Plymouth Match Thread

Quoted from Hagrid

Sorry but i do not agree. He’s done well, no doubt, but he has no pace and thats apparent whoever we play against or whoever he is alongside. All our CB’s are good in the air but can you seriously say we have good centr halves, the goals we are conceding.....5 in pollocks last 2 games, 5 in Ohmans, Waterfall 12? I think in 4. Its dire. Its the usual grimsby thing to overhype players, rose clifton etc, i just dont think pollock is as good as others see. For me just a strong centre half with no pace.

Not always about pace at centre half, if you can read a game well then pace is just a bonus. Sometimes a defender chasing back at pace and winning a slide challenge looks better than him just being in the right place to win it simply. Look at Van Dijk, he’s got both and that’s why he looks like he walks through games at times. For an 18 year old lad, his positional sense is very good with bags of room for learning and improvement. We’ve played some good teams lately as well, but of a learning curve will do him good.

Also you need to look at why we’re conceding more. Because we’re attacking more. Full backs are 10-20 yards further up when we have the ball with the wingers very high. Often 2 of the 3 central midfielders have bombed on and were exposed. It’s how Ollie wants to play, and it’s refreshing, even if we lose if I’m honest. We need to work on it obviously and come August we might see a very different look to the side.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Take the positives...second halves 0-0 so far!!..this is showing just how poor a squad Jolley assembled....
We desperately need another striker, we are completely hopeless up front without Hanson in there...nobody holding the ball up like Hanson, nobody flicking on like Hanson, nobody keeping defenders busy like Hanson and nobody scoring like Hanson...
Think I made my point there about Hanson..

Was it that Jolley got Hanson to come to Town?

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

Was it that Jolley got Hanson to come to Town?

I said squad...not an individual....
In all fairness I was probably a bit harsh, Hessenthailer was one of his better signings too...

[quote=3351]

[/b]Not always about pace at centre half, if you can read a game well then pace is just a bonus. [b]Sometimes a defender chasing back at pace and winning a slide challenge looks better than him just being in the right place to win it simply. Look at Van Dijk, he’s got both and that’s why he looks like he walks through games at times. For an 18 year old lad, his positional sense is very good with bags of room for learning and improvement. We’ve played some good teams lately as well, but of a learning curve will do him good.

Also you need to look at why we’re conceding more. Because we’re attacking more. Full backs are 10-20 yards further up when we have the ball with the wingers very high. Often 2 of the 3 central midfielders have bombed on and were exposed. It’s how Ollie wants to play, and it’s refreshing, even if we lose if I’m honest. We need to work on it obviously and come August we might see a very different look to the side.[/quote

For example Paul McGrath - when he played at BP for Villa in January ‘94 his legs were literally gone by that point of his career and he was fuelled entirely on ale but was still the best player on the pitch. Entirely on positional sense and anticipation. Central defenders don’t always need pace.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

I said squad...not an individual....
In all fairness I was probably a bit harsh, Hessenthailer was one of his better signings too...

You did indeed.... I was just being a bit impish

I'd argue that Hendrie isn't that bad a player too

No-one else springs to mind so maybe you do have a point.... some flatter to deceive and some are downright average

But then again Jolley argued that he didn't have that much of a budget to work with,,,,,, you buy cheap, you buy twice don;t they say?

Our centre backs are just not good enough.
Pollock is still very young and will improve. I'd say he's probably our best centre back and although he has plenty of potential (not in the same league as Bennett though) that says a lot for our other centre backs. Massively lacking in pace but our best defender on the ball. Probably the only one I would want to keep if we were serious about a promotion challenge.

Waterfall is very average. I can't believe I saw someone on here say he was hands down one of the best defenders in L2 the other day. He can head it fairly well but he's clumsy on the floor and not particularly good on the ball and he's pretty slow. Spent most of his career outside the FL and was dropped by Lincoln in the season they scraped in to the play offs and made a lot of appearances late on in games off the bench. Then somehow went to Shrewsbury where he wasn't very popular with their fans. He's an average at best L2 centre back but I fear he's probably on a decent wage as he was signed lateish in the window when Jolley was likely panicking that he only had a teenager and two other average centre backs. Would not be sad to see him leave, I'm sure that money can be used more effectively.

Davis is average. Nothing more to be said. He's okay on the ball and probably our quickest centre back but not particularly dominant and hasn't set the world alight whilst here. Contract up in the summer and I would be surprised if he was offered a new one.

Ohman is vastly overrated. Heads everything but is incredibly clumsy on the ground. Gives away lots of needless free kicks in dangerous areas. Also probably the worst on the ball and often resorts to knocking it long aimlessly. Again, would not be unhappy to see him leave.

The squad Jolley put together is very poor. There is a reason they went 17 games without winning and it wasn't solely down to Jolley being fairly clueless tactically. We didn't concede many but playing an exceptionally negative and defensive style (man marking the opposition from our own throw ins for goodness sake) will often hide any deficiencies in individual players. If we are serious about promotion we need a rebuild. Along with the three older centre backs I wouldn't be unhappy to see Green, Rose, Cardwell, Cook and Clifton leave. They're just not up to it unless we plan to be no higher in the table than we are now.

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

Was it that Jolley got Hanson to come to Town?

Yes but which of his other attacking signings have been any good? Out of the attacking players we started with this season Hanson is good, Green is not, Cook is often injured and probably not good enough, Rose isn't good enough, Cardwell nowhere near good enough, Ogbu wasn't good enough, Wright was a youth team player and still has lots to learn and Vernam is good enough but he never bloody played him! A hit rate of 2 in 7 (discounting Wright) and he never played one of them!

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

I'd argue that Hendrie isn't that bad a player too

No-one else springs to mind so maybe you do have a point....

And Vernam

Not sure Hanson can be seen as the saviour, more a reflection of how poor the others are.

Tonight was dire. Can’t actually think of another word to describe it...

Quoted from mariner91

Our centre backs are just not good enough.
Pollock is still very young and will improve. I'd say he's probably our best centre back and although he has plenty of potential (not in the same league as Bennett though) that says a lot for our other centre backs. Massively lacking in pace but our best defender on the ball. Probably the only one I would want to keep if we were serious about a promotion challenge.

Waterfall is very average. I can't believe I saw someone say he was hands down one of the best defenders in L2 the other on here. He can head it fairly well but he's clumsy on the floor and not particularly good on the ball and he's pretty slow. Spent most of his career outside the FL and was dropped by Lincoln in the season they scraped in to the play offs and made a lot of appearances late on in games off the bench. Then somehow went to Shrewsbury where he wasn't very popular with their fans. He's an average at best L2 centre back but I fear he's probably on a decent wage as he was signed lateish in the window when Jolley was likely panicking that he only had a teenager and two other average centre backs. Would not be sad to see him leave, I'm sure that money can be used more effectively.

Davis is average. Nothing more to be said. He's okay on the ball and probably our quickest centre back but not particularly dominant and hasn't set the world alight whilst here. Contract up in the summer and I would be surprised if he was offered a new one.

Ohman is vastly overrated. Heads everything but is incredibly clumsy on the ground. Gives away lots of needless free kicks in dangerous areas. Also probably the worst on the ball and often resorts to knocking it long aimlessly. Again, would not be unhappy to see him leave.

The squad Jolley put together is very poor. There is a reason they went 17 games without winning and it wasn't solely down to Jolley being fairly clueless tactically. We didn't concede many but playing an exceptionally negative and defensive style (man marking the opposition from our own throw ins for goodness sake) will often hide any deficiencies in individual players. If we are serious about promotion we need a rebuild. Along with the three older centre backs I wouldn't be unhappy to see Green, Rose, Cardwell, Cook and Clifton leave. They're just not up to it unless we plan to be no higher in the table than we are now.

I thought both Waterfall and Hendrie were poor tonight.

Someone mentioned our centrebacks are good in the air. It's a shame the two of them never got anywhere near to stopping all three goals.