just got back

[shrimper]

Spot on 'Silkman' - we were playing like the home side and pushing forward with a three man forward-looking midfield line-up behind Jevons (and Drummy and Brown sitting in front of the back four). Looked promising until they hit us on the break and scored. Then we lost our shape and went to pieces for the rest of the half.

Second half we were the better side but still didn't look to have the cutting edge up front - we've lacked that all season except for flurries from Duffy.

Put their front two in our side (or nippy players like Gornell from Accy) and I think we have the supporting players to make us a pretty good side.

But we can't keep making excuses or saying 'if' and 'perhaps' forever. We were toothless tonight, we've lacked pace and firepower all season, despite having several good players in what is a generally decent squad.

[marky]

We've lacked pace for a very long time. Apparently it's hard to find good pacy players at our level, yet every single team in this league, when you read reports from our fans, seems to have at least 2 of them. So why on earth do we not seem able to attract them? Got to be a major issue with Sammy's recruitment policies...

[kells]

Kells, you are quite correct in that League 2 managers will have deficiencies just like League 2 players do. The problem Sammy has got this season is that his are contributing to our struggles and, unlike in previous seasons, he doesn't appear to have an answer with regard to improving things. As said earlier, I do believe his weaknesses at now overiding his strengths as a manager and that's when you have to believe his time must be coming to an end. I have no doubt that, even if he has lost some of his gut passion, Sammy will be hurting that yet another underpar performance has come at his old stomping ground. But that doesn't change the fact that to go from an admittedly overachieved 4th place finish to where we find ourselves now in less than 12 months points at failure on Sammy's part, however sad that might be.

I'd written a long ramble but decided to boil it down to some key points.

Sammy realized we 'overachieved' last season, and thought it was time to rebuild. I think he cut too deep too soon in hindsight, but at the time I agreed with all his moves in the transfer market (even Artell).

I think the relationship between Sammy and some fans has got to a point where he will never have the full support of the fans, and I think he'll go at the end of the season.

[marky]

I also felt that he released mostly the right players (though I would still question the wisdom of keeping Wainwright on the payroll) and also felt our decision to only offer a 1 year deal to Artell was also the right one. Whilst we may miss his occasional goal contribution, his introduction to the Crewe side has hardly done much to stop their defensive woes given they've actually only conceded one less goal than us! The problem, in hindsight, has been with some of the players Sammy chose to bring to the club as supposedly better quality replacements, plus was Jevons really worth a 2 year deal when he'd struggled with an injury for much of the second half of last season?

[The Fury]

Terrible and woeful display. Very angry, there was no passion and no desire.

Why the fu** did he start with 4-5-1, we are playing Macclesfield, we should go out all guns blazing, look what happened when we played 4-4-2, we actually looked like scoring.

Sort it our Mcilroy!!

Yes, because you have a divine right to beat the likes of little Macclesfield, don't you.

Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I mean especially against the teams around you, we should be playing 4-4-2. If it was me I would play it every week and never play 4-5-1, it is so negative and doesn't allow the striker to get into the game at all.

A terrible decision, he brought off Holdsworth for Hunter? Then brings Wilson off for Carlton? If he pissing me off on purpose?

What, like the 4-4-2 he has been playing for the best part of three months that has seen us slump?

4-5-1 (actually 4-3-2-1) was what we were playing at the start of the season and brought the best out of Fleming and provided Stanley, a luxury player, with protection in midfield. Sadly, Sammy stuck Jevons up front on his own in this formation which failed desperately as he simply does not have the attributes to play this role. Promptly, then, he changed things to 4-4-2 in the midst of significant clamour from supporters for this to be reinstated (remember the radio interview where he said "'it's not about systems"?).

As I saw it, the only flaw with the 4-5-1 ( or4-3-2-1), with the players we have, is that it is not suited to Jevons playing up front alone which, incredibly, he did again. It seems Jevo is his new Danny Adams/Matty Blinkhorn. What baffles me though is, when he has changed the system to try and bring about a change in fortunes, you want us to revert to 4-4-2 when it clearly hasn't worked!