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Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Reports and reaction from the 2014-2015 season as Walsall finished 3rd in League 1
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SoccerHQ
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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:20 pm

Yeah I agree, if you're playing two up top you need Milan's pace and movement to stretch back 4s. He played well enough v Coventry last time out.

As I've said before Flanagan is toss on the ball, just don't think he'll be consistantly good enough in this league due to that failing.

That otherwise, I thought it was a very good performance today. I know I know Bury haven't won a game....but look at their squad and I'd be amazed if they aren't in the mix for top 6 come May. And yet today they had a very strong early 10 minutes and then barely created another chance until injury time when that guy hilariously fell over when he was through on goal.

It would be a shame if a loss means people start taking pops at the manager and some players again as today was just unlucky, the keeper made some excellent saves and somehow got away with that pinball chance right at the end.

Start complaining if this starts to become a winless run and especially if teams coming up like Posh and Crewe aren't being beaten, otherwise it was just an unlucky loss in a 46 game season, it happens.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:43 pm

So frustrating to lose this game due to the wrong formation/Team selection. We were clearly the superior side.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:50 pm

Have absolutely no idea why people on here and social media say we missed Etheridge, MacGillivray hardly had anything to do and had no chance with the goal.

As I said before Cook is absolutely shocking, taking Forde off for him was pretty pointless. Have no idea why Forde insists on coming in on trying to cross with his left foot as it's barely good enough to stand on let alone kick a bag of wind.

Badly missed Lleyton Hewitt today.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:56 pm

True it's also hard to work out the formation at times, it's certainly not 3-5-2 as Sawyers drops so deep we almost play a middle 4. We needed to stretch them today with 2 wingers with two strikers making runs in behind the defenders.

We will always dominate possession with that formation but it's not necessarily in the right areas.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:02 pm

Some rather OTT comments above...we played badly for the first 10-15 minutes and it cost us. Today shows how difficult it can be to get a goal back in the modern football especially when the opposition goalkeeper plays well. On reflection it would have been better to play 4-1-4-1 as someone said above but whether it would made much difference I am not sure..the fact is we played well after the first few minutes and on another day would have won.
Lets hope we can put it right next week when our internationals will be back...hopefully fully fit after their travels.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:19 pm

Flanagan was not as half bad as people are making out in fact he was our best player first half at least he was trying but in true wfc style let's boo him slag him off criticise him then where he fulfills his potential and signs for Sheffield United /mk dons we will moan and say he's a money grabber.
Today's problem was simple it was all down to tactics Bradshaw totally isolated up front against their big centre half we kept playing the ball in the air to the kid only for the big black lad marking him to lap it up every time, Forde playing out of position can't be a good thing given the fact playing in his natural position he's not great.
Lalkovic should have started low center of gravity good at running with the ball would have caused their big centre half's nightmares.
Lose the next game vs Doncaster and it's back to normal im afraid.
Last edited by otiswfc on Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:36 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:21 pm

Sooo disappointed after all the great results lately - and those at the games recently keep saying we should have won them (the match stats certainly support those hypotheses) which is very frustrating. The brief snatches I've seen certainly seem to indicate that we have the makings of a good team and a good season, but we will have to start turning our clear superiority (not just possession) into goals. Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn't, as our phenomenal start to the season has shown. Trust Smiff to say he wasn't worried about the "Manager of the Month" curse but it certainly seems to have operated this time, with a vengeance. Of course, the "Manager of the Month" curse is a statistical phenomenon due to "regression to the mean". Regression toward (or to) the mean is the phenomenon that if a variable is extreme on its first measurement, it will tend to be closer to the average on its second measurement. Or, to put it more simply in footy terms, if you've had a very good run (your manager gets "Manager of the Month") you are more likely to get a following result or results closer to the mean i.e. a draw or a stuffing. Nine out of every people agree with me. You can't argue with statistics.
:mrgreen:

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:24 pm

Not terrible, but it showed our deficiencies.

Bury had 9 men behind the ball. They conceded possession and defended quite well. Even when our long range efforts got through the keeper was equal.

Frustrating more than rubbish.

The formation was wrong today, so was the team put out and the subs were odd/desperate. Lalkovic should have been on way earlier and could have been the difference.

Jordan Cook is pointless. Even Baxendale must be higher up the pecking order.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:33 pm

Blooming 'heck SWS1 you will make Sallion look interesting if you carry on like this :D Going back to the match there is a lot of comment on systems but you cannot get away from the fact we were poor for 15minutes...would we have been any better with other systems? After that we played well but simply couldn't get past a stubborn Bury despite having 55% of the play and 15 shots! I am told we were poor at Blackpool for about the same time but,of course,it didn't matter there. Its a habit we need to break and quickly if we are to succeed.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:38 pm

I seriously hope not but I have a horrible feeling this is the start if the next Smith 10 games without a win run.

If Cook is a footballer then I still have a chance.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:42 pm

I hope one poor half by Flanaghan doesn't mean he gets the boo boy treatment. Responsible for a fair few misplaced passes but he's played well this season and will develop further.

As for Forde, he didn't do much wrong on the right wing. Not sure he was deployed as a wing back. Not on the sense of defensive duties. Downing seemed to be providing all the cover on the right of what looked like a back three.

A collective 6 out of 10 today. Let's hope today was a blip.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:50 pm

Started off badly ,very slow and never recovered from their goal which was just a matter of time coming they then did enough to hold lead posing a threat with quick counter attacks.
Playing Forde as wingback was a disaster with bury having free run down wing.
We were second best everywhere lost every 50/50 ball passing that would shame a 5 year old and our midgets never stood a chance against the big physical bury players so why keep crossing balls into goal area.
For first time this season smith got system and subs wrong.No right wingback change don't play that way , desperate for goals don't send on cooke milan should have started.
Even though disappointed today would have been well pleased with our points and position in league at start of season much better than expected .
Need win next week so that we don't go into one of our long winless runs of old.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 8:33 pm

Think the Manager got the system wrong today. There plan was to sit deep,crowd the midfield and frustrate us,getting the early goal made it even more difficult for us and would have given them a real lift. Playing that system against their tactics resulted in Downing and O'Connor arguably our two worst passers having loads of possession and that played into their hands. The wing backs were ineffective and we struggled to break down their two banks of defenders, our two most threatening players Morris and Lalkovic are not suited to the system we started with and therefore had to start on the bench.

We should have changed to a flat back 4 with Kinsella at right back leaving our two central defenders to mark their one striker, that would have given us more of a threat up front including our two players most likely to unlock a defence.

Not going to be over critical as 13 points from 6 games is a great start and on another day we would have got at least a point today, time to move on and get three points next weekend.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 9:28 pm

The whole game revolved around a sluggish start. They get their goal - with no blame at all for the goalie by the way - and only then do Walsall start to play. First half, we just looked like last year with slow tempo, but in all honesty there was only one team in it for most of the game but we just couldn't carve enough decent chances out. I also have to say that Bury's centre half's were magnificent... without them we'd have got something today. At the end, we had about two defenders and all attackers on but still couldn't quite score.

Flanagan was abysmal - but that is where any criticism should start and end. Just a bad day at the office for a promising youngster.
Rico was excellent again and well deserved MOTM.
Just because Forde is a right winger it doesn't mean he is a wing back - completely out of his depth. Should have gone 4 at the back
Bradshaw needed a partner today. Worked like a dog but he shouldn't have to - far to good to just fight centre halves all day.
Cook is useless... offers nothing and should be way down the pecking order. Why Lalko didn't come on earlier i'll never know.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:12 pm

Well I wouldn't go and watch them if it was free to get in after the Wembley debacle,but at least they are making chances so I don't see what the panic is.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:15 pm

The Wembley debacle... :lol:

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:43 pm

sid swifty wrote:Well I wouldn't go and watch them if it was free to get in after the Wembley debacle,but at least they are making chances so I don't see what the panic is.


Where have you been Swifty, we've missed yow! I agree with your sentiments about Wembley, we didn't turn up, one chance in 127 years and we fluff our lines ....again. The last game of the season saw the real gulf between the teams.
Todays result was written in the stars, (and I lost a bundle on a 1-1 result, serves me right!) those who made the journey to Morecambe on Tuesday, will all agree that todays result was a foregone conclusion, we dominate a game but could not finish if we were still playing now.
A slide back down the league is imminent.
Manager of the Month my bottom!

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 12:30 am

We lose the first league game of the season and all the negative posters suddenly appear again full of negative comments.

Some people need to get a life and stop lurking and waiting for us to lose. Unbelievable!

Please don't come to the Chelsea game or look at the results we might just lose.

I am Optimistic

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 12:48 am

Smith got it badly wrong playing 3511. This season he has shown a lot more flexibility but for some reason he went back to last seasons stubbornness and refused to change it. I think most people in the crowd could see he had got it wrong after 5 minutes but he stuck with it and the inevitable goal followed. For those saying we didn't have another option at right back I still don't get what Kinsella ever did wrong as he started last season brilliantly at right back and he hasn't got look in since. Bury targeted the space out wide afforded by our formation and profited from it.

Saying all of that we were still the better team after the 15th minute and if Smith had brought Milan on earlier we may have still won it. (he ripped apart Forest and Coventry and has hardly got a kick since - can anyone explain???) 433 was the formation to go for, start Milan and leave Flanagan out against a big strong team where he was just bullied out of it so much that we were basically playing with 10 men.

I think the seed for this was set by playing a weakened team and losing at Morecombe, lose the momentum and all that... Cant complain about the season so far though, 13 from 6, hopefully Smith will continue his rapid learning curve!

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 12:53 am


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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 6:25 am

Optimistic wrote:We lose the first league game of the season and all the negative posters suddenly appear again full of negative comments.

Some people need to get a life and stop lurking and waiting for us to lose. Unbelievable!

Please don't come to the Chelsea game or look at the results we might just lose.

I am Optimistic


That's utter b.s, the negatives being mentioned are Flanagan, cook, substitutions and the system, and they are right.

Flanagan was very poor
Cook is not a footballer
Cook for Forde was pointless
And we only started to look a threat when Lalkovic came on way way too late.
And Bradshaw on his own against those men mountains was silly.
Forde is not a wingback so why play him as one? Play a system that's suits the players you have at your disposal.

So please do not start with the negative posters crap as these are correct observations and that is it, nothing more nothing less.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 7:46 am

Typical, lose a game and we have endless pages of posts, I think we must have reached the heady heights of at least three and a half pages for the Morecambe game and we're on at least the same for this game.

Nothing to add to any match report, it appears the team is reverting to last seasons type under the confusing leadership of our Daneo - pity, it was going so well :(

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 7:53 am

I really don't understand people who question the system we played yesterday.
The system is designed to create chances and it did that in abundance yesterday. Players score the goals not the system.
The problem yesterday was that the players just were not up for it for the first 10 mins or so. We then woke up and started to play, Bury just went into defensive mode and parked the bus because we forced them to. We still created lots of chances but could not put them away. Their keeper had a great game and saved 5 or 6. There's nothing wrong with a system that gives us so many chances.

Have a look at the table, we're 2nd. Not 2 from the bottom. 1 off the top spot. And I thought yesterday's game was exciting to watch. Just the wrong result at the end. There will be blips along the way but we'll be there or there abouts come the end of the season. :D

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:12 am

Lako not coming on until last 15 minutes was completely bizarre, IMO with the 3-5-2 or whatever he has to play alongside Bradshaw as he can drag players with his pace and movement which helps Bradshaw.

I fully understand that criticism, putting Cook ahead of him was bonkers from Smith.

Everything else though and it just reeks of people wanting to criticise for the sake of it as obviously the last month since Oldham hasn't afford that opportunity.

The team played well. It created shots on goal, efforts off the line. Bury have a decent squad let's remember, Dean will never have a squad budget that can allow him to sign the likes of Pope and Leon Clarke and they also have good players like Mayor and that Pussey bloke down the left.

Did people just expect an effortless surge right through the season in 1st position? :lol: This is a good team and reasonable squad (although still very light at the back) that will have a good top half season so should be challenging for top 6, not automatic.

If standards fall below that for a sustained period of time then criticism is completely justified.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:13 am

Where is the thread about Cook being the next boo boy? I want to contribute.

He best put his AMG on AutoTrader because he'll be in league 2 tops next season, has he ever looked bothered?

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 9:56 am

It's easy to be critical after the event, so here goes.

The manager got virtually everything wrong in my opinion in respect of the tactics, formation and personnel.
The seeds were sown from the outset with Bury playing competently and exploiting the oceans of space between each wing back and the closest "outside" centre half. We were repeatedly exposed, especially in the early stages, and could have conceded more goals.
Forde appeared to suffer mentally from being aware that he needed to both defend and attack and as such got caught in possession too often with indecision.
Although I can't believe it was intended, the formation had the look of 3-6-1, with the midfield just strung out in a line without offering many options for the player in possession. Bradshaw looked even more isolated than he usually does.
The midfield didn't contain the types of player that you need to break down such hardworking teams as Bury, who closed us down at every opportunity (like Coventry at home last season), forcing us sideways and back on most occasions.
Especially at home, when you need things to happen, your most penetrative players are needed, so I just can't understand the reasoning of leaving Morris and Lalkovic out of the starting line up.
The substitutions, when made, were muddled thinking, as I just don't see how Cook was put on ahead of Lalkovic and furthermore Cook and Morris seemed to be playing in the same position, causing even more disruption to the "shape".
The more I see of Cook I think that he has only one use in the squad at the moment and that is as a stop-gap forward should Bradshaw ever be out. Other than that he is arguably a fifth choice wide man.
We hardly won any second ball which was down to Bury appearing to be physically stronger and simply wanting it more.
Having said all of that we created more chances/half chances, enough to have won, but not convincingly so.
The performance showed me that the manager still has a lot to learn and with more astute decision making perhaps the result could have been different.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:00 am

On another day we probably wouldn't have lost, their keeper sounded like he played a blinder.

Some posts in here crack me up, it's like they're waiting for us to drop right down so they can say I told you so/same old/etc

Any abuse directed towards Flanagan should be minimal, he's come a bloody long way already and has showed his worth so early on. Promising future definitely.

Oh and to finish, we played bury fudge FC a team we never beat at home.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:07 am

Darth Vader wrote:On another day we probably wouldn't have lost, their keeper sounded like he played a blinder.

Some posts in here crack me up, it's like they're waiting for us to drop right down so they can say I told you so/same old/etc

Any abuse directed towards Flanagan should be minimal, he's come a bloody long way already and has showed his worth so early on. Promising future definitely.

Oh and to finish, we played bury fudge FC a team we never beat at home.


Absolutely agree about Flanagan, he has a bright future ahead of him but yesterday he was very poor and no player should be above criticism, the few jeers I heard when he went off were sickening but I hope they were day trippers coming to get a booking history for the Chelsea game like the 3 sat behind me and they'll soon be back sat in front of skysports again in 2 weeks.

P.s the if keeper did play well but his saves were no 'worldys ' and you would expect any half decent keeper to make those saves.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:20 am

Doubt they were day trippers judging by the home attendance, we've just got some thick supporters in general.

Agree about everyone deserves criticism but everyone has a bad game too, or else they wouldn't play for Walsall for a start. Jeering him is an absolute joke and they should get told to pipe it because that certainly isn't justified.

We were off the boil it seems anyway, we miss those two especially Jason who's been a class act so far. We move on supporting the team.

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Re: Bury (H) League One, 5th September, 3pm

Sun Sep 06, 2015 11:39 am

We need to turn their defenders around so they are running back facing their own goal. Break with pace to achieve this, Lalkovic provides us with the pace and when he is playing we do this well. Not sure why he didn't play yesterday. Everything was going on in front of their defence and it makes it easy for them to defend.
Bury's centre half Nathan Cameron was for me the best player on the pitch yesterday. Could easily play in the championship.

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