Cheltenham Town v Chesterfield

[Jon Palmer]

Team news, live updates and reaction all here this afternoon:

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/s ... e-10412243

[Shade]

Radio saying back 3, but they were warming up as a 4 with the big lad on the left (I'll learn his name at some point).

(Note to self: Mazionis. Mazionis. Mazionis.)

[Ihearye]

On first sight in the flesh and after 46 mins, I wouldn't be too sorry to see replacements for angol and Broom.

[triggo]

Well that was beyond turgid.
Can only remember on one occasion where we put more than two passes together.
Hoof , hoof hoof.
Going to be a long hard season on the evidence of the one an a half games so far.

[Shade]

No sprinklers, pitch looks dry and slow but that seems to be deliberate to slow their passing game down, and for our attempted long balls over the top to hold up.

Us: 4 yellow cards, no warnings.

Them: 0 yellow cards, 1 warning, and a linesman who learnt early on not to give us a damn thing by being overruled, and has toed the line ever since.

[Shade]

Btw, let's remember we're playing a good side expected to be challenging, and we have a few out injured.

[ctfc-fan]

The lack of yellows for them is really unfair. They’ve kicked and thrown the ball away with nothing given.

[Shade]

The lack of yellows for them is really unfair. They’ve kicked and thrown the ball away with nothing given.

Let's not forget Young being pulled back and Kins being wiped out on the edge of the area, no different to Broom's yellow really.

[ctfc-fan]

Forgot the one on Kinsella.

Liking the look of Mazionis!

[RS1978]

The lack of yellows for them is really unfair. They’ve kicked and thrown the ball away with nothing given.

Let's not forget Young being pulled back and Kins being wiped out on the edge of the area, no different to Broom's yellow really.

But this has been the case in League One and now in L2. Can see a desperate lunge for a second yellow when we're attacking tbh.

[Shade]

Refs having a f#!$ blinder for Chesterfield, fair play.

[RS1978]

Our strikers seem to have a penchant for handball...

[Shade]

Our strikers seem to have a penchant for handball...

And not winning free kicks despite being constantly fouled.

[triggo]

Well
You can blame the officials all you like,
Fair result Im afraid
Never going to win any games if you cant test the opposition keeper.
Not doing the basics .
No plan, no tactics. Cant put two passes together.....etc etc
As said at halftime HOOF HOOF HOOF

[Basildon Robin]

Two games. Two defeats. Zero goals. Deja vu anyone???

[andgarod]

we need a new broom
go long ball because midfield is c!#p
oh I forgot they are injured
Bennett is a disaster
can we stay in touch at Christmas
is flynn and downes capable of turning things round
oh I forget they will be in the top 3
so will every other club we play
not sure we will survive

[RS1978]

Two games. Two defeats. Zero goals. Deja vu anyone???

Strikers Matty Taylor and Liam Dulson replaced by Bickerstaff and Angol - I did say that they'd have to hit the ground running...from the sounds of things the players huffed and puffed but looked short of match fitness and Chesterfield's extra quality made the difference.

[Ihearye]

Two games. Two defeats. Zero goals. Deja vu anyone???

Strikers Matty Taylor and Liam Dulson replaced by Bickerstaff and Angol - I did say that they'd have to hit the ground running...from the sounds of things the players huffed and puffed but looked short of match fitness and Chesterfield's extra quality made the difference.

Angol ? No huffing no puffing - no nothing

[RS1978]

Two games. Two defeats. Zero goals. Deja vu anyone???

Strikers Matty Taylor and Liam Dulson replaced by Bickerstaff and Angol - I did say that they'd have to hit the ground running...from the sounds of things the players huffed and puffed but looked short of match fitness and Chesterfield's extra quality made the difference.

Angol ? No huffing no puffing - no nothing

On the other hand, having a bad start to the season might mean that teams are put off going for Archer and Thomas - it's tough to shine in a team that's shipping goals all over the place.

[Jerry St Clair]

Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but goodness me that was a hard watch.

I like Flynn, but if his instructions were for them to hit endless diagonals up to Angol and Miller, then I really question his judgement.

Archer’s head has gone elsewhere. Not sure why he played. Played the game in a permanent strop.

Mazionis looked calm and assured for the most part.

Bickerstaff looked energetic and lively when he came on.

[RS1978]

Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but goodness me that was a hard watch.

I like Flynn, but if his instructions were for them to hit endless diagonals up to Angol and Miller, then I really question his judgement.

Archer’s head has gone elsewhere. Not sure why he played. Played the game in a permanent strop.

Mazionis looked calm and assured for the most part.

Bickerstaff looked energetic and lively when he came on.

Sometimes you need a slice of luck to change things - I think that Miller's point blank miss might have been that today

[Ihearye]

we need a new broom
go long ball because midfield is c!#p
oh I forgot they are injured
Bennett is a disaster
can we stay in touch at Christmas
is flynn and downes capable of turning things round
oh I forget they will be in the top 3
so will every other club we play
not sure we will survive

early days, but we have not solved or improved on the issues we had last year, Wilson and Shades favourite who he can't spell his name, looked a good fit. Nobody else looked like they have improved. Given like the core where here last year and I had hoped they would have looked more like a cohesive unit

[Robin]

It was poor but I thought Kinsella, Wilson and the big defender all had fine games.

[TheTownClub]

Walking around the ground, the number of weeds and general untidiness is striking. The place is going to seed. Get into the ground and a man on the row in front is scraping dried bird poop of the seat. Football is back!

Anyway. First goal was comical. The referee was looking to the linesman to give an offside, and he clearly had missed it. Anyway, good luck lino in your GCSE's next year. Second goal, AJB just not with it. Gave away the free kick. All eleven behind the ball and it still goes in. The referee deserved stick, he was a mark for Chesterfield, conned for every opportunity they had. But that doesn't excuse how poor we were. I've seen worse, much worse, but today was not good. The big Latvian is slow and looked exhausted. Bennet makes me nervous every time. Broom was MIA. Archer dull today, just drifting across the field to lose the ball. Angol ineffective. Miller, well, the manager hung him out to dry post match.

Welcome to Cheltenhamshire, Mike!

[Warwickshire Robin]

Tough afternoon that. Very much second season Wade vibes sadly. Ok-ish at the back, bereft of creativity going forward.

Chesterfield looked strong and organised if a little unspectacular and probably won't be far away from the top end come May but we really didn't do much to test them.

Angol looked like the second coming of Joe Nuttall, George Miller finally had help up front but somehow looked worse than when he plays alone. Bickerstaff looked the liveliest of the attackers.

Broom isn't a central midfielder, thought Youngy looked a step off the pace and was surprised Kins came off instead. If Thomas goes we are definitely in trouble.

Main positives were Wilson and Mazionis who look like a partnership in the making but that will mean no Bennett and sadly can't see that happening.

Surprised after playing 4-2-3-1 most of last season and preseason we switch to 3-5-2. The lack of an outfield left footer also hindered us.

Hopefully some new faces will come in and the newcomers settle in otherwise today will become the norm I feel.

[Garby74]

No sugar coating that shower.
Only two positives for me Jacob ...thought he was excellent out of position...and Wilson.

For God sake Angol jump...your a big lump.

Im not Bennetts biggest fan but he has improved over last season.

How bad was the ref and lino.
Worse than last week.
Where do they find these clowns

[asl]

Bennett did OK - one slip in the first half led to the disallowed goal.

Wilson and Mazionis, I thought, were good - the latter, I think, will progress into being a really decent player.

Archer saw a lot of the ball - but, FFS... I'm pretty sure he knew there were scouts watching and he was desperate to make an impression by keeping hold of the ball and not passing. Hasn't done himself or his team any favours.

AJB was poor, ponderous, and caught in possession almost as much as Archer.

Finally, you can argue all you like about the yellow cards that Chesterfield *didn't* get - but it's hard to argue about any of the ones that *we* got, with the exception of AJB's: I haven't a clue what that was for. The others were cast iron yellows, all day long.

[Henry The Dog]

Home ref last week, away ref this week but doesn’t excuse lack of quality. Midfield over run, ball lumped forward, Archer must have had his head turned by all the speculation. Got horrible feeling this is similar to Gary’s or Wade’s final year.

[Jerry St Clair]

Garlick saw the absolute worst of Cheltenham Town today.

A sparse, soporific crowd. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the PRE so empty for a league game. Block 2 was sold out but there must have been 50+ empty seats. The apathy was loud and clear.

And as dull and uninspiring team performance as you can get.

Welcome Mike. I don’t suppose it can get much worse…….

[andgarod]

I also heard some booing at the end and while some may have been at the ref it certainly was not all

[Robin]

Yes there was definitely booing at the end.

[SuperDaleWatkins]

I don't buy into the narrative of; "it's too early to tell & this is a good side we're up against" - it's really expensive to buy a ticket to watch these games & therefore judgement comes as soon as the tickets are bought. 2 games in & there is absolutely no plan to play football.

But perhaps the more worrying signs are in the body language. Ref was being conned but only James Wilson gave him a bit of verbal everyone else just heads dipped. Archer looks like he's upset to still be here - sorry kid but you need to produce the goods, lest you forget you were playing non-league not too long ago.

Scott Bennett is a huge hinderence - the longer he stays in our XL the worse we will get. Youngs legs have gone - it's a season too far for him. Kinsella is such a nothing player. Miller is bang average & Angol is a watered down version of him. It's a really tepid spine.

Wilson & Maizonis good. Thomas is a fantastic player & showed it when coming on... But you can't build around a tricky winger... We need a spine with some energy, aggression & skill. Long season ahead.

[CTFC.Harry]

Walking around the ground, the number of weeds and general untidiness is striking. The place is going to seed. Get into the ground and a man on the row in front is scraping dried bird poop of the seat. Football is back!

Anyway. First goal was comical. The referee was looking to the linesman to give an offside, and he clearly had missed it. Anyway, good luck lino in your GCSE's next year. Second goal, AJB just not with it. Gave away the free kick. All eleven behind the ball and it still goes in. The referee deserved stick, he was a mark for Chesterfield, conned for every opportunity they had. But that doesn't excuse how poor we were. I've seen worse, much worse, but today was not good. The big Latvian is slow and looked exhausted. Bennet makes me nervous every time. Broom was MIA. Archer dull today, just drifting across the field to lose the ball. Angol ineffective. Miller, well, the manager hung him out to dry post match.

Welcome to Cheltenhamshire, Mike!

On that topic, surely all it takes is the club to put out a tweet or an email asking supporters to come down on a weekday and get stuck in. I won’t hold my breath…

On the game itself, the defenders all did ok. Miller did the usual, the midfield created f#!$ all and there NEEDS to be some steel in there. Can we reverse Pell’s aging and make him 30 again and ideally match fit? Maybe Garlick can help there.

Keep the ball on the ground, get rid of certain players who look like they can’t be arsed and play some quick, proper football. Use your feet rather than your head (or hands). Can’t blame Flynn for today. It’s up to the players to show up and create something.

[Malabus]

An extremely bad Cheltenham performance. There are no positives at all. Clueless and no plan but to hoof the ball forward which had no desired attacking threat and we continued to play that way - it doesn’t work.

[Si Robin]

Walking around the ground, the number of weeds and general untidiness is striking. The place is going to seed. Get into the ground and a man on the row in front is scraping dried bird poop of the seat. Football is back!

Anyway. First goal was comical. The referee was looking to the linesman to give an offside, and he clearly had missed it. Anyway, good luck lino in your GCSE's next year. Second goal, AJB just not with it. Gave away the free kick. All eleven behind the ball and it still goes in. The referee deserved stick, he was a mark for Chesterfield, conned for every opportunity they had. But that doesn't excuse how poor we were. I've seen worse, much worse, but today was not good. The big Latvian is slow and looked exhausted. Bennet makes me nervous every time. Broom was MIA. Archer dull today, just drifting across the field to lose the ball. Angol ineffective. Miller, well, the manager hung him out to dry post match.

Welcome to Cheltenhamshire, Mike!

On that topic, surely all it takes is the club to put out a tweet or an email asking supporters to come down on a weekday and get stuck in. I won’t hold my breath…

On the game itself, the defenders all did ok. Miller did the usual, the midfield created f#!$ all and there NEEDS to be some steel in there. Can we reverse Pell’s aging and make him 30 again and ideally match fit? Maybe Garlick can help there.

Keep the ball on the ground, get rid of certain players who look like they can’t be arsed and play some quick, proper football. Use your feet rather than your head (or hands). Can’t blame Flynn for today. It’s up to the players to show up and create something.

The club have been put off doing this because of criticism in the past for daring to ask. I think it was Jaimie from the Trust (apologies if I'm wrong) who told us this on the pod a few months back.

As for yesterday's game, I thought we were decent in the first half. Solid defensively, and decent in midfield. We struggle up top, but that was because it seemed like George Miller was the only one really trying - Lee Angol may as well have not been playing. I thought the back three as a whole were very good, and I very much include Scot Bennett in that.

I missed the first Chesterfield goal, but it seems to me like Flynn panicked. Making a double substitiution almost immediately clearly wasn't planned and the players seemed to be confused about where they were meant to be playing in a lot of cases. Like Cambridge last week, we simply never recovered from the early goal and when the second went in with fully 22 mins to go, it was game over.

A special word for the ref who was, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst ref I have ever seen at Whaddon Road in my 31 years of attending games. Chesterfield were good enough to beat us without his help, but some of his decisions were simply outright baffling at times. I'm not going to get into the arguments about yellow cards - I agree with asl that most of ours were deserved - but the handball by Bickerstaff doesn't happen if he's not being manhandled to the ground by the Chesterfield defender. Manhandling being something Chesterfield were allowed to get away with from the first minute. Then there was the most baffling decision not long after Jordan Thomas came on when he beat a lad on our left, causing the lad to slip over. Absolutely no contact between the players, and the ref pulls it back for a foul by Thomas. I don't believe in conspiracies, etc... but the performance from Speedie made me wonder how much money he had on Chesterfield to win.