Northampton Town (A)

[Stig]

8 hours ago, Krimzon said:

I think that is overly harsh . IMO any penalty save is a good one and you trust your defence to react quicker than their players . 

By your logic Brannigans penalty save at Wembley wasnt a good save . 

Fair point, but I'd say on this one it looks to me like he could have pushed it out wide rather than right back to the penalty taker. It wasn't one that he saved with his legs or anything.

Tbh I'm not having a go at him for the penalty save, you expect to concede anyway. I'm just not having that down as a "good" save, you go the right way and if the penalty isn't great it's going to hit you. The good bit would have been holding it or pushing it out wide. 

Anyway we need him to start making some good saves as we can't keep conceding more than 1 in 2 shots on target.

[Casino]

This was our 10th game

After 10 games last season, we had 17 points

Surprised me, that

[Tonge moor green jacket]

We haven't played any of those at the top with the exception of Lincoln neither.

10 points off the top.

Far from over of course, but there is no evidence of the consistency we need arriving.

We have conceded first quite a lot, and haven't won a game having gone behind.

We haven't won away.

Really aren't going to get where we want to be unless that changes, and quickly.

[Zico]

9 hours ago, Casino said:

This was our 10th game

After 10 games last season, we had 17 points

Surprised me, that

Aye, quite a sobering thought, after the wobbly start and Huddersfield we went on a good Dempsey inspired run 

Then there was the strange line up at Brum, with Stockport just around the corner

We definitely need to be winning the next two

[Tombwfc]

If you want positives you would say that last season the top two after 10 games looked pretty set and barely changed all season. To make up 10 points on Birmingham probably would've meant winning 30-odd games in a row.

Whereas this year it looks a lot more open and nobody looks like they're going to pile on win after win.

But if we don't win the next two I think it'd be mad not to be seriously asking questions.

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

We haven't played any of those at the top with the exception of Lincoln neither.

10 points off the top.

Far from over of course, but there is no evidence of the consistency we need arriving.

We have conceded first quite a lot, and haven't won a game having gone behind.

We haven't won away.

Really aren't going to get where we want to be unless that changes, and quickly.

Agree with all of that. I’m an optimist and genuinely believe it will fall into place and we’ll be right at the top of the league come the end of the season, but the grace period is coming to an end and results need to pick up through Oct/Nov if we don’t want to fall too far behind.

Someone did point out though that none of the teams that would be expected to be up there have had a good start. Bradford might stick around but I’m comparing the gap to the likes of Cardiff and Huddersfield personally.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Agree with all of that. I’m an optimist and genuinely believe it will fall into place and we’ll be right at the top of the league come the end of the season, but the grace period is coming to an end and results need to pick up through Oct/Nov if we don’t want to fall too far behind.

Someone did point out though that none of the teams that would be expected to be up there have had a good start. Bradford might stick around but I’m comparing the gap to the likes of Cardiff and Huddersfield personally.

What worries me a bit, is the inability to frequently put away teams that we have dominated.

We frequently dominated possession last season, to no avail.

Sooner or later, especially away, there will have to be a bit of a change of approach.

How long can we leave it, hoping things fully fall into place?

That's if they will.

There are opposing managers, who aren't daft, and are changing their teams' approaches to playing us. 

Doesn't always work of course, but it does at times, and we haven't quite had the quality to overcome them.

That simply has to change, but it isn't going to be easy given the games later this month.

After Wigan, I was thinking we're getting there, but the subsequent defeat was a massive kick in the bollocks.

Great similarity to last season; when we beat Birmingham, then lost away at Bristol Rovers.

Iirc, he made some bizarre looking changes then for the second game.

Whether there is overconfidence, a lack of killer instinct and that ultimate winning attitude, or still imbalanced with players not quite up to it, I don't know.

I do think we'll beat Perterborough, but that won't really allay the concerns.

We have to go on a run, and beat these top sides when we come up against them.

I thought there was a telling sentence in Iles' report about the ladies' team too. 

Not that the incident wasn't finance related, but the follow up sentence intimating that future funding may be affected by the first team not being promoted this season.

We know what SS has been tasked with, and if we're not successful then I get the feeling that some cuts will become inevitable. 

These Swiss backers don't have bottomless pockets.