off day across the park with no one standing out apart from a Baz who quite rightly got MOTM. Ah well onwards an upwards we are away on Saturday so a win against Plymouth is probably on the cards

Teams like Morecambe wrote:We had been on a good run which moved us from just above the relegation zone to a safe mid table position so it's not all bad. The problem at this level is motivation and confidence. I thought we would get relegated this season and until December this was looking likely. It was at this time our off field problems were made public and the players started to perform. Why did it require the future of the club to be in doubt for the players to start performing? Now we are safe it looks like the players have switched off again.

Are we safe yet though. With all the ownership issues going on & players not paid on time we could yet lose points with administration. I hope that it is the end of it but somehow think not. It is now down to the players & management to get the points we need to stay up for them to earn further contracts when the whole ownership issue is sorted out.

at one stage in the second half anthony evans was imploring rosey to keep playing the ball on the floor rather than all the big hoof stuff.even at his young age it was clear that he already knows what sort of game to play.just a shame that we still kept kicking the ball as high and far as we could.is it any wonder the attendances have dropped so much? i think that is our eleventh home league defeat this season on top of the number of home losses accrued in the previous two seasons.nobody can defend our home form,it is diabolical!

skeletor wrote:at one stage in the second half anthony evans was imploring rosey to keep playing the ball on the floor rather than all the big hoof stuff.even at his young age it was clear that he already knows what sort of game to play.just a shame that we still kept kicking the ball as high and far as we could.is it any wonder the attendances have dropped so much? i think that is our eleventh home league defeat this season on top of the number of home losses accrued in the previous two seasons.nobody can defend our home form,it is diabolical!

On the very odd occasion that Baz throws the ball out in stead of the long hoof we actually played it on the deck at the back. I well remember Scott insisting on the throw and it encouraged a more possession game. Hoof it forward and it's 50 50 if we actually get the ball.

It appears to me that it's instructions from the bench that encourage the hoof ball which on last night's performance simply didn't / doesn't work. Maybe Jim and Co insist. On that tactic due to the condition of the playing surface....

skeletor wrote:at one stage in the second half anthony evans was imploring rosey to keep playing the ball on the floor rather than all the big hoof stuff.even at his young age it was clear that he already knows what sort of game to play.

And yet the people around me in Stand Depressing were giving him stick for most of the match which I felt was massively unfair.
Although frankly they give everyone stick so that is hardly a surprise. Definitely heard the words 'Bentley Out' being muttered. Absolute delusion.

Christies Child wrote:

skeletor wrote:at one stage in the second half anthony evans was imploring rosey to keep playing the ball on the floor rather than all the big hoof stuff.even at his young age it was clear that he already knows what sort of game to play.just a shame that we still kept kicking the ball as high and far as we could.is it any wonder the attendances have dropped so much? i think that is our eleventh home league defeat this season on top of the number of home losses accrued in the previous two seasons.nobody can defend our home form,it is diabolical!

On the very odd occasion that Baz throws the ball out in stead of the long hoof we actually played it on the deck at the back. I well remember Scott insisting on the throw and it encouraged a more possession game. Hoof it forward and it's 50 50 if we actually get the ball.

It appears to me that it's instructions from the bench that encourage the hoof ball which on last night's performance simply didn't / doesn't work. Maybe Jim and Co insist. On that tactic due to the condition of the playing surface....

I've said before that I think part (if not all) of the problem is Baz's speed of decision-making. You can see when he makes the throw or rollout it's done quickly. If there's any delay our boys are marked and he's forced to kick. Not necessarily anything to do with instructions from the bench.

Niborian_Shrimp wrote:

skeletor wrote:at one stage in the second half anthony evans was imploring rosey to keep playing the ball on the floor rather than all the big hoof stuff.even at his young age it was clear that he already knows what sort of game to play.

And yet the people around me in Stand Depressing were giving him stick for most of the match which I felt was massively unfair.
Although frankly they give everyone stick so that is hardly a surprise. Definitely heard the words 'Bentley Out' being muttered. Absolute delusion.

Thank goodness that I was in the Omega. As for the giving stick to one of our players then. If it was Evans than totally uncalled for in fact for me he was possibly the only out field player other than Rose who showed any class on the night. At least he had a go possibly out of sheer frustration at those around him....

Our inability to score was our downfall last night (yes it might be an obvious thing to say)...

We couldn't break them down and even with 7 minutes of stoppage time to throw every man forward, we couldn't even register a proper shot at goal.

We didn't have the quality to pass through them so resorted to hoofball. We're not Barcelona so that's understandable - we can't expect to carve every team open with passing football. But if you are going to hoof it then you need a target man, which we don't have. Even if we sign nobody in the summer and retain the team we have, we must sign a target man.

Mullin tried hard but again didn't get much protection from the referee - he was constantly subjected to niggly fouls from their centre backs and whenever he tried to give a bit back, the ref spotted it straight away and he was penalised.

Rose should have been man of the match. He is a class above the rest of the team and really carries us sometimes.

Wildig adds creativity, he is a very underatted player. I'm not sure why he brought Murphy on, he seems to have lost his way a bit. Our "hoofs" are a waste they just give possession back to the opposition, but as Jim said we have no target man at the moment.

Yep the past few games have been something of a deflation after the really good 2017 we'd been enjoying.

But it's hardly surprising that there has been a dip in form.

What those lads have done since the start of the year has been little short of amazing – far more than the club has deserved from them, the way they’ve been treated.

One big positive for me on Tuesday was the way the fans applauded them off the pitch at the end. We were all disappointed but, it seemed to me, the crowd appreciated the efforts they had made - and not just on the night (I thought they battled hard, even though it was an under par display compared to the start of the year).

Looking to next season, who in their right minds would put pen to paper on any kind of contract at our club at the moment? They’d be absolutely mad to risk their and their family’s immediate future in that way without at least trying to find another, more stable club.

As others have said, unless there is a major announcement soon that can offer them all some hope, the talk should be of us being really, really lucky to retain the services of the management team and any players who are not under contract already for next season.

People who – in the face of such a sequence of unmitigated cock-ups off the field that have put their livelihoods in jeopardy – have pulled out some unbelievable results and kept us in a far healthier league position than we have a right to expect.

If anyone's ever worked for a company where that kind of mess and uncertainty prevails, they'll know that it’s no wonder ‘productivity’ on the pitch may have dipped a bit.

I was applauding....or Newport, they showed true grit ,were far from the worst team we have seen this season, and on that showing deserve to get out of trouble.

The dependency on Rose to make plays was definitely clear. Some of the other aspects can be fixed though. It seems like a chemistry or practice issue before the teams even take the field. Maybe something will happen that can light a fire. We can just hope.