Our poor away form, negative tactics?

[justanotherfan]

Not won in 2 months, couldn't beat a lowly non-League side at home in midweek and then sacked their Manager yesterday; this game had 1-0 Mansfield written all over it.

But the first defeat in 8 is not the end of the world.

What is of serious concern though is the poor away form. It isn't good enough to be contending the play-offs, never mind automatic Promotion because we are not going to win every home game either.

We still have the age-old problem of never winning after we concede. But we should have got a point today because this should have been one of those games when somebody else stepped up to the plate and nicked a goal for us whilst their defenders were concentrating on stopping Reid and Alessandra.

Our defence has been excellent and Reid and Alessandra are as good a pair as most in this Division but our midfielders goal return is absolutely woeful, mostly because they all want to sit behind the ball and will not accept any responsibility with regards to goal scoring.

It's not realistic to rely almost exclusively on Reid and Alessandra to score every week. The likes of Cox, Blizzard and even Norburn and Harvey when they get their chance have got to be chipping in with the odd goal. The only midfielder I would excuse is O'Connor, but having him should allow the others to be a bit more adventurous.

The midfield have to contribute 12-15 goals between them over the season if we are going to be Promotion contenders. If they don't, we will be mid-table mediocrity once again, it's as simple as that because even with a good defence, we are going to need to score at least 55-60 goals to get Promoted.

We look at half-decent side but the complete lack of goals from midfield is a glaring weakness and a key reason for our poor away form.

Sort it out Sheridan!

A good, reasoned arguement which is difficult to disagree with.

 

[IJN]

P.S. Don't mean to sound aggressive at all.

I'm £50 out, exhausted after over 10 hours of travelling and I've seen a very, very poor performance. Not going to be in a good mood tomorrow!

It's just not good enough - something has to change.

Blimey, you deserve a stiff drink!

* it's humour, no teenagers were harmed in the making of this post.

With food of course! :greensmile:

 

[Josh Pope]

P.S. Don't mean to sound aggressive at all.

I'm £50 out, exhausted after over 10 hours of travelling and I've seen a very, very poor performance. Not going to be in a good mood tomorrow!

It's just not good enough - something has to change.

Blimey, you deserve a stiff drink!

* it's humour, no teenagers were harmed in the making of this post.

With food of course! :greensmile:

Not forgetting in licensed premises!

 

[IJN]

Goes without saying.

 

[Rich McLean]

My opinion to sort out our away form this season, would be to loan Harvey out in January to get him some game time in, and loan in another player, who can play RCM or LCM and have a proven track record of scoring goals, with O'Connor in the middle just behind covering defense, unless we also get B.Reid back of course as well.

Based on that, who should we try and loan in?

 

[Balham Green]

My opinion to sort out our away form this season, would be to loan Harvey out in January to get him some game time in, and loan in another player, who can play RCM or LCM and have a proven track record of scoring goals, with O'Connor in the middle just behind covering defense, unless we also get B.Reid back of course as well.

Based on that, who should we try and loan in?

Yes teams will be desperate to loan out players 'with a proven track record in scoring goals'.

 

[Balham Green]

Not won in 2 months, couldn't beat a lowly non-League side at home in midweek and then sacked their Manager yesterday; this game had 1-0 Mansfield written all over it.

But the first defeat in 8 is not the end of the world.

What is of serious concern though is the poor away form. It isn't good enough to be contending the play-offs, never mind automatic Promotion because we are not going to win every home game either.

We still have the age-old problem of never winning after we concede. But we should have got a point today because this should have been one of those games when somebody else stepped up to the plate and nicked a goal for us whilst their defenders were concentrating on stopping Reid and Alessandra.

Our defence has been excellent and Reid and Alessandra are as good a pair as most in this Division but our midfielders goal return is absolutely woeful, mostly because they all want to sit behind the ball and will not accept any responsibility with regards to goal scoring.

It's not realistic to rely almost exclusively on Reid and Alessandra to score every week. The likes of Cox, Blizzard and even Norburn and Harvey when they get their chance have got to be chipping in with the odd goal. The only midfielder I would excuse is O'Connor, but having him should allow the others to be a bit more adventurous.

The midfield have to contribute 12-15 goals between them over the season if we are going to be Promotion contenders. If they don't, we will be mid-table mediocrity once again, it's as simple as that because even with a good defence, we are going to need to score at least 55-60 goals to get Promoted.

We look at half-decent side but the complete lack of goals from midfield is a glaring weakness and a key reason for our poor away form.

Sort it out Sheridan!

A good, reasoned arguement which is difficult to disagree with.

What worries me is if Reid gets injured, suspended, transferred. The goals will dry up completely then.

 

[pearces greens]

:clap:

Why should we be changing tactics away from home anyway? It's a football match on a football pitch against 11 players, just like when we're at home! So if we win 3-0 at home, why not play exactly the same away?

:clap: exactly, too much is made about the difference of home and away, if you can fly out of the blocks against Exeter, Cheltenham, and pompey at home, and score three goals each game, why cant you do that away from home to put them on the back foot ? rather than wait to see what the home team start like. if we had gone one up yesterday, they would have thought here we go again, due to the fact they have not won for nine games.

 

[demportdave]

:clap:

Why should we be changing tactics away from home anyway? It's a football match on a football pitch against 11 players, just like when we're at home! So if we win 3-0 at home, why not play exactly the same away?

:clap: exactly, too much is made about the difference of home and away, if you can fly out of the blocks against Exeter, Cheltenham, and pompey at home, and score three goals each game, why cant you do that away from home to put them on the back foot ? rather than wait to see what the home team start like. if we had gone one up yesterday, they would have thought here we go again, due to the fact they have not won for nine games.

On the face of it, a perfectly reasonable assumption, why are we making it so hard for ourselves away from home?

The only explanation is that the players are not preparing or performing in the same way and they are addressing away games in a more negative frame of mind. How else do you explain the results, or the fact that we have not even scored in 5 of the ten competitive away games and even worse, we have scored a meagre 5 goals away all season.

Of those 5 goals, 2 were penalties and one of the others was a 'once a season' special from Blizzard that he is not likely to repeat.

Why can't Cox, Blizzard, O'Connor, Harvey or Norburn just score the odd scruffy, opportunist goal because they were brave enough to get in the box for once.

Sheridan has done well to make it hard for teams to score against us but he has got to sort out the away form and our inability to score.

Playing O'Connor, Cox and Blizzard in central midfield gives the appearance of negativity and caution and if Sheridan can't get a suitable replacement for Reid as an attacker midfielder, I would rather he put Banton in there because at least he will provide a goal threat.

 

[Balham Green]

Not just about us though is it? Home teams are expected by their punters to put on a show, get in the away team's faces etc and will therefore be more positive and probably putting in more effort.

 

[TomLannigan]

Let's look at the bigger picture. Teams lose games- yes, even good teams. Rochdale lost 13 games last season and they ended up doing alright didn't they? Rotherham lost 15 games the season before, again they went up. I don't have a major issue with us losing the odd game. Obviously I want us to win every game but if we can respond after every defeat with a win then I'll be more than happy.

 

[Balham Green]

Let's look at the bigger picture. Teams lose games- yes, even good teams. Rochdale lost 13 games last season and they ended up doing alright didn't they? Rotherham lost 15 games the season before, again they went up. I don't have a major issue with us losing the odd game. Obviously I want us to win every game but if we can respond after every defeat with a win then I'll be more than happy.

Its losing to a poor team that haven't won for 2 months that concerns people. And also the season long trend of lack of away goals.

 

[oddball]

If you are looking for automatic promotion rather than the lottery of the play offs,then you need some better players,players who can perform away as well as at home...a lot of this current team just don't do the business away from home park...

 

[PL2 3DQ]

Our current average of 1.66 points per game will see us reach 76 points at the end of the season and a play off place, based on the last five seasons in L2.

We need to find another five to 10 extra points to secure an automatic promotion place which means upping our average points per game to at least 1.80. Not impossible.

 

[Balham Green]

Our current average of 1.66 points per game will see us reach 76 points at the end of the season and a play off place, based on the last five seasons in L2.

We need to find another five to 10 extra points to secure an automatic promotion place.

We have averaged that with very few injuries, Reid an ever present and some successful loan signings. All three of those scenarios could easily change.