Team for tonight... | Page 5 | Vital Football

Team for tonight...

What did you all expect. We have an inexperienced squad, the club have signed or loaned the best they can afford. Steve Evans is trying to make what he has he work and after a fairly good start we are beginning to be found out. The difference between a good professional footballer and run of the mill lower league player is consistency, our players don't have it that is why they are playing in League 1. At risk of sounding pompous. As I have said before this season is about staying solvent and remaining in League 1, we will have days like this they must be taken in our stride 52 points plus is our first and most important aim. After that let's see what we can do.


Yep I think that's a fair reality check.

In all honesty our only really good performance was Wigan and they are struggling. Oxford should have smashed us and Blackpool was a real smash and grab.

I think we all got a bit star struck with signing arsenal players but Coyle hasn't really played and Medley doesn't fill me with confidence.

I hope evans does the sensible thing and moves ogilve to CB, he is the closest we have to experience.

I am enjoying watching Graham as I love playing with wingers. Eccles looks very promising but Drysdale looks a bit out of his depth.

Imagine Ragged (the Gillingham born CB) in that team and we look stronger. Imagine is all we can do though as we can't attract that sort of player.

As the Roone says survival and not getting relegated is a must. Anything else a bonus.
 
Instead of heaping crap on the team , maybe SE needs to take a look at his decisions.
Never change a winning team is the common football mantra.
He did just that against MK .
Mellis was ill so one change was forced but he also bought in Robertson, so two changes in midfield.
 
Instead of heaping crap on the team , maybe SE needs to take a look at his decisions.
Never change a winning team is the common football mantra.
He did just that against MK .
Mellis was ill so one change was forced but he also bought in Robertson, so two changes in midfield.

It is about time we allowed ourselves to extend criticism to the manager because last night he got it seriously wrong. He may reveal unavoidable reasons for his selection but I adjusted my expectations the minute I saw the team sheet. Drysdale & Maghoma at CB with a total of exactly how many games in league football at that position? Certainly zero together. That decision also spilled over to midfield where Drysdale should have been doing battle with Pompey. Mellis was bullied all night long and that was predictable from the start.

I'm hoping that Evans is rotating the squad for sound reasons and that we may profit from these early baptisms of fire later in the season. Just now we have provoked a potential mini crisis with a very tough game coming up.
 
Utter, utter horse shit that. We made an average Pompey side, not known for playing football, look very good and comfortable on the ball.

Evans and the team rightly received credit for some good results and performances and rightly got some slack for what we hoped was a one-off poor performance on Saturday when we were well beaten by an average MK Dons side, but I am afraid a repeat tonight is going to get the natives restless. I said after Saturday's defeat that the problem with managers like Evans is that playing an unattractive, physical direct style is tolerated when you get results, but when you don't, there is little to take home from the match - especially if you're not the most liked bloke like Evans (the same applied to Pulis both in his style of football and personality, but thankfully he won most things with us!)

What was worse about tonight's performance was the defence set up. I am surprised Evans allowed us to have such a weak and shoddy looking defence - Maghoma and Drysdale just don't look up to it - I pray we go with our best defenders in Ogilvie and Tucker next game at centre back. Oliver and Akinde looked clumsy up front and Samuel - a talented player - needs to up his game. We need to see Dempsey and seriously hope that he's not yet another sicknote. The first half was dreadful - two terrible goals from a defensive point of view with the defence completely opening up and allowing two soft goals. We could have conceded more in the second half, but Bonham made a couple of decent saves and Pompey were wasteful. What I was most disappointed with was that Pompey largely sat back, sat on their lead, and invited us on to them. We had a huge amount of corners, set pieces, crosses and passes in to the box, but created barely anything until a late Eccles' couple of chance which he should have done better with.

We need to get more solid at the back and make the most of pressure and opportunities up top. That was poor - a limited team in Pompey, not known for keeping the ball, did just that in the second half.

A win is a must on Saturday with tough games to come.
Excellent analysis as usual.

Not the slightest bit optimistic about Saturday unless we make the changes you've called for. Need Robertson back too.
 
Excellent analysis as usual.

Not the slightest bit optimistic about Saturday unless we make the changes you've called for. Need Robertson back too.

I'm always optimistic and, as stated above, there have been some inconsistent results already this season, not just in League One, but in the Prem League - we ourselves, beat a very good Oxford side (yes, it could have been 5-5, but we won), we fairly easily beat a decent Blackpool side, then lost convincingly to pretty average MK Dons and Pompey sides and snatched a draw against a woeful Shrewsbury side.

I have no idea what result we'll get on Saturday and can accept defeat, but only if we set up in the best way to get a result and come off the pitch having given everything. I saw little evidence of that in the last two matches I am afraid.
 
I make Jogills right about time to question some SE decisions. It's already been said about the CB pairing last night but I also don't understand playing Drysdale DM previously where he's never played before when we have Mackenzie (our player) who SE has already said he wants to play in midfield not even getting a kick
 
I feel not only our CB pairing didn’t work and I am not criticising the lads for that but also thought our Midfield didn’t help. Like to see Drysdale in midfield and persist with Tucker at CB although he did go AWOL at MK but feel more coaching and match time will assist all.
As always looking for 50 points then pushing on definitely would like to see Drysdale and Robertson back in the team along with Eccles as I felt we had more bite and cohesion with the front men
 
PR referred to John Marquis as an expensive striker. 4-5k a week?
That’s just smoke and mirrors and a diversion from the issue at hand.
The bottom line is that we were outplayed by a team that not all that great at the moment.
The team selection was wrong in my opinion and that’s down to the manager.
 
Finally thought of a positive. It wasn't as boring as that attrocious game we lost 1 0 at home to Pompey about 3 years ago.
 
And we kept our run going.........


Isn’t it 1200 and something days since we last won a Tuesday evening game at home?