Today’s team

[selby]

  McGrath had the ball at his feet with nobody within ten yards of him and the whole of the left side of the field in front of him, and he puts the ball  into the the central part of his own area  twenty four yards out.
  The area of the field where you  1) don't want the ball to be passed to you 2) the area where forwards want the ball and 3) where you don't pass a Hollywood ball across your goal.
  Not the first gift goal our defence has given away this season, and a contrast to how many we have been presented with.

[sedwardsdrfc]

Whatever the mistake was were going to make them when been asked to play out like that. It’s fair enough the team should be bought into that before playing that way. The real issue is we concede it and then completely disappear and sh*t the bed. Rather than analysis that mistake to death that’s what Grant needs to be looking into.

If we kept our heads and played sensibly Plymouth weren’t that good I think we’d get the better of them. But we completely lost it for 20min and then played the whole 2nd half like it was the 95th minute with zero composure.

[selby]

  Top and bottom of it we have a lot of players not that suited to this level.

[roversdude]

Think I’d move Bailey back to the DM role then we need a creative midfielder rather than a grafter in January

[mushRTID]

  Top and bottom of it we have a lot of players not that suited to this level.

I just can’t understand why we signed Gotts, another small midfielder when we already had SBarra and Westbrook on the books.

We weren’t ruthless enough in the summer. If he really wanted Gotts, SBarra and Westbrook should have been listed and we got some muscle and pace in there as well.

[GazLaz]

  Top and bottom of it we have a lot of players not that suited to this level.

I just can’t understand why we signed Gotts, another small midfielder when we already had SBarra and Westbrook on the books.

We weren’t ruthless enough in the summer. If he really wanted Gotts, SBarra and Westbrook should have been listed and we got some muscle and pace in there as well.

Because he played well against us probably.

[i_ateallthepies]

  Top and bottom of it we have a lot of players not that suited to this level.

I just can’t understand why we signed Gotts, another small midfielder when we already had SBarra and Westbrook on the books.

We weren’t ruthless enough in the summer. If he really wanted Gotts, SBarra and Westbrook should have been listed and we got some muscle and pace in there as well.

Because he played well against us probably.

Very insightful thought.  And of course he would have opportunity to shine playing against our midfield because it isn't a Lg1 strength midfield.

[Lazar]

Lot of criticism for Broadbent’s poor touch, which it was, but he told Jay to stick it down the line yet he bobbled a pass into him in the danger zone.

From the horrible decision onwards we capitulated. First time all season I’ve felt we were relegation fodder.

[jmt23]

My thoughts on our team are:

We have 3 good league 1 players :
1. Molly, if his form is good or bad, he always gives 100%
2. Bailey, similar to Molly, but I don’t think we know where to play him to get the best from him.
3. Hanlan, starting to really find some form and is a handful for any defender at this level.

We have 5 average to low level league 1 players, possibly in order too.

Sterry
Gibson far to inconsistent- feast or famine
Middleton, similar to Gibson really
Pearson, possibly unfair and needs better around him?
Clifton, works well in our team setup.


Then we have a small group of players I don’t know where to put:

Broadbent - he doesn’t have the ability to take a ball with his back to play, and looks a bit lightweight against a lot of the competition this year, but has showed spells of really good promise.
Maxwell - he is young, but is very experienced in first team football and keeps making the same mistakes.
McGrath- again has good potential, but is learning on the job and error prone due to this.
Close - I still think with the right team around him he can play at a higher level, but we don’t have that team. The most talented player with the ball we have though.

Lastly we have Billy, an incredible force of nature and EFL legend as well as DRFC legend, but time has sadly caught up with him, and being asked to play a role where it is mainly selfless running. We don’t play to his strengths as the fox in box. Hard to hear negativity when he does something wrong as he is the best we will probably ever will see in that position.

As a quick conclusion weighing that up, we should  be lower half of the league. I think we have enough to stay up, but it looks like it will be a squeaky bum ride.

[Goole Rover]

We gave away a better central defender in Tom Anderson than the two who played yesterday.

[DonnyOsmond]

My thoughts on our team are:

We have 3 good league 1 players :
1. Molly, if his form is good or bad, he always gives 100%
2. Bailey, similar to Molly, but I don’t think we know where to play him to get the best from him.
3. Hanlan, starting to really find some form and is a handful for any defender at this level.

We have 5 average to low level league 1 players, possibly in order too.

Sterry
Gibson far to inconsistent- feast or famine
Middleton, similar to Gibson really
Pearson, possibly unfair and needs better around him?
Clifton, works well in our team setup.


Then we have a small group of players I don’t know where to put:

Broadbent - he doesn’t have the ability to take a ball with his back to play, and looks a bit lightweight against a lot of the competition this year, but has showed spells of really good promise.
Maxwell - he is young, but is very experienced in first team football and keeps making the same mistakes.
McGrath- again has good potential, but is learning on the job and error prone due to this.
Close - I still think with the right team around him he can play at a higher level, but we don’t have that team. The most talented player with the ball we have though.

Lastly we have Billy, an incredible force of nature and EFL legend as well as DRFC legend, but time has sadly caught up with him, and being asked to play a role where it is mainly selfless running. We don’t play to his strengths as the fox in box. Hard to hear negativity when he does something wrong as he is the best we will probably ever will see in that position.

As a quick conclusion weighing that up, we should  be lower half of the league. I think we have enough to stay up, but it looks like it will be a squeaky bum ride.

For me, Clifton and Close are opposites in that Clifton is a very limited player (same as Biggins) but his engine and ability to make late runs, etc make him a solid player in a McCann team... Close on the other hand is potentially our most talented passer of the ball but overall doesn't fit into a McCann team and it's probably time to move him on for both him and the clubs benefit.

[ncRover]

We gave away a better central defender in Tom Anderson than the two who played yesterday.

We offered him a contract. He’s now at a side 20th in L2.

Our teams lacks pace in defence and midfield, he would have been run ragged.

[GazLaz]

We gave away a better central defender in Tom Anderson than the two who played yesterday.

We offered him a contract. He’s now at a side 20th in L2.

Our teams lacks pace in defence and midfield, he would have been run ragged.

I forgot we offered him a deal. May have been in reduced terms.

[Draytonian III]

Or did Shrewsbury offer him a longer deal

[selby]

  You saw McGraths ceiling when Olowu provided the pace to cover for him DO.

[selby]

NC Rover, our two centre halves yesterday will never be as good a centre halves as Anderson has been. He won one of them a championship medal pulling a poorish defence together just last season while he was laid up out of the way.

[Padge_DRFC]

My thoughts on our team are:

We have 3 good league 1 players :
1. Molly, if his form is good or bad, he always gives 100%
2. Bailey, similar to Molly, but I don’t think we know where to play him to get the best from him.
3. Hanlan, starting to really find some form and is a handful for any defender at this level.

We have 5 average to low level league 1 players, possibly in order too.

Sterry
Gibson far to inconsistent- feast or famine
Middleton, similar to Gibson really
Pearson, possibly unfair and needs better around him?
Clifton, works well in our team setup.


Then we have a small group of players I don’t know where to put:

Broadbent - he doesn’t have the ability to take a ball with his back to play, and looks a bit lightweight against a lot of the competition this year, but has showed spells of really good promise.
Maxwell - he is young, but is very experienced in first team football and keeps making the same mistakes.
McGrath- again has good potential, but is learning on the job and error prone due to this.
Close - I still think with the right team around him he can play at a higher level, but we don’t have that team. The most talented player with the ball we have though.

Lastly we have Billy, an incredible force of nature and EFL legend as well as DRFC legend, but time has sadly caught up with him, and being asked to play a role where it is mainly selfless running. We don’t play to his strengths as the fox in box. Hard to hear negativity when he does something wrong as he is the best we will probably ever will see in that position.

As a quick conclusion weighing that up, we should  be lower half of the league. I think we have enough to stay up, but it looks like it will be a squeaky bum ride.

Clifton a league 1 player? He isn't, I'm sure we could get anyone in who can run as much but then also do something with the ball. None of our central midfielders are league 1 quality bar Bailey.

Also what have you seen from Middleton that suggests he is?

[DonnyBazR0ver]

My thoughts on our team are:

We have 3 good league 1 players :
1. Molly, if his form is good or bad, he always gives 100%
2. Bailey, similar to Molly, but I don’t think we know where to play him to get the best from him.
3. Hanlan, starting to really find some form and is a handful for any defender at this level.

We have 5 average to low level league 1 players, possibly in order too.

Sterry
Gibson far to inconsistent- feast or famine
Middleton, similar to Gibson really
Pearson, possibly unfair and needs better around him?
Clifton, works well in our team setup.


Then we have a small group of players I don’t know where to put:

Broadbent - he doesn’t have the ability to take a ball with his back to play, and looks a bit lightweight against a lot of the competition this year, but has showed spells of really good promise.
Maxwell - he is young, but is very experienced in first team football and keeps making the same mistakes.
McGrath- again has good potential, but is learning on the job and error prone due to this.
Close - I still think with the right team around him he can play at a higher level, but we don’t have that team. The most talented player with the ball we have though.

Lastly we have Billy, an incredible force of nature and EFL legend as well as DRFC legend, but time has sadly caught up with him, and being asked to play a role where it is mainly selfless running. We don’t play to his strengths as the fox in box. Hard to hear negativity when he does something wrong as he is the best we will probably ever will see in that position.

As a quick conclusion weighing that up, we should  be lower half of the league. I think we have enough to stay up, but it looks like it will be a squeaky bum ride.

I think we have several players who are capable of playing at this level BUT collectively, we've seen it's not happening for various reasons, where none of them are producing the standards of performance this division demands.

Up to now, I've fully believed most of our core squad could adapt to this level, accepting it's a learning process and there would be some ups and downs.

Yesterday was a slap in the face for my beliefs when we see the same mistakes being made in our overall approach and paper thin resilience. That's even before we start talking about quality and technical ability.

At this level, every player needs to  and should be performing at least 7/10 every week. There isn't a single player who is consistently doing that over the season. Bailey, Mols, Sterry, Broadbent,  who would have to be at that level for us to have a chance, aren't doing it. Our basic ball control, passing and moving hasn't been good enough for long enough spells.

We know confidence counts for alot and we know it's the managers job to work with individual players to improve things but even now, after McCann's acceptance of responsibilities, his options are narrowing. We can't make wholesale changes in the January window.  We can possibly make a couple of key signings who might have the effect of raising everyone's game to that 7/10 minimum standard. We've seen that with Street and Adelakun recently however, there are some caveats with that now in the position we're in.

1. Attracting players when we're in the relegation zone, even if we can offer decent money.
2. Losing players who are attractive to other teams who feel the times right to move on.

Even if we get good money for players we might lose, January isn't the best time to be spending it wisely to get the quality we need.

If McCann hasn't realised it already, he's going to have his work cut out in the next two months to come out the other end in a better position. But, for me, he's still got enough credit in the bank to at least try, especially given what he's achieved in the past two seasons.

I think most of us are adult enough to understand the risks and the consequences. So yes, very much squeaky bum time.

[GazLaz]

In football you are only as good as your worst 2 or 3 players in a given match. Improvement comes from improving your floor not raising your ceiling.

[Goole Rover]

We gave away a better central defender in Tom Anderson than the two who played yesterday.

We offered him a contract. He’s now at a side 20th in L2.

Our teams lacks pace in defence and midfield, he would have been run ragged.

If you use your brain, communicate and as Selby stated have a balance players with the skill that Anderson has would get by. Anyway as Selby and I believe he would have done a hell of a lot better than either of the two yesterday. Maybe we’ve played too much football.

[Chris Black come back]

Plenty giving Anderson dog’s abuse last season. That’s but one of the three clueless but engrained supporter perspectives on players:

- Previous player bias (previous players make up around 0.001pc of all available professional players yet make up around 80pc of who supporters think we should sign).

- Bench bias (player not making team for entirely understandable form or formation reasons, is immediately the player who can spark the season).

- Out of sight, but front of mind (player sent on loan to Evo-Stick Tenth Division (North) and makes two consecutive substitute appearances, is the man to come back and turn around the season).

[sedwardsdrfc]

Is it not that we are trying to play way too open. Lots of these players are good enough but to play wide open we have to have the best players in every position. If we were more compact and focused on shape they’d stand a chance. Wide open against sides who are organised in that way we get picked off.

We try to play Clifton and Bailey as 2 no10s like Man City did with Rodri in the team. It’s madness players at this level won’t thread the passes through and can’t get back when the ball is turned over.

[Chris Black come back]

In the McCann set up the midfielders are there to run around and kick people, and to score goals. They are not there to make play or keep possession. Win the ball, get it wide or forward as quickly as possible, don’t keep possession, run late into box. That’s it. Nothing else needed in this set up.

[Petche]

  You saw McGraths ceiling when Olowu provided the pace to cover for him DO.

McGrath needs a break from the team, at fault for both Stockport goals and his poor pass to Broadbent kick-started our capitulation yesterday.

[sedwardsdrfc]

In the McCann set up the midfielders are there to run around and kick people, and to score goals. They are not there to make play or keep possession. Win the ball, get it wide or forward as quickly as possible, don’t keep possession, run late into box. That’s it. Nothing else needed in this set up.

They are constantly the wrong side of their man though. And why do we play so short from restarts if we aren’t going to play through the 3rds. Just go long and get the seconds. We look so much better when we do that

[selby]

  Gaz, the floor is down the bottom of a sky scraper.