Let's talk about the Port Vale game

[selby]

  I thought the first twenty minutes we played as well as we have played all season attacking wise.
  That got lost with what followed which was a war of attrition as they got to grips with the game, the result of the game more important than the performance for both sides.
  In the end a game to tough it out in bad conditions and we did just that. It's a big well done from me.

[Pancho Regan]

A very scrappy game, not helped by the conditions and an over-fussy ref.
But another important win and a 3rd clean sheet in a row, albeit against poor opposition.

Some positives from last night included another excellent performance by Jack Senior. He was brilliant, both defending and going forward. Some of his interplay with Haks, particularly in the first half, was real quality - despite the conditions.
He must have been instrumental in building 3 or 4 good attacks in that first half.

A good shift by Brandon again; held the ball up and laid it off well on several occasions.

Good performances by Jamie Sterry, Robbie Gotts and Elliot Lee (although I still don’t feel we’ve seen the best of him yet).

So an important win and a good run of results over the last 5 games, just when we needed it.

[i_ateallthepies]

A very scrappy game, not helped by the conditions and an over-fussy ref.
But another important win and a 3rd clean sheet in a row, albeit against poor opposition.

Some positives from last night included another excellent performance by Jack Senior. He was brilliant, both defending and going forward. Some of his interplay with Haks, particularly in the first half, was real quality - despite the conditions.
He must have been instrumental in building 3 or 4 good attacks in that first half.

A good shift by Brandon again; held the ball up and laid it off well on several occasions.

Good performances by Jamie Sterry, Robbie Gotts and Elliot Lee (although I still don’t feel we’ve seen the best of him yet).

So an important win and a good run of results over the last 5 games, just when we needed it.

Agree wholeheartedly with this.  The clean sheets are particularly satisfying given our earlier susceptibility all season and although I'm pretty comfortable with where we now are we have ridden our luck for the last two wins with the penalty decision and own goal being our only scoring success, so there is still improvement needed IMO if we are to have a sustained presence in L1.

[Fal]

A very scrappy game, not helped by the conditions and an over-fussy ref.
But another important win and a 3rd clean sheet in a row, albeit against poor opposition.

Some positives from last night included another excellent performance by Jack Senior. He was brilliant, both defending and going forward. Some of his interplay with Haks, particularly in the first half, was real quality - despite the conditions.
He must have been instrumental in building 3 or 4 good attacks in that first half.

A good shift by Brandon again; held the ball up and laid it off well on several occasions.

Good performances by Jamie Sterry, Robbie Gotts and Elliot Lee (although I still don’t feel we’ve seen the best of him yet).

So an important win and a good run of results over the last 5 games, just when we needed it.

Agree wholeheartedly with this.  The clean sheets are particularly satisfying given our earlier susceptibility all season and although I'm pretty comfortable with where we now are we have ridden our luck for the last two wins with the penalty decision and own goal being our only scoring success, so there is still improvement needed IMO if we are to have a sustained presence in L1.

Ridden our luck? TLT had one save to make against Barnsley right at the end, Port Vale last night i can only recall the header early on, can think of only 1 against Bolton too from Apter. Agree always room for improvement but we were the better team in both games and deserved to win no matter how the goals went in.

[i_ateallthepies]

Ridden out luck in that the penalty decision that some thought was soft was given and ridden out luck that an own goal was scored.

[GazLaz]

Ridden out luck in that the penalty decision that some thought was soft was given and ridden out luck that an own goal was scored.

Kind of agree. We are keeping clean sheets but at what feels like the expense of any attacking fluidity. The last few games have been very low event fodder. That in itself creates higher potential for variance and huge errors like giving away penalties and OGs become huge.

Theres a huge amount of luck involved in winning football matches. Its not just a case of "play well you win"- "play badly you lose". During our bad run/ first half of the season we weren't as bad as results suggested, during this spell we are not as good as results suggest. Just relying on outcomes to judge narrative and as a predictive tool for future events, is not really the best approach to take with football. Sean O'Driscoll preached that 20 years ago and he was right.

[Rupee92ONLY]

Worst team I have seen us come up against, including Orient in that home game a few weeks back.

We should’ve been putting the game to bed in that first half but even in the 2nd half when we dropped off for whatever reason, we were never in any danger of not winning.

TLT - Not a lot to do but did well when needed. Must be easy to switch off against Sunday league teams like them.

Sterry - Could’ve ended the game with a brace.

Gotts - Worst I’ve seen him play for us. Luckily it came against them.

Adelakun - Feel like he could’ve turned it on last night and scored a couple but he ambles around at times. Had Molyneux played I think the pair would’ve ran rings.

Hanlan - Great performance. You never get anything less than maximum effort from him so it’s difficult to not like him. Put himself about and ran the channels well. Won’t score you many but just like Clifton, he’s a very hard working back up player. Agreed with him getting MOTM.

Safe now. Look to next season. Clifton has an option on his contract so that’s an easy one. Get Senior tied down and that’s the back up left back sorted early.   

[IDM]

Not safe yet, I’d like another 3-4 points before claiming that.

After our shocking run of results in autumn it’s not an issue to be grinding out results now, ahead of entertainment value.

[Usher wide.]

Worst team I have seen us come up against, including Orient in that home game a few weeks back.

We should’ve been putting the game to bed in that first half but even in the 2nd half when we dropped off for whatever reason, we were never in any danger of not winning.

TLT - Not a lot to do but did well when needed. Must be easy to switch off against Sunday league teams like them.

Sterry - Could’ve ended the game with a brace.

Gotts - Worst I’ve seen him play for us. Luckily it came against them.

Adelakun - Feel like he could’ve turned it on last night and scored a couple but he ambles around at times. Had Molyneux played I think the pair would’ve ran rings.

Hanlan - Great performance. You never get anything less than maximum effort from him so it’s difficult to not like him. Put himself about and ran the channels well. Won’t score you many but just like Clifton, he’s a very hard working back up player. Agreed with him getting MOTM.

Safe now. Look to next season. Clifton has an option on his contract so that’s an easy one. Get Senior tied down and that’s the back up left back sorted early.

Senior isn’t the ‘back up’ left back.

He’s way ahead of Maxwell now (always was anyway in my opinion).

His interplay with Haks, Gotts, Lee & Bailey going forward first half was superb.

His defensive duties have come on leaps & bounds since his run in the side.

[Rupee92ONLY]

No you’re right he’s the number 1 left back as things stand. I’m talking next season… I’d bin Maxwell off and have Senior + 1 newbie who you would hope would be an improvement.

I’m a member of the Jack Senior fan club.

[roversdude]

We need to get Senior signed up hopefully this is happening in the background