That's exactly how Ian Holloway would have put it!

An absolutely bloody awful performance apart from one or two,a better side would have beat us comfortably tonight. We seriously need to stop this negative football and get munns starting who showed in 15 mins that he has the ability to create and play some clever attacking passes. The midfield doesn't need Hawkins in there, he offers nothing for me. As said the centre half pairing are scary to watch and I'm just waiting for the mistake to happen. Harrison has played enough football now to know how to mark attackers but he's constantly caught on the wrong side of his man, he simply isn't good enough, I swear he has voodoo dolls of other centre half's because he always somehow manages to get back in the side even when 5th choice! Laing is woeful, every header just goes up in the air and he can't pass for shit. Please Mr Harrison can we try and be a bit more positive because fans won't turn up to watch such negative football! Obviously I'm chuffed we won but for 96 mins I think 95% of us were probably very annoyed!.

That performance was absolute rubbish and I won't put up with much more of it. The clean sheet is down to a very very good keeper, who could make us a tidy bit of cash if he keeps up this standard of performance that more and more people are now expecting from him and woeful finishing from the Barrow boys.
I don't see what Hawkins brings to the table and Featherstone is becoming more and more anonymous in this league of giant hoofballers.
The centre half pairing are a joke and light years behind Watson and Ledger.
I thought Munns did well but he should have come on for Hawkins and Rodney's replacement should have been a centre forward....there were two of them on the bench!!!!!! FFS.
We are in a game at home, are desperate for a goal and the manager leaves two strikers on the bench, whilst taking another out of the game. Harrison got out of jail tonight,
Like the rest of us, I welcomed the win but that goal painted over a whole load of cracks.
I convinced a pal of mine to stick a grand on a Pools win at 5-4. What a sigh of relief at the end. I am now just about to pour my second large whisky.

We played like the bottom club away to the top club. Why he brought on Oates for Donaldson is beyond me . Then off goes Rodney and Oates is up front running like a gazelle in Rigger boots.
The ball spent most of its time in the stratosphere. Abysmal.

I know people entitled to opinion but how anyone can't see why Featherstone is important must not be watchibg same game as me. Him and deverdics are only players capable of football. You hear the crowd moan and criticise about going backwards and sideways but keeping possession is far more important than just what turn out to end aimless punts up field

Harrison was bloody awful I lost count how many times he did that where he loses his head and gets turned, wrong side or the ball goes beyond him. And Laing is even worse than Worley, and he was at best inept.

It's not difficult to coach that out of Harrison, to work on staying composed keep your shape and not to compromise your position so it's either we aren't coaching him, haven't recognised it's an issue or he's as thick as mince and isn't able to take the simple lessons on board.

Ledger needs to be back fit soon and pray Watson is fit for January.

Delighted to win, especially so late, and 3 points Saturday will put us in a decent position with some momentum behind us.

In the land of giants we were lobbing balls up to our lone striker. That's all you can say really.

Stole my thunder Chunky, without Featherstone we would never see the ball in midfield. I don,t understand how anyone can aim any negative comments towards him. He completes more passes in 5 minutes than Hawkins does the whole game. It,s time for Deverdics to take Hawkins place in midfield and get Blair back in at left back then maybe we will create something for our forward /forwards to get on the end of.

Featherstone had a good game last night.

I agree that the place most in jeopardy MUST be Lewis Hawkins...

There weren't many positives to come out of another home game, all be it we got the 3 points. Having a keeper like Loach is so important to us at the moment having Laing and Harrison starting for us. Laing can't head a ball forward, it just goes up in the air and Harrison can't stay goal side for s**t.

Playing one striker up front is embarrassing at home to a team who were 5th bottom of the national league. As much as Oates tries and puts himself about, his ability is very poor, hence why Harrison has signed two strikers. I also want to query why he continues to pick Hawkins who brings nothing to our midfield.

No one has also mentioned the number of corners we wasted by putting ALL of our players on their goal line. What did it achieve? We were fortunate with the goal that when Harrison headed it, it ended up going back out to Deverics by accident! Deverics was the difference tonight, his crossing was superb, much better than the Eastleigh game.

Onwards to Saturday but lets hope its not another lackluster performance against another struggling team who only have 7 points.

“They came to frustrate us, started with a flat back five and that’s difficult to break down.
Teams lift it when they come here, and we have seen a back five all too often and it will keep happening.



“Especially with Nicky [Featherstone] sitting behind me, he allows me to get forward while he does a lot of the work that goes unnoticed, picking up the second balls and keeping us ticking over."



“The gaffer changed the formation to a diamond in the last 20 minutes and freed me up. "“The gaffer asked me to get in the box more and thankfully it has paid off.”



I wasn't at the game but are these three quotes fair and justifiable as good news stories?

Totally agree - one of the best performances to date from Featherstone......

Ta.

Barrow switched to 4 at the back after about 30 minutes. Some gangly fucker came over to left back and they pushed Dan Jones into midfield. We seemed to be having some joy in the wide areas when they were 3-5-2.

Our switch to the diamond was with the introduction of Munns.

Thought Barrow were just marginally better than Chester (who were probably the worst side iv seen) but they still created a few golden opportunites to score, good job their strikers were gash in front of goal.

Maybe a goal early on and we would have got 3/4 who knows but I agree with Chip - thought they came here to win the game not to simply frustrate us. We simply werent creating enough. The few times we would have got through their defence, our players kept making the wrong pass. (aswell as the time their player knocked the ball through and Rodney was onto it but the linesman put his flag up)

Thought the ref was decent for this level, wasnt stop start every 2 minutes and let it flow a bit.

Perhaps I should explain what I meant by "Featherstone is becoming more and more anonymous in this league of giant hoofballers"
First of all let me say that Featherstone is an asset, he is an intelligent footballer who keeps the game ticking with his style of play and is usually on the ball a lot but only when we are trying to keep it on the deck. In those circumstances he is outstanding at times but we are being sucked in to more and more hoofball in my opinion which, to me, cuts him out of the game.
I didn't suggest he had a bad game but it worries me that his influence is being diminished, especially when Laing and Harrison are playing. Which is why I used the word anonymous.

I think it's time for Hawkins to be dropped and replaced with Munns, I genuinely didn't realise Hawkins was playing until around the 60th minute. Featherstone had a good game, does the basics which is what ever team needs. Harrison and Laing at the back is a huge liability, as I stated before it's a good job they couldn't finish for shit. Thought Rodney held the ball up well at times, would've liked to have seen another sub to bring on some fresh legs.

I, unfortunately, missed the goal as I left early (2nd home game in a row where I've missed our last minute goals). Was a shite performance overall but all that matters is 3 points.

I have never understood the mentality of people leaving early when three results are stil possible, yeah I get when we're losing badly, but at 0-0 is just bizzare to me. You've committed to going and being there for two hours yet choose not to see the conclusion? It's not like The Vic is a hard ground to get away from at full time either no real bottle necks or traffic congestion.

I left early as my takeaway was due to be delivered at 9.50pm. Would have been fine if the linesman wasn't subbed off and it took them an age to sort it out.

How was your takeaway?

a)Worth missing a meaningless goal for
b)Worth missing drawing level mid-match
c) Worth missing a late goal
d) Worth missing an injury time winner

Bit of a misunderstanding, my dad and brother said shall we go so I followed suit as the game looked finished and I assumed I was dropping them both off at home. We got to the car park, heard the goal go in and they then both proceeded to get in my brother's girlfriends car who was picking them. They failed to tell me they didn't need me to drop them off... Had a few quid at halftime on Pools to win so not all bad.

If you look at the results in this League in general it's dull and low scoring!

I suppose it's the same as the clamour for two up front. I think we played with two strikers for 5 of the first 6 games and didn't pick up any wins since ditching it we have picked 17 points from 24. So for those who say it isn't working, well in terms of points per game it is. It might not be pretty but maybe this League isn't pretty.

It wasn't pretty at Woking, and I felt disappointed that we didn't rip into them and win the game. But we have Conference level players now, no Lewis Alessandras or Nathan Thomas's. If we have to grind out results, so be it. I'd rather grind them out than lose.

I have no problems with ugly 1-0 wins. It was exactly that at Guiseley which kick started our good run.

No win last night would have meant 3 games without a win. For confidence alone it was a great result

Which of these games did we play with two up top in diamond, Christmas tree or Christmas pudding formation. In the limited games I have seen in particular against flyde Hawkins put more tackles in on his limited time than the rest of the midfield during the match. The lad covers some ground which when munns was giving his chance seem to really struggle to cover. As for Oates he may benefit from someone alongside him. I do worry regards these signings they seem to have no purpose on altering team shape. We have already signed players for these positions. The players signed seem to have similar past history. It looks like we asking an agent for hopefully a centre half but getting a centre forward. I cannot see any reason in it what benefit could a agent get from this?

Their effort at around 54 seconds is one of the worst attempts iv ever seen.

That was the first time I noticed he was playing, about 30 minutes in. I am normally a fan of Hawkins, but playing the position he is, he is just ineffective. Not sure what space he was closing down as the midfield was wholly bypassed by Barrow. He has been anonymous on the whole for a couple of games now. Deverdics should've been moved in their as soon as Adams was fit. Hopefully Harrison will do that on Saturday, better late than never.

For me, Harrison made a good call setting us up hard to beat. We had a tough run of games where the formation and personnel paid off. But when we are playing home games, or games away to defensive teams, we are struggling to create enough real chances, and that is what Deverdics can offer. Replacing Hawkins with Deverdics isn't going to disrupt the formation, but it gives us an extra option going forward. The number of assists etc he got for Dover speaks for itself.

Obviously having Watson and Ledger in the team makes this move a lot easier, mind.

Deverdics had lots of space last night because Barrow didn't start with any wingers. He won't and doesn't get that amount of space normally. He is wasted in that position, especially when we have Adams sat on the bench, and Hawkins being anonymous for most of the game

I think Harrison is approaching things in a sensible way. If a team has been struggling it seems logical that the first thing you'd do is try to sort out the defence and get the team organised. Whilst it could be argued that with more composure in front of goal Barrow would have scored once or twice themselves I think he's broadly achieved this aim. As people have pointed out, 17 points from a possible 24 in our last 8 games speaks for itself.

There inevitably comes a time when you have to look to move beyond this approach but for now I'm happy.

Anonymous in an attacking sense, mainly. But also defensively last night, and in quite a few other games. Barrow have been renowned this season for sitting back and playing long balls. Quite a few other teams falls in this category, another one being Solihull Moors on Saturday. Barrow, nor Solihull are going to change that tactic based on whether it is Hawkins or Deverdics in midfield. It ultimately makes Hawkins job redundant as he isn't stopping them getting through the middle, and he isn't creative going forward either. He always seems to find himself stood next to an opposition player when we attack.

I can't imagine Harrison is asking our midfield to sit deeper and allow long balls to be aimed at Harrison and Laing, though. That would be suicidal, and would've been last night if the Barrow strikers could finish.

I'm not advocating changing the full team, I just think changing Dev for Hawkins would give us so much more going forward, and wouldn't lose anything defensively so it seems a win win situation. We would create more chances with him in midfield.

Like I said, we had a tough run, and the tactics worked. Now we are playing lesser teams, we need to take the game to them instead of sitting back and hoping to nick a 1-0 win. We got a lucky break snatching three points last night, but without that it would've been 2 points from 9, so something needs to change before we get back into a rot and not scoring enough goals.

It's a fine line between entertaining and winning, expecting both after the awful period we've been in is a little unrealistic in my opinion. We have the winning, the entertaining might take a little while longer. Anybody who is not willing to wait is being foolish I reckon, Harrison has seemingly stopped the rot, finally, thank god.

Plus I think it’s the reality of the league we are in as well - most wins will probably be quite ugly.

But I do agree with the points around swapping Hawkins for Munns. I don’t think it will change the shape much, it’s more around having someone who can unlock defences more. Plus Woods can play a bit deeper if needed.

I don’t think last night was as horrific performance wise as some people are making out. I think we played well at times but lacked the killer pass which was frustrating, but we have seen worse this season

I'd take playing poor, boring football every week and winning. We played some fantastic stuff under Higgy, but we didn't win enough.

We have had a lot of injury issues so far this season and now with Donaldson potentially injured after limping off yesterday, there may be changes needed again. The change that I feel makes more sense for Deverdics would be to have him pushed even further on the left wing and have franks move over to the right, with Adams coming in at LB. means there's no change in midfield, we have our most creative player further up the pitch and an actual LB in that position who can offer a lot going forward.

Ledger for Harrison if fit.

Rodney in Donaldsons position if injured and either Oates/Thorne or the other new striker into the striker position.

No other changes needed.

Munns for Donaldson.

Oates for Donaldson.

Why?
He tackles himself, has no ball control and usually mistimes his headers by a week, except for the one he scored at Orient obvs.

I just don't see what Hawkins offers in that role that Deverdics couldn't offer personally. I can understand having a more defensive minded setup when playing the better teams, but to play so deep and invite pressure onto Harrison and Laing seems suicidal, especially against teams like Barrow and Solihull. The last thing I would want as manager is for Harrison to be challenging long balls against two big strikers. He gets turned/out-muscled like he isn't there.

We are struggling with the one upfront tactic as the midfield is so far off the striker that they need to hold the ball up long enough to allow the midfield to catch up. Dev playing there would naturally play higher up, and is much more likely to create a chance than either Hawkins or Woods. It worked initially, and results have vindicated it, but we need to step on now. We aren't creating any real chances at all, most chances are half chances at best, and I don't think we can rely on that to keep winning games.

4 shots from outside the box demonstrates how difficult we are finding it to break teams down, rather than show we are getting forward. Like I said previously, we had a bit of joy down the wings as Barrow set up 3-5-2, which allowed Dev and Magnay to get forward, but it still didn't create any real chances.

I thought Featherstone was on the ball quite a lot especially first half. He dropped deep and let the full backs push on.

Still, I'm not sure how any of that defends Hawkins place in the team. Other than his mazy run that led to Franks getting a shot off in the box I don't remember anything else he contributed. I'm not suggesting packing the team full of attacking players, just simply swapping one player who isn't affecting the game for one who could affect it more than anyone on the pitch. It's a small change in the setup, but could be a huge change in terms of creating chances.

Occupying space in a very compact midfield is a difficult concept, because there isn't any space to occupy. Hawkins finds himself stood next to opposition whenever we have the ball too. Woods does most of the chasing down, so I still don't know what Hawkins offers in that role personally.

Appreciate the appeal of Dev staying in defence, but he doesn't want to play there, and can offer us much more going forward. We have a left back, who looked more than capable pre season, sat on the bench.

We will see how it pans out over the next few games, I just don't think trying to grind out a 1-0 win against teams down the bottom is how you go about getting out of this league. Some good news, Ledger should be available to replace Harrison on Saturday which will dramatically improve the chances of the game ending Solihull 0