Last night was dire to say the least.

It seemed from the starting 11 that it would be 4-5-1 which it was. I thought McSweeney was hard done by to be dropped, but there you go.

Having seen the team and the quote from MW is the night mail before setting off, I came to the conclusion , wrongly, that maybe he had picked Brown instead of McSweeney so if we had to change the game we could go to 4-4-2 without having to use subs by switching possibly Sweeney to the right and putting Brown alongside Donaldson. Maybe not ideal but a possibility to begin with then maybe bringing McSweeney on if still behind for possibly Murray(holding midfielder off as not much good if still losing)Sweeney returning to his more familiar centre midfield position.

So it's 1-0 at half time nothing changed formation wise and to be honest a game which was dire as both teams gave ball away except when we were given it we hit a hopeful ball into the channels for Donaldson to try to get.

So 2nd half and will we have a change. Simple answer...NO, but we 2-0 down fairly quickly, well we have to go for it now, lets get to 4-4-2 we may as well lose 4-0 and have a go is my quote. We get the subs, here we go it's throwing caution to the wind and we'll try to get back into it.

Brown off McSweeney on, Donaldson off Humphreys on......No I got it wrong we not going for it at all, we've settled for 2-0. Its still 4-5-1. Maybe Boyd will come on alongside Humphreys and Murray goes off at least it a slight possibility.

Humphreys does hold it up a bit but that it we're still dire , we're still not getting in it...O well final whistle I was right 4-0 but I was wrong we didn't go for it.

2nd goal is comical defending on Hartley's part but everyone is entitled to a mistake. Flinders not much cover for first and third even though I still cant quite see how it went in, yes he hit it hard yes he was on the run when he hit it but it seemed to go through Flinders, I probably being to hard will have to see it on tv.

A total bad night, and as the norm when we concede first we never seemed to be in it really.

We need to get out of this slump and quick, but we still wont go down.

Thanks for taking the trouble to write a report, Bob.................appreciate it mate.

Good report.

On the website it says the third goal was an unstopable effort. It was near enough straight at Flinders. To me the team looked very short of confidence. Donaldson had been playing centre mid for the Toon res and we play him up top on his own? Changes need to be made IMO!

Cheers for the report Bob but I think people need to stop going on about the formation all the time, We finished 5th bottom and got spanked by cack like Yeovil 4-0 last season playing 4-4-2 in the main, we lost 5-0 at home playing 4-4-2. Whatever formation you play form will fluctuate and like a month ago we were on a good run, now we are on a bad one.

Concurring with pj.

I don't know why this formation issue is becoming such a big deal.

if hartley messes up at the back and we concede thats god sod all to do with the formation.

I agree, to a point PJ problem is when you've watched a game(and I don't just mean me there) then when you discuss it at 1 and 2-0 down, you try to find something that may have changed the game. Therefore formation (and to some tactics don't matter) becomes a viable(in my opinion) topic that needs discussion.

In general I don't have a problem with what MW has achieved so far this season but I'm sure if you had been there last night you would have been calling for 2 up front to at least try an get goal back and maybe change the game. Some may have even thought going to 3 at the back and having 3 up front may have been an option.

Please note it not a slagging off, it's not really a moan, it's what I was thinking last night as the game evolved. And as I said in original post I still don't think we'll be relegated.I stick by that.

I'm just saying we needed some sort of change last night. Not necessarily for the rest of the season. You do need a plan "B" when the original game plan has not worked.

I think we are struggling beyond our best eleven, the only one on the bench last night pushing for a start is McSweeney who was very unlucky to be left out. I've never been his biggest fan but he's been our best player lately. Non of the 'forwards' are pushing for a start, what do you do

When you're behind you have to try something I agree and maybe we should have but we are hardly blessed with riches.

Bob,

thanks for the report. Missed last night at Ice Station Zebra due to work. from the lads I've spoken too your report sounds spot on.

True just the one ..Humphreys

To true there so far this season Chip, I even said it myself last night, I'm beginning to think I should avoid all away games.

The third goal was a good strike but straight at flinders but he had a good game really....looked like he couldn't do anything more for first (albeit we were at other end of ground), 2nd he actually made a decent save after hartley gave him a short header back and would of been a lot more if not for a couple of good saves.

One thing that doesn't help is all the praise Kean got from the fans (altho rightly so) and songs for him everytime he touched the ball. No chants for flinders and no-one getting behind him.....he is not a bad keeper; he is actually good. Got to remember Kean has been in goal when we conceded 3 at notts county and 4 at peterborough so it wasn't like we were always tighter with Kean in goal.

The defence is leaving the keeper exposed quite often recently but I still think the midfield offers no protection (or not enough) to the defence and certainly no quick enough support to the lone striker.

We have arguably got a decent 13 players (2 of them can't play 2 games in a week) and one of our top scorers of last few seasons in monkhouse has been poor all season to say the least. As much as people point out about Sweeney having 10 goals only 5 are in the league and Liddle has 4 league goals. As said before it could be a lot worse, this spell of conceding too many and not scoring could have come at seperate times or we could of conceded the goals over more games instead of just taking hammerings in a few games.