Saturday

[tigertony]

The head that hit the post, then hit Larrieu and went off out for a corner
Spot on Doc - their turn / our turn

Wasn't it last season that we did not get a pen until late Feb (not saying we should have had but none until late Feb ???? - unlucky / bad luck.

 

[GreenSam]

We are absolutely brilliant at defending-there's no two ways about that.

If anyone can have a good go and shutting Swindon out, it's us. If we're as solid as we were today, and get a breakaway goal then who knows.

By the way, I really don't think we were lucky today. I think we defended well. There's a real distinction to be made there.

You dont??

I can think of three moments already...

1. The ball in the box in the first half and one of their players hit it on the half volley and somehow Larrieu got a hand to it and got it over the bar

2. When Williams and Larrieu left it to each other and Larrieu tried to make a slide tackle. missed him and somehow we got it away

3. The head that hit the post, then hit Larrieu and went off out for a corner


Defendsively we are organised. Yet the last 3 home games we need lady luck smiling on us!!

1) Because we had a very good shot stopper in goal for us. That's not luck, that's the competance of our keeper.
2) Well it was clear how we got it away, because Purse was perceptive and capable enough to get in there and clear it. Again, the competance of one of our players, not luck.
3) I'll give you that one.

But if you were at Shrews and Bradford (don't know if you were or not), you'd have seen similar scenes in those games as well. Surely there becomes a point where you stop blaming it on luck and start saying it was just blooming good defensive work?

Like in number 3 of your list, there are incidences of luck that go our way yes. But what if the ref had checked his watch 30 seconds earlier at Macclesfield. What if Walton's penalty was half an inch to the left at Hereford? I know it's a cliche but luck DOES (at least in our experience it more or less has) even itself out.

Re. #3 in the list and luck evening itself out. Remember the recent game when Robbie Williams's free-kick struck the post then the keeper and went out for a corner to Argyle. I'd say that was pretty similar to what happened today with Larrieu.

#1 was a great save

Very good point regarding No.3 Doc.

 

[Metal Green Mickey]

We are absolutely brilliant at defending-there's no two ways about that.

If anyone can have a good go and shutting Swindon out, it's us. If we're as solid as we were today, and get a breakaway goal then who knows.

By the way, I really don't think we were lucky today. I think we defended well. There's a real distinction to be made there.

You dont??

I can think of three moments already...

1. The ball in the box in the first half and one of their players hit it on the half volley and somehow Larrieu got a hand to it and got it over the bar

2. When Williams and Larrieu left it to each other and Larrieu tried to make a slide tackle. missed him and somehow we got it away

3. The head that hit the post, then hit Larrieu and went off out for a corner


Defendsively we are organised. Yet the last 3 home games we need lady luck smiling on us!!

1) Because we had a very good shot stopper in goal for us. That's not luck, that's the competance of our keeper.
2) Well it was clear how we got it away, because Purse was perceptive and capable enough to get in there and clear it. Again, the competance of one of our players, not luck.
3) I'll give you that one.

But if you were at Shrews and Bradford (don't know if you were or not), you'd have seen similar scenes in those games as well. Surely there becomes a point where you stop blaming it on luck and start saying it was just blooming good defensive work?

Like in number 3 of your list, there are incidences of luck that go our way yes. But what if the ref had checked his watch 30 seconds earlier at Macclesfield. What if Walton's penalty was half an inch to the left at Hereford? I know it's a cliche but luck DOES (at least in our experience it more or less has) even itself out.

Im a season ticket holder since 2000 after I came back from University.

You say luck even's itself out. Well if thats the case then we are going to get a huge dose of bad luck soon because as I stated the last 3 home matches have been so fortunate. How Shrewsbury and Bradford didnt score I dont know on those match days either.

We are our own worse enemy. We sit so deep and pass it around our 18 yard box, and create our own problems. Of course we have improved since the start of the season but we couldnt of got much worse as we lost nine and drew one of the first 10 games.

We have a formula where we are just battling our way out of this. It might achieve our goal short term.

In terms of footballing ablity though I am simply not seeing it. Infact I havent seen it for some time. I dont expect wins. Or vintage displays. Yet when I do expect is for us to play like the "home" side and have a period of pocession and chances. How many chances did we create today? And that was a flukey cross which ended up in the net. Things have to change!

We'll have to agree to disagree then.

We play a defensive, sitting game and we're very good at it. Our defence is good, our keeper is good and it's why we don't concede many goals, despite the opposition having a lot of chances. It makes me wonder how many clean sheets it'll take for some of you to start thinking that it's in fact not luck, it's the fact that we have a defensive gameplan and we're fantastic implimenting it.

So an effective game plan is playing one up front, with no outlet ball? You punt it clear only for the ball to keeps coming back to you. You sit on your on 18 yard box and rely on the fact you get the lucky breaks? Clean sheets are fine. I just dont think 10 men behind the ball for the majority of a home match is the way to play.

I mean lets face it if this team was a league or two above us then fine. Yet, a decent side will eventually find the net. We came up against a side who scored only 42 (I think or somewhere near that mark) goals all season. We just let them have the ball and it was a game of defense verus attack.

The reason I am critical is because I dont think you can win many games like this without some degree of luck. The best form of keeping a clean sheet is keeping the opposition out of your penalty area.

We are in league two. We are at home. Do you really want to see this style of play next season? You talk about a gameplan but apart from getting everyone behind the ball where is the game plan to move up the pitch. How do we move up the pitch when there is no one up there? Is it really a postive thing to play a full back at left midfield and a forward at right midfield? Punting the ball forward and chasing it down doesnt take much training does it?

Our main asset is unity. That is what has us slowly moving up the table.

As soon as we lose people will rip into Fletcher because of the style of our play and how we perform. I'm saying this because its more difficult to come out with it when we have won. When we lose its easy to jump on the band wagon. Some of the results have masked massive problems we have in the team. For example, Sturrocks championship winning teams were counter attacking sides. The difference is they had a midfielders who could go from box to box. They always had Mickey Evans who could hold the ball up and we would move up as a team. You talk about game plans but one of the most important thing is making use of your set pieces. The quality of the corners at times are woeful. Sturrock's team attacked at area of the pitch and the game plan was to put the ball in that area. I dont see any of that.

So I never said Fletcher shouldnt have a chance to manage next season. So long as we stay up he derserves that opportunity. But yet again I am believing there are more questions than answers on display at present!

 

[James Owen]

I hate di canio as a manager. Let's do them boys!!

 

[Lost in Chelt]

I don't believe in luck. You make your own luck in my opinion. The best team over the course of the season will win the league and the worst two go down. It's that simple.

Football fans just bleat on about luck when their team isn't good enough. It's exactly the same as when people moan about Man United having the success they have because of "biased referees giving them penalties" etc. Nonsense, they are where they are because of skill and mental strength means they keep getting the opportunities. Yes, sometimes refs make mistakes, but they are more likely to with Man U as they give them more opportunity to do so.

I wasn't there on Saturday, but we won because we were good enough to take our chance, and the Aldershot players weren't good enough to score theirs. I was at Hereford on Friday, were we unlucky because we had plenty of chances to score in the first chance to win the game? Walton hit the post, was that unlucky? No, his penalty wasn't good enough, pure and simple.

We are almost safe and that's for one simple reason. Our defending as a team has meant we've let in very few goals. Fletch (much like Pulis did in his time here), was smart enough to know that if he got in some quality defenders, and set up the team not to concede, then that would be good enough to keep us up.

In my opinion, Fletch has done 50% of the job to making us a really good side. In the close season, he'll have to figure out how to keep this strong defence, and make us more of an attacking force. If I was him, first on my list after securing the contracts of some key individuals would be finding a true box to box midfielder in the Friio or Norris mould.

Back to the point of the thread. Really looking forward to Saturday. I for one will be hoping for more of the same: Park the bus, keep a clean sheet and hope to pinch one on the break.