Just Back

Well, I am as did manage to get to the game. The highlights for me were 2 pints of Guinness in the Trust bar and 2 pies.

To sum up the game I saw a Hartlepool team come for a win and I saw a Grimsby team turn up on the pitch and attempt to play football. It reminded me of oloway's teams but not quite as bad as that.

No passion, no composure, little effort and lots of huff and puff. You would think it was Town who were 2nd from the bottom on that display. May the 8th cannot come quick enough to end these dismal home displays and I think based on today ST will be lucky to achieve 4,000 sales

I would guess that, unless there are a number of impressive signings in summer, ST sales will be significantly fewer than this season. Not great.

Alot of wailing and gnashing of teeth on here which I don’t intend to join in with. Don’t know what PH was trying with selection in the 1st half. Maybe he was trying to understand the scale of his squad building task in the summer by not starting with players who definitely won’t be here next season, with the exception, I hope, of Clifton? I can only assume he’s been carrying a knock - his minutes on the pitch has reduced a lot recently. Well clearly the task is large.

The changes at HT woke us up temporarily, thought we’d win it after the equaliser.
Once we’d conceded the pen it seemed the defence went to sleep en masse.

Surely we just go old school from now on - remember that? Just start with our best available players for each position in every game.

Yes it was bad but not sure how it could have been anything else with that initial team set up an ultra light weight upfront ( Lloyd) supported at some distance by another lightweight (Khan) and all the forward energy (Clifton and Mcatee ) removed. Not sure how the manager or anybody can seriously expect it to be any different . I wouldnt conflate this with inevitable  low season ticket sales next year . As I have said before in the three ingredients needed for a successful football club fans , team and owners the fans are two leagues above the other two currently

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0ffhrdx

I think John Tonduer is now scared to ask the right questions of Paul Hurst, he was trying to make the point but completely failed to ask

"why did you start a game at home against one of the poorest teams in the League with a lone striker who probably won't be here next season"

We may as well have started with a couple of juniors up front.

Yeah fair point

Fking ridiculous. One outright attacking player...Lloyd.....one attack minded player ...Khan in support...

Big home crowd...fanny of a selection...let's give a low end team thats not in terrible form plenty of ball and no pressure whatsoever let them settle in and feel comfortable and give them time to grow into the game.
Soooo pisssed off

We were poor for 75 minutes, and the starting system and selection was wrong, but we shouldn’t overlook that the capitulation came with us level and those glaring issues corrected.

We were briefly in the ascendancy, but let a potentially dodgy pen knock the stuffing out of us. We just can’t seem to stay on the front foot for a prolonged period, yet alone a full game or even a full half, and that needs to change. Granted, they needed the win more than we did, but we shouldn’t be losing 4-1 at home to teams well below us in the league.

I try not to get too high or too low following an exceptional result, but I do wonder whether today may raise some questions over who on the pitch today are fit to take us to the next level. Many of who played are contracted behind the summer, but those without guarantees may find themselves looking elsewhere, I suspect.

As for season tickets, I think a lot will come down to our early business. We are notoriously slow starters in transfer windows, and perhaps prudently so. But I think a lot of this season’s ST sales were buoyed not just by our miraculous play-off win, but the increasing sense of scarcity the initial strength of sales triggered.

Give fans a genuine reason to believe we can challenge next season, and sort our dismal home form out, and tickets will sell. If that means banging twenty or thirty grand on top of an offer to seal the deal for a potentially key player then so be it. Remember; ask “what would Fenty do?”, do the opposite, and you won’t go far wrong…

Quoted from Poojah

We were poor for 75 minutes, and the starting system and selection was wrong, but we shouldn’t overlook that the capitulation came with us level and those glaring issues corrected.

We were briefly in the ascendancy, but let a potentially dodgy pen knock the stuffing out of us. We just can’t seem to stay on the front foot for a prolonged period, yet alone a full game or even a full half, and that needs to change. Granted, they needed the win more than we did, but we shouldn’t be losing 4-1 at home to teams well below us in the league.

I try not to get too high or too low following an exceptional result, but I do wonder whether today may raise some questions over who on the pitch today are fit to take us to the next level. Many of who played are contracted behind the summer, but those without guarantees may find themselves looking elsewhere, I suspect.

As for season tickets, I think a lot will come down to our early business. We are notoriously slow starters in transfer windows, and perhaps prudently so. But I think a lot of this season’s ST sales were buoyed not just by our miraculous play-off win, but the increasing sense of scarcity the initial strength of sales triggered.

Give fans a genuine reason to believe we can challenge next season, and sort our dismal home form out, and tickets will sell. If that means banging twenty or thirty grand on top of an offer to seal the deal for a potentially key player then so be it. Remember; ask “what would Fenty do?”, do the opposite, and you won’t go far wrong…

One hundred per cent accept that we had a very short summer window last year but we have to look objectively at what we failed to do both last summer and in January. Both windows were poor and it’s hard to see where we improved, if at all.

The first half was a pretty much a non-event except the abysmal goal we conceded. The overlap was far too easy to create anf the pull back to a player who had no Town player within 5 yards of him was a real WTF moment. We looked much better at the start of the second half with the change of shape and personnel and to give Efete his dues, it was a really well taken goal. Then we were on top and Efete found himself free again in the box and really should have squared it but suddenly thought he was Messi, blazing it high/wide. Not long after, they go up the other end and a ridiculous challenge by Efete is met by an equally ridiculous decision to award a penalty when the challenge was clearly a yard outside. After that we fairly capitulated, conceded a carbon copy of the first and then our left back makes the sort of mistake you shouldn't ever see a professional defender make, letting the ball bounce when a head away was easy. Reminded me somewhat of his mistake against Swindon when he inexplicably let the ball run across him, leading to a foul and red card.

Weak physically- yes. Weak mentally- sadly also yes. We need players that can shoot accurately and defenders that can defend. And we need a big fornicator upfront like they had,.I thought Umerah was great. Hard to make a case for any of the out of contract players to be offered new contracts right now. Someone desperately needs to let Crocombe know he can kick quite far. Utterly infuriating to see him over-punt the ball with such consistency. Maybe take a bit off it next time Max, yeah?