Rage Online

Surprised at the lack of comment/analysis at what looks on the face of it to be a dip in current form. Are people worried, or is this just a blip? I've not seen enough of us over the last few months to make an informed judgement either way, but pretty clearly the next month or so is critical to the season's outcome.

Views?

Not worried yet, but will be a bit more concerned if we don't get four points from the next two games. Mansfield looked a good side in the first half and deserved to go in level at half time. If it hadn't been for a superb save from Slocombe it could have been worse but a poor punch by him led to their first goal. They were a different side in the second half. They played for the draw and wasted time from the 46th minute until they went behind. We struggled to match them in the first half but were much better in the second. Great performance from Hylton. Good work from Ismael for our second.Good cross from Kenny for the first.

Interesting that you mentioned Hylton and Slocombe. I wonder if that game might be a turning point for both. Most fans (most of the ones to whom I speak anyway) think we should be seeing more of Hylton and probably less of Slocombe. Could it be that their respective performances give Appleton food for thought?

Very lethargic for the first 25 minutes - I can't make up my mind whether it was due to not having played for over a week or the intensity of so many cup games taking it out on them. Whatever it was I think Mansfield were full value for their lead. However from the point at which we equalised until the 89th minute we were still playing some decent stuff, despite Roofe being pretty much marked out of the game and Sercs being less influential than he has been earlier in the season.

Also - take away two daft goalkeeping moments and you have a very comfortable 2-0 win. I think we may see Benji in the side for a while.

Kenny is looking like another fantastic find; while not having quite the attacking panache of Gorgeous George he certainly does know the job of a fullback. It does mean that we need to find another source of quality balls into the box however as presumably Maguire will take the left midfield berth and he prefers to cut inside, and Macca, while giving 100% effort and getting into great positions, has very little end product. Here's hoping Ismael gets match fit quickly as there were certainly glimpses on Tuesday night.

Very happy to see Hylton up top and scoring, we've missed him.

I'm not worried yet, but we need to get our home form back on track quickly (hopefully starting against Wilder's lot next week).

is it a dip? I think the mix of cup and league games means it's hard to get a true sense. calendar year 2016 has been:

notts county (a) - W
swansea (h - cup) - W
milwall (a - cup) - W
bristol rovers (h) - L
portsmouth (a) - W
blackburn (h - cup) - L
milwall (a - cup) - L
mansfield (h) - D

i think it would be tough to expect Us to have won all those cup games against higher-league opponents, and i don't think any of our performances were poor. i think we've dipped from the heights of the very start of the year (although notts county could easily have left Us feeling as we do about the mansfield game), and good performances against a higher-league team are often not enough to get something from a game, you need an exceptional performance. i think we have been playing well - and exceptionally well on a regular basis (notts county comeback/swansea/milwall a/portsmouth).

as ever, it will depend on the next few results, and dropping two points against mansfield increases the pressure in those forthcoming games.

as for the mansfield game itself, it was such a disappointment to not build on our one goal lead and then concede the late equaliser. it was a good chance to put a bit of a gap between Us and some of the chasing pack and probably knock the stags out of the race, and we need to be winning our home games. but, late goals will happen over a season, we haven't made a habit of it so far. i took reassurance from hylton getting back on the scoresheet, our new loan signings looking like they'll slot in more than adequately, and our will to get back into the game after initially going behind.

i'm not worried right now. we're in a competitive league, so it won't be plain sailing, but our team has consistently got results this season so i think we'll do so again over the coming weeks.

I think the quality of our play has dipped, and that has coincided with the loss of Baldock, injury to Taylor, and several other players out of form (Roofe, Slocombe, Lundstram, O'Dowda, maybe Sercombe to a lesser extent).

We're a good side, but not good enough to lose that amount of talent in one hit and not expect it to impact. And I feel we do not have enough to offer from the bench.

On the flip side, Hylton seems to be back on his game, which is great to see, Kenny and Ismail look good so far, and Wright is on top form too.

Slocombe has reverted to type of not knowing whether to stick or twist when it comes to commanding his area. Looking a little further ahead, if we get promotion, how many of us believe he is a League 1 standard keeper? He made one quality save against Mansfield, but 2 Sunday league bloopers, of which the second was in the headless chicken category, and that can't be acceptable.

Buchel is the better all round keeper in my view, but needs to build himself up a bit. He may be good enough as a second string League 1 keeper if he can put on some strength, but I think he is quicker, more agile and more confident than Slocombe, not to mention technically more proficient.

So really we do need a much higher standard first choice keeper in the longer term, which is a worry. Whatever happened to Jamie Ashdown and Ryan Clarke?

GodalmingYellow wrote:Whatever happened to Jamie Ashdown and Ryan Clarke?

Well quite. Appleton and the people around him have made mostly brilliant calls on player recruitment/retention, but I wonder if even they are now ruing the Ryan Clarke decision. I think he still had another season in him at this level.

Kairdiff Exile wrote:

GodalmingYellow wrote:Whatever happened to Jamie Ashdown and Ryan Clarke?

Well quite. Appleton and the people around him have made mostly brilliant calls on player recruitment/retention, but I wonder if even they are now ruing the Ryan Clarke decision. I think he still had another season in him at this level.

I thought the Clarke decision was madness at the time and still do now, the way he was playing in the second half of last season was much better than what we've seen from Slocombe this year. But Clarke's gone now and I have to accept it.

Looking to the future there's a lad playing for Southport who I reckon could do a good job for Us, New Zealand youth international as well apparently...

Kairdiff Exile wrote:

GodalmingYellow wrote:Whatever happened to Jamie Ashdown and Ryan Clarke?

Well quite. Appleton and the people around him have made mostly brilliant calls on player recruitment/retention, but I wonder if even they are now ruing the Ryan Clarke decision. I think he still had another season in him at this level.

Whilst I tend to agree with you, Northampton clearly don't as Clarke has only played a couple of cup games this season for them.

I suspect Clarkey has ongoing injury issues that mean he isn't really able to perform consistently at his previous level - otherwise I'm sure we'd have kept him or he'd be starting for another team. Slocombe has always struck me as just too small - Buchel seems more imposing and would be my preference, but I hope we can sign a big experienced keeper for next season who would be our regular #1. I don't like alternating keepers, we've generally done well when we've had one consistent keeper for a number of seasons.

Werthers Original wrote:I suspect Clarkey has ongoing injury issues that mean he isn't really able to perform consistently at his previous level - otherwise I'm sure we'd have kept him or he'd be starting for another team. Slocombe has always struck me as just too small - Buchel seems more imposing and would be my preference, but I hope we can sign a big experienced keeper for next season who would be our regular #1. I don't like alternating keepers, we've generally done well when we've had one consistent keeper for a number of seasons.

Clarkey was also on big bucks and so there was a financial aspect to all of this.