Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm Posts: 5018 Location: In the Armchair.
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THE MELTDOWN – MORECAMBEI’ve watched with interest tonight the debate about our newbie keeper and the chatter regarding Mac going to Stevenage.
So, if I can clear a few things up, Mac wanted to leave so my well informed source tells me, how he knows I haven’t a clue, but these things always get out, the only issue is stripping back some of the embellishments, someone always adds a little something to the conversation, and things can get watered down or enhanced.
So, for the benefit of the tape officer…allegedly…..Mac wanted to move, and that before any mention of any kid from Villa. How fatso Evans got wind of it is anyone’s guess…agent perhaps….anyway following talks it appears Saint Evenage couldn’t afford the lowly value we had on him, so the deal fell through. Now whether Mac had burnt his bridges at SMK or not I have no idea, but there are reports coming out that he refused to play last week and was disciplined and that appears to have forced the club’s hand. As a manager what do you do, you can’t have players refusing to play, so it looks like the only option was to loan him to the paupers of Hertfordshire.
Regarding our new keeper, I’m not joking when I say this has the potential to ruin him for a good while. Imagine he plays on Tuesday and makes an absolute arse of things against our bastard cousins; he could turn towards the Cowshed and be a very lonely man staring at a sea of hatred.
Confidence is everything and when he came out to take a cross early in the first half he hardly got a glove on it and that set the tone for the whole game.
Morecambe had obviously done their homework on the kid and decided to put corners or freekicks right down his throat with a wall of pushing and shoving going on to further unsettle him.
Unfortunately for him and indeed us, AFC, and everyone else come to that are going to be firing it in, if he doesn’t quickly establish himself and dominate that area we are going to have a very uncomfortable ride from here to the end of the season, like I said he could be ruined very quickly.
The first goal was down to him, you can’t argue that, and I feel very sad for him, I’ve always said as a keeper if you decide to come for the ball you make sure you get a bloody big chunk of it or stay where you are, he did neither. The danger now is he may get rooted to the goaline preferring not to gather the ball at all, and that could just make it worse.
I noticed Gilbey went to him after the first goal, probably to try and settle him down, and I had hoped after that initial error, a bit of passing it about might calm him down, but he looked like a rabbit in the headlights for most of the game.
The second goal was a crap pass from Lewie that wrong footed Bate and went under the arm of Marschall to make his debut ten times worse.
The game started so well with Dean scoring with a superb shot after the Shrimps defence failed to clear a Tomlinson cross properly and for most of the half Morecambe keeper Archie Mair kept us at bay, and just in case you didn’t know he was on loan to Gateshead for the first half of the season with you know who as his gaffer.
The second half for me was as bad as anything I’ve seen this season, it lacked pace, movement, and the more the game went on the less control we had even though we had the ball as we seemed unable to conjure up much at all and that just spurred Morecambe on has they hounded us and never gave us any time and space.
Whilst I don’t really blame the ref, he was bloody awful, a number of times our player was clearly fouled, he waved play on but I can’t say as we got any advantage our of it, and he just let the game continue. It was something that ran for just about the whole game and I don’t think he really got to grips with it, but in reality, defeat was down to us, as I’ve said we were bloody awful and got punished for it. Last week we laughed at Tranmere, this week it’s our turn, the problem for me is we were the architects of our ruin.
The other problem is, I’m not liking how easily we fall into this mode of play, we’ve seen it once or twice this season, probably more, and on occasions we have dug ourselves out of the hole, and its probably masked that we might not be as good as we think we are.
I said before the game today with the signings we have made, this team will have failed if we don’t get into the playoffs at least, but it’s mystifying how a team we were battering for 45 minutes was allowed to get back into the game and ultimately punish us.
MW must shoulder the blame for me as I don’t think he made subs early enough to counteract how the dynamics of the game were changing.
One or two other things, Payne was superb, what an engine, and the other thing, Lofthouse in no wing back, I’m not convinced, he played better than he did against Tranmere, but he seems incapable of beating the left back.
So, the conundrum for MW is which keeper plays on Tuesday, play the new boy, and hope he is better than his debut, or start Kelly, and make Marschall paranoid even more.
Just one thing, we need this kid to work for us, but on Tuesday he could be the hero or the villain….I can’t call it.
See you Monday for the AFC Preview.
Oh, hang on….hang on….can you recall someone mentioning Charlie Brown was the dangerman in the CazBar Big Game Preview….I wish I could keep my big mouth shut. WD
_________________ Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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