Crawley Town v Cheltenham Town

[Malabus]

TEAM SPORTS PSYCHOLOGIST PLEASE!

[Hubert Parry]

It is nothing to do our mentality. We are ultimately a League 2 team, with League 2 players, who make League 2 decisions. There is a reason why we are currently top of the league and that is because we have been the most consistent. Sometimes we are not on our game and that is not necessarily down to our mental strength or effort.

Looking at Twitter mainly, but why do we always meltdown every time we lose? If we go up, it is going to be a very painful season if that is people's benchmark.

[Malabus]

It is nothing to do our mentality. We are ultimately a League 2 team, with League 2 players, who make League 2 decisions. There is a reason why we are currently top of the league and that is because we have been the most consistent. Sometimes we are not on our game and that is not necessarily down to our mental strength or effort.

Looking at Twitter mainly, but why do we always meltdown every time we lose? If we go up, it is going to be a very painful season if that is people's benchmark.

Mentally we are not capable to compete away from home the evidence is there to see.

Barrow; Mansfield, Morecambe, Grimsby and Crawley have been complete disasters for a team JUST hanging top of the table.
If we claim a top three finish then we have been very lucky.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

It is nothing to do our mentality. We are ultimately a League 2 team, with League 2 players, who make League 2 decisions. There is a reason why we are currently top of the league and that is because we have been the most consistent. Sometimes we are not on our game and that is not necessarily down to our mental strength or effort.

Looking at Twitter mainly, but why do we always meltdown every time we lose? If we go up, it is going to be a very painful season if that is people's benchmark.

Mentally we are not capable to compete away from home the evidence is there to see.

Barrow; Mansfield, Morecambe, Grimsby and Crawley have been complete disasters for a team JUST hanging top of the table.
If we claim a top three finish then we have been very lucky.

What about winning away at Exeter and Cambridge etc?

Top three is a near certainty.

[Alf]

We don't have anyone that can make something happen. At no point did you think anyone at all was going to get on the ball and beat someone. And it's so obvious when we aren't going to score.

I think that’s right. We get the ball to the edge of the box so many times but just don’t have that little bit of quality to take it further. We’ve done incredibly well to be on top of the league considering we don’t always make the best of these chances.

[Malabus]

It is nothing to do our mentality. We are ultimately a League 2 team, with League 2 players, who make League 2 decisions. There is a reason why we are currently top of the league and that is because we have been the most consistent. Sometimes we are not on our game and that is not necessarily down to our mental strength or effort.

Looking at Twitter mainly, but why do we always meltdown every time we lose? If we go up, it is going to be a very painful season if that is people's benchmark.

Mentally we are not capable to compete away from home the evidence is there to see.

Barrow; Mansfield, Morecambe, Grimsby and Crawley have been complete disasters for a team JUST hanging top of the table.
If we claim a top three finish then we have been very lucky.

What about winning away at Exeter and Cambridge etc?

Top three is a near certainty.

JUST winning at those venues, not convincing enough for me.

I could write the script on what will happen at Stevenage and Newport, the script is simple : WE WONT TURN UP!

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

Sorry that a team top of the league after 41 games with the joint fewest losses and joint most wins is depressing for you Mal.

Amazing how people are feeling about one of, of not the, best season the club as ever had.

Next season in L1 is going to be harder....are you and the Twitter morons going to be like this every week?

[Malabus]

We are a team of mentally weak individuals.
Crawley played on Tuesday night and was up for it mentally and physically tonight.
WHERE WERE WE.....IN THE FECKING CLOUDS.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

I can picture the scene in a few weeks...players celebrating promotion, fans celebrating promotion, pundits giving us praise, Mal at home typing in capslock on the internet “but we lost some matches!”

[Malabus]

I can picture the scene in a few weeks...players celebrating promotion, fans celebrating promotion, pundits giving us praise, Mal at home typing in capslock on the internet “but we lost some matches!”

We are heading for another play off campaign.....remember the last one, weak minded individuals

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

I can picture the scene in a few weeks...players celebrating promotion, fans celebrating promotion, pundits giving us praise, Mal at home typing in capslock on the internet “but we lost some matches!”

We are heading for another play off campaign.....remember the last one, weak minded individuals

RNF..remind me of this post in a few weeks time.

[CTFCfan99]

After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I can see what both Mal and RCS are saying. Tonight was disappointing and not the performance of potential champions or automatic promotion candidates. 5 more performances like that and we'll barely make the playoffs.

However - big picture, we are where we are after 41 games because we must be a good side at this level. We've won pretty much every game following a loss, which shows good mental strength. We also still only need 9 points maximum for promotion - if each of the chasing pack lose only once in their final 5, we only need 6 points. If we fail to get that then I think we'll all agree it's an even bigger bottle job than last year.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I can see what both Mal and RCS are saying. Tonight was disappointing and not the performance of potential champions or automatic promotion candidates. 5 more performances like that and we'll barely make the playoffs.

However - big picture, we are where we are after 41 games because we must be a good side at this level. We've won pretty much every game following a loss, which shows good mental strength. We also still only need 9 points maximum for promotion - if each of the chasing pack lose only once in their final 5, we only need 6 points. If we fail to get that then I think we'll all agree it's an even bigger bottle job than last year.

Indeed. And we have seen all season that we are not a team to bottle it - as you say, we nearly always follow up a defeat with a win. Win two and lose two and we will be up with a game to spare imo.

[Hubert Parry]

Clichés get in the way here as well, the same old "champions find a way to win these games" etc. It's all nonsense. Champions find a way to win more of those games than their rivals.

In our NL title winning season, we dropped some terrible points - Eastleigh, Welling, Altrincham, Wrexham etc. The point is that we had fewer of those than the rest.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

Clichés get in the way here as well, the same old "champions find a way to win these games" etc. It's all nonsense. Champions find a way to win more of those games than their rivals.

In our NL title winning season, we dropped some terrible points - Eastleigh, Welling, Altrincham, Wrexham etc. The point is that we had fewer of those than the rest.

I can’t wait until “we are only promoted because other teams lost” clichés come out over the next few weeks when Tranmere and Morecambe continue to drop points.

I mean, as you say, league tables literally work by the teams who win the most points finishing at the top, so I never understand why rivals dropping points is a bad thing!

[everyman]

Scrappy game. Someone should have put one of the throw-in scrambles in the net - just put your foot through it.

But what a let off that was.

Be nice to see Lloyd later.

Michael doesn`t seem to trust Lloyd, i expect he will be made available to other clubs in the summer.
He needs to be playing games for his own good.

[everyman]

Much as I admire our passing game, often by the time we get to the opponents box they have every angle covered. Bit of a slack performance.

Lack of pace evident all season up front and midfield, the only player able to get behind a defence lacked the ablity to provide goals/assists.

[Nesty]

There was an interesting debate on BBC Radio Glos yesterday evening, unfortunately every 10 minutes or so the main man was interrupted by someone commentating on what seemed to be a football match

[Joey]

Game should have never been moved, we would have won if it was a 3pm Saturday kick-off.

I hope all Cheltenham fans will now become in favour of abolishing the monarchy.

[horlickfanclub]

What is the point of Vassilev? Totally anonymous again. Lloyd would have got stuck in. Long and Hussey struggled when a winger( remember them?) came on. We are still well placed .The Manager was correct that we failed in every department but last night so did he. It was a mess.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

What is the point of Vassilev? Totally anonymous again. Lloyd would have got stuck in. Long and Hussey struggled when a winger( remember them?) came on. We are still well placed .The Manager was correct that we failed in every department but last night so did he. It was a mess.

In fairness, once again Indy was brought on when we were panicking so had no shape, no system and no understanding.

I would still like to see Indy start a game so we can see how he looks when we are set up and playing properly.

[Hubert Parry]

Much as I admire our passing game, often by the time we get to the opponents box they have every angle covered. Bit of a slack performance.

Lack of pace evident all season up front and midfield, the only player able to get behind a defence lacked the ablity to provide goals/assists.

May and Lloyd both have pace. Pace is not the problem up front. Our best pressing comes from our speed up top. Our problem yesterday was our inability to make the correct passing and running decisions in the final third.

[Hubert Parry]

What is the point of Vassilev? Totally anonymous again. Lloyd would have got stuck in. Long and Hussey struggled when a winger( remember them?) came on. We are still well placed .The Manager was correct that we failed in every department but last night so did he. It was a mess.

In fairness, once again Indy was brought on when we were panicking so had no shape, no system and no understanding.

I would still like to see Indy start a game so we can see how he looks when we are set up and playing properly.

I agree, he is the only one who has not been given a proper opportunity. He would start for me on Tuesday with Sam Smith probably. Whilst I don't want to go full Mark Cooper and make changes for punitive reasons or for the sake of it, too many of the forwards have simply not merited a start. If we do go up, I should be fascinated to see how many other teams in EFL have gone up with such goal shy forwards.

Just to add to that, I think we are comfortably top on XG, which further emphasises the point that we are energetically wasteful going forward.

[horlickfanclub]

Usually players earn a start by showing an ability to get involved . I have seen nothing in him that gives me hope. Happy to be proved wrong but at c. 860 minutes played in the League and no goals those here that like "numbers" and I might wait a long time.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

Usually players earn a start by showing an ability to get involved . I have seen nothing in him that gives me hope. Happy to be proved wrong but at c. 860 minutes played in the League and no goals those here that like "numbers" and I might wait a long time.

See above two posts. Nearly all of those minutes have been in small chunks where the team is ragged with no shape.

Neither you or I have seen the numbers on speed, sprints, distance, heart rate etc. Duff has, and if Duff starts him it will be because he feels he can do the job required in our system and shape.

[vickeryc]

I can picture the scene in a few weeks...players celebrating promotion, fans celebrating promotion, pundits giving us praise, Mal at home typing in capslock on the internet “but we lost some matches!”

We are heading for another play off campaign.....remember the last one, weak minded individuals

Maybe not. Your new favourite club bottled at basement team Grimsby!

[Shade]

Vassilev won't do anything for us (;)) but will probably bang them in for someone else next season. Happens all the time.

[robinsrule]

If we struggle next season it’ll most likely be due to a lack of a clinical goal scorer. We have got away with it this season due to our solid defence, but we rarely come back from a goal down.

I think our defence is good enough for League 1 but our forwards most definitely are not. We need to somehow find a cheap but good striker.... a very tough ask.

[Alf]

If we struggle next season it’ll most likely be due to a lack of a clinical goal scorer. We have got away with it this season due to our solid defence, but we rarely come back from a goal down.

I think our defence is good enough for League 1 but our forwards most definitely are not. We need to somehow find a cheap but good striker.... a very tough ask.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as a good cheap striker.

[Shade]

We need a bit of luck in finding another Eisa. OK, a lot of.luck.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

Or another Varney type signing?

[HamTown]

We need a bit of luck in finding another Eisa. OK, a lot of.luck.

Although Mo only has 1 goal in 25 games for Peterborough in the league this season

As RCS says I'm hoping for another Varney type signing who might rub off on May and Lloyd (assuming Smith and Williams leave this summer)

[ctfc-fan]

Seeing Eisa mentioned, who would be the last player who moved on but actually did anything? Would it be Pack? I’m excluding Winchester as I think the jury is out.

Those who I can think of who haven’t done well would be Broom, Eisa, The Duffus brothers.

[HamTown]

Depending on your definition of "anything" - Luke Thomas?

[asl]

Marley Watkins did well after leaving us.