Fleetwood Town (H) | Page 3 | Vital Football

Fleetwood Town (H)

I know it's the same for both teams but that pitch really hampered our style going forward today. Ball kept sticking and getting under players feet, no chance of many slide rule passes or running with the ball. Must have been energy sapping too.
Team not played well today but we got a point, and we are one pint from safety now, so improvement on the day.
I did feel the pitch was largely to blame and considering we had a new defence (yet again) we didn't do badly.
 
Frustrating afternoon, we were by far the better side in the first half but lost a little momentum in the second.

The miss by Clough is indicative of a player that has struggled for games in the last two seasons, however his overall play wasn't bad. On on or two occasions he put some very inciteful balls into the box for both Lang and Joseph. I think with a little bit of time he could be a decent addition.

Talking of additions both Whelan and Johnston had impressive debuts and with Darikwa and Pearce at full back we look quite solid. Hopefully we won't be leaking late goals in the future to lose the points. Pearce looked a little off his game in the second half and wasn't getting forward as much as usual, whether this was due to the opposition sussing us out, who knows. One thing I would criticise Pearce for is the time he takes on throw ins. He seems to just amble over for the ball allowing the opposition to get their markers in place and close us down.

Jamie Jones was secure and looked more confident behind the back four, however I do wish he would look to play the short ball more often to stop the ball coming straight back at us. Didn't have much to do but what he did he did well.

Kyle Joseph and Lang both worked their socks off but struggled against Mulgrew and Connolly. Personally, I think we missed the control and guile of Will Keane to open the door. Lang had a decent chance after the far post cross from Gardiner but the keeper made a decent block, he also made a good save from Callum in the first half from a good near post strike.

Merrie continues to impress me and Alex Perry is looking more composed alongside him.

All in all some positives to take into the Blackpool game, least of all the clean sheet.

Hopefully Will Keane is available soon ( and I wish him a speedy recovery) to push for the forward positions and with a little luck we can get back on the goalscoring trail again whilst keeping the back door firmly shut.
 
Hampton said:
Massive next 4 games 3 teams around us and the donkey lashers
Time to move up this shit league 🔵⚪
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Yea we really need to keep tight at the back and get the gola to kill off these games. Hope keane is back for midweek as we need his physicality and experience
 
moonay said:
Is that not a touch unfair Formby? Toothless would surely surely mean that we didn't create any chances ........ which we clearly did.

If you'd said "clinical", then you'd be bang on.
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Yes you are probably right. I just expected more from what is now a good front three
 
A solid display and well composed at the back, I thought Mulgrew and Connelly had our front two well in check today. A good point but I wish we wouldent give the ball away so much :clap:
 
Two mom's today for me were Johnston and Darikwa. Says a lot when our most stylish attacker is our right fullback.

A point gained but I cant help but feel if we can put a performance in against a team like Fleetwood we can get 4 or 5 goals.

As others have said I think away games are going to yield more points as that pitch is a distinct disadvantage to us. Daft question but where are they training these days as the pitch looks like it has had a dozen games played on it in a week.
 
ZAKKY said:
A solid display and well composed at the back, I thought Mulgrew and Connelly had our front two well in check today. A good point but I wish we wouldent give the ball away so much :clap:
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Good to hear from you. At the end of the day we're Tics fans and we're in this together.
 
TRUE BELIEVER said:
Frustrating afternoon, we were by far the better side in the first half but lost a little momentum in the second.

The miss by Clough is indicative of a player that has struggled for games in the last two seasons, however his overall play wasn't bad. On on or two occasions he put some very inciteful balls into the box for both Lang and Joseph. I think with a little bit of time he could be a decent addition.

Talking of additions both Whelan and Johnston had impressive debuts and with Darikwa and Pearce at full back we look quite solid. Hopefully we won't be leaking late goals in the future to lose the points. Pearce looked a little off his game in the second half and wasn't getting forward as much as usual, whether this was due to the opposition sussing us out, who knows. One thing I would criticise Pearce for is the time he takes on throw ins. He seems to just amble over for the ball allowing the opposition to get their markers in place and close us down.

Jamie Jones was secure and looked more confident behind the back four, however I do wish he would look to play the short ball more often to stop the ball coming straight back at us. Didn't have much to do but what he did he did well.

Kyle Joseph and Lang both worked their socks off but struggled against Mulgrew and Connolly. Personally, I think we missed the control and guile of Will Keane to open the door. Lang had a decent chance after the far post cross from Gardiner but the keeper made a decent block, he also made a good save from Callum in the first half from a good near post strike.

Merrie continues to impress me and Alex Perry is looking more composed alongside him.

All in all some positives to take into the Blackpool game, least of all the clean sheet.

Hopefully Will Keane is available soon ( and I wish him a speedy recovery) to push for the forward positions and with a little luck we can get back on the goalscoring trail again whilst keeping the back door firmly shut.
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I wish I could write as accurate and balanced account of the game as yours TB. I couldn't agree more with this report of proceedings!
 
ZAKKY said:
A solid display and well composed at the back, I thought Mulgrew and Connelly had our front two well in check today. A good point but I wish we wouldent give the ball away so much :clap:
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Agree. We seem to lose the ability to pass when we go over the half way line. We also seem to lack confidence in each other and try flashy finishes when easy and more dangerous balls are available around the area.

One more moan. Two words. Short corners!!! 🤬🤬🤬
 
I'm happy with that performance. It wasn't the prettiest but the work rate and desire to win the game were there and no suicidal mistakes. Could and should've won but i don't think we can fault the application and endeavour and that's all you can ask. Especially considering only a couple of months ago we were looking utterly void of anything. I think it's clear Liam and Gregor are getting far more out of what limited options we have than Sheridan ever did.

The pitch was awful, but what can you expect when we sacked all the ground staff. Really hurt us as i suspect a couple of our shots and crosses that ended up going over the bar could've been down to bad bobbles. Pitch will cost us points unfortunately, how soon any takeover gets done and full pitch maintenance restarted could be a big factor for our home form.

Vassell should've had a straight red for that foul in the first half - he'd have been lucky to get a yellow so to only get a talking to was beggars belief. Then in the second half he left his foot in again and still avoided a yellow - thought ref was overall decent but he bottled it on Vassell.

Jones was well protected and didn't have to do too much but did everything asked of him well. I'm sure he helped the young lads.

Darikwa was superb - looks like a Championship player and still has his pace. Think Forest missed a trick letting him off.

Love Pearce's energy and drive getting up that left flank. He put in some wicked crosses in the first half that the strikers were inches away from making a goal, but second half he hit row Z that wasted great positions he got us into, not sure if that was the pitch or a mad moment but if he could've got one of those crosses right at the end we may have won that.

Thought Johnston was immense - reminded me of Dan Burn. Best centre half performance i've seen all season.

Whelan was fine but didn't shine like Johnston. The big thing was considering we had 2 young lads playing together for the first time in a new team on a terrible pitch neither made daft mistakes (which have plagued us all season) - so hopefully this it's a good sign of things to come.

I think Merrie is one of those players who is not the most gifted but tries to make up for that in terms of graft. I'm yet to be really convinced with him but he put in a good shift today and tries to take responsibility with the ball when he has the space in his role (like Morsy did) which is a good trait.

I'm yet to be sold on Perry, he can play a really good cross field pass, so has technical ability for sure but he seems to play a lot of risky stray passes. He also doesn't really dictate play or get stuck in so i often feels the games pass him by too much.

Cloughs first half miss was awful - it doesn't matter how long you have not started a game, a pro football striker can't be missing the target from there. Couple of nice touches here and there but overall not in the game enough - hopefully will show more when fitter.

Gardener has improved drastically over the months, fair play to him. I thought he was a no hoper, but i'm glad he's proven me wrong. Unlucky with his strike in the first half, but overall thought he was good today.

Lang loved his work rate and classy on the ball - a big attribute and forced a good save at the back post. He will be a big player for us.

Joseph looks the real deal to me, even in a game like today playing against big strong and experienced defenders he held his own and never got bullied or pushed off the ball like so many young forwards do. You can see he has a real strikers instinct and genuine potential.

At one point today Rochdale, Swindon and Wimbledon were all winning, but all 3 ended up drawing so it was a better day than it could've been at one point. There is genuine signs of hope but we need this takeover done so we can keep this set of players at the very least if we have a chance.
 
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