Observations

[Nham68]

Effort - no quibble .
Billy Walters - not a winger. Most times got the ball, went down a blind alley. Being played out of position.
Winchester - solid.
Pell - solid, a bit anonymous .
Bartham - did ok apart from the goal .. totally absent from right back,their chap had lots of time for the cross.
Rest of the defense pretty ok.
Brown - keep us in it.
Davis - poor : can't beat his man , can't cross dead balls.
Hollman - not at the races. Clearly not at same level as last year.
Wright - missed the header (from which they went up and scored). Not able to get into the game . Not a L2 striker I'm afraid.
Wootton - didn't get into the game .

Dayton - why on earth don't we start him ? Made an impact. Clearly has the quality...

Gonna be a scrappy finish. We might scrape it as others are just as bad. Thank heavens the O's and a Newport lost.

Thought we were overall ok, passed well, kept possession.. nothing Stella, nothing c!#p, just no quality in the final third... age old problem returns to haunt us ...

[Rulistening]

Problem with Waters is he just randomly turns when he has the ball and it ends up losing him possession. He gets a bit lost i feel. I'm also shocked you said Pell was solid. Thought he was absolutely dreadful, no one played well today apart from Bartham, Winchester and Brown- but it summed up the game when Onariese airswung at the ball and played their ST in! The decision to bring on two target men was questionable to me also considering we still couldn't win headers. Not very happy after today but onto the next game and lets just forget today basically happened..

[theidlerich]

Well, poor game, v poor pitch, poor officials; sorts of sums it up really. DW missed an open goal in the first minute and apart from a generating a corner in the second half was ineffectual. Waters needs to shoot when an opportunity arises and not take on another three or four players and pirouette. Pitch dictates hoof an hope;but we have no "hopers" up front to receive. MoM agree - Winchester stands out; as Brown stood tall. We looked an average conference side; do not see where the next win or goal for that matter is coming from.

[Robin]

I thought we played some decent football in the first half to be fair but we sure went to hoof and hope once Holman came off. I can understand the logic but the game was crying for Munns and yet we got Dayton who did nothing.

[confused.com]

Glad I went to Dublin

[vickeryc]

Glad I went to Dublin

Lucky you!

[Oldun]

Its the bottom of the table syndrome. Nothing falls for us especially in the box. Of course we should have scored; Wrighty in first minute, Wooton off the line and at end when their keeper collected ball without knowing it, Pelly header. As for Pelly not caring! What absolute nonsenses. He played his heart out. In patches we did well. Winny deserved MOM and showed many good touches plus shot which went close. He combined well with Liam and Pelly in first half. Back three did well as did Barts except when he turned up in our left defence as ball appeared on our right and the unchallenged cross is headed in. Scotty made a couple of excellent saves.
It is so frustrating at present. Opposition were rubbish but as others I worry that we might not ever score another goal! The Downsey idea might not have been a bad one ten minutes earlier. Someone to get the head on or across goal might have produced something!
As for other threads that suggest that we need interim manager or that all this lot are not good enough. Grossly unfair. Today the ones that maybe were out of their depth were unfortunately the three up top and sadly Wooton and Dayts didn't improve things much.
Hopefully we can grind out some 0-0 scores and survive. Perhaps Morecombe Grimsby will lie down and help us out!

[Reliant Robin]

We lacked a holding midfielder today, as we have done for the three games we have now lost on the bounce. Pelly had too much to do today and didn't know whether to stick in the middle or support the attack. Pelly always looks a much better player when he's picking the ball up and running at the opposition, but what he is lacking and what the team is lacking is that holding midfielder ... and that is Stoz, as he allows the midfield to play with a lot more expression and creativity.

Once Stoz is back, we will be okay.

Footnote: just noticed Longmover has said the same in the 'Pell' thread, so I feel the same.

[Robin]

Agree about the holding midfielder, I reckon keeper, two centre halves, holding midfielder and at least one striker top of the list in the summer with five or six leaving to make way, plus the loans going back.

[I-Love-CTFC]

The problem with Waters is he doesn't know when to pass the ball. Like others have said, I feel since Pell has been captain his performances have been poor.

[London Exile]

Our shape is poor when we play with Waters as one of our midfield 3. That isn't a criticism of Waters, he's arguably our star player this year, but he's a forward.
For me he should be playing up front alongside one of Holman/Wright/Wootton and the midfield berth he's playing should be filled with Munns or Dayton.

I thought the way we played today was more like a 5-2-3

[Benctfc]

As others have said Waters is a striker and needs to play there he's not a winger or midfielder. We always seem to try and shoehorn him into the team and it leaves us unbalanced if they don't see him as a good enough striker then he should be on the bench as harsh as that would be given he's our top scorer.

Having Stoz back may help but he isn't going to solve the main issue of creating or scoring chances. 4 games without a goal is shocking and extremely worrying. Milton is out of his depth im afraid and having someone come in as a Director of football role until the end of the season would make sense to me to help him out or I could honestly see us struggling to win many more matches.

[Robin]

Agree Ben but realistically we probably only need 1-2 wins and a couple of draws to be certain of safety we will get that even with Russ in charge.

[vickeryc]

Yes, this has become a season to survive, which is clearly disappointing. It doesn't really matter now where we finish as long as it's above 23rd place. Hopefully, with an improved squad and a relaid pitch, we can look forward to better times ahead and a much better standard of football than we've had to endure of late. With the players we have, I'm convinced that the pitch hampers their ability to express themselves to a greater extent than a lot of the more physical sides we've played. I see no reason why we shouldn't maintain the 7 point gap over the O's and Newport and maintain our FL status, which us all that matters. I have faith in GJ to then take us forward to the next level in 2017/18.

[little mo]

Agree Ben but realistically we probably only need 1-2 wins and a couple of draws to be certain of safety we will get that even with Russ in charge.

Are you sure Robin? Notts C won today and should be safe. It is now most likely any 2 from 4 for the drop. Problem is we are one of the four.

[Robin]

45 points should be enough, six points and when you look at our remaining games and form since Jan is very do able.

[London Exile]

Our home games are massive, if we could take all 9 points from those then that might just be enough to see us over the line.

If we can keep Akinde quiet next week, on a decent surface I'd be confident of avoiding defeat next week. He was the only difference (albeit a huge one) at whaddon road

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

Grimsby will be v. tough. Morecambe and Hartlepool must wins.

[everyman]

45 points should be enough, six points and when you look at our remaining games and form since Jan is very do able.

If you look at our form in March,4 games 0 goals,0 wins,seems unlikely !

[Nesty]

we wont go down !!