Shrimpsvoices

What a great game of football and how good was that from Morecambe? Also what a fantastic atmosphere, that was the best game this season for me. Every Morecambe player had a good game. We should also give a shout out to Mansfield and their supports for making it a really great advert for League two football. Only downer was Slews goal ruled out. This hopefully is a marker today, well done Ged his team and our supporters.

It's a home draw and how many games without a home win? Yes, it was better but we shouldn't be over celebrating it. It wasn't long ago we could have gone 2nd, we shouldn't be accepting lower standards now.

BerlinWaller wrote:It's a home draw and how many games without a home win? Yes, it was better but we shouldn't be over celebrating it. It wasn't long ago we could have gone 2nd, we shouldn't be accepting lower standards now.

The way we played today was a higher standard than any of the games we played when we were picking up loads of points earlier on in the season. Winning games verses playing better football!!

So to agree to disagree, I will accept that against a team like Mansfield, they beat us easily (3-0) in that first half of the season, Mansfield are a really good team, very consistent, but have just dropped 4 points in the last two games. It happens teams go on bad runs for loads of reasons and we have had more than our fair share of reasons.

We have played some good teams since Ged took over and our next two games are not easy at all. If we can find some consistency in our displays on the back of today’s performance let’s see where we are not at the end of January but at the end of February. On paper we can pick up a load of points throughout that month.

If anything I’m asking for better standards good performances and more points, greedy, depending on standard!!

It was a very good first half and we managed to stay with Mansfield in the 2nd but I do think you are over egging it slightly. Best performance of the season? Really? We all want Ged to do well and today was better but being all happy clappy again isn't going to make it better than it is.

The better football/winning games argument is and always has been a load of rubbish. Winning games is the best football, always has been and always will be.

Billy bodger wrote:

BerlinWaller wrote:It's a home draw and how many games without a home win? Yes, it was better but we shouldn't be over celebrating it. It wasn't long ago we could have gone 2nd, we shouldn't be accepting lower standards now.

The way we played today was a higher standard than any of the games we played when we were picking up loads of points earlier on in the season. Winning games verses playing better football!!

So to agree to disagree, I will accept that against a team like Mansfield, they beat us easily (3-0) in that first half of the season, Mansfield are a really good team, very consistent, but have just dropped 4 points in the last two games. It happens teams go on bad runs for loads of reasons and we have had more than our fair share of reasons.

We have played some good teams since Ged took over and our next two games are not easy at all. If we can find some consistency in our displays on the back of today’s performance let’s see where we are not at the end of January but at the end of February. On paper we can pick up a load of points throughout that month.

If anything I’m asking for better standards good performances and more points, greedy, depending on standard!!

Totally agree. Mansfield are second in the league, and only been beaten twice this season. They got very lucky for their goal, and we should have had a penalty. Three debutants and a superb performance in a game we were unlucky not to win. It bodes well for the rest of the season.

It is amazing what has become acceptable and what isn't since Derek left. We parked the bus at home to Stockport and away at Swansea, surrended the unbeaten home record and won once since the end of October. Not to mention two hammerings.

It was a lot better yesterday but their goal wasn't lucky at all, they exposed the man for man defending system and over loaded the box. Nothing lucky about it. We should never have had a pen either.

BerlinWaller wrote:It is amazing what has become acceptable and what isn't since Derek left. We parked the bus at home to Stockport and away at Swansea, surrended the unbeaten home record and won once since the end of October. Not to mention two hammerings.

It was a lot better yesterday but their goal wasn't lucky at all, they exposed the man for man defending system and over loaded the box. Nothing lucky about it. We should never have had a pen either.

Agree about our defending for their goal but can't comment about the penalty as it wasn't that easy to see from my seat.

redrobo wrote:

BerlinWaller wrote:It is amazing what has become acceptable and what isn't since Derek left. We parked the bus at home to Stockport and away at Swansea, surrended the unbeaten home record and won once since the end of October. Not to mention two hammerings.

It was a lot better yesterday but their goal wasn't lucky at all, they exposed the man for man defending system and over loaded the box. Nothing lucky about it. We should never have had a pen either.

Agree about our defending for their goal but can't comment about the penalty as it wasn't that easy to see from my seat.

Jake just tried to win a pen by bumping in to their player anx going down. I had a clear view, never a pen.

BerlinWaller wrote:

redrobo wrote:

BerlinWaller wrote:It is amazing what has become acceptable and what isn't since Derek left. We parked the bus at home to Stockport and away at Swansea, surrended the unbeaten home record and won once since the end of October. Not to mention two hammerings.

It was a lot better yesterday but their goal wasn't lucky at all, they exposed the man for man defending system and over loaded the box. Nothing lucky about it. We should never have had a pen either.

Agree about our defending for their goal but can't comment about the penalty as it wasn't that easy to see from my seat.

Jake just tried to win a pen by bumping in to their player anx going down. I had a clear view, never a pen.

Totally agree. Never a penalty in a month of Mondays.

Jake's was never a pen, didn't see the Senior one too well though.

In terms of the football - I think there's aesthetically pleasing football and high quality football. High quality football can be defensive/counter attacking, if you're pulling it off well. In the promotion season, we were a superb counter attacking team and were top of the league for chance creation. It's worth mentioning that despite us getting lots of good results under Derek this season, our underlying numbers weren't that great, especially in comparison to the side he won promotion with. But ultimately, having the best finisher and the best goalkeeper in the division helps!

Since Ged's been in charge, he's not had Stuart Moore at all, and in his nine games since being given the role permanently, Mellon has been ill for five of them and either hasn't made it onto the pitch or been severely hampered in his performances. And he's not had John McMahon with him recently. And Donald Love's been injured. And it's his first managerial role.

It's been a tough ride for Ged, but I think we were seeing some positives of what he was trying to do over the past couple of months. There were spells of some really nice passing and movement, but at the same time we've lost a bit of that defensive rigidity we had under Derek. I do wonder if the departing loanees has meant that Ged's just thought 'sod it' and done a bit of a reset on the playing style. I think before Saturday he was trying to not deviate too drastically from what Derek was doing and we were getting a weird hybrid.

Yesterday was super high tempo, and some of the rotations in possession were really nice. Fair play to the players too - they stepped up and bought into what Ged was getting them to do with a lot of gusto. I'd like to see us be tighter at the back but this style is inevitably going to leave our backline a little more exposed, but the flip-side is that we're retaining the ball better and when out of possession, pinning teams more aggressively in their own half. Mansfield didn't really have massively extended periods of pressure around our box.

Ultimately, I don't care much what style we're playing as long as we're doing it well, and yesterday Ged and the players pulled it off brilliantly. Keep that up and we'll do well in this second half of the season.

i like how Ged gets mad with his players if they pass back to the keeper when they have options to go direct

BerlinWaller wrote:It's a home draw and how many games without a home win? Yes, it was better but we shouldn't be over celebrating it. It wasn't long ago we could have gone 2nd, we shouldn't be accepting lower standards now.

People see things differently, I get that, Ged has to forget playing Derick Adams’s way, other teams have cottoned on to that and that’s one reason we have a dip in results and those who want 3 points have become a little bit frustrated.

So where we where getting points we have picked up since Ged arrived? I see our form and style has been the same, we have however just not had that magical ingredient of luck and decisions going our way. So to come away with some draws in this difficult period really is not to bad.

With the loan players going back Ged has now got a chance to play a different style by bringing in players he wants. The two out field lads Ged has brought in yesterday contributed greatly towards the performance and style of the overall performance.

The new young goalie didn’t have a lot to do, but made one great save and his positioning and his distribution was overall really good.

So I don’t accept lower standards, I’m asking for more I want good performances and points and one yesterday with the great performance we saw from the team was very acceptable to me against a team like Mansfield.

So let’s hope we get the points by playing better football than under Adam’s or trying to play that way since he left and hey ho we will both be happy.

I don't think that there was much wrong with Dereks football. He was unbeaten at home with Mellon and JJ both scoring goals. We were fairly solid at the back and winning games. I am really not sure what else you could ask for but sadly a lot of our fans had this agenda against Derek.

Under Ged we camped out against Stockport, we played 9 behind the ball at Swansea, tonked 6 and a 5, beat by Newport and drew with Harrogate but fans are happier. It was similar with the "upgrade" Robinson who would have taken us down and probably bankrupted us doing it.

We won't get away with being as open as we were yesterday but the attacking intent was a huge improvement. I enjoy the high tempo but running around a lot won't always win games. Swansea changed things and scored within a minute after half time and Clough the same yesterday.

The marker that was set for Derek has been dropped for Ged and the contributing factors that were dismissed for Derek are perfectly valid for Ged.

We all want the same thing and if the performances are consistently as good as yesterday we should be ok this season.

BerlinWaller wrote:...their goal wasn't lucky at all, they exposed the man for man defending system and over loaded the box. Nothing lucky about it.

If you think that Senior committed a foul, to give away the free-kick that ultimately led to their goal, we clearly watched a different game. Their player lunged in. This is before making contact with the ball. Senior was jumping in order to avoid being hit. Look how far off the ground their player is. A free-kick to us, not them. If he'd actually hit Senior, it would have been a red card and possibly a serious injury.

BerlinWaller wrote:We should never have had a pen either.

Try and watch the foul on Senior again. He had his shirt tugged and then an arm across his shoulder. Clear penalty. But, you won't give any credit to anyone other than your darling, Derek Adams. Perhaps you should just support Ross County?

Keith wrote:

BerlinWaller wrote:...their goal wasn't lucky at all, they exposed the man for man defending system and over loaded the box. Nothing lucky about it.

If you think that Senior committed a foul, to give away the free-kick that ultimately led to their goal, we clearly watched a different game. Their player lunged in. This is before making contact with the ball. Senior was jumping in order to avoid being hit. Look how far off the ground their player is. A free-kick to us, not them. If he'd actually hit Senior, it would have been a red card and possibly a serious injury.

BerlinWaller wrote:We should never have had a pen either.

Try and watch the foul on Senior again. He had his shirt tugged and then an arm across his shoulder. Clear penalty. But, you won't give any credit to anyone other than your darling, Derek Adams. Perhaps you should just support Ross County?

Keith, I agree with you over Senior's yellow. I thought that was a free kick to us too. In respect of the penalty, BW's referring I think to the Jake Taylor incident. He and I assume saw it from opposite sides of the ground, but that one certainly didn't look like a penalty from either of our points of view. Also bear in mind that, whilst I was never a Derek Out guy, I'm also not a cheerleader.

BerlinWaller wrote:I don't think that there was much wrong with Dereks football. He was unbeaten at home with Mellon and JJ both scoring goals. We were fairly solid at the back and winning games. I am really not sure what else you could ask for but sadly a lot of our fans had this agenda against Derek.

Under Ged we camped out against Stockport, we played 9 behind the ball at Swansea, tonked 6 and a 5, beat by Newport and drew with Harrogate but fans are happier. It was similar with the "upgrade" Robinson who would have taken us down and probably bankrupted us doing it.

We won't get away with being as open as we were yesterday but the attacking intent was a huge improvement. I enjoy the high tempo but running around a lot won't always win games. Swansea changed things and scored within a minute after half time and Clough the same yesterday.

The marker that was set for Derek has been dropped for Ged and the contributing factors that were dismissed for Derek are perfectly valid for Ged.

We all want the same thing and if the performances are consistently as good as yesterday we should be ok this season.

When you give away as much territory as we did under DA’s style of play, take a look at the stats, take a look points we lost to other clubs in and around us not and that contributed to us getting relegated!!

Ged has come in and tried to replicate that because of DA’s success doing the same in a lower league and it has not been working, it had started to happen before DA left, we got a couple of hidings while he was here. He also made two bad calls in games that lead to two defeats, Barrow and Grimsby away. So not all GEDs fault.

In the second half of the season we will do better playing like we did against Mansfield than going back to DA’s boring tactics. I still think we will collect the same number of points in the second half of the season as we did in the first.

We will see who’s right but playing like we did against other teams like we did yesterday is the way forward under Ged and good luck to him.

For me the Mansfield game was the most entertaining game I've seen at the Maz for some time.

Is it possible that our BoDs have been very canny in appointing GB knowing that if it failed they could change manager at the end of the season....

My only concern is that GB will have to undergo a major rebuild once again BUT if his 3 loan signings to date are an indication of what to expect...then excellent.

redrobo wrote:For me the Mansfield game was the most entertaining game I've seen at the Maz for some time.

Is it possible that our BoDs have been very canny in appointing GB knowing that if it failed they could change manager at the end of the season....

My only concern is that GB will have to undergo a major rebuild once again BUT if his 3 loan signings to date are an indication of what to expect...then excellent.

Ged is under contract until Summer 2025 so a change of manager at the end of this season is only possible if the club is sold.

BerlinWaller wrote:We won't get away with being as open as we were yesterday but the attacking intent was a huge improvement. I enjoy the high tempo but running around a lot won't always win games. Swansea changed things and scored within a minute after half time and Clough the same yesterday.

Mansfield have averaged 6 shots on target per game this season, and 1.78 xG. On Saturday, they only managed 3 shots on target and 0.78 xG - think it's fair to say we restricted them better than most teams have and will this season. And it's not like Mansfield lacked the quality to punish us if we had been flimsy in defence.

Watching the game I did feel there were bits that needed tightening up defensively, but the reality is we restricted one of the best attacking sides in the division to very little. We did the same with Stockport, albeit with a different tactic.

Ultimately, there isn't a right or wrong way to do things. Different styles come with there pros and cons. With Derek, we had a bit more defensive structure and numbers behind the ball, but also would concede a lot of territory and have to withstand large spells with pressure around our area, which comes with its risks. What we saw with Ged vs Mansfield was pushing Mansfield back, working hard to press them high and stop them from gaining territory and getting near our goal, and it worked very well! The risk though is when playing like that, we don't quite have the numbers at the rear end of the pitch and lack a bit of that defensive rigidity.

As I'll keep saying - it doesn't matter what style we play, as long as we do it to a high standard with conviction. On Saturday we did that, and hopefully we can keep doing that.