Let's talk about the Huddersfield Town game

[Petche]

Don't think anyone who was drafted in tonight could stake a claim for starting regularly!

[ncRover]

Don't think anyone who was drafted in tonight could stake a claim for starting regularly!

Stats say Nixon had a good game?

[roversdude]

Great win tonight however I hope Cliff was just towing the party line in his post match interview and that is not how they really think. There were some players on show tonight who on that performance should be nowhere near the squad never mind the team.

[Usher wide.]

If Grehan is ahead of Faulkner in the managers thinking then time for Bobby to look elsewhere for his own sake.

That ‘challenge’ that led to their sub leaving him ‘stuck in treacle’ & conjuring up their equaliser was embarrassingly half-a**ed he wants to be made to watch it a dozen times over.

Add to that his poor reading of the game, playing it wide to a player who was immediately closed down when if he’d looked the other side there was a player in bags of space as an outlet, happened on at least three occasions.

His physicality is like that of a teenager.

We had a ‘hero’ AND a ‘villain’ tonight.

[GazLaz]

Not sure whats happened to Grehan. He looked decent early in the season but his confidence is shot to bits. Not been the same since the games at right back where he was made to look very poor.

Should loan him out to any level we can for a month or two to play some games from the off and get his confidence back

That pathetic effort for their goal can’t be down to confidence. He should’ve been dragged off straight after. I can forgive him when he’s playing right back but tonight, at centre back, it was a great chance to start staking a claim. Needs to buck his ideas up if he wants a career in England. Dog shit so far.

The defending for their goal was terrible but apart from that he wasn’t bad.

The way he got caught out similar to Cardiff (I think it was). It’s an obvious technical issue when defending those areas, that can be worked on for sure. Otherwise he was ok.

[Ryaldinhio]

Not sure whats happened to Grehan. He looked decent early in the season but his confidence is shot to bits. Not been the same since the games at right back where he was made to look very poor.

Should loan him out to any level we can for a month or two to play some games from the off and get his confidence back

That pathetic effort for their goal can’t be down to confidence. He should’ve been dragged off straight after. I can forgive him when he’s playing right back but tonight, at centre back, it was a great chance to start staking a claim. Needs to buck his ideas up if he wants a career in England. Dog shit so far.

The defending for their goal was terrible but apart from that he wasn’t bad.

The way he got caught out similar to Cardiff (I think it was). It’s an obvious technical issue when defending those areas, that can be worked on for sure. Otherwise he was ok.

Sorry Gaz but he was bad tonight. Several poor passes, caught on ball few times, sliced a few clearances. Overall he was very very poor tonight.

[selby]

  A hard decision for the Harrogate manager, Bobby back but last week won their first game in 21 games so hard to make changes although Bobby was their outstanding player before injury, one of the top central defenders in the division.
  Keep an eye on the Chesterfield game if he plays and have a look at what we are missing if it's on TV.
 

[scawsby steve]

  A hard decision for the Harrogate manager, Bobby back but last week won their first game in 21 games so hard to make changes although Bobby was their outstanding player before injury, one of the top central defenders in the division.
  Keep an eye on the Chesterfield game if he plays and have a look at what we are missing if it's on TV.

It won't be on TV, Brian. It's a 3pm KO.

Apart from those with a dodgy firestick that doesn't buffer.

[drfcsteve]

As poor as it was overall I thought we actually played some decent stuff in parts. The problem was we didn’t create anything because we have such a lack of forward runners. I lost count of the amount of times Close and Gibson were looking forward and all they could see were Huddersfield players, so they had to play backwards.

[Alan Southstand]

I thought Gibson was the worst player on the pitch! Out of possession we were terrible but on the ball we were ok, nothing special, just ok. Up top - neither side had anything of note until they brought their winger on.

Well done Timothy, motm by a country mile.

[Ian Nimmo]

Some real positives from the performance, yet like at Wycombe it looked like we were sitting well off them and giving them acres of space and time to play the ball.
Really pleased for Timmy, that will help him with any confidence issues he may have.
Nixon again gave a strong performance, and maybe should be given a start in the next game.
Also thought Ben Close played well, after a few weeks out with a nasty injury he played the full 90 mins on what would have been a difficult pitch. He obviously looks after his fitness given his game time this season, and his a true professional.

[Reg of the Rovers]

It was a fabulous result, and great to see TLT stick his chest out and be the hero after the season he's had. That'll do him the world of good. Sharp had a good game, playing on the turn and being busy all night, and had the composure to slot home his pen to give us the lead.

Prior to the subs however, we were pretty terrible. Grehan, Broadbent and Gibson were / are absolutely awful. Middleton and Maxwell not much better, Maxwell's form has dropped off a cliff since he came back.

Luckily Huddersfield did the same as us, let the game play out with the B team while it was even, then put some of the big guns off to try and get it over the line.

Let's hope the rest does the first 11 some good, as after the first 60mins performance I wouldn't trust half of that lot to perform for us in the league.

I hope Grant takes the semi-final really seriously, we have an unbelievable chance to get to Wembley now so we should be grasping that with our best players. Judging the form of some of these on one result v Middlesborough in August is misguided, as some are clearly not good enough for this level.

[Chris Black come back]

If we can stay up and make it to Wembley, that’s a decent season. Would still need major questions asking why it has been such a shitshow for large parts of the season and why recruitment was a total binfire. Lot of money wasted.

[graingrover]

To be fair to Cliff, in his interview, he did often refer to the fact that the players had not had many minutes in recent times, without condemning any individual performance.
Dutch recently showed the win/ draw / loss stats for all matches this season ..I would love to see an update .

[GazLaz]

I thought Gibson was the worst player on the pitch! Out of possession we were terrible but on the ball we were ok, nothing special, just ok. Up top - neither side had anything of note until they brought their winger on.

Well done Timothy, motm by a country mile.

I thought first half was one of the worst in possession performances one ever seen. Better in the second half admittedly.

[Usher wide.]

But surely we’re not going to put out a side of players to ‘get some minutes into their legs’ in the semi-final with a chance for the club & supporters getting to a Wembley Final?

I know the prize money is equivalent to winning ‘Bulls Eye’ in the the 80’s but for Billy to perhaps play his last competitive game for us at ‘The Home of Football’, it would be worth it for me just to see that happen.

Just a big softie I know.

[Rupee92ONLY]

Some of the decision making from the players between themselves were odd.

2 that stood out in the 2nd half were free kick left edge of the 18 yard box… Gibson and Middleton stood over it - why did the left footer take it? From the angle it was, it was only going 1 area.
Then last minutes of the game… corner kick right hand side… Gotts had already put a good ball in and corners been much improved with him taking them but Molyneux takes it instead… result? Barely beats the last man and is easily cleared.

Why do we (it seems) pay so little attention to things like that? Don’t get me started on our throw-ins. No movement, for a good 30-40 seconds it’s like the music’s stopped and the full back is left holding the present.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

It does concern me about the standard of coaching going on at Cantley Park. Just the work on basic things as you mention.
This season we've seen our back line be easily pulled apart when our players seem to be ball watching more than marking. So many times we get caught the wrong side so the attacker gets free runs onto crosses etc. We seem to find it difficult to work as a unit dictating the offside line.  Then there's minimal evidence of attacking plays & set pieces being rehearsed with much of our play appearing to be off the cuff.  Yes, we see moves work but then we never see them again.

As against Wycombe and others we come up against teams who fall into the 'well drilled' bracket who have clearly worked on patterns of play whilst doing the basics quite well. 

Overall,  definiely agree we seem to lack that attention to detail and belief in sticking with the game plans.

[TheFunk]

Some of the decision making from the players between themselves were odd.

2 that stood out in the 2nd half were free kick left edge of the 18 yard box… Gibson and Middleton stood over it - why did the left footer take it? From the angle it was, it was only going 1 area.
Then last minutes of the game… corner kick right hand side… Gotts had already put a good ball in and corners been much improved with him taking them but Molyneux takes it instead… result? Barely beats the last man and is easily cleared.

Why do we (it seems) pay so little attention to things like that? Don’t get me started on our throw-ins. No movement, for a good 30-40 seconds it’s like the music’s stopped and the full back is left holding the present.

Regarding the free kick. I thought it at the time and it wasn't mentioned by the commentator, but I have just watched it back and it should have been a penalty anyway.

[GazLaz]

It does concern me about the standard of coaching going on at Cantley Park. Just the work on basic things as you mention.
This season we've seen our back line be easily pulled apart when our players seem to be ball watching more than marking. So many times we get caught the wrong side so the attacker gets free runs onto crosses etc. We seem to find it difficult to work as a unit dictating the offside line.  Then there's minimal evidence of attacking plays & set pieces being rehearsed with much of our play appearing to be off the cuff.  Yes, we see moves work but then we never see them again.

As against Wycombe and others we come up against teams who fall into the 'well drilled' bracket who have clearly worked on patterns of play whilst doing the basics quite well. 

Overall,  definiely agree we seem to lack that attention to detail and belief in sticking with the game plans.

There’s not much detail in the way we play is there. No real fluidity in possession.

Throw ins are a good example, you can get 20 a match. Drilling them and having a plan from then is a pretty important part of the game. How much time do we put into practicing them per week?

Goal kicks another example. We can progress the ball into certain areas of the pitch from short goal kicks and you know the exact zones things will break down. This is obviously highlighted against the better sides/ better out of possession sides as it was at Wycombe.

[Peebles Rover]

Have to say I agree we don’t seem to focus on details in a game. Our throw ins drive me mad, we typically just turn the ball over.


On a separate point, which I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else, how good was Ben Close’s penalty. An absolute peach. Robbie Fott’s wasn’t far behind it either

[Reg of the Rovers]

Have to say I agree we don’t seem to focus on details in a game. Our throw ins drive me mad, we typically just turn the ball over.


On a separate point, which I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else, how good was Ben Close’s penalty. An absolute peach. Robbie Fott’s wasn’t far behind it either

Close's was great, he did a panenka in this tournament a season or two ago - against Wigan I think. He always looks very very cool from the spot.

I'm not sure I love Moly as our regular taker, he only picked up duties from Tranmere last year and he never looks overly convincing - although to be fair he does usual score.

I'd back Sharp every time, and also always felt confident in Ironside (although he had a couple of shockers - Notts C away and Hull FA Cup spring to mind).

[Juddy]

Ben did a Panenka in the shootout against Hull as well I think

[drfchound]

Have to say I agree we don’t seem to focus on details in a game. Our throw ins drive me mad, we typically just turn the ball over.


On a separate point, which I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else, how good was Ben Close’s penalty. An absolute peach. Robbie Fott’s wasn’t far behind it either

Close's was great, he did a panenka in this tournament a season or two ago - against Wigan I think. He always looks very very cool from the spot.

I'm not sure I love Moly as our regular taker, he only picked up duties from Tranmere last year and he never looks overly convincing - although to be fair he does usual score.

I'd back Sharp every time, and also always felt confident in Ironside (although he had a couple of shockers - Notts C away and Hull FA Cup spring to mind).

Ironside was a very good penalty taker and if I remember correctly, the one at Hull was far from being a shocker and was going into the bottom corner but was very well saved by the keeper.
Mols was due a missed one, he had scored his last three and around one in four pens is not scored on average.

[selby]

  Huddersfield did everything right to win a game against us apart from putting the ball in the onion bag.
  They exposed our weakness running at our defenders and our lack of pace in some players tracking back from midfield.
  It's cup football and we rode our luck aided by very good goal keeping. The tactical side of the game Tuesday will be interesting if they employ the same direct approach, can we cope again.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

  Huddersfield did everything right to win a game against us apart from putting the ball in the onion bag.
  They exposed our weakness running at our defenders and our lack of pace in some players tracking back from midfield.
  It's cup football and we rode our luck aided by very good goal keeping. The tactical side of the game Tuesday will be interesting if they employ the same direct approach, can we cope again.

They had a couple of very quick players so there's plenty out there who would struggle to keep pace so I don't think is was us who were slow as such. As we know, players who are prepared to run at defences can cause alot of problems by opening things up.

Our midfield doesn't really have that desire to make those ditect runs and beat players, preferring to pass.