barrycowdrill

To be honest I’m not really bothered whether we finish 3rd or 4th. Second leg is at home regardless and looking at how close the table is below Peterborough they’re all pretty equal. Much of a muchness. Each one has different threats and weaknesses. Could argue 3 of the 4 have a degree of momentum, however we have beaten those 3 but not beaten Barnsley in any of the last 4 who are bang out of form

I think Todays game was always going to be how it played out. Timing of the first goal would Dictate how many. They were trying to stay in the game for as long as possible before trying to be a bit braver which we saw flashes off in the 2nd half. Us, wouldn’t say we were on the beach but the tempo had the feel of a typical end of season / pre season game and when your coming up against a back 6 or 7 at times it’s going to take a while. we upped it In periods and that’s when we had our success. the play offs are about momentum and confidence and to be honest the only team I want to play at the minute are Barnsley cos they are absolutely honking. Any of the other 3 will be full of it. I back us against any of them but I’d much rather face a team who have clung on over one who’ve snatched a spot after a good run

Yes but we regularly miss easy chances. Point the finger at the strikers of course but over a period of time when you realise those missed chances by the same players weren’t an isolated incident then you start to look at why they are in the building and who brought them in? The buck stops across more than just the player

I don’t think the club sack him. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if he decided to step away for a break if we don’t go up. The comments he’s made since the turn of the year we dont know yet whether he was sewing the seeds there or as he acknowledges himself, his emotions got the better of him and it just came out in a way that wasn’t intended. however, from the top down the expectation this season was to go up and if that isn’t achieved then he may feel he’s taken it as far as he can. I do applaud him for what he has delivered over the past few years and overall he has achieved what he said he would when he came in. Got us playing lovely football. But there’s more to Just that in the modern game and for a former (quite recent) quite rugged and tough centre half not to have that built in to his teams simply baffles me. He obviously knows the game and he talks about patterns and rotations and presses and all of that stuff but outside of that very rigid philosophy he has he has yet to demonstrate he has any other tactical nouse to change the flow of a game or nullify the threat of the opposition or make a change that makes us more dangerous. He talks about getting to the highest level possible but currently this, league 1, is him. now there’s an argument that his approach would be more successful with better players and clubs in the champ might think that’s the case too and take him but in my opinion, if we were to go up his lack of flexibility would only be exposed further and more brutally with the squad he’s assembled here. Yes it would be improved but his nice airy fairy, don’t get your hands dirty, fall foul of the dark arts of the game approach would only be inherited by the new players too.

Valid point. Which shows if it was picked up and discussed then they felt it was worth ignoring. Even after we had got stung by it

At any level we know a basic rule is pick up any spare men. However there’s also people floating around where you think “he’s not too much of a risk there” and without Rico being in the middle there may have been a view of an extra body for extra security in the box. if the coaches felt that him being on the edge of the box was a massive risk they would’ve stood someone on him without question. No debate. the fact no one is anywhere near him can quite easily lead to the view no one was tasked with doing that as the risk was pretty low. even on the pitch someone would’ve / should’ve been screaming for him to be picked up if it was highlighted in advance

Well Evatt said they picked up on it yet no one was stood on him so yes either he instructed to ignore it or the players took it upon themselves to… and the rationale may be as I outlined..

Whilst they may have picked up on it it doesn’t mean they had a specific plan for it. At this level they’re probably thinking - we can leave him there on his own because the chances of them finding him and him finishing is a 1/10 chance. It’s more likely to hit the top tier. likely they thought an extra body in the box without the presence of Rico in there was more helpful

I don’t trust any of them to string 3 performances together that warrant getting promotion. when the pressure is on they melt simple as that. We ran out of ideas when Barnsley delivered a perfect away play off performance last year then we looked clueless with everyone looking around at each other at their place when we went 1 down. yes we put teams under pressure but even when on top we waste so many chances, decision making is dreadful and they all look absolutely stunned when the opposition has the audacity to have a go back at us.

Hopefully we’re the 3rd best of a bad bunch. But Jesus Christ if we are successful next season looks ominous if a team like them last night can come and cause us problems defensively every time they have the bravery to try and go forward the mobs up in the champ will tear us a new one. We’re shambolic defensively. @Eddie is absolutely spot on, it’s that extra 5% that makes the difference. Whether it be a chance to score or trying to stop the opposition, not one of them are willing to put themselves in a position where they get hurt. There was another example yesterday where Demps knocked it round the corner and it was 70/30 in his favour. He goes in fully determined he gets to the ball before the defender and he’s away down the left. But he didn’t. He slowed down and allowed it to become a 50/50 which he then also bottled. Throughout the season there’s a number of those small instances that mount up and demonstrates to all what we’re about.

No one can legislate for the injuries we’ve had up top. But even then Jerome JDB and Dan don’t have the records to suggest they would fill the void or impact a game where they come on and grab a win from the jaws of defeat. So yes the recruitment 100% has to be questioned It’s a £2m strike force which has around 25? Between them. Around 22 of which are between Charles and Collins

Pompey had just as many if not more injuries to key players I’d have to say

Results by the top 3 against the top 6 Us P9 W2 D5 L2 Pompey P10 W6 D4 L0 Derby P10 W4 D4 L2 throw in your wigans, Carlisle, Leyton Orient, Northampton, Bristol rovers and it’s exactly the same trend as last year. Don’t win enough against your competition and too many under par performances where we should’ve been getting more. Where does the buck stop? looking ahead to the play offs and that record shouldn’t really give us much hope either.. “on our day…” but we don’t have our day over the course of 2 or 3 games in a row

Lump on Vale on Saturday

I said after the Pompey game whilst I didn’t fear anyone in the play offs I fear the play offs. We just don’t have the level of performance we showed v portsmouth over 2 or 3 games on the trot. They don’t deal well with pressure, don’t often turn deficits round in our favour and are so easy to score against. We’ll limp in to the play offs now with a couple of Meek performances v’s Vale and Peterborough. we are the epitome of Bipolar in football terms

Still half hour to go and happy to be proven wrong but the team selection, the tempo, performance level so far all point to us accepting it was the play offs before a ball had been kicked

Didn’t wanna get hurt. Typifies the whole ethos of the team. They all love doing the nice footbally bits

Aye, being the better side 8/9 times out of 10 regardless of who you’re playing counts for very little at the end of it when you’re only 3rd best overall. I was really confident about the play offs yesterday, and rightly so. However the more I think about them I realised it’s not just about how good you can be. It’s about bottle, digging in, keeping calm, taking your chances when they present themselves and not allowing previous experiences scar you. It did dent my confidence a little 🤣

The change they made at HT changed the control of midfield. Maghoma first half was making Moxon look absolutely piss poor. So they brought on someone a bit more aggressive and defensive minded. Broke up our flow through midfield and in particular Maghoma. That old cliche of the last thing we wanted was half time because it allowed them to regroup and make adjustments. The 2nd half was never going to be the same story. Became a far more equal game. Yep we had the Bod sitter and Charles hit the post but if we had be gone in at HT in front we’d of won the game Bod not squaring for Thomasson off the Collins effort was just as criminal as skying over from 5yards

Derby could still do a Derby and put in a poor one next Saturday. Nowhere near a foregone conclusion that as Cambridge still need points. if it is to be the play offs I just hope the disappointment of not getting the automatics doesn’t linger because no one out of Barnsley Oxford or Lincoln will fancy us over 2 legs with the 2nd at our place. The levels of performance we have reached since the Oxford game will be far too much for any of them

At crucial moments in tight games you can’t be missing that chance for Bod in the 2nd half nor not squaring to Thomasson in the first half. These games are always determined by small margins. Ones we never really seem to be on the right side of. think it was we Gonzo who said this morning that Pompey are similar to Plymouth last season . Pretty accurate comparison that. Good home record, keep it tight away and never drop below 7/10. Exactly the type of figures that get you promoted. we’re still in the race but likely play offs. Just hope the disappointment of not making it doesn’t knock the stuffing out of us for them because we should be ok. Nothing to be scared off at all in whoever else makes it and in which positions

Thought that was going to be the story of our season. Poor goal out of nothing to concede, the majority of the ball with loads of half chances we should’ve done better with but behind at the break. maghoma stand out so far he’s been a class above Moxon in that midfield. There’s joy down the channels but high risk on Ogbeta’s side BIG half

Game at a time. Positive result today and then tues becomes just as big if not bigger then so does next sat. The margins are so small that we can’t look beyond anything or anyone

It’s big this today. Season defining and I’m nervous there’s been many examples over the past couple of years where the players have failed to turn up ‘when it matters’ but generally, they have been games that mattered to us, the fans. today, this matters to everyone at every level. From the very top, to us, even the programme sellers outside. of course there’s still another way of going up, but this will demonstrate to all what this team is about when it really matters. When things are riding on it. When it’s needed. i pray to god they’ve got it in them

Yep heard that after I posted. Happy with Forrester coming in if so