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+----- Thread: 3 in today (/showthread.php?tid=6140)
RE: 3 in today - Devongone - 07-01-2018
Matt, I don't think you are a happy clapper at all (nor is Pooch, despite being so optimistic - because he can be critical when he wants), I just think occasionally you force yourself into an optimistic view which, if you substituted the name Halifax for Chesterfield, would become much more objective ...... that's all. You quite rightly want Chesterfield to win and carry hope in your heart - that's great, I wouldn't take the pee out of it. I admire it and wish I had more myself. But I think it stopped you taking into account the circumstances of the Accrington game.
I feared Ramsdale might have a bad game. We couldn't have made it more difficult for him. You have to remember youth football is very different, all the players are trying to impress coaches who are all telling them to play the right way - they aren't being thrown physical challenges, they aren't being blocked at every cross and their opponents are physically smaller in general and often not quite as sharp ......... Take that together with a wildly inexperienced central defence in front of him and an opposition who can throw a man of 6'5" up at corners. In the end how you perform sometimes comes down to how the cookie crumbles. In local football my first team debut went well, because I got a couple of decent saves to make early on, then I dived at someone's feet and took a kick in the head without a moan and then we went down the field and scored and suddenly I had a defence that would do anything for their new 17 year-old keeper. If I'd let one in early on, everything could have been very different. Even brilliant young players can need time and can fcku up and I think that goes for any level. That's why I'm so vociferous about us giving our own youngsters more than a dog's chance of making it.
I think Dancing's argument works both ways. I agree the attack not functioning pressurises the defence, but a shaky defence plays out bad ball to players further forward who feel they can't take chances and risk losing the ball, because the opposition looks like scoring with every attack. But of course they must eventually lose the ball, the opposition do score and pretty soon the whole team isn't playing its game. Our whole team isn't functioning and Dennis is probably a symptom, not the disease.
I don't think NOT-scoring is the way for Dennis to get himself a move. And though almost everyone wants to be rid of O'Grady it's going to take a desperate manager to chance his arm. It took Micky Mellon for us to briefly unload SEB and he soon got the sack.
If Hird and Evatt are gone for almost the rest of the season we need a tall commanding, experienced centre back. Yeovil clearly didn't rate Sid Nelson highly and seem to have mostly played him right back anyway. He might be very good cover for us across the back, but if he were a foundation to build on I kinda think Millwall would be building - and we need a foundation. Our team is too small without Evatt - we need a big guy, size and personality.
Unfortunately we still don't have a reliable ball winner in midfield and going forward it seems we need to make more chances for our striker/s and for our midfield to be more willing to take a pop, as McCourt was doing a few weeks ago. Poor old Jack has to make a team out of something that never was a team. He'd cobbled it together and got something functional, but he's lost vital elements. No one can win if there are huge question marks against their keeper and centre backs, just as no one ever wins without scoring. There's a lot to do, but Luton's an opportunity. No-one will give us a chance - but Port Vale showed what can happen when things don't go right for Luton.
RE: 3 in today - bluepooch - 07-01-2018
Looking at the 10 minutes highlights In terms of the chances it was never a 4-0 game although we didnt deserve to win it .
I just think we need to move on from this and hope the keeper can eliminate the errors from his game ,I'm really hoping he hasn't got these howlers in his locker because that will jeopardize any progress and I hope it doesnt affect his confidence or we could be looking at a 4th keeper in a month .
Agree about Dennis Dev, anyone suggesting he isn't trying because his heads been turned is talking daft ,think about it ,who is going to want him if he is totally out of form ,even he would really want to impress during this period if he is wanting a move .Like Dev says he is a symptom of the current malaise not a cause .
RE: 3 in today - Devongone - 08-01-2018
Aaron Ramsdale had had two games (for Sheff Utd) before Accrington and one of those was a 6-0 win against Leyton Orient, so he didn't gain much experience there. I said before the game it would be very difficult for him. We didn't exactly set him up to fail, but I think the options for him were either a stinker, or he'd get off to a flyer with a couple of electric saves and play a blinder. I'm afraid pessimism won out.
At the moment I'm turning out to be right far more often than usual ...... but that only shows how bad things are, when things live down to a pessimist's expectations..... Blue's turned out to be mostly wrong for quite a while for the same reason - he's looking for good things to happen. Blue spent Cookie's time knocking 'em in from all over the park. Even very dodgy-looking decisions often turned out fine in those days. Now, well, Jack playing Ramsdale was probably the right decision objectively, he had no way of knowing what was going to happen next and there's nothing to say that Eastwood or Parkin playing behind a new and inexperienced defence wouldn't have found different mistakes to make.
What would be nice would be for Jack to go with Ramsdale and the crowd to chant his name before the kick-off ........ you have no idea how much simply feeling wanted and welcome can add to any keepers performance at any level of the game. So much of goalkeeping is about what is going on in your head - especially when the ball is nowhere near you. If the young man has the decent level of ability, which international caps at three levels suggest, I'm pretty much of the opinion that if you make him think he's a hero, he'll be one.
As for Dennis, if he's staying, if I were in Jack's shoes I'd play Ricky German with him AND I'd take Dennis and Zavon Hines to one side and tell them to look out for him too, encourage him and try to get the most out of him. A bit of power and pace in the team from Ricky ought to benefit both of them and they have got the years of experience he lacks. What's raw about Ricky might surprise Luton's defenders. Remember how Darikwa used to drive Dancing mad, by too often losing the ball down the right, but the chances he took (maybe recklessly) often stretched defences and made us hard to handle. When you play predictably as we sometimes have with a ball up to O'Grady should we be surprised when defences can handle it? Similarly NOW they know to look out for Dennis and his job is much harder than it was earlier in the season ...... so I'd have thought we need to give them problems they're not ready for, to get Dennis scoring again.
And we need signings. If we can't get a fully experienced centre back, I'd say sign Ryan Astles from Chester with a view to next season too. And oh surely we need someone with some size strength and a tackle in midfield ....?