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Oldham Athletic (H) - League 1 - 23/9/07 3pm

Reports and reaction from the 2007-08 season as Walsall finished 12th in League 1
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Stu
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 6:41 pm

From what I've seen of this thread, there seem's to be a general lack of actually how well Oldham played.

They were the first team in the league this season to stop us creating anything going forward, whilst still having numerous opportunities to put us to the sword. They dictated the tempo from pretty much the first minute to the last, bar 10 minutes at the start of the 2nd half when we played "Give Ishmel the ball constantly and hope he can create something" tactics. Jean Paul Kalala in midfield was superb, always available, held his position superbly, broke up play and used it simply. They had an effective wide man and two strikers who had good movement, strength, pace and power. Sean Gregan had both Butler and Mooney in his pocket for 90 minutes and looked superb.

So whilst we were bad, you've got to give some credit to Oldham for stopping us.

Yesterday was our first really poor performance of the season in the league in my view, we've had opportunities to get something from pretty much every other game. However the same failings have been clear in all, that being we make defensive mistakes consistently, we have absolutely no pace in the team and we've got no cutting edge up front. What could be more worrying is that I think the lack of pace and cutting edge was clear in pre-season, I and a few others were quite vocal about but shouted down with quotes like "where was the pace last season" and "proven goalscorers in Mooney, Hall and Butler".

Division 2 is about discipline and organisation, you can get out of the division purely on that lone. Division 1 needs more than that, it needs skill, talent, pace, energy, movement on top of that discipline and organisation. Unfortunately, we're lacking those and have been all along.

We're very predictable. We brough Ishmel on and looked okay for 15 minutes, Oldham were clever and shut him out of the match by stopping us getting the ball to him within 16 minutes of him coming on. We were then back to step 1.

The subs were baffling, utter baffling. DD might as well put Dobson on the transfer list if he thinks Deeney is more effective, unless DD is holding a grudge against Dobbo for missing 2 games because his dad died. Surely not.

I still think we'll stop up, whether it'll be under this manager or not, I'm not so sure as I don't see us getting anything at Hartlepool or Doncaster, and I don't know how long Bonser will give him. DD has money to spend, he freely admits that, if he is sacked then he only has himself to blame if he does it with money left in his purse.

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Plastic Hawk
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 6:49 pm

Stu wrote:From what I've seen of this thread, there seem's to be a general lack of actually how well Oldham played.

They were the first team in the league this season to stop us creating anything going forward, whilst still having numerous opportunities to put us to the sword. They dictated the tempo from pretty much the first minute to the last, bar 10 minutes at the start of the 2nd half when we played "Give Ishmel the ball constantly and hope he can create something" tactics. Jean Paul Kalala in midfield was superb, always available, held his position superbly, broke up play and used it simply. They had an effective wide man and two strikers who had good movement, strength, pace and power. Sean Gregan had both Butler and Mooney in his pocket for 90 minutes and looked superb.

So whilst we were bad, you've got to give some credit to Oldham for stopping us.

Yesterday was our first really poor performance of the season in the league in my view, we've had opportunities to get something from pretty much every other game. However the same failings have been clear in all, that being we make defensive mistakes consistently, we have absolutely no pace in the team and we've got no cutting edge up front. What could be more worrying is that I think the lack of pace and cutting edge was clear in pre-season, I and a few others were quite vocal about but shouted down with quotes like "where was the pace last season" and "proven goalscorers in Mooney, Hall and Butler".

Division 2 is about discipline and organisation, you can get out of the division purely on that lone. Division 1 needs more than that, it needs skill, talent, pace, energy, movement on top of that discipline and organisation. Unfortunately, we're lacking those and have been all along.

We're very predictable. We brough Ishmel on and looked okay for 15 minutes, Oldham were clever and shut him out of the match by stopping us getting the ball to him within 16 minutes of him coming on. We were then back to step 1.

The subs were baffling, utter baffling. DD might as well put Dobson on the transfer list if he thinks Deeney is more effective, unless DD is holding a grudge against Dobbo for missing 2 games because his dad died. Surely not.

I still think we'll stop up, whether it'll be under this manager or not, I'm not so sure as I don't see us getting anything at Hartlepool or Doncaster, and I don't know how long Bonser will give him. DD has money to spend, he freely admits that, if he is sacked then he only has himself to blame if he does it with money left in his purse.


Kalala was indeed excellent. Bossed the game throughout by winning the ball and giving it to someone with time and space to set the next attack going - although he was sat in that deep position that never seems to get noticed at Bescot. Looks a lot like Jon Obi Mikel too - in fact he was playing so well that at one stage I wondered if it might actually be him (and Mikel's tackle today looked like a League 1 player's, so maybe they had swapped :D ).

Agree with much of the rest of what you say too. Lack of pace (and mobility in general) is going to kill us. It'd be ok if we had a bustling target man to lump it at instead, but neither Butler or Mooney are big enough to play that role effectively in this division.

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Sun Sep 23, 2007 6:56 pm

Sorry Stu whilst I agree with your analysis of our performance I do not think that Oldham were good at all.I thought their defence looked shaky and a striker with pace (yes that word again would have exposed them.obviously their midfield looked good against ours.Willenhall Towns midfield would have also looked as good!

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Stu
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:19 pm

m&m wrote:Sorry Stu whilst I agree with your analysis of our performance I do not think that Oldham were good at all.I thought their defence looked shaky and a striker with pace (yes that word again would have exposed them.obviously their midfield looked good against ours.Willenhall Towns midfield would have also looked as good!


Their defence looked shaky? Remind me how many clear cut chances we created again against this apparently shaky defence? Butler's diving header in the first half maybe, I don't know if I'd call it clear cut.

Bear in mind that creating chances is one thing that hasn't been a problem for us this season. Yesterday we didn't have that ability, depiste having a similar set of players and a better strike force (i.e. no Hall and Canary). As for midfield, same could be said of every team this season then.

No team has blunted us as easily as they did yesterday, by no means do I think they are the top 6 side that DD seems to think they are, but they're no mugs and will finish top 8 - 10 easily.

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swiftyboy
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:19 pm

m&m wrote:Sorry Stu whilst I agree with your analysis of our performance I do not think that Oldham were good at all.I thought their defence looked shaky and a striker with pace (yes that word again would have exposed them.obviously their midfield looked good against ours.Willenhall Towns midfield would have also looked as good!


Are we all forgetting that although we played terribly, which would indeed of made any team look good, Oldham do actually have some quality players. Crossley in goal, (who was at Fulham last year) Gregan, who ran the show at the back and didnt really put a foot wrong, Liddel who has always been quality, Ricketts, (who i hate, but you cant argue he is a better striker than anything we have got), and Hughes, who again showed he has a lot of quality and experience, and who is obviously on a very good wage. Just those players alone, would have transformed any team, including ours.

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Pedro
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:29 pm

Gregan has always been a cracking player, always seems to walk through the game with no problems

m&m
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:36 pm

With all that quality they were bottom of the league until they played us!

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tinned
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:49 pm

Bernie wrote:I cannot believe that DD still needs more time to know that they should never again be on the pitch together.


I can mate. What I'm not sure about is if it's just him being a bit slow on the uptake or just pig headed and refusing to admit he may have got it wrong (perish the thought the high and mighty Richard Money may have made an error :roll: ).

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Stu
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:49 pm

m&m wrote:With all that quality they were bottom of the league until they played us!


Because its about knitting a new squad together, they signed a number of players over the summer including all 3 strikers who were all signed in the summer.

Just simply a bad start as players gel together.

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Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:19 pm

Soft spot for Oldham Stu? You seem to be bigging them up quite alot.Sorry they were poor but had a manager who actually knew where their players best positions are.DD would have had Rickets playing right back.

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Stu
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Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:29 pm

m&m wrote:Soft spot for Oldham Stu? You seem to be bigging them up quite alot.Sorry they were poor but had a manager who actually knew where their players best positions are.DD would have had Rickets playing right back.


No, I just sometimes accept that you can come up against teams who can stop you playing to your strengths, thats what I thought Oldham did yesterday. If I was "bigging them up" as you said, I'd have said they're a top 6 side like DD. However I said they're just top 8-10... So obviously DD has a bigger "soft spot" for Oldham than I do.

I just don't buy into the argument that they were as poor as some folk are making out. Sometimes its easy to say how cack you are, then that the other team might have been an alright team. I thought Oldham were probably just as good as Swansea, but with a far better defence as we could and should have scored 4 or 5 versus Swansea, we were unlucky to get 0 yesterday.

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Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:41 pm

I would prefer to talk about us not Oldham and you have just hit the nail on the head Stu with the line playing to their strengths.DD cannot find it in him to pick our strongest side which in my opinion is poor management.

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Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:45 am

Stu, got it spot on you can only play as well as the other team lets you whether it's Real Madrid or Tipton Town.Oldham indeed know exactly how to stop us creating anything.

but with the team selection dd put out it is hardly surprising. does dd actually know what his best side is this season?

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big baz 1
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:44 am

Wolves played very well :D me and big baz senior really enjoyed our day out.

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Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:18 am

big baz 1 wrote:Wolves played very well :D me and big baz senior really enjoyed our day out.


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Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:00 pm

Stu wrote:We're very predictable. We brough Ishmel on and looked okay for 15 minutes, Oldham were clever and shut him out of the match by stopping us getting the ball to him within 16 minutes of him coming on. We were then back to step 1.

Same thing happened against Swansea at home. He started up front and was causing Denis Lawrence no end of problems in the first 10 minutes. The problem was, they were intelligent enough to move one of their midfielders that little bit deeper to limit supply and close him down when he got the ball. We didn't see Ishmel for the remaining 80 minutes.

You get decent players in this league. Players with more than just the ability to shoot, pass or tackle, but to out-think the opposition as well. Until we give our opposition more to think about and are able to adapt in order to contain the teams we play against, we'll go nowhere.

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Plastic Hawk
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:05 pm

WFC_Rob wrote:
Stu wrote:We're very predictable. We brough Ishmel on and looked okay for 15 minutes, Oldham were clever and shut him out of the match by stopping us getting the ball to him within 16 minutes of him coming on. We were then back to step 1.

Same thing happened against Swansea at home. He started up front and was causing Denis Lawrence no end of problems in the first 10 minutes. The problem was, they were intelligent enough to move one of their midfielders that little bit deeper to limit supply and close him down when he got the ball. We didn't see Ishmel for the remaining 80 minutes.

You get decent players in this league. Players with more than just the ability to shoot, pass or tackle, but to out-think the opposition as well. Until we give our opposition more to think about and are able to adapt in order to contain the teams we play against, we'll go nowhere.


That's a good point. But it's not just down to the manager (although he needs to do his share of thinking too). The players need to be able to adapt their own games to deal with what they're up against (both attacking and defending). It's all very well playing your "natural game", but if someone's stopping you doing it as effectively as normal then you need to be able to work out what changes to make without some bloke on the sideline talking you though it.

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WFC_Rob
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Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:16 pm

Plastic Hawk wrote:
WFC_Rob wrote:
Stu wrote:We're very predictable. We brough Ishmel on and looked okay for 15 minutes, Oldham were clever and shut him out of the match by stopping us getting the ball to him within 16 minutes of him coming on. We were then back to step 1.

Same thing happened against Swansea at home. He started up front and was causing Denis Lawrence no end of problems in the first 10 minutes. The problem was, they were intelligent enough to move one of their midfielders that little bit deeper to limit supply and close him down when he got the ball. We didn't see Ishmel for the remaining 80 minutes.

You get decent players in this league. Players with more than just the ability to shoot, pass or tackle, but to out-think the opposition as well. Until we give our opposition more to think about and are able to adapt in order to contain the teams we play against, we'll go nowhere.


That's a good point. But it's not just down to the manager (although he needs to do his share of thinking too). The players need to be able to adapt their own games to deal with what they're up against (both attacking and defending). It's all very well playing your "natural game", but if someone's stopping you doing it as effectively as normal then you need to be able to work out what changes to make without some bloke on the sideline talking you though it.

Yeah, of course. That's why it was so disappointing to see experienced pros like Martin Butler and Tommy Mooney continue to ponder around the Oldham centre halves when we weren't able to give them the ball. I expect more from them. If Ishmel or Deeney get completely taken out of the game, you can put it down to a lack of experience, but not with those two.

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kshammer
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Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:54 am

To say the team against Swindon on the last day would be doing better than this team is pure guess work. Lets not forget we were murdered for 90% of that game with Swindon quicker, more skillful and with more energy than us all over the park. How we won that league i'll never know but we'll take it and enjoy it.

Players like Pead, Westwood, Keates etc have all played at this level before and lets make no bones about it were average at best (although i'd snap your arm off for Keates at the moment). Benjamin was rubbish for us last year for most of the tijme he was on the pitch but just happened to score a couple of goals for us.

Both teams lacked pace, energy and a physical presence - its just that this league shows it up more. We're bottom at present and would be there or thereabouts with last years team.

Still.... early days... chins up.

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big baz 1
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Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:37 am

Blazing_Saddler wrote:
big baz 1 wrote:Wolves played very well :D me and big baz senior really enjoyed our day out.


*********

I love it when i wind blazing up, makes a change doesnt it mate? :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

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