I presume...

Montpoolier · **Posted:** Sat Dec 16, 2006 1:06 am

...no one has any real complaints about our recent league form?

TalbotAvenger · **Posted:** Sat Dec 16, 2006 1:08 am

richard head wrote:

...no one has any real complaints about our recent league form?

I'm sure someone will......

Dugoutpaddy · **Joined:** Sat Sep 02, 2006 10:23 am **Posts:** 1772

I'm sure a few Loids will clappp

The Lightning Tree · **Joined:** Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:30 pm **Posts:** 5804

A lot of work night outs, plus maybe the weather didn't help. I'm sure we usually have a low crowd round about this time every season, money tight etc.... expect another 2000 on tonights on boxing day.

Montpoolier · **Posted:** Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:24 am

It's always been like that though. Runaway victories are few and far between.
Under Cooper a lot of the games we won were by the skin of our teeth. Reading the reports I don't believe such was the case last night.
We had our good half, we scored. They had their good half, they didn't. Compare that with the way we let Peterborough come back at us two seasons ago.

The point is the team now has something to grip onto. It's not just play and hope; we have a position to defend and improve and so far we're doing it, and doing so playing with style at times it would appear.

poolpower · **Posted:** Sat Dec 16, 2006 1:15 pm

Mr ADG wrote:

chip fireball wrote:

richard we are not playing that well as a whole but are getting by because we now have a goalscorer and the defence is as tight as its ever been.

we started brilliantly tonight, got the ball down, the passing and movement was excellent and finally got a goal after missing 2 sitters. sweens was unlucky to have a shot tipped onto the post at the end of a brilliant run and we all though dale were dead and buried.

for some reason it then became like the cup game all over again. for the last hour they dominated possession and our defence and dimi had to be at their best. in the second half we had one move where we strung 6 passes together and another where we managed four before sweens was chopped down. other than that it was long ball stuff. for some reason the midfield got over run. dunno how cos with them playing 3 up front second half there should have been a man spare somewhere.

boland did his best to try and keep possession but it just seemed like we were running on empty at times. the crowd got increasingly frustrated and nervy, and the final whistle couldnt come soon enough.

monkhouse, to nobodys great suprise got subbed, and we moved williams to the left. things still didnt look balanced in the middle though. you can sense that wilson is still tinkering with the midfield to try and get it right. neither gibb or monkhouse have really convinced as yet.

on a positive note, we won, duffy scored again, nelson was magnificent with ben clark not far behind him, and the two full backs were very solid. we look to have a side that isnt going to concede many and is capable of grinding out victories. you have to worry though about what would happen if we were to lose nelson. not only was he superb at the back, winning headers against a bloke a foot taller than him,, he also set up the goal.

on a final note the crowd was on the low side given the recent results. i really was expecting a 4500 plus gate. where was everyone ?

The first half hour was awesome. We played the best football I have seen this season.

The first half hour of the second half was worryingly bad. It was worse than bad. It was arguably the worst of the season.

So, can someone explain to me how we can be so different in one match?

Cos I cant explain it.

At least it should ensure we all keep our feet on the ground.

someone in the know told me that because the opposition were rollicked at half time then they stepped it up a bit
begs the question were we not rollicked for slipping back during the first half
but cant fault them for most of the first half and last fifteen mins

Mr Irrelevant · **Joined:** Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:25 pm **Posts:** 22566

chip fireball wrote:

i think most of us are dancing john. its certainly a lot easier going in to work on a monday morning than it was 6 weeks ago. i would take a one nil win every week till the end of the season.

as i said a few weeks ago this division is so bad that the four relegated teams will probably go straight back back up. we really need to be looking to hang onto nelson in january and make a couple of good signings, before the clearout in the summer.

i think the reason a lot of us are trying not to get carried away is that there is a strong possibility duffy, dimi and nelson will be gone in a few weeks time. that prospect scares the pants off me.

if we keep dimi and nelson and sign duffy, i will dance naked in wilkies window out of sheer joy.

This is getting stickied on the off chance!!! And you WILL be held to account Sir!

BritishWestHpool · **Joined:** Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:35 pm **Posts:** 1243

Like mentioned at the start a second goal would have killed the game off totally.
Rochdale were poor, very very poor - make no mistake about it.
Yet somwehow we let them back into it bigstyle.
We scraped past the finishing post and hardly put any passes together at all in the second half. Chip, ADG and others are spot on when they talk about how different we played after the opening half hour.
We desperately needed a spark, something to ignite the match - so what did we do? Bring Daly on. So we had Daly and Eiffion on the pitch.....?
I was disappointed we didnt bring Foley on instead, even to play wide right if he didnt want to put him on centre forward.
Foley is a spark. Him running against their defence on that pitch would surely have ignited the game? Instead of lump it up to Daly.
Eifion wasnt going to do any better than Monky man on the left, lets be honest.
Anyway, we scraped past and its three points in the bag and if you look at the table it looks a hell of a lot better right now.
So I understand we should move on and look at the next game.

poolpower · **Posted:** Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:16 pm

I was disappointed we didnt bring Foley on instead, even to play wide right if he didnt want to put him on centre forward.
Foley is a spark. Him running against their defence on that pitch would surely have ignited the game? Instead of lump it up to Daly.

so if we can see that why can't DW?

BritishWestHpool · **Joined:** Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:35 pm **Posts:** 1243

I'm really not sure PP.
It must be that managers think when you play the likes of Rochdale you need someone big and strong to compete.
As it happens I'm not sure Daly does compete most of the time. He might try but he doesnt do a great deal else for me and never has (bar three games).
Obviously the Rochdale defence looked very poor when put under pressure and Foley would have scared the living daylights out of them. John Daly is exactly the type of striker defenders such as those like to play against. Foley is exactly the worst type of player they like to play against.
I simply cant understand it.

poolpower · **Posted:** Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:58 pm

the big strong fella they had did very little despite being a foot taller than Nelson
that game especially second half was made for Foley
non of their back four were very mobile
in fact [rivalism] Foley would have revelled in that

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