Load of old Cobblers

[ty cobb]

Well had to watch this one from the side of the pitch after not being able to get in the away end. Wish I hadn't bothered going to the effort. Now one defeat does not spell a disaster and we can potentially put this down to a bad day at the office but it did highlight some issues which are usually glossed over by a win.

Firstly what does Taylor bring to the team. He can't hold the ball up, can't win headers and isn't quick enough to be able to run at defenders. Hoban at least can do the first two. Secondly Slocombe really does look a concern with crosses, goal not his fault but some other crosses were punched away when under little pressure. Kicking was also poor on Sat. Still not convinced he is an upgrade on Clarke. Thirdly we have no idea how to play against ten men. For the second game running we had at least a half to make the most of our advantage and yet again failed to do so. I have no idea what Appleton was thinking in the second half. The centre backs were winning everything but looked slow, so instead of bringing on Roberts we wait until the 90th minute to bring on anybody with a bit of pace. What has Roberts done to fall out of favour that we can't bring him on in a game like that?

We weren't really at the races yet should probably have won with a pen miss and a couple of clear cut chances early on which we failed to make the most of. They created nothing at all bar the goal which should have not stood after a blatent foul on Wright in the lead up to it.

With Roofe we look like a solid league 2 side, with him we always have a chance. Also not sure what the fuss was over Lundstram on the Radio, Jerome and co were purring over his range of passing, from where I sat this often involved avoiding a simple pass and going for a lofted one which more often than not went over the players head and into the stand. Still early days for him so need to give him time but I haven't seen why he's been getting so many rave reviews and I would expect Sercombe to come back in on Sat.

[Kernow Yellow]

Thanks for the report Ty.

By the way, have you got your date settings mixed-up on your profile? The forum thinks you posted this 4 days before the match took place (hence why I missed it til today)!

[ty cobb]

Alas I have not discovered the ability to time travel, if I had I would have gone back and got Andy Crosby for his ability to deal with a cross into the box and take a pen - I just updated my old post about needing a ticket for the game as one was not forthcoming and I ended up in the home fans (and looking around when they scored suggest I wasn't the only one).

[slappy]

Seems to be a familiar story in that we struggle to break down defensive teams.

Crawley first game of the season, Bristol and Northampton when both were down to ten men. We don't seem to have made any tactical changes to reflect the extra player, whereas they can settle back into two banks of four and a target man, and try and catch us on the break. Also we are conceding too many from floated in crosses which the GK/Defence are not dealing with. I'd hoped Dunkley might provide more of a physical presence to counter this.