Rage Online

Anyone still feeling confident after our last two performances? Blackpool were a good team, as evidenced by their result against Posh yesterday. But last night was just a horrible game of football to watch. Where has our midfield gone? It didn't matter which forwards were on the pitch, we just couldn't get the ball to them at all. Where has our defensive organisation gone? The number of times Northampton had players unmarked in our six yard box was frightening. Any defeat seems to bring about a loss of confidence, which we take too long to recover from.

Bah.

You beat me to the punch. Absolute horror shows, both...although last night I thought some of our play was closer to Keystone Cops.

For as long as KR has been with us, a common criticism has been that there is no Plan B. What worries me with these two games is that KR is telling us they are not getting Plan A right. Why not? How could the players collectively have lost the plot so completely? Going to a team in the relegation zone and only having the ambition to get to 60 minutes still in the game is not the approach of a team seen as capable of going for the play-offs and promotion.

And that is before we get to the team selection and formation. As Eddie O said in commentary, when you play in a known formation, you can have confidence that a team-mate will be where you expect him to be. So even when Agyei went on runs, who was around to support him? On several occasions he did manage to win corners, but is that really all we should be expecting?

What was telling about the midfield was that it was only when CamBran sat deeper towards the end of the game, to pick up the ball and drive forward our play, did we start to look like a team - but even then he was having to go long, rather than us "playing through the thirds".

One final question: Grayson - why?

It was like a conference game of football in terms of quality. Always a worry when a manager picks a somewhat confusing team (I briefly thought of Brian Talbot away at Rushden many years ago), but actually we started ok, relative to what followed after. I thought we scored a valid goal but it was missed by presumably the linesman. I was frustrated by our complete lack of urgency until the last 10 minutes - but then it seems our plan was to hold steady for 60 minutes and then go for it.
One thing I'd say in our defence is that all the league one play-off teams from last season aren't doing that well this year. Portsmouth still have a half decent chance of the play-offs, but are in terrible form. Fleetwood are no-where really and Wycombe are getting battered in the Championship. Playing twice a week for so long, after having no real pre-season must be having an impact. We still have an outside chance of the play-offs but it will require a major change in form and confidence, because really apart from against Doncaster we haven't looked particularly threatening for a while.

Yes we looked better when CamBran sat deeper, but all he did then was play long balls on to the heads of Northampton defenders, rather than back to a central defender as Gorrin does. It's hardly playing to our strengths.

I also thought it reminded me of the Conference days, but with more free-kicks. My god the persistent niggly fouls and 'professionalism' (ie ensuring that refs see fouls by going over and squealing) are so tedious to watch.

It also reminded me of some strange team picks under Wilder when we were playing the likes of Burton, Fleetwood, Rotherham.
Being somewhat scared of a big physical opposition, I think at Burton he loaded us up with four centre backs, and still ended up losing.

Rotating the squad and putting out a below-strength team to save key players for the next game is a gamble. If it pays off, it's shrewd management - if it doesn't then, well, we get threads like this. Personally, I don't blame Robbo for trying it - the squad must be knackered with such an intensive schedule, and he's got to manage that challenge. He tried, it didn't come off, we go again (as they say).

I think the season will peter out now after briefly looking interesting. That's okay, especially given how badly we started. And if we were going to have a mid-table 'nothing' season, this was the one to do it. Use the next few months to assess the squad, especially the young / fringe players and make the right signings over the summer. The off-the-pitch stuff is arguably more important, so a bit of consolidation and stability on it won't be the end of the world.

I have the same feeling now as I did after the Wycombe game. If we're not good enough to beat the Cobblers then we're certainly not good enough to survive in the Championship.

Obviously playing twice a week is part of the problem but you would still expect players to use their brains more. As has already been mentioned , we need to spend time analysing the squad, youngsters and possible recruits to make sure we do better next season.

I'm a big KR fan but he also needs to analyse his selections, tactics and interviews.

If the players decide to prove me wrong and we get promoted, I will happily eat humble pie liberally coated with both gravy and custard.