Match Discussion: Game 22 - Sulphurites (A)

[Super_Danny_Allsopp]

Stone with an excellent assist.

[Morten Johansen]

Notts are playing with no intention. Harrogate are just waiting to punish mistakes, which have worked very well for them.

[Dripsey3]

No Plan B again. LW has a way of playing and it looks like he is sticking to it, even though every single team has worked out how to play against us. Stones is awful. Another error today. Our goal was a piece of individual brilliance. I honestly cannot see where the next point comes from. 

[liampie]

i dont believe in plan bs, i just think that whatever we try right now it wont make much difference until we see committment made at the back and that possibly starts with not playing players as cbs when they are not. we were poor today, this spell hit us earlier in the season i would be worried about relegation. we have gone from being reasonably ok, to awkward, to extremely poor. fix the defence and we should improve.

[Piethagoram]

I am numb. Just arrived back home. Only positives, Jones free kick, and credit due for an excellent block denying Macca

For a club built on stats, how did Stone slip through?

 

[Piethagoram]

 

[Fan of Big Tone]

Are we safe from relegation?

We’ve definitely been sussed by teams and they know how to play against us, I’ve never heard Luke Williams so angry in an interview. I hope he can figure a way to get us out of this sticky patch. I feel sorry for all the travelling fans who made the journey.

[DonnyNotts]

Need a refresh. Poor

[Piethagoram]

 

[Dripsey3]

1 hour ago, Fan of Big Tone said:

Are we safe from relegation?

We’ve definitely been sussed by teams and they know how to play against us, I’ve never heard Luke Williams so angry in an interview. I hope he can figure a way to get us out of this sticky patch. I feel sorry for all the travelling fans who made the journey.

It's hard not to think about relegation but I think we should be OK. Staying up is all I hoped for. Anything else is a bonus. 

[DangerousSausage]

3 hours ago, Fan of Big Tone said:

Are we safe from relegation?

We are 21 points clear. We could conceivably lose all our remaining games (which we won't) and still stay up.

As for being sussed out, we were sussed out years ago. Every team we play knows that the best way to play is is to press us high and stop the back three play it out. It's not rocket science, but it didn't use to matter because we were too good.

What we saw yesterday was nowhere near as good as last season, let alone as good as we need for L2. The game got away from us due to two straightforward goals, but we didn't threaten at all either. Time and again our defenders had the ball and were forced to play it back because there was no movement in front of them, no one was making himself available for the ball. We miss Palmer badly, and LW moving Austin into the middle instead of bringing on Gosling speaks volumes as to the latter's chances of staying. The January window will determine whether we can push for the top seven, or whether we'll end up in the bottom half.

I was expecting us to lose a few this season, but not as lethargically as that. I expect to see a bit of fight when things aren't going well, not a limp surrender. It was a deserved and easy win for Harrogate. 

[menzinho]

Yeah, that was not good. Shrewsbury was all about individual errors, the Walsall game (although I didn’t go) was a dreadful second half. Well this was the complete performance, pretty dire for the whole 90.

Harrogate looked up for it at the start, almost waiting for us to make a mistake, but they didn’t need to. They did in 5 minutes what we struggled to do all game, attack and get us running backwards, a neat-cut back and an annoyingly great finish and that’s us 1-0 down. Then Harrogate just sat back, and let us pass it around for a bit until they decided to string together another 5 passes and score. For all our possession it was too easy for Harrogate we played far too safe and just had the ball for the sake of having it. Far too many backward passes when a bit of bravery was needed. We must have played about 1 or 2 balls in behind their defence that first half, I could’ve played in at CB they were that untroubled. Our ability to get the byline and put dangerous crosses in has just gone.

2nd half wasn’t any better, our goal came out of nowhere but it gave me hope we could nick a draw... That hope lasted for about 90 seconds, just an inability to read the game, it’s like we got too over excited and went all out to immediately equalise. Just like in the first half, Harrogate made about 4 passes, got up the pitch and nice bit of play in the box and it’s 3. No defensive howlers, Stone's contribution for the second aside, but that was so passive we just let them run past us constantly and failed to make tackles time and time again. It reminded me of the Sutton game.

We had our best spell in the last 15 minutes of the game, not a positive though, Harrogate had pretty much given up by then, they knew they could take it easy and we hadn’t really laid a glove on them all game. I don’t know why we’ve gone so off the boil at the moment, we’ve gone from all-out attack to no attack. We look off the pace, we look vulnerable as soon as we lose the ball. So yeah, all in all an awful day out! Only made better by the fact I was there with an old friend who lives nearby, so I was able to have a few drinks after and forget (try to) the whole 90 minutes.

I saw the Stockport score and they are next up. Play like that and we are in serious trouble, don’t even bother turning up in fact. What’s the punishment for not fulfilling a fixture? A fine and a 2-0/3-0 loss? I’d take that.