It didn’t sound like any of the forwards were a solution to our scoring woes on today’s showing, but is it all down to them? Not that much ball on the deck and the central midfield seemed to be by-passed for a lot of the game.
Barrow and Sutton are just outside of the play offs and I'm sure haven't got a big budget. Turnbull, Morris, Hemmings and Lewis are all on decent wages for league 2. Our budget is not that bad but the use of it is another matter.
It sounded like Hendry did quite well when he saw the ball and was probably one of the better Rovers players when he did see the ball. By-passing the midfield doesn’t help, feels we’re dragging him down to our level.
Money determines the level of quality available. We've mostly been shopping in the bargain basement.
It is largely down to the forwards to get goals. There have been many many opportunities over the last few months to score goals in games but we have not had the right quality to do it. The amount of balls into the box or chances in and around the box that have not been attacked or finished well is quite amazing. A decent striker would have eaten them up. I think with a player such as Cook, he'd be on the 15+ goal mark by now.
Well in answer specifically to your question re Burton do not play him and then lump aimless high balls to him when he is about 5 foot 7 and will be beaten by a big CB every time! Maybe try and exploit space behind the back line when his pace (of which there is no doubt irrespective of his other abilities) might just possibly you know enable him to find space. It's so obvious it just isn't funny - the Ifollow commentators were saying it right from the get go today and fair play to them even they as the most positive of positive supporters were by the end saying recent tactics/ performances simply are poor irrespective as to who is on the pitch.
The players aren't good enough to play tippy tappy football and thread balls through to the forwards. When they get it they largely just lump it upfield. When they did try to play it on the floor, there were times when it simply failed to find a player or it went out of play. Tranmere's passing pertentage was something like 52%. That's rubbish, so good luck with trying to exploit space behind the back line. I don't think division two football particularly suits two pacey forwards, nevermind ones that don't have a goal between them! You need someone that can hold up the ball or at least cause defenders problems and can throw themselves about a bit. And Mumbongo certainly does not fit the bill.
That wasn’t true of this game though, was it? We didn’t play to the strengths of those two who were up top, neither did we make good use of our ball-playing midfielders Hendry and Merrie.
Yes, if we remain stable in League Two. With this group of players we would be in a relegation battle under many managers. The striking options are appalling.
Hawkes was poor today and was deservedly hooked. People can't on the one hand claim Mellon never changes things and then also criticise him when he does.
I specifically said "exploit space behind the back line"... I never mentioned playing balls into feet with his back to the goal but hey if that suits your agenda of decrying anyone who disagrees with you fair enough.
I was not replying to you, if you bother to read my post properly. Are you paranoid ?
Not asking for tippy tappy - we all know we are not good enough for that but at least if we try and find space we have some chance given we have no out and out big CF.
Hendry and Merrie were actually quite prominent in the game today and played well I thought. The service to the strikers was variable in quality, but good enough at times. We did not exclusively play long balls.
