Swindon Town (H) League 1 Saturday 29/11/08.

[King Crimson]

Message to JM. I'm delighted we won. I'm glad you decided to play the footballers again (Weston, Boertien, Reich, and even Zaaboub). Please play them again next week.

Ah, but Muddle's love-child, Palmer, should be available, next week. :twisted:

You didn't copy my little kiss. I'm hoping to woo Jimmy away.

For all our sake, it's a price worth paying. :(


:mrgreen:

[sid swifty]

Message to JM. I'm delighted we won. I'm glad you decided to play the footballers again (Weston, Boertien, Reich, and even Zaaboub). Please play them again next week.

Ah, but Muddle's love-child, Palmer, should be available, next week. :twisted:

The love-child was away having a love-child of his own wasn't he? so what relationship is JM to his love-childs love-child?.... :D

[Exile]

Message to JM. I'm delighted we won. I'm glad you decided to play the footballers again (Weston, Boertien, Reich, and even Zaaboub). Please play them again next week.

Ah, but Muddle's love-child, Palmer, should be available, next week. :twisted:

The love-child was away having a love-child of his own wasn't he? so what relationship is JM to his love-childs love-child?.... :D

Father? :twisted:

[Duke]

What we have wanted for a long time , 2 proper full backs and Reich to have his chance .
Much improved although we will face tougher opposition , certainly a move in the right direction.

[bleed_red_n_white]

4 - When Taundry came on he showed why he should have started - maybe the manager was right to make him compete for his place

Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear was you really watching the same Taundry as the rest of us, i believe wfc_rob made a comment saying the reich was replace by aother hoofballer taundry and he couldnt of put it any better, Taundry should NOT be in the team end of story.

[Four Oaks Saddler]

Overall, I think we just about did enough to win.

Yeah, scoring one more goal than the opposition usually does the trick in terms of doing enough to win! :roll:

Thanks for that. You'll have to forgive me, i'm new to this footballing lark. :roll:

[Insane Saddler!]

What a difference a week makes!!

Thought we played a lot better than last week against MK but as said, it wasn't going to be hard was it.

The first half I thought we played some nice stuff. Having 2 'proper' full-backs, made a huge difference, especially Boertien, who linked up really well with Reich. Having a 'proper' winger on the left, in the 1st half,playing with Boertien, who are both good footballers, made a huge difference aswell. Their link up play was good to watch. Zigor and Pedro would have been proud! Reich may not be the quickest of players but he looks to be on a level with the other footballers we have in Ricketts and Hughes. His ability to do something different with free-kicks would get him a few goals at this level i reckon and if given a run in the team he could be a very good player for us.

On a couple of occasions, in the 1st half, I thought Nicholls and Deeney also linked up well. Ricketts was producing some nice through balls, linking the midfield with attack by dropping deeper to receive the ball and looking to see what was going on. Players at a higher level, or on the same level as Ricketts would have had a field day with some of the stuff he was playing. Really good to watch. Other mentions for Bradley and Hughes who also looked good together in the middle of the park. Surely Bradley has done enough to warrant a run in the team now? He gets the ball down well and looks to play football how it should be... on the floor.

Gerrard and Roberts played ok and didn't look to be too troubled by their centre-forwards. Even though Swindon played some nice stuff at times they very rarely looked like getting in behind them. The marking for the point-blank save from Gilmartin, who made three very good saves, was poor though.

Can't say a lot about the 2nd half. Too much hoof-ball and a very scrappy game with no real flow to it apart from the 2nd goal. Nicholls did really well early in the move and to show the energy still at that time in the match to get on the end of a good ball from Taundry was excellent work. Thought Gilmartin flapped a bit at their goal and maybe should have done better but he had already kept us ahead before that so probably just warranted the man of the match ahead of Nicholls in my opinion. We missed Ricketts badly in the 2nd half and the substitutions by Mullen were puzzling but don't want to moan too much as we've managed a win at home!!

So... Mullen lives to fight another day! Roll on Huddersfield!

[philthesaddler]

Finally, Finally, Finally Jimmy effin Mullen dropped Chris effin Palmer, played 2 full backs, 2 wingers and 2 up front.

It's not effin rocket science is it Mullen? It's only what a sizeable amount of people have been saying on here for a couple of months!

I can only imagine Palmer was seriously ill not to even make the 16.

Anyway, on to the game - started well, having players in their proper positions actually helps, strangely.

Still not a fantastic performance...we struggled to keep the ball, and did our best to give it away at the end, but at least this might be like the road to domestos for Muddle, finally seeing the light that you can play 2 full backs, 2 wingers, and not have Palmer in the side and win!

PS. I'd give Zaboob a start now.

[Whitti Steve]

Finally, Finally, Finally Jimmy effin Mullen dropped Chris effin Palmer, played 2 full backs, 2 wingers and 2 up front.

It's not effin rocket science is it Mullen? It's only what a sizeable amount of people have been saying on here for a couple of months!

I can only imagine Palmer was seriously ill not to even make the 16.

Anyway, on to the game - started well, having players in their proper positions actually helps, strangely.

Still not a fantastic performance...we struggled to keep the ball, and did our best to give it away at the end, but at least this might be like the road to domestos for Muddle, finally seeing the light that you can play 2 full backs, 2 wingers, and not have Palmer in the side and win!

PS. I'd give Zaboob a start now.

His mrs having a baby. Some else stated that it would be nice if she could have another next week :mrgreen:

[philthesaddler]

Chris Palmer missed the game as his partner gave birth to their first child.

Congratulations to him.
His wife couldn't have timed things any better. :D

But does that mean he will be back next week :? ?

And there was me thinking Mullen had seen the light.

It's almost guarunteed he'll get Palmer back in the side somehow. Favourite to be dropped is Boertien at 5/2, but I'm going to put my money on Reich at 3/1

[booster cogburn]

Overall, I think we just about did enough to win.

Yeah, scoring one more goal than the opposition usually does the trick in terms of doing enough to win! :roll:

Thanks for that. You'll have to forgive me, i'm new to this footballing lark. :roll:

Sorry but what do you expect when you come out with twaddle like that? It's the sort of thing Jim Beglin would say! :wink:

[Bristol Fan]

I thought the highlight of the second half came when we were defending a corner, and at precisely the same moment Schofield was yelling at Reich to stay up the pitch and Mullen was yelling at him to get back into our box to defend.

Was nice to see us actually put some crosses in during the first half. Can't remember the last time that happened. Reich is far from perfect but he can do a job on the wing. (Not up front though.) But how much we missed Ricketts in the second half shows how important he is to us.

[Plastic Hawk]

Isn't it amazing what picking a sensible team, including experienced players with proven quality, playing in their correct positions and ahead of one-trick ponies who run around a lot will do for you?

Let's hope for more of the same for the next five-and-a-half months - and maybe then we can still salvage something from what's been pretty much a car crash of a season so far.

[Plastic Hawk]

Game of two halves. Ricketts, Reich, Boertien, Gerrard, Hughes, Weston all excellent first half - especially Reich and Boertien, who really kept the ball well. All our good stuff was going on down the left.

Don't know why Ricketts didn't come back out second half (words with Mullen? didn't look injured to me). Second half we struggled with Deeney and Nicholls up front - both worked hard, and Nicholls I thought could have been a contender for MoM.

Replacing the excellent Reich for Taundry was a joke. He made one contribution - an excellent cross for Nicholls to put away in the 90th minute, but he provided no protection at all for the full backs. Zabooub showed some excellent touches too. With Ricketts going off, I'd have stuck Reich up there with Deeney, and brought Zabooub on down the wings with Nicholls.

First half we played some of the football of old - passing (remember that?), neat flicks, triangles, decent crosses etc. Good stuff. Then we lost two of our footballers (Reich and Ricketts), and we looked ragged again.

Still, a good result. And a word for Gilmartin. The boy done pretty good. I am pleased for him.

I'm not sure that Reich was "excellent". He was better than the other players we've tried on that wing, but still wanted to beat one player too many every time. And his set pieces were poor. However, I really wanted to reply to your comment about Taundry. I was very disappointed that he didn't do more defensively. Surely the point of putting him on was because the little number 11 was isolating Weston one-on-one from the moment he came on and looked very dangerous. Putting on another full back to double up on him seemed a very sensible move - but RT made no effort to help Rhys out at all. Maybe Mullen had told him not to? Very dd anyway. Still, the cross for the second goal was excellent and pretty much sealed the match.

[Plastic Hawk]

Chris Palmer missed the game as his partner gave birth to their first child.

I thought Mullen was looking a bit slimmer during the match... :wink:

[philthesaddler]

Chris Palmer missed the game as his partner gave birth to their first child.

I thought Mullen was looking a bit slimmer during the match... :wink:

:lol:

[aaaae]

Just watched the highlights - looked like an entertaining game - let's hope we can keep it up!

[concretehippo]

Chris Palmer missed the game as his partner gave birth to their first child.

Congratulations to him.
His wife couldn't have timed things any better. :D

Yeah, don't supose she could have another one next week!! :lol:

Cue chant for next game...
"Can she give birth every week?"

[ShropsSaddler]

I'm not sure that Reich was "excellent". He was better than the other players we've tried on that wing, but still wanted to beat one player too many every time. And his set pieces were poor. However, I really wanted to reply to your comment about Taundry. I was very disappointed that he didn't do more defensively. Surely the point of putting him on was because the little number 11 was isolating Weston one-on-one from the moment he came on and looked very dangerous. Putting on another full back to double up on him seemed a very sensible move - but RT made no effort to help Rhys out at all. Maybe Mullen had told him not to? Very dd anyway. Still, the cross for the second goal was excellent and pretty much sealed the match.

Spot on PH. It was bizarre. Either instructions from the manager or a clear lack of basic footballing instinct. There were several times when he was close enough to go and help, but didn't. To be fair, although I didn't think Weston had a great game, in those circumstances, I thought he did ok against the tricky winger.

[King Crimson]

I'm not sure that Reich was "excellent". He was better than the other players we've tried on that wing, but still wanted to beat one player too many every time. And his set pieces were poor. However, I really wanted to reply to your comment about Taundry. I was very disappointed that he didn't do more defensively. Surely the point of putting him on was because the little number 11 was isolating Weston one-on-one from the moment he came on and looked very dangerous. Putting on another full back to double up on him seemed a very sensible move - but RT made no effort to help Rhys out at all. Maybe Mullen had told him not to? Very dd anyway. Still, the cross for the second goal was excellent and pretty much sealed the match.

Spot on PH. It was bizarre. Either instructions from the manager or a clear lack of basic footballing instinct. There were several times when he was close enough to go and help, but didn't. To be fair, although I didn't think Weston had a great game, in those circumstances, I thought he did ok against the tricky winger.

Taundry either drifted in-field or was too high to help out more often than not. MacNamee is a quick, talented winger (goodness knows why he's on the bench at Swindon - attitude perhaps?). I remember him tearing us to pieces at Watford away a number of years ago when he was just a kid. Ripped our defence to ribbons that day.

I disagree about Reich's set-pieces too. Most created a chance. Even his shot from distance from the free kick wasn' far away, and the way the wall and 'keeper were positioned, it was well worth a go. I think he holds the ball well, worked well with the players around him (Boertien, Hughes and Ricketts) and played as well as anybody first half. Sticking him up front is a mistake. Mullen's tried it before and it didn't work then either.

[WFC_Rob]

I really wanted to reply to your comment about Taundry. I was very disappointed that he didn't do more defensively. Surely the point of putting him on was because the little number 11 was isolating Weston one-on-one from the moment he came on and looked very dangerous. Putting on another full back to double up on him seemed a very sensible move - but RT made no effort to help Rhys out at all. Maybe Mullen had told him not to? Very dd anyway. Still, the cross for the second goal was excellent and pretty much sealed the match.

It's not the first time Taundry has looked at a loss as to what he's supposed to be doing defensively. I think it was the Luton game in which I blamed him for one of the goals. We had a corner, they broke away, he was the last defender, committed to closing the man with the ball down before deciding against it at the last second and more or less gave them a free shot at goal from about 12 yards out.
I think it's safe to say we shouldn't bring Taundry on and expect him to do a job requiring any defensive willingness or discipline - those are two strings his bow simply doesn't have.

[Plastic Hawk]

I really wanted to reply to your comment about Taundry. I was very disappointed that he didn't do more defensively. Surely the point of putting him on was because the little number 11 was isolating Weston one-on-one from the moment he came on and looked very dangerous. Putting on another full back to double up on him seemed a very sensible move - but RT made no effort to help Rhys out at all. Maybe Mullen had told him not to? Very dd anyway. Still, the cross for the second goal was excellent and pretty much sealed the match.

It's not the first time Taundry has looked at a loss as to what he's supposed to be doing defensively. I think it was the Luton game in which I blamed him for one of the goals. We had a corner, they broke away, he was the last defender, committed to closing the man with the ball down before deciding against it at the last second and more or less gave them a free shot at goal from about 12 yards out. I think it's safe to say we shouldn't bring Taundry on and expect him to do a job requiring any defensive willingness or discipline - those are two strings his bow simply doesn't have.

Then - as he is only ever going to be either a full back or a defensive midfield player due to his physical attributes (small, stocky, slow) - he has serious issues with a future career. Both of those positions require discipline and positional awareness, otherwise you just end up running around like a headless chicken constantly trying to make up the ground your lack of anticipation has cost you - and Taundry doesn't have the pace to make that work.

However, they are attributes that it should be possible to learn. I think that RT has bags of potential. He has plenty of ability on the ball (even if he sometimes doesn't think quickly enough to make that count in open play) - which is much harder to learn - but he's not developed as he should have done over the course of this season. With a player of his age you'd expect to see a noticeable ongoing improvement almost every time he plays. He should be learning how to get the most out of that natural ability and how to maximize his impact on a game. But that hasn't happened. He still does the things he always did well (endeavour, quality delivery when given time and space), but he's not learned anything at all about reading the game, playing the ball out under pressure (rather than just hoofing it), positional awareness or adapting to the game situation (i.e. taking more chances when we're losing, tracking back more when we're winning). That's got to be down to coaching - either in terms of the instructions he's given during a game or the work done (or not done) in analyzing his weaknesses on the training field in the week.

[King Crimson]

However, they are attributes that it should be possible to learn. I think that RT has bags of potential. He has plenty of ability on the ball (even if he sometimes doesn't think quickly enough to make that count in open play) - which is much harder to learn - but he's not developed as he should have done over the course of this season.

Darren Wrack in this month's FourFourTwo makes an interesting distinction between League One and Conference football. He says that the main difference between players at the two levels is the speed of their decision-making: to lay on the pass, to go long, to find space etc. He says it's that that differentiates rather than skill, speed, fitness etc.

Discuss. :wink:

[Willy Nilly]

However, they are attributes that it should be possible to learn. I think that RT has bags of potential. He has plenty of ability on the ball (even if he sometimes doesn't think quickly enough to make that count in open play) - which is much harder to learn - but he's not developed as he should have done over the course of this season.

Darren Wrack in this month's FourFourTwo makes an interesting distinction between League One and Conference football. He says that the main difference between players at the two levels is the speed of their decision-making: to lay on the pass, to go long, to find space etc. He says it's that that differentiates rather than skill, speed, fitness etc.

Discuss. :wink:

Obviously, Wracky's finding the step-up in quality a bit hard to grasp at the moment. :mrgreen:

[Plastic Hawk]

However, they are attributes that it should be possible to learn. I think that RT has bags of potential. He has plenty of ability on the ball (even if he sometimes doesn't think quickly enough to make that count in open play) - which is much harder to learn - but he's not developed as he should have done over the course of this season.

Darren Wrack in this month's FourFourTwo makes an interesting distinction between League One and Conference football. He says that the main difference between players at the two levels is the speed of their decision-making: to lay on the pass, to go long, to find space etc. He says it's that that differentiates rather than skill, speed, fitness etc.

Discuss. :wink:

(On the ball) there's nothing to discuss as it's blindingly obvious. There are plenty of players in Sunday League football who can ping the ball in the top corner from 25 yards if you give them two touches and three or four seconds to line it up. Premier League players need only a fraction of a second and a single touch.

However, the ball is one of the least important things in a game of football. Each player only has it in his possession for for about 5% of the game. Speed of thought, awareness of your surroundings and reading of the game off the ball are the main differences between players at all levels of the game between semi-pro and the Premier League. At park level (where most of us probably play) there's much more variation in ability with the ball (although a park side that works on a tiny number of things that don't relate to the ball right can also make itself far better). Then there's probably another sizeable step in ability with the ball between your "average" Premier League player and the really world class players (of whom there are only a handful in each generation).

[cyclothymic]

Reich v Taundry?

I thought reich was fairly off the game on saturday to be honest - he can put a dead ball in but we need more than that

Taundry looked utter tat earlier in the season but I think that being dropped to the bench gave him a wake-up call and he looked lively when he was bought on

KC and bleed_red_n_white - maybe I am wrong ... maybe not.

I guess we will see who is playing that role in March or April ...

[philthesaddler]

PH is right, a player can have all the skills in the world, but if he's not got a clue where to be or how to find space then he wont bring anything to the team. Thats where the term 'off the ball' came from.

Decision making is also a massive attribute, some of our players, I watch and I think at times "knock it through" or "pass it now" and a player just takes that extra touch or that extra second to think.

On a tangent, I think Mullen should be really working mega hard on Deeneys pace and awareness - thats what lets him down IMO. He works and works and works, but for a young striker to be so comprehensively outpaced by both central defenders on Saturday speaks volumes. A lot of it is down to the first couple of yards acceleration and the speed of his reaction.