Growing a pair at the UniBol. Man(up)sfield at home. Tuesday 3rd Nov 7pm.

[nicholaldo]

About the best thing we could do now is sign a Karl Henry type.

[Worthy4England]

One opportunity in a game? He's had the lion's share tonight. We could have put these to the sword had he been 5% better. Everything is going through him in the dead ball situation and he's been dreadful.

Making up for it isn't good enough. I'd rather someone who creates more than 1 decent effort all game.

At the minute the options are Crawford, who messes up a lot and creates a couple of chances per game or someone else who messes up just as much but lacks the ability to make those chances. I am not at all happy with him, but Evatt is playing him for a reason. Nobody else in the squad is going to create in open play from the middle.

That and we've been after that mythical AMC since before Championship Manager came out, along with the 20 goal striker.

There were a lot worse than Crawford tonight. Kioso, Delf, White and Gordon's exertions are limited to picking up their paychecks.

[GhostoftheBok]

We're in the very early stages of his tenure, but he's already publicly called into question the character of every one of them, and told his only goalkeeper to "man up" in a post-match interview. That won't exactly have endeared them to him, even if he might not have been wrong to say it.

Aye, he's dropping absolute bollocks at the minute; but I stand by what I said. If the players had anything about them they'd have been throwing themselves into 50/50s tonight and fighting for the second ball. Evatt isn't helping himself, but some of these lads are a joke at the minute. Watching Gordon track the ball as it passes between 3 Mansfield players and fail to make a single challenge when he had ample time to take the ball 4-5 times summed his performance up. That's not Evatt, that's Gordon.

[officer_dibble]

It’s not Evatts fault Gordon is thick as pigshit, that’s Phoenix’s spreadsheet.

[nicholaldo]

We're in the very early stages of his tenure, but he's already publicly called into question the character of every one of them, and told his only goalkeeper to "man up" in a post-match interview. That won't exactly have endeared them to him, even if he might not have been wrong to say it.

Aye, he's dropping absolute bollocks at the minute; but I stand by what I said. If the players had anything about them they'd have been throwing themselves into 50/50s tonight and fighting for the second ball. Evatt isn't helping himself, but some of these lads are a joke at the minute. Watching Gordon track the ball as it passes between 3 Mansfield players and fail to make a single challenge when he had ample time to take the ball 4-5 times summed his performance up. That's not Evatt, that's Gordon.

I try not to be too critical of Gordon for the same reason I wasn't critical of James Weir - he's just not up to it.

[officer_dibble]

I remember that first half v Bradford first game in, and I thought Gordon looked like a player who should be nowhere near a football league side. And that’s me, I’ve as much experience at real football as Phoenix. So why has he got that job?

[DJBlu]

Oh and that's the narrowest 3-5-2 I've ever seen.

[Worthy4England]

Oh and that's the narrowest 3-5-2 I've ever seen.

Aye, was more like 3-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

[GhostoftheBok]

I try not to be too critical of Gordon for the same reason I wasn't critical of James Weir - he's just not up to it.

Not looking it at the moment, no. However, lack of ability doesn't excuse how he's playing.

Ali Crawford is showing a similar lack of testicular fortitude, for me. He makes the runs and he "presses", but there's no intent to win the ball. You can see this sort of slow wind up into the pressing runs and it screams "here we go again." When you see Darcy dragging players down if they go past him, kicking lads rather than losing out and generally being a bastard it just highlights it even more. It's not just about doing something because the coach said you had to, you need to want to win the ball and refuse to lose out. When you're not actually desperate to win the ball the opposition know it and the press fails, because they're not actually under pressure.

There are obviously loads of issues at the minute that lead to us being garbage, but lack of intent is massive.

[nicholaldo]

I try not to be too critical of Gordon for the same reason I wasn't critical of James Weir - he's just not up to it.

Not looking it at the moment, no. However, lack of ability doesn't excuse how he's playing.

Ali Crawford is showing a similar lack of testicular fortitude, for me. He makes the runs and he "presses", but there's no intent to win the ball. You can see this sort of slow wind up into the pressing runs and it screams "here we go again." When you see Darcy dragging players down if they go past him, kicking lads rather than losing out and generally being a bastard it just highlights it even more. It's not just about doing something because the coach said you had to, you need to want to win the ball and refuse to lose out. When you're not actually desperate to win the ball the opposition know it and the press fails, because they're not actually under pressure.

There are obviously loads of issues at the minute that lead to us being garbage, but lack of intent is massive.

In Gordon's case I think it might. He just looks like he doesn't know what to do, and realises he's out of his depth.

I agree it looks like there's a general lack of effort, but I think it's more likely to be a lack of self-belief. It's very clear that the moment things go wrong we just capitulate. None of us can know, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're also frustrated with the way they're being asked to play, again because they doubt they're able to.

[Worthy4England]

I agree it looks like there's a general lack of effort, but I think it's more likely to be a lack of self-belief. It's very clear that the moment things go wrong we just capitulate.

I get the "moment things go wrong" one, but what went wrong v Bradford in second half or tonight after 20 minutes or FGR after 35 mins...There are two many occasions that nothing "noticeable" has occurred but you can see on the pitch, switch-off occurring....

[nicholaldo]

I agree it looks like there's a general lack of effort, but I think it's more likely to be a lack of self-belief. It's very clear that the moment things go wrong we just capitulate.

I get the "moment things go wrong" one, but what went wrong v Bradford in second half or tonight after 20 minutes or FGR after 35 mins...There are two many occasions that nothing "noticeable" has occurred but you can see on the pitch, switch-off occurring....

By "moment things go wrong" I meant practically anything. A team getting in behind us, for example, or a misplaced pass when in a good position, our goalkeeper flapping all over, a stupid back pass straight to the opposition in our penalty area. One mistake then tends to lead to another. Confidence seems extremely fragile.

To be fair, I think in the second half against Bradford City I think some of it could be blamed on fatigue.

[GhostoftheBok]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're also frustrated with the way they're being asked to play, again because they doubt they're able to.

That wouldn't surprise me. The question then becomes how badly do the club higher-ups want this footballing identify of Evatt's? Do they want his football badly enough to let him rework this patchwork squad into a group of players who believe in the project? It's what he had to do at Barrow after his first season, but expectations were different at Barrow.

Will they write off a season in the hope that it changes the club identify for the better in the long term? It's increasingly looking like that's the deal with the devil they'd have to make.

[Harry Genshaw]

He can go for me,

He's making the game difficult. They're trying to impose his system and when it doesn't work they don't know what to do. No plan B. Where've I heard that before?

These players are making simple things look difficult. They aren't making opportunities as he wants them to have the ball and move it. Thing is, they're doing this once in every 10 attacks. The other 9 are ending up with teams on the high press getting the ball when we ultimately lose possession.

Kioso was on the right all game and was ineffective. Why not give the old wing a swap? The left side was wide open and Gordon was shite on it all night, where's Hickman? Why not throw him on the right and Kioso on the left.

It's so obvious he has no game-changing tactics. It's shit or bust.

Tom White staying on is also a glaring example.

So pissed off with this club. It's like they just want to find more ways to make us suffer. Top to bottom again it looks hopeless.

That's a big change! What happened to the 5-0 win and us all getting to feck?!

[nicholaldo]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're also frustrated with the way they're being asked to play, again because they doubt they're able to.

That wouldn't surprise me. The question then becomes how badly do the club higher-ups want this footballing identify of Evatt's? Do they want his football badly enough to let him rework this patchwork squad into a group of players who believe in the project? It's what he had to do at Barrow after his first season, but expectations were different at Barrow.

Will they write off a season in the hope that it changes the club identify for the better in the long term? It's increasingly looking like that's the deal with the devil they'd have to make.

I think we need to at least hang on until we have more players available before making any rash decisions. The garden could look a lot rosier in a few weeks if we're able to incorporate the likes of Doyle, Jones, Isgrove, Darcy, Miller, Tutte etc. into our team.

[Worthy4England]

I agree it looks like there's a general lack of effort, but I think it's more likely to be a lack of self-belief. It's very clear that the moment things go wrong we just capitulate.

I get the "moment things go wrong" one, but what went wrong v Bradford in second half or tonight after 20 minutes or FGR after 35 mins...There are two many occasions that nothing "noticeable" has occurred but you can see on the pitch, switch-off occurring....

By "moment things go wrong" I meant practically anything. A team getting in behind us, for example, or a misplaced pass when in a good position, our goalkeeper flapping all over, a stupid back pass straight to the opposition in our penalty area. One mistake then tends to lead to another. Confidence seems extremely fragile.

To be fair, I think in the second half against Bradford City I think some of it could be blamed on fatigue.

Ahhh gotcha. Confidence is certainly in short supply and yup re Bradford. It didn't look like they stopped trying.

[officer_dibble]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're also frustrated with the way they're being asked to play, again because they doubt they're able to.

That wouldn't surprise me. The question then becomes how badly do the club higher-ups want this footballing identify of Evatt's? Do they want his football badly enough to let him rework this patchwork squad into a group of players who believe in the project? It's what he had to do at Barrow after his first season, but expectations were different at Barrow.

Will they write off a season in the hope that it changes the club identify for the better in the long term? It's increasingly looking like that's the deal with the devil they'd have to make.

I think we need to at least hang on until we have more players available before making any rash decisions. The garden could look a lot rosier in a few weeks if we're able to incorporate the likes of Doyle, Jones, Isgrove, Darcy, Miller, Tutte etc. into our team.

When does it become a rash decision? Lets say we are bottom 2 halfway through the season. Sack him then? What if they cancelled the season at that point? It’s already been pointed out there’s teams below us with games in hand. We could find ourselves out of the fecking league! We can’t afford to dick about.

[Bruce Rioja]

Well, that was shit! Not the complete humiliation they deserved thanks to Crawford and Sarcevic in the end.

And, I have to say, their keeper, who's so slow to react to Sarcevic's appalling first touch that I thought we'd swapped him for ours.

[LeverEnd]

Well, that was shit! Not the complete humiliation they deserved thanks to Crawford and Sarcevic in the end.

And, I have to say, their keeper, who's so slow to react to Sarcevic's appalling first touch that I thought we'd swapped him for ours.

Very true!

[Prufrock]

That entire goal tbf. Imagine if we'd conceded that

Still time for me.. Pulling players out of a hat and no lwb and no keeper is murdering us. Always a chance that you pull two duds in one position. As long as we're not looking down by Jan he gets another couple of months, and about this time next year if we're safe.