| Some mitigation for last night 08:14 - Mar 17 with 995 views | Herbivore |
No question it was a dire performance and inexcusable and for many of us it's hard to see how we achieve anything after such an abject display. However, it is worth noting that last night was likely our toughest remaining fixture. Fleetwood are bang in form and their home record this season is very good. Every other side we have to travel to has lost more home games than they've won this season, including Pompey and Charlton (both currently in a bit of a pickle themselves).
We also have to remember that you can count on one hand the number of days Cook has had with the squad to work on stuff in training. Lambert did so little with the squad for over 2 years and he's got an awful lot to turn round and he hasn't had the time to do it. That said, after Saturday we have 2 consecutive weeks with no midweek game and that gives Cook a bit of a chance to put some work into the players.
I still think the chances of success this season are slim. The sqaud Lambert left, whilst having some good footballers, has a ton of issues holding it back. The play offs should still be achievable but I can't see us winning them. But given the timing of Cook's appointment and what he inherited, we probably shouldn't be expecting promotion this season and I for one am happy for him to take an axe to the squad over the summer and give it a proper overhaul. |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 08:20 - Mar 17 with 938 views | textbackup |
I absolutely don't hold PC accountable for lastnight.
my problem is the players haven't remotely raised their game for a new manager full of enthusiasm. that says all you need to know about this lot. gutless
making excuses for it because Fleetwood are good is a painful read if im honest. I hear you, but its horrible to read and digest. |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 08:25 - Mar 17 with 907 views | Herbivore |
| Some mitigation for last night on 08:20 - Mar 17 by textbackup |
I absolutely don't hold PC accountable for lastnight.
my problem is the players haven't remotely raised their game for a new manager full of enthusiasm. that says all you need to know about this lot. gutless
making excuses for it because Fleetwood are good is a painful read if im honest. I hear you, but its horrible to read and digest. |
That last night was likely our toughest remaining fixture tells you all you need to know about how poor this league is and how embarrassing our failure to get out of it is. It doesn't excuse the performance, but it also means we shouldn't be getting that embarrassed again.
I think the lack of raising their game is down to a few things. Think despite what Cook says the morale beneath the surface really isn't great. The players didn't seem to have any relationship with Lambert and his negativity stank the place out. That doesn't get undone overnight, hopefully Cook having some more time with them over the next 2 weeks will help. Also having such a big squad and so many loanees can't be great for building team spirit either, and Cook has hinted at that. | |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 08:34 - Mar 17 with 877 views | clive_baker |
They had won 2 of their previous 10 at home, and were without 2 of their better players. I really don’t think they’re anything special at all, they’re just a mid table league 1 side, nor did they need to be anything special last night to beat us. To roll over with such an abject performance was so disappointing. We were awful throughout, barely looked like creating anything, very poor defensively and such cheap goals to give away. It looked such a laboured and pedestrian performance, one of the worst I can remember.
It’s not a reflection on Cook though, he needs the summer and a window at least to have an impact on a squad that is void of any confidence and appears all too willing to accept failure. As you say we have some good players but we also have some glaring holes and too many of them were visible yesterday. You can be the best player in the world but it’s no good if you’re not available for selection. 3 or 4 of our back 5 aren’t good enough, we can’t continue to play Dozzell in that defensive role he’s been shoe horned into without appropriate support. We don’t have a wide man of note or anyone suited to the lone forward role, so my only question to Cook would be why we continue with this approach in the short term? The most effective we’ve looked this season was clearly when Gill moved away from that. It feels a little like we’re trying to force something we don’t really have the personnel for at the moment. I would much rather see us with 2 up front, going a little more direct and trying to bully teams a bit more. We’ve looked more comfortable doing that. |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 08:44 - Mar 17 with 834 views | davblue |
| Some mitigation for last night on 08:20 - Mar 17 by textbackup |
I absolutely don't hold PC accountable for lastnight.
my problem is the players haven't remotely raised their game for a new manager full of enthusiasm. that says all you need to know about this lot. gutless
making excuses for it because Fleetwood are good is a painful read if im honest. I hear you, but its horrible to read and digest. |
Lots of work on and off the pitch to be done.
I suspect Cook will be working on the culture of the club, but he may have to get some outside help with that. It's all going to take time, at least last night will stop the we can make the top 2 rubbish.
We have got to try an hang in there at the minute and hope it comes together before the end of the season and hopefully us in the play offs. The form was always likely to be up and down but as always Evans left this too late to make a change. Cook should have been here in December. |  | | |
| Some mitigation for last night on 09:03 - Mar 17 with 743 views | Steve_M |
| Some mitigation for last night on 08:34 - Mar 17 by clive_baker |
They had won 2 of their previous 10 at home, and were without 2 of their better players. I really don’t think they’re anything special at all, they’re just a mid table league 1 side, nor did they need to be anything special last night to beat us. To roll over with such an abject performance was so disappointing. We were awful throughout, barely looked like creating anything, very poor defensively and such cheap goals to give away. It looked such a laboured and pedestrian performance, one of the worst I can remember.
It’s not a reflection on Cook though, he needs the summer and a window at least to have an impact on a squad that is void of any confidence and appears all too willing to accept failure. As you say we have some good players but we also have some glaring holes and too many of them were visible yesterday. You can be the best player in the world but it’s no good if you’re not available for selection. 3 or 4 of our back 5 aren’t good enough, we can’t continue to play Dozzell in that defensive role he’s been shoe horned into without appropriate support. We don’t have a wide man of note or anyone suited to the lone forward role, so my only question to Cook would be why we continue with this approach in the short term? The most effective we’ve looked this season was clearly when Gill moved away from that. It feels a little like we’re trying to force something we don’t really have the personnel for at the moment. I would much rather see us with 2 up front, going a little more direct and trying to bully teams a bit more. We’ve looked more comfortable doing that. |
Yes, it's quite frustrating to see Cook going through the same approach that has already failed throughout the Autumn. Certainly without Norwood up front we end up looking as inept as we did last night far too often, the first few minutes on Saturday stand out in stark contrast. I'm not sure it was any worse than the first half against either Northampton or Swindon to go back only over the last two months.
Fleetwood were halfway-competent but little more, Vassell stood out a bit but think we let him dominate as well (whether that would have been quite the same had he been booked for the early foul on Wilson is a fair questions though). Gillingham on the other hand I thought did play well against us, sharp from the off and very good on the break (and the gamesmanship).
We looked tired as we have done since Accrington, two games a week after a stop-start season is draining and that will affect plenty of teams during the run in (Lincoln at the moment perhaps?). It's probably telling that along with the directness that Gill brought in a lot of players were fresh for Oxford, Hull and Doncaster so there's a need for Cook to freshen things up a bit.
I still think top six should be achievable but increasingly of the view that promotion would be a bad idea now, for anything other than financial reasons of course, because it will be easier for Cook to build an effective team at this level than whilst trying to survive in the Championship.
Hopefully we'll see a bit less of the 'everything is ok now Lambert has gone' type posts this week. That things have got to this state reflects Evans lack of interest and attention in the club; we really need that takeover to happen. |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 09:06 - Mar 17 with 708 views | Bluefish |
There could be lots of excuses for last night if we hadn't used up all of our excuses long ago. The pitch was dire and would have been a leveller for any team even from the Premier League, how often do you see Cup upsets on similar.
The problem was it was a reverting to type (ifnwe ever departed fromit) game for us and therefore extra worrying. Even winning against Plymouth was average at best, last night isn't a brush under the carpet and move on it is a clear sign of our problems. We offered nothing |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 09:07 - Mar 17 with 707 views | Radlett_blue |
| Some mitigation for last night on 08:34 - Mar 17 by clive_baker |
They had won 2 of their previous 10 at home, and were without 2 of their better players. I really don’t think they’re anything special at all, they’re just a mid table league 1 side, nor did they need to be anything special last night to beat us. To roll over with such an abject performance was so disappointing. We were awful throughout, barely looked like creating anything, very poor defensively and such cheap goals to give away. It looked such a laboured and pedestrian performance, one of the worst I can remember.
It’s not a reflection on Cook though, he needs the summer and a window at least to have an impact on a squad that is void of any confidence and appears all too willing to accept failure. As you say we have some good players but we also have some glaring holes and too many of them were visible yesterday. You can be the best player in the world but it’s no good if you’re not available for selection. 3 or 4 of our back 5 aren’t good enough, we can’t continue to play Dozzell in that defensive role he’s been shoe horned into without appropriate support. We don’t have a wide man of note or anyone suited to the lone forward role, so my only question to Cook would be why we continue with this approach in the short term? The most effective we’ve looked this season was clearly when Gill moved away from that. It feels a little like we’re trying to force something we don’t really have the personnel for at the moment. I would much rather see us with 2 up front, going a little more direct and trying to bully teams a bit more. We’ve looked more comfortable doing that. |
Going direct was a dismal failure in terms of performance and result at Peterborough.
Yes, they are one of the better sides in this dismal league. |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 09:08 - Mar 17 with 682 views | JammyDodgerrr |
| Some mitigation for last night on 08:20 - Mar 17 by textbackup |
I absolutely don't hold PC accountable for lastnight.
my problem is the players haven't remotely raised their game for a new manager full of enthusiasm. that says all you need to know about this lot. gutless
making excuses for it because Fleetwood are good is a painful read if im honest. I hear you, but its horrible to read and digest. |
Think it's probably over two years of Lambert berating them, it takes time to move on from that. They look scared to play, which is something Lambert basically drilled into them. |  |
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| Some mitigation for last night on 09:40 - Mar 17 with 589 views | Darth_Koont |
Yes. We were crap but Fleetwood had a big part to play in that. Better team by far on the night and I think they won every single battle on the pitch as individuals too.
I think that was a lot down to set-up and their confidence in what they were doing. And it’s really not ideal that it’s mid-March and we’re still struggling to build a team.
You’re right that we won’t have many games as tough – but we still should learn from this and Gillingham that we need to be more compact and organised if we’re going to work our way back into games and actually get onto the fabled front foot. |  |
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