A Roving, A Roving. Away to Bristol, Tues Mar 11th 19-45

[BWFC_Insane]

Yep, I agree with DSB on this one. Too many asked to go to the well again.

Yep same view here. End of the day a disappointing result and performance but I think it was sort of predictable. Indeed I sort of predicted it.

Just hope we don’t carry it on into Saturday. Can’t afford to lose that one - would be a big setback with two more local derbies to come after the break.

[TANGODANCER]

We don’t deserve anything out of this game. Let’s be honest. We’ve never had control second half. Lost out all over the pitch. They could have scored 5 or 6 this half alone.

Have to say that totally sums it up. Given a real lesson in winning the ball, passing and teamwork. At the risk of controversy, would an Evatt team have shaped any worse that this? I doubt it. We never deserved to win after a really poor display. Our shooting wouldn't win a goldfish at a street fair. Bristol bullied us and walked all over us.

1-0 down to a penalty after four minutes play sort of set the scene but taking nothing from the homeboys, their goals were all well taken and they deserved the win. .

[Spartan2]

Awful. Exactly the sort of performance we were getting at the end of IEs tenure. No fight at all, so so poor. Tiredness seemed to be a massive factor but why when Bristol Rovers played on Saturday too. That's two games on the bounce we've been terrible. If we're ever going to get out of this fecking league we need to keep clean sheets consistently. Such wank defending, every week, except against Birmingham when we defended really well, doesn't make sense. I think SS got this completely wrong, should have freshened up the squad, Sheehan and Thomasson were particularly bobbins, so was everyone else. Murphy isn't good enough TBH, his mistake set the stage and we just gave up. It's infuriating because we're so much better than that, I was expecting a change of shape and some magic from SS but it never came. I think the miniscule hope of autos is gone now, and if we play anything like that in the playoffs well it'll be another season in this wank league.

[Worthy4England]

That was clearly summed up by the double dip ginger nut.

You don't win too many conceding 2.

[Mar]

There's probably an element of fatigue up the top of the pitch aswell given we've got Etete and Vic missing and no real alternatives ready to swap. CMG's probably the closest but then again he's probably the closest alternative for a few positions too.

[The_Gun]

My main immediate concern for Saturday’s game is how poor Sheehan and Thomason were, given that Schuey seemingly has no inclination of playing Matete.

[Prufrock]

Not convinced the change to more of a 3 in midfield has been right. We weren't great on sat and poor here.

And playing the second best keeper for made up reasons has never ever worked. He's as good as you're getting for a number 2 at this level, but he's miles off Baxter.

[Worthy4England]

Not convinced the change to more of a 3 in midfield has been right. We weren't great on sat and poor here.

And playing the second best keeper for made up reasons has never ever worked. He's as good as you're getting for a number 2 at this level, but he's miles off Baxter.

Yeah. Our three can often look light, esp v transitions...

[BorsdaneWhite]

Sounds like Collins in a mini slump at the wrong time (great goal vs. Brim notwithstanding). He does have ‘em. Missed a number of great opportunities (all blazed over) and being asked to hold up play far too much, which isn’t his strength and not necessarily his fault. From what I saw, lots of clumsiness (perhaps through fatigue) last night—Thommo’s dreadful crossing, Sheehan being caught on the ball and hopelessly hoofing, Morley misplaced cross-field passes, McAtee’s touch etc. can’t do that AGAIN vs. Stockport. They’ll hammer us.

[Armchair Wanderer]

In terms of tiredness. There's a day less for recovery in sat-tue than tue-sat. Apparently, the training sessions have been pretty tough too, which is great, but, you need to recover still. There was a lot of talk about rotation then how many actual changes were there? Didn't look like many to me. I guess, you can want to use the whole squad but you also don't want to play the b-team and upset the away supporters. Just sounds like a few factors at once to me.

[BWFC_Insane]

We have to be realistic - these are the same players Evatt left and whilst we’ve had a good run bar Birmingham we’ve mainly edged out relatively narrow games. We aren’t likely to do that every time and I think we hit a wall last night.

The big question and test is what that means for Saturday. Cos Stockport are the perfect side to make us suffer if we aren’t right on it.

[DJBlu]

Slept,

Miffed as that's the mentality we've seen in the past rearing it's ugly head. In our faces, pulling out of tackles and just being lost at the thought another team dare challenge us and not let us win.

I think a few had their eyes on Saturday thinking last night was won.

[Jeux sans frontiéres]

Really weird game last night.

There was no atmosphere in the ground and that seemed to translate onto the pitch. Everyone just seemed off it.

I live local and have seen a few games at the Mem, but we were probably one of the quietest crowds they’ve had there. A few local lads were overheard saying how shit our support was.

Bad day at the office all round. Hopefully there’s enough in the tank to go again at the weekend.

[Worthy4England]

We have to be realistic - these are the same players Evatt left and whilst we’ve had a good run bar Birmingham we’ve mainly edged out relatively narrow games. We aren’t likely to do that every time and I think we hit a wall last night.

The big question and test is what that means for Saturday. Cos Stockport are the perfect side to make us suffer if we aren’t right on it.

I think there's also the Chris Martin factor. He usually seems to love playing v us.

Whilst we're in honeymoon-ish, you might laugh at how the new partner farts whiff. Soon wears off and stinks of shit. The things we did right a week ago defensively were clearly not at anything remotely like the same intensity. We were one short (as Pru said) in MF for me and some tired legs.

Problem with catch up, it it often has 5 steps forward, then you hit the "lose a couple."

Gotta lift it again.

[TANGODANCER]

Take note, Mr Schumacher: It is a known fact of life that a certain way to get your house burgled is to leave doors and windows open. We're just not learning the lessons and our defensive strategy is just asking to open doors. To persistently come forward hoping to spring the offside trap is just bad judgement against quick and skilled opponents who attack all game. As a team we've been found out and are fair game for all. Our passing game is a division lower than most in this league and we need to accept and change it. We're just one number on the roulette wheel and teams aren't afraid of us period.

No team wins all the time, but we need to improve, or.....

[BWFC_Insane]

We have to be realistic - these are the same players Evatt left and whilst we’ve had a good run bar Birmingham we’ve mainly edged out relatively narrow games. We aren’t likely to do that every time and I think we hit a wall last night.

The big question and test is what that means for Saturday. Cos Stockport are the perfect side to make us suffer if we aren’t right on it.

I think there's also the Chris Martin factor. He usually seems to love playing v us.

Whilst we're in honeymoon-ish, you might laugh at how the new partner farts whiff. Soon wears off and stinks of shit. The things we did right a week ago defensively were clearly not at anything remotely like the same intensity. We were one short (as Pru said) in MF for me and some tired legs.

Problem with catch up, it it often has 5 steps forward, then you hit the "lose a couple."

Gotta lift it again.

I think being fair Bristol rovers have an attack that matches ours in quality. They clearly can’t defend but they kept players high and wanted to cause us issues and did. We kept a high line and it became transitional and we didn’t have much in the tank seemingly.

But many of the issues were minor last night. The sort of things though that we saw under the previous manager.

Mistakes and shoddy defending and more or less the whole team looking like they were having an off night.

Did feel like it was going to be too much to manage that game after Saturday and so it transpired. There are a few players who I feel there are long term (are they good enough) question marks on. Southwood, Schon and a few others. And other areas we don’t really have balance in. But it can be fixed in the summer.

If someone gave us this position before Schuey arrived we’d not so much have taken it but laughed in their faces. I do worry about the next three games on the fixture card. Because I feel they all come with pressure and being chasers for top 6 is different to pressure of being in there now. And local derbies with teams who will be more motivated than we are naturally to win. I do think whole season effectively hinges on next three. And whilst Schuey has found answers thus far - last night showed that we are very beatable.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Curious, curious game. I genuinely can’t remember a game with so many unforced errors - well, not since I was coaching kids’ football. Both sides were at it - keepers hoofing into touch, players mis-controlling the ball to each other, passes way behind each other, falling over the ball, all sorts.

It’s worth noting, as Iles did on the Last Word podcast, that if you didn’t see the first half you missed the best of it. There are caveats there, but it’s worth noting that we stream-”watchers” missed out on the promise before the prolapse.

Speaking of which, I missed the penalty incident but I hope it’s not Murphy switching off despite his gaffer talking about him switching off early in games. Our first equaliser shows again that Morley’s a very good player. And at least we are creating chances, even if we contrive to miss them in ways that makes commentators alternate between disbelief and derision.

Sadly that’s the second time in four days we’ve been caught out by a half-time galvanisation from a bottom-third team. It’s great that we can keep equalising (and from set-pieces, a long-time weakness), but it’d be much better if we didn’t have to. Their second was a good counter but I’d be finger-pointing at a lot of players - yes Sheehan should have done better but that was on the edge of their box, they then travelled 80-90 yards without serious encumbrance.

That was typical of the second half. I said at the time it had become too chaotic and transitional so it was cold comfort to hear Schumacher sorrowfully use the same two words in his post-match.

In cold daylight and 20/20 hindsight many will say we should have settled for a draw. I’m not sure - in risk/reward you’re losing the possibility of 2 more points to heighten the probability of not dropping 1. Certainly Schumacher seemed happy to gamble, to an extent, as his subs and formation showed. Let’s walk through that…

We started in something like a 4-2-3-1, with Collins and McAtee alternating up top and Morley pushed notably further forward than Thomason/Sheehan. (Still not sure 10’s Azzer’s position, but happy to see Schumacher continue his squad audit.)

We kept that shape when Osei-Tutu replaced the typically erratic Schon just before the hour, although by that point Bristol’s renaissance meant full-backs Murphy and Jones were much more on the back foot than they had been.

We went behind on 64 minutes and within 4 minutes Schumacher changed the system, hoiking Murphy for Mendes Gomes and changing to a 3-4-3 with CMG joining Collins/McAtee, JOT at left wingback, Morley alongside Sheehan and Thomason, fascinatingly, at left centre-back. Two minutes later, we equalised.

Stick or twist? With six minutes left, I think Schumacher twisted. Yes, Forino came on and Thomason went off, which sounds more solid – although Forrester to me looked uneasy at LCB rather than RCB where he’s usually shifted when Forino comes on. But we simultaneously introduced Randall, who as yet seems to be the answer to a question nobody but Evatt asked, for Jones, with the RWB slot taken by Mendes Gomes. So the 3-4-3 was now Toal-Forino-Forrester; CMG-Morley-Sheehan-JOT; Randall-McAtee-Collins. That, my friends, is not a “see it out” XI.

But even when going for it, you have to be sensible. Post-game, Schumacher seemed disappointed with the free-kick that led to their winner - not that the referee gave it, but that we had lost that shape outlined above. For some reason - perhaps we’d had a corner - JOT had come across to take a throw-in on the right, had taken it fairly quickly without us resetting, and when we didn’t do anything with it he found himself pressured backwards and eventually into conceding the free kick from which they scored. Schuey seemed very unhappy with that sequence of decisions, mostly ours not the ref’s. He elected not to speak publicly about who the hell was supposed to be picking up the giant left unmarked at the back post (I’d assume the left centre-back, but I haven’t watched the replays).

It’s that sort of stuff we need to work on. I don’t think it was a terrible performance; a bit error-strewn, a bit tired (I’d have rotated more - it’s not a good sign for Matete and Lolos), but we did some good stuff.

It feels like one of those we have to learn from and move on from. Luckily in a way there’s a game this weekend which isn’t just a derby but a top-six clash. If we win that and go into the break in 5th, last night looks like a blip.

Stockport have only lost one in the last 11 league games and have won at Orient and Reading in that run, although more recently they have also lost at Cambridge. They’re decent but not terrifying. They’re as close to 17th as they are to the team we beat in our last home game. We aren't as bad as we sometimes showed last night, and we're proving we're capable of being much better. Into the derby zone with heads held high and hearts full of hope.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I also have to say - Wrexham losing again last night - had we won, which we might have, we'd have only been 5pts off the autos. Aunties and uncles, but it shows that there's prizes up for grabs. I wonder how many Charlton fans are getting top-two ideas now.

[The_Gun]

I also have to say - Wrexham losing again last night - had we won, which we might have, we'd have only been 5pts off the autos. Aunties and uncles, but it shows that there's prizes up for grabs. I wonder how many Charlton fans are getting top-two ideas now.

Anecdotally, all of them.

On a related note, I’m taking my three and six year old daughters to their first ever football match on Saturday - Charlton vs Wigan. I’ve picked a doozy there, eh?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

On a related note, I’m taking my three and six year old daughters to their first ever football match on Saturday - Charlton vs Wigan. I’ve picked a doozy there, eh?

Wowser

Mind, first game I took my kids to was the Stoke semi, so it's not likely to be that bad

Hope your girls enjoy it (but don't develop a sickening affection for the away team)