Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm
Posts: 4813
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE MELTDOWN – NOTTS COUNTYI’m not 100% sure what I can take or make of that, we were better, but not much better than we have been, and I have to be honest I thought County were possibly the better team on the day, but probably the draw was about the right result as other than the save late on by Mac and the missed opportunity by Harrison, I don’t think either team did enough to claim all the points.
In sweltering hot conditions that were almost unbearable in the stands, it must have been ten times worse on the pitch and no great surprise then on occasions barely anything much was happening, and that really is the story of the first half…..nothing to report.
The second half started with a bang…and I should think there were a few that missed the opener, still making their way back from the loo or drinking up in the bars, but thankfully I just about got back to get a view of the goal.
It looked like Robson robbed the ball in midfield and set Harvie away down the left and he cut infield and rifled it into the top corner across the keepers outstretched arm.
I guess knowing what we have been like going ahead I wanted us to keep the forward movement going, well what movement we had, but again we took the press off and seemed content to sit off them and let them build on their play.
It’s a dangerous game to play, and I’m not overly sure we are that good at trying to defend the lead, but for some reason we tried again, and although in the main most of the County delivery and build up was harmless County pulled level with a decent run and shot that nestled in the corner.
Except for those two late chances I can’t recall anything much else to report, other than we spent large parts of the second half watching County pass it from side to side looking for an opening, serving us up a hefty portion of Russball.
A few positives I felt, Max Dean did ok and ran their No 5 into the ground to the degree the guy hardly had the energy to be subbed off. Tucker was also decent and is finally putting in steady performances on a regular basis. Thankfully we ditched that long ball to nobody crap and tried to play it out with a bit of thought, let’s hope we don’t go back down that route again.
One thing that is clear to me is we miss Williams badly, Devoy seems to be ok for about 45 minutes, but is largely anonymous after that, we need him back quickly if we are going to put a few results in that maintain our position and it could be the key to automatic promotion, playoffs, or miss the boat completely depending on how long we can keep him fit.
If you were watching Harrison for any clues, I don’t think you can learn much from that. He came on in the 67th minute and had his first touch on 87 minutes, that may sound like rubbish, but I promise you it’s true.
I can’t recall our possession stats being so low at home before, even against some of those Prem teams in the cups, just 30%, but we still topped County with more shots, so that sort of backs up what I said, loads of possession for them but not a lot of end result…..sound familiar.
Like I said a very hard game to assess, but I don’t think we can be that upset to take a point out of the leaders who were undefeated since that opening day thrashing by Sutton, and on a run of three wins on the bounce. We slip down to 4th, and we are still well on the pace, and in honesty we probably would have taken that after 7 games…still a very long way to go, and another good test against Stockport at SMK next Saturday.
So not much of a Meltdown but still those concerns on how we sit back after scoring and invite pressure, if that's a GA tactic, I’m not sure that’s a system to build a promotion campaign on, if I was the gaffer it wouldn’t be something I would be trying.
Thats it really, as I can’t think of anything else, but we will play a lot worse and win…in fact we have already,
Much Love  WD
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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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