Really surprised that Bielik was subbed for tactical purposes. He was excellent at CB against Barnsley, should we have gone to 3 at the back if he wanted to keep Pratley at CB?
I wasn't there so this is pure speculation but it sounds like the prima donna Arsenal loanee didn't fancy a cold day in Rochdale when taken in tandem with Bowyer's comments regarding the attitude of some of his players.
I genuinely thought he was our best player in the first half.
Really surprised that Bielik was subbed for tactical purposes. He was excellent at CB against Barnsley, should we have gone to 3 at the back if he wanted to keep Pratley at CB?
I wasn't there so this is pure speculation but it sounds like the prima donna Arsenal loanee didn't fancy a cold day in Rochdale when taken in tandem with Bowyer's comments regarding the attitude of some of his players.
Very surprised too. At least he strode forward with purpose and has strength and can dribble and pass with conviction unlike aribo did today. Definitely shouldn’t have been hauled off. Yes he lost it once or twice but he’s a victim of his own success in that he’s showing confidence and trying to make things happen. He definitely didn’t shirk a challenge and not use his strength so can’t really say he underestimated them. He actually challenged for the headers too.
Surprised at LB naming a player like that. Keep it behind closed doors. I actually thought Aribo and Cullen had v poor first halves - at least Bielik and Ward were getting on the ball and trying to make things happen.
Always a worrying sign for me when the manager is digging out players attitudes in the press. Whether it is correct or not it has happened a couple of times in the past few weeks and makes me think something is not quiet right behind the scenes.
I agree , Bowyer has I think lost he's shit at half time in one our games this season (I can't remember which one) but digging players out to the press isn't going to go down well with the players themselves! Heads will go down etc
was due to go to this but thankfully a Friday 'emergency' meant I couldn't make it .. thank the lord, even though it meant I lost a hotel booking and the price of a ticket .. few observations from afar .. Taylor misses another pen .. I believe he's scored 2, missed 2 and Fosu scored 1 even though Taylor was on the pitch at the time .. sort it out .. Bielek .. I have got the right hump with us borrowing Arsenal players who just do not seem to want to play for us and get injured or possibly feign injury .. Bielik, if you don't wanna play for us, fuck off .. Solly at left back .. I've said enuf about this in the past .. sounds like a lacklustre performance all round .. too early to say but has Bowyer and his temper alienated some temperamental players ? .. Taylor plays too wide for most of the game .. we need a proper central striker, but who ? .. wasn't there so will say no more .. inconsistency will be our downfall
was due to go to this but thankfully a Friday 'emergency' meant I couldn't make it .. thank the lord, even though it meant I lost a hotel booking and the price of a ticket .. few observations from afar .. Taylor misses another pen .. I believe he's scored 2, missed 2 and Fosu scored 1 even though Taylor was on the pitch at the time .. sort it out .. Bielek .. I have got the right hump with us borrowing Arsenal players who just do not seem to want to play for us and get injured or possibly feign injury .. Bielik, if you don't wanna play for us, fuck off .. Solly at left back .. I've said enuf about this in the past .. sounds like a lacklustre performance all round .. too early to say but has Bowyer and his temper alienated some temperamental players ? .. Taylor plays too wide for most of the game .. we need a proper central striker, but who ? .. wasn't there so will say no more .. inconsistency will be our downfall
This is what I think! Bowyer's temper has come to the faw! And it's not going down well at all! But sometimes the rollicking are needed but sometimes not!
If it's good enough for Man Utd it's good enough for us. I just feel sorry for those long suffering fans at Old Trafford.
We are cursed to languish in mid table obscuritiy for eternity. However, agree with others that this squad which is 95% available should be performing a lot better than we are seeing. Every team will throwin the odd bummer, but we are shit every week now.
Charlton are missing Bauer & Page. It is a makeshift defence with a centre midfield filling in & right back filling in at left back. How do we get here ? Duchatelet sold Konsa & relied upon an injury prone left back with no cover. Bielick is an injury prone centre back & expensive waged 5th choice Sarr is a centre back, a potential calamatious mistake each game.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
Baffled before the game when I got hold of a teamsheet in the Ratcliffe Bar following a beautiful pint of Lees Bitter. I would of had the same back four we had v Barnsley but in Bowyer we trust and assumed he must of spotted some threat or weakness in the Rochdale team. Could be 3 games in a week but don't get me started on that. Anyway, the inevitable happened, Rochdale were allowed to advance on us and it was food & drink for Henderson to notch his 10th goal of the season. Our general play from hereon in was erratic and hurried but that all could of been alleviated in the 17th min had Grant showed composure in front of goal as he lofted his shot way above the bar and then in the 19th min, Taylor missed his penalty. Rochdale for their part were belying their lowly position with good movement and at times dangerous play. Charlton improved a little in the second half but in truth you still felt Rochdale could deliver the sucker punch of a second goal. We had our chances and we needed a break but ultimately we didn't do enough collectively or individually to warrant anything from this game. It saddens me that this is the juncture we find ourselves in at present. Two defeats to little old Rochdale in 2018. We are where we are. I'm totally confused, we have a decent set of players to be challenging in this division but it sure ain't happening at the moment. Then we have that nagging sore in the background with the ownership issues.
Rochdale did to us what we did to Barnsley. Yeah we hit the woodwork two or three times, criminally wasted a penalty, and had a lot of skill and slick passing. However in this league Rochdale's was a classic performance. We did not have a moment on the ball, they harried as if their lives depended on it, and the goal was the difference, not that they didn't carry a threat generally. We were very poor, hardly seemed a team at all, if it wasn't for individuals prepared to have pride in their personal performances it might have been a lot worse. Keith Hill is experienced at this level, Bowyer still learning, but very soon Bow will have to find a way to combat the up and at 'em style so prevalent in this league. We do have good players, but the sometimes excruciating and insistent build up from the back was crying out for a bit of variety. OK, in some games you have to play it long, accept you will lose the first challenge, but be ready to win the second ball, and be able to then use it further up the field. We tried one size fitting all today, but were well beaten because Rochdale tried harder with their game plan which suited their home circumstances. Individually no one was utterly useless, it was a failure of team play, so I give credit to Djiksteel, Cullen, Pratley, Pearce and Steer and Solly for standard decent performances, the others were average and that did not cut it today.
This. Came away massively underwhelmed by our performance. Felt the fans including drummer really built up a head of steam in the second to the point of the disallowed goal for off-side then we seemed to deflate and kept passing the ball back to defenders and keeper and seemed incapable of getting out of our 18 yrd box let alone half! Shame as brought along three family members from Sweden. Oh well. On to the next game. Over to you Lee.
On Bieliek, maybe he didn’t enjoy playing out of centre back position. Not sure myself why LB decided to play Prately at centre back. Maybe Bieliek showed a bit of dissent which is why Bowyer chose to dig him out in the press. Not sure how that’s going to work out, particularly with shortage of quality defensive cover. I guess we will find out over the next few matches.
Charlton are missing Bauer & Page. It is a makeshift defence with a centre midfield filling in & right back filling in at left back. How do we get here ? Duchatelet sold Konsa & relied upon an injury prone left back with no cover. Bielick is an injury prone centre back & expensive waged 5th choice Sarr is a centre back, a potential calamatious mistake each game.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
But its not the defence that is letting us down. Last 2 games we've let in just 2 goals - the one against Oxford was a bit speculative & not a defensive error. If we were losing by 2 or 3 goals then you can blame the defence. The problem is up the other end. No decent crosses coming in (no wingers doesn't help) and no-one apart from the strikers scoring goals. Funny that our recent poor performances have come with Sarr out of the side. Co-incidence maybe but you can't blame him for the last 2 games if he's sitting on the bench.
In this league you have to score at least 2 goals per game to get something out of the game. Too many times this season we've scored just the once & then let in one with 10 mins or so to go. If we had got a 2nd against Coventry & Oxford I bet we would have won. This is not a "1-0 to the Arsenal" league.
We are suffering from injuries, but we still have a far stronger squad than a lot of the other teams in this division. In fact a lot of the teams that are taking points of us, have weaker squads than us on paper.
It pains me to say this but maybe Boyer is the problem. Maybe he needs to be more flexible with his team tactics.
My second visit to Spotland masquerading as the Crown Oil Arena (wtf). Prematch beers and a pie in the Ratcliffe Arms at the ground which was populated by a fair number of addicks. The pitch was in good nick and the late autumn sun thankfully managed to lift the temperature from the early morning lows.
We started with both Pratley and Bielik in the side but not in the positions I would have preferred, the former at RCB and the latter as DM of a diamond. This meant that Cullen played RM with Aribo LM and Ward supposed to be at the tip behind Taylor and Grant. Whatever Bowyer's thinking behind the Prately / Bielik positional selections his plans were upset after just four minutes in, when we were opened up down our left with Soly in reverse gear backing off and backing off, Aribo offering little help and a simple cut back for Henderson to slot home. Pigs and cherries sprang to mind, 1-0 to the Dale.
Undeterred we pressed forward to seek out an equaliser and their keeper soon presented us with the perfect opportunity by coming for a ball past his penalty spot clattering one of our players and conceding a penalty. Up steps Taylor 'I reckon he'll go to the right rather than down the middle this time' me thinks, Trouble is so did their keeper and duly saved it. I wonder how many fans who were previously singing that he could sleep with their wives had second thoughts! To his credit he did rattle the bar with a long range effort but how costly that pen miss would prove to be, that's two now I believe.
Ward tried but gave little service to the front two Cullen didn't look confortable at RM and neither he or an out of sorts Aribo offered much going forward. Bielik I felt carried the ball well and was the best of an ineffective midfield.
Second half saw the withdrawal of Bielik for Reeves whether tactical to try and add a bit more creativity or because of injury, I know not but we looked better balanced for it with Cullen reverting to the DM position. Ward was then rightfully replaced by Fosu approaching the hour mark yet again who I felt offered more in half the time. The Dale goal survived several close attempts and we actually had the ball in the net on a few occasions only for the efforts to be ruled out. Mind you we had a few close escapes at the other end and had it not been for one point blank save by Steer and some timely interventions by Prately and Pearce the home team would have run out comfortable winners.
Good support from the travelling 500 odd diehards who became frustrated with the performance and tactics notably, crap short corners which more often than not came to nothing and the relentless passing from side to side across the back four, five yards from our goal line when time was of the essence to get the ball forward for an equaliser. Not surprisingly the final whistle was met by a crescendo of boos from the long suffering away support. Automatics? Top six? No chance after the last two performances, mid table mediocrity more like .
Charlton are missing Bauer & Page. It is a makeshift defence with a centre midfield filling in & right back filling in at left back. How do we get here ? Duchatelet sold Konsa & relied upon an injury prone left back with no cover. Bielick is an injury prone centre back & expensive waged 5th choice Sarr is a centre back, a potential calamatious mistake each game.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
But its not the defence that is letting us down. Last 2 games we've let in just 2 goals - the one against Oxford was a bit speculative & not a defensive error. If we were losing by 2 or 3 goals then you can blame the defence. The problem is up the other end. No decent crosses coming in (no wingers doesn't help) and no-one apart from the strikers scoring goals. Funny that our recent poor performances have come with Sarr out of the side. Co-incidence maybe but you can't blame him for the last 2 games if he's sitting on the bench.
In this league you have to score at least 2 goals per game to get something out of the game. Too many times this season we've scored just the once & then let in one with 10 mins or so to go. If we had got a 2nd against Coventry & Oxford I bet we would have won. This is not a "1-0 to the Arsenal" league.
Baffled before the game when I got hold of a teamsheet in the Ratcliffe Bar following a beautiful pint of LeesBitter. I would of had the same back four we had v Barnsley but in Bowyer we trust and assumed he must of spotted some threat or weakness in the Rochdale team. Could be 3 games in a week but don't get me started on that. Anyway, the inevitable happened, Rochdale were allowed to advance on us and it was food & drink for Henderson to notch his 10th goal of the season. Our general play from hereon in was erratic and hurried but that all could of been alleviated in the 17th min had Grant showed composure in front of goal as he lofted his shot way above the bar and then in the 19th min, Taylor missed his penalty. Rochdale for their part were belying their lowly position with good movement and at times dangerous play. Charlton improved a little in the second half but in truth you still felt Rochdale could deliver the sucker punch of a second goal. We had our chances and we needed a break but ultimately we didn't do enough collectively or individually to warrant anything from this game. It saddens me that this is the juncture we find ourselves in at present. Two defeats to little old Rochdale in 2018. We are where we are. I'm totally confused, we have a decent set of players to be challenging in this division but it sure ain't happening at the moment. Then we have that nagging sore in the background with the ownership issues.
Charlton are missing Bauer & Page. It is a makeshift defence with a centre midfield filling in & right back filling in at left back. How do we get here ? Duchatelet sold Konsa & relied upon an injury prone left back with no cover. Bielick is an injury prone centre back & expensive waged 5th choice Sarr is a centre back, a potential calamatious mistake each game.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
But its not the defence that is letting us down. Last 2 games we've let in just 2 goals - the one against Oxford was a bit speculative & not a defensive error. If we were losing by 2 or 3 goals then you can blame the defence. The problem is up the other end. No decent crosses coming in (no wingers doesn't help) and no-one apart from the strikers scoring goals. Funny that our recent poor performances have come with Sarr out of the side. Co-incidence maybe but you can't blame him for the last 2 games if he's sitting on the bench.
In this league you have to score at least 2 goals per game to get something out of the game. Too many times this season we've scored just the once & then let in one with 10 mins or so to go. If we had got a 2nd against Coventry & Oxford I bet we would have won. This is not a "1-0 to the Arsenal" league.
Golfie where can I pick that free car up from
Please see my reply on the match thread at around 3pm.
and wtf has that got to do with my post or the game in general ?
Was at the match. Support was 10/10 - never stopped getting behind the team. We had a few lucky moments and Steer got us out of the shit a number of times. His kicking was awful though, as was the build-up play from the back where the ball was mainly passed backwards and back to him inviting pressure. The interplay was alright up front. As usual needed more composure with the final ball. Cullen was our best player and Ward not far behind, so a little perplexing he came off so early. Aribo just had an off day and Afernee covered a lot of ground making up for Joe’s mistakes. Solly’s looking like he needs a rest already. Bottom line though, should’ve got a draw and had enough chances second half to win it. We’ve got enough more experienced players to outthink Rochdale - just didn’t show enough nouse. The ghost of Gobshite still evident today and I reckon we need to be a bit more direct sometimes.
Have to admit Im disappointed that people are unhappy with Bowyer voicing his opinion about attitudes in his post match comments.
Its something we do see from other Managers to try and get a response from their players, in this regard it might work but regardless I think he's 100% spot on, not one player in that dressing room should be happy with their performance today (Maybe it was harsh to solely mention Bielik).
If we're worried about player backlash at Bowyer with regards to the comments then I'm afraid they're not players we want at this club, because if they cant stomach being publicly slated or think there was nothing wrong with their attitude today then Id love to get their opinion on what a bad for them means... End of the day we all know and complain that there is too much player power and for that to be enforced at League One level is a joke, especially when the majority of players down here should be worried about being able to play for a club that'll mean they can pay their mortgages etc.
Charlton are missing Bauer & Page. It is a makeshift defence with a centre midfield filling in & right back filling in at left back. How do we get here ? Duchatelet sold Konsa & relied upon an injury prone left back with no cover. Bielick is an injury prone centre back & expensive waged 5th choice Sarr is a centre back, a potential calamatious mistake each game.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
But its not the defence that is letting us down. Last 2 games we've let in just 2 goals - the one against Oxford was a bit speculative & not a defensive error. If we were losing by 2 or 3 goals then you can blame the defence. The problem is up the other end. No decent crosses coming in (no wingers doesn't help) and no-one apart from the strikers scoring goals. Funny that our recent poor performances have come with Sarr out of the side. Co-incidence maybe but you can't blame him for the last 2 games if he's sitting on the bench.
In this league you have to score at least 2 goals per game to get something out of the game. Too many times this season we've scored just the once & then let in one with 10 mins or so to go. If we had got a 2nd against Coventry & Oxford I bet we would have won. This is not a "1-0 to the Arsenal" league.
Charlton are missing Bauer & Page. It is a makeshift defence with a centre midfield filling in & right back filling in at left back. How do we get here ? Duchatelet sold Konsa & relied upon an injury prone left back with no cover. Bielick is an injury prone centre back & expensive waged 5th choice Sarr is a centre back, a potential calamatious mistake each game.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
But its not the defence that is letting us down. Last 2 games we've let in just 2 goals - the one against Oxford was a bit speculative & not a defensive error. If we were losing by 2 or 3 goals then you can blame the defence. The problem is up the other end. No decent crosses coming in (no wingers doesn't help) and no-one apart from the strikers scoring goals. Funny that our recent poor performances have come with Sarr out of the side. Co-incidence maybe but you can't blame him for the last 2 games if he's sitting on the bench.
In this league you have to score at least 2 goals per game to get something out of the game. Too many times this season we've scored just the once & then let in one with 10 mins or so to go. If we had got a 2nd against Coventry & Oxford I bet we would have won. This is not a "1-0 to the Arsenal" league.
Golfie where can I pick that free car up from
Please see my reply on the match thread at around 3pm.
and wtf has that got to do with my post or the game in general ?
Sorry golfie I was out earlier and didn't see your reply
Better team won today. Fair play to Rochdale they played for each other and looked a real threat every time they came at us. The stupid diamond was exposing our flanks and we looked better when we went 442. Why they can’t do that before waiting until half time I don’t know but it was so obvious from the stands that it was the wrong tactic.
Better team won today. Fair play to Rochdale they played for each other and looked a real threat every time they came at us. The stupid diamond was exposing our flanks and we looked better when we went 442. Why they can’t do that before waiting until half time I don’t know but it was so obvious from the stands that it was the wrong tactic.
I loved Bowyer as a player & is up there as one of our best youngsters I've seen over the past 35 years.
However, he is young & in-experienced. He didn't really want to be a manager & was "dragged" away from his fishing lakes by his mate Harry Kewell a couple of years ago. If it wasn't the fact he played for us I doubt he'd still be here. JJ is also cutting his teeth as well. I said a year or two ago that there is no reason why we should keep hankering after old players to be our managers. We have been spoilt by Curbs and latterly SCP. Pardew didn't work out & there is no reason to say that LB will either. Harsh to say, but maybe management and/or this level of football is just not for him.
Have to admit Im disappointed that people are unhappy with Bowyer voicing his opinion about attitudes in his post match comments.
Its something we do see from other Managers to try and get a response from their players, in this regard it might work but regardless I think he's 100% spot on, not one player in that dressing room should be happy with their performance today (Maybe it was harsh to solely mention Bielik).
If we're worried about player backlash at Bowyer with regards to the comments then I'm afraid they're not players we want at this club, because if they cant stomach being publicly slated or think there was nothing wrong with their attitude today then Id love to get their opinion on what a bad for them means... End of the day we all know and complain that there is too much player power and for that to be enforced at League One level is a joke, especially when the majority of players down here should be worried about being able to play for a club that'll mean they can pay their mortgages etc.
Completely agree with you about player power, but Bowyer can't be exempt from criticism. He has an almost Messiah status with some, and has done since he first got the job, which I think can cloud judgment.
Comments
Bielek .. I have got the right hump with us borrowing Arsenal players who just do not seem to want to play for us and get injured or possibly feign injury .. Bielik, if you don't wanna play for us, fuck off .. Solly at left back .. I've said enuf about this in the past .. sounds like a lacklustre performance all round .. too early to say but has Bowyer and his temper alienated some temperamental players ? .. Taylor plays too wide for most of the game .. we need a proper central striker, but who ? .. wasn't there so will say no more .. inconsistency will be our downfall
Regardless we should be doing much better with what we have against sides like Rochdale.
We are cursed to languish in mid table obscuritiy for eternity. However, agree with others that this squad which is 95% available should be performing a lot better than we are seeing. Every team will throwin the odd bummer, but we are shit every week now.
A team builds from the back & having an unbalanced & shaky defence is not going to help the rest of the team.
For the strikers, from what I have seen Grant is League 2 standard. Ajose has good effort but is not a regular scorer & Vetekele never recovered the standard he played after being forced to play whilst injured under Peters.
There is a decent standard 11 there but the lack of depth & quality is always going to undermine any chance of consistency that promotion needs.
Like every other manager / coach under Duchatelet, Bowyers weaknesses are exposed by the lack of depth in the squad. That is at the door of Duchatelet. Success has a chance when he sells. Hopefully that will be with a Christmas price drop & a chance for some new owners to build some depth into the squad that will help Charlton get out of League One.
Anyway, the inevitable happened, Rochdale were allowed to advance on us and it was food & drink for Henderson to notch his 10th goal of the season.
Our general play from hereon in was erratic and hurried but that all could of been alleviated in the 17th min had Grant showed composure in front of goal as he lofted his shot way above the bar and then in the 19th min, Taylor missed his penalty.
Rochdale for their part were belying their lowly position with good movement and at times dangerous play.
Charlton improved a little in the second half but in truth you still felt Rochdale could deliver the sucker punch of a second goal. We had our chances and we needed a break but ultimately we didn't do enough collectively or individually to warrant anything from this game.
It saddens me that this is the juncture we find ourselves in at present. Two defeats to little old Rochdale in 2018. We are where we are. I'm totally confused, we have a decent set of players to be challenging in this division but it sure ain't happening at the moment. Then we have that nagging sore in the background with the ownership issues.
In this league you have to score at least 2 goals per game to get something out of the game. Too many times this season we've scored just the once & then let in one with 10 mins or so to go. If we had got a 2nd against Coventry & Oxford I bet we would have won. This is not a "1-0 to the Arsenal" league.
In fact a lot of the teams that are taking points of us, have weaker squads than us on paper.
It pains me to say this but maybe Boyer is the problem. Maybe he needs to be more flexible with his team tactics.
My second visit to Spotland masquerading as the Crown Oil Arena (wtf). Prematch beers and a pie in the Ratcliffe Arms at the ground which was populated by a fair number of addicks. The pitch was in good nick and the late autumn sun thankfully managed to lift the temperature from the early morning lows.
We started with both Pratley and Bielik in the side but not in the positions I would have preferred, the former at RCB and the latter as DM of a diamond. This meant that Cullen played RM with Aribo LM and Ward supposed to be at the tip behind Taylor and Grant. Whatever Bowyer's thinking behind the Prately / Bielik positional selections his plans were upset after just four minutes in, when we were opened up down our left with Soly in reverse gear backing off and backing off, Aribo offering little help and a simple cut back for Henderson to slot home. Pigs and cherries sprang to mind, 1-0 to the Dale.
Undeterred we pressed forward to seek out an equaliser and their keeper soon presented us with the perfect opportunity by coming for a ball past his penalty spot clattering one of our players and conceding a penalty. Up steps Taylor 'I reckon he'll go to the right rather than down the middle this time' me thinks, Trouble is so did their keeper and duly saved it. I wonder how many fans who were previously singing that he could sleep with their wives had second thoughts! To his credit he did rattle the bar with a long range effort but how costly that pen miss would prove to be, that's two now I believe.
Ward tried but gave little service to the front two Cullen didn't look confortable at RM and neither he or an out of sorts Aribo offered much going forward. Bielik I felt carried the ball well and was the best of an ineffective midfield.
Second half saw the withdrawal of Bielik for Reeves whether tactical to try and add a bit more creativity or because of injury, I know not but we looked better balanced for it with Cullen reverting to the DM position. Ward was then rightfully replaced by Fosu approaching the hour mark yet again who I felt offered more in half the time. The Dale goal survived several close attempts and we actually had the ball in the net on a few occasions only for the efforts to be ruled out. Mind you we had a few close escapes at the other end and had it not been for one point blank save by Steer and some timely interventions by Prately and Pearce the home team would have run out comfortable winners.
Good support from the travelling 500 odd diehards who became frustrated with the performance and tactics notably, crap short corners which more often than not came to nothing and the relentless passing from side to side across the back four, five yards from our goal line when time was of the essence to get the ball forward for an equaliser. Not surprisingly the final whistle was met by a crescendo of boos from the long suffering away support. Automatics? Top six? No chance after the last two performances, mid table mediocrity more like
and wtf has that got to do with my post or the game in general ?
Support was 10/10 - never stopped getting behind the team.
We had a few lucky moments and Steer got us out of the shit a number of times. His kicking was awful though, as was the build-up play from the back where the ball was mainly passed backwards and back to him inviting pressure.
The interplay was alright up front. As usual needed more composure with the final ball. Cullen was our best player and Ward not far behind, so a little perplexing he came off so early. Aribo just had an off day and Afernee covered a lot of ground making up for Joe’s mistakes. Solly’s looking like he needs a rest already.
Bottom line though, should’ve got a draw and had enough chances second half to win it. We’ve got enough more experienced players to outthink Rochdale - just didn’t show enough nouse. The ghost of Gobshite still evident today and I reckon we need to be a bit more direct sometimes.
Its something we do see from other Managers to try and get a response from their players, in this regard it might work but regardless I think he's 100% spot on, not one player in that dressing room should be happy with their performance today (Maybe it was harsh to solely mention Bielik).
If we're worried about player backlash at Bowyer with regards to the comments then I'm afraid they're not players we want at this club, because if they cant stomach being publicly slated or think there was nothing wrong with their attitude today then Id love to get their opinion on what a bad for them means... End of the day we all know and complain that there is too much player power and for that to be enforced at League One level is a joke, especially when the majority of players down here should be worried about being able to play for a club that'll mean they can pay their mortgages etc.
However, he is young & in-experienced. He didn't really want to be a manager & was "dragged" away from his fishing lakes by his mate Harry Kewell a couple of years ago. If it wasn't the fact he played for us I doubt he'd still be here. JJ is also cutting his teeth as well. I said a year or two ago that there is no reason why we should keep hankering after old players to be our managers. We have been spoilt by Curbs and latterly SCP. Pardew didn't work out & there is no reason to say that LB will either. Harsh to say, but maybe management and/or this level of football is just not for him.