Let's talk about the Fleetwood Town game

[Sprotyrover]

Excellent win tonight! Salute to our travelling fans!

[ncRover]

Broadbent was very good. Him and Bailey has a much better balance to it.

Notice how Bailey was much improved tonight because he had license to be the all-action box to box player he’s supposed to be, thanks to George sitting in front of the back 4 and keeping it simple.

[Usher wide.]

So pleased for all the supporters who made their way to the game tonight where in all honesty, youd’ve only made the journey in the hope of getting a game!

Safe journey home lads & lasses.

[Fal]

The curse has been lifted!

Also MOM performance from Ironside!

[les@donr]

This could be the pivotal match of the season. A game we usually lose, this time we won.

[colincramb]

Great 3 points given the conditions, especially after 120mins on a cow field just a few days ago.

Hopefully we can get a good bit of recovery in now before Saturday. Well done lads, battled hard these past 2 games.

[Upton Rover]

A great win and a little bit better performance from Sterry

[DonnyBazR0ver]

I just felt it in my bones that Sundays result at Kettering was the catelist for sparking something off. Not entirely different to the Sutton game last season when we were stripped bare and somehow found a way of getting a result.

How we responded after that was always going to be important and we've delivered.  I think we now know who's up for the fight and who isn't.

My 90 year old mum said om Sunday at half time, "I'm not wasting my time watching these ponsing about!"

[Spud]

Great performance, thought we moved the ball forward a lot quicker, battled the conditions well & looked refreshingly clinical in front of goal.
Another mention for Broadbent, who looked composed in that role in front of the defence, would love to see him string a few performances together now.

[ncRover]

The curse has been lifted!

Also MOM performance from Ironside!

The League Two Giroud

[Pancho Regan]

Just back.

Yayyy!! Finally I get to witness a win at Fleetwood, and a well-deserved one at that. All the lads worked so hard in those terrible conditions and we were much the better side. We played like the home team tonight.

Ironside was back to his brilliant best and it was great to see us playing with two up front. Credit to Grant for having the balls to play such an attack-minded formation, especially away from home.

Our support was superb tonight, well done to all who made the trip and got behind the team.

I’m just so bloody chuffed!

[roversdude]

Hope someone took a photo of the scoreboard just to prove we won there
Great performance by the team.
hope everyone had a safe journey home because the roads were horrible but it was worth the risk to see us win there.
Brilliant support well done everyone

[BillyStubbsTears]

Now THAT was some attacking performance. More please.

[GazLaz]

Now THAT was some attacking performance. More please.

Big man, little man.

[Nudga]

Now THAT was some attacking performance. More please.

Big man, little man.

Gaz, I've always thought that we should always play a style for the division we're in.
Schofield got that dramatically wrong. Grant hasn't got much wrong to be fair but for me, the 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 doesn't work in this division. 
Everyone is trying to play out from the back but in division 4 it's often pointless because they aren't good enough to do it. 

Billy sharp said on Sunday what I've been saying all season that having ironside up front with him takes a centre half off him and gives him more space.
Both strikers have been too isolated up to now. 
I hope he continues with two up top, Ironside and Sharp puts the serious shitters on the opposition. 

[Alan Southstand]

Strange that there was only one ‘winger’ in our side and he played central. On paper, you would have thought that was quite a defensive line-up, not an attacking one!

Has GM unlocked his best ‘away’ side?

[Chris Black come back]

Sterry and Maxwell are both wing backs, not full backs. On some days, basically wingers. They are your width in those games.

[Bentley Bullet]

Playing Left-footed Molyneux on the right-wing, and right-footed Gibson on the left-wing means they often bring the ball inside onto their preferred foot, leaving our striker(s) invariably with their back to the goal.

In my opinion, purely as an unqualified observer, that has been the problem.

Sharp and Ironside should be tearing up this league.

[NickDRFC]

Thought we played well and battled hard - we were quicker with the ball and more direct, basically bypassing the “midfield” a lot of the time. The flip side of not having much of a midfield is that we were wide open a lot of the time (including both goals). Think there’s still a balance to be found but us basically having 3 very good players up front worked very well last night - we looked so threatening attacking and their defence (great record but underlying numbers aren’t quite so good) just couldn’t handle it.

[GazLaz]

What was the official away attendance last night?

[Campsall rover]

At last a win at Fleetwood and 4 goals
Good performance in difficult conditions

That should give confidence and belief to the players if there was any missing before.
Big 3 points which we need to follow up on Sat with another 3 points.

[Usher wide.]

Thought Joe Olowu was superb again last night.

The run & cross he put in for the 3rd goal was perfectly weighted to the perfect area. He’s looking more assured taking the ball forward this season & that little initial burst of pace he has as he carries the ball over the half way line seems to take opposing midfielders by surprise almost as he glides past them.

That assist last night will have done his confidence to initiate attacks no harm at all.

I wonder if Billy gave Kyle a shout when Kyle dummied the ball & let it through to Sharp? If not, there’s real awareness right there about where your attacking ‘partners’ are.

[Lesonthewest]

Now THAT was some attacking performance. More please.

Big man, little man.

Gaz, I've always thought that we should always play a style for the division we're in.
Schofield got that dramatically wrong. Grant hasn't got much wrong to be fair but for me, the 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 doesn't work in this division. 
Everyone is trying to play out from the back but in division 4 it's often pointless because they aren't good enough to do it. 

Billy sharp said on Sunday what I've been saying all season that having ironside up front with him takes a centre half off him and gives him more space.
Both strikers have been too isolated up to now. 
I hope he continues with two up top, Ironside and Sharp puts the serious shitters on the opposition. 

Agreed. We have to start with this formation at home in this league, take the game to the opposition & put them on the back foot. Several times at home we have offered the initiative to opponents, especially first half. We can't keep waiting & hoping for a worldy from our wide players, need to be more proactive than reactive. Great win & well done to everyone, players, management & our supporters.

[McCammon egg n chips]

Easy for everyone to say we need to play this formation every game, but we've got a 38 year old Sharp and 31 year old Ironside, playing Sunday - Wednesday - Saturday.. it's not going to happen.

Maybe losing Miller has hurt us more than we realised, we lack another good striker outside of Sharp and Ironside.

If we are going to play 2 up top more often we need another all out striker in January.

[graingrover]

There is nothing wrong with the long ball game when it consists of TSL pin pointing Ironside with Sharp and Hurst hunting the second ball from Joe .TSL nearly got his first goal ( to boot) .

[Metalmicky]

Fleetwood first goal was offside also....

[MachoMadness]

Saw that at the time. Miles offside. The lino even had the edge of the box to help him out. Thought at that point it would be another one of those games, delighted to be wrong though!

[selby]

  It all comes down to decision making by the players, there are times to go long and times to play it short.
  If anything is missing it is that mid field general a couple of divisions up in class that can dictate play.
  As it is we have a number of good players  in there who are slowly getting more consistent and are improving, Hurst is now looking like he can graduate from a winger to a No10 the position we brought Louis Marsh in for last season so another brick in the wall. Kelly is young and gifted with energy and again is getting better and others  like Broadbent have promise that comes to the top at times but need to be more consistent but are gifted players who will get better.
   All have shown they will do the hard  miles the last two games with everything against them, the weather away form home and pitch conditions not the best to play on and the worst some of them have ever played on if coming through all the way in academies that don't prepare them for pitches and playing styles like Kettering posed.
  So a very very well done, and now on to the next game which again will not be easy in not ideal but better surroundings and the reality that you are only as good as your next game, and we need to go again and find a way to win a football match and do whatever we have to do.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

  It all comes down to decision making by the players, there are times to go long and times to play it short.
  If anything is missing it is that mid field general a couple of divisions up in class that can dictate play.
  As it is we have a number of good players  in there who are slowly getting more consistent and are improving, Hurst is now looking like he can graduate from a winger to a No10 the position we brought Louis Marsh in for last season so another brick in the wall. Kelly is young and gifted with energy and again is getting better and others  like Broadbent have promise that comes to the top at times but need to be more consistent but are gifted players who will get better.
   All have shown they will do the hard  miles the last two games with everything against them, the weather away form home and pitch conditions not the best to play on and the worst some of them have ever played on if coming through all the way in academies that don't prepare them for pitches and playing styles like Kettering posed.
  So a very very well done, and now on to the next game which again will not be easy in not ideal but better surroundings and the reality that you are only as good as your next game, and we need to go again and find a way to win a football match and do whatever we have to do.

Yes agree about Hurst and Broadbent. There were so many other pleasing aspects of last night's performance which most have already mentioned but, one thing struck me was Ironside trying to get free from his marker, rather than backing in. He's such a better footballer when he lays the ball off quicker having got a yard of space. This opens things up so much more, particularly with Sharp and Hurst taking up intelligent positions between or around them.

Generally there was less fannying around and we got good deliveries into the box which shows don't necessarily need the inverted wingers to provide the danger.

Of course we would love to see this type of performance at home and hopefully we will but it's a different mindset at home. There's probably more fear of making mistakes in front of a home crowd which  can make that extra yard difference in decision making. Playing three at the back his a higher risk strategy so the three centre halves have to be totally switched on. We have the pace in Olowu and McGrath to do it but they have to be fully committed and communicate. Then of course, our opposition has to Co operate with the game plan, which doesn't always happen when teams can play with a bit more freedom away from home.

If we're brave enough, and smart enough, we can as long as we fans tolerate the risks.

[selby]

  The weakness we have with three at the back is apart from Olowu a lack of pace, the ball straight down the middle caught us out again, and chasing defenders were left behind by the player carrying the ball and lost ground on him.
  We might get away with it this season, it will be harder next season if we are lucky enough to go up as generally from our own experience strikers are a lot sharper in division1.