Well from today's game a lot stood out for the wrong reasons. Some of the players in that team today aren't good enough for this level of football. Apart from a couple of powerful runs and some headers, Ngamvoulou did nothing for me, this wasn't helped by playing in a midfield three including Venney who doesn't seem ready for this level of football, he showed glimpses of some technical ability but for the majority couldn't influence the game. The game today was lost in midfield. Stalybridge had powerful and physical players who looked like they were far more tactically aware when compared to ours, with gaps being left all over the shop for them to exploit (which they did).
Burgess for me did okay, considering he is CB playing RB on his debut. He made a couple of mistakes yes but all players were guilty of that today, some more than others. He looked to receive the ball constantly and won his far share of aerial duels, tracking back well throughout the game.
I feel for Spiess, he should have done a lot better with the second goal but it remains to be seen whether the ball bobbled or didn't bounce how he expected it too, but we'll have to wait and see. He still made some good saves behind a defence and midfield that at times were easy to play through.
The team looked all over the place, especially in the second half, and didn't look like they understood how they were set up to play, sometimes going direct to Jones (who was ineffectual for most of the game) or retaining possession, with a chronic lack of width hampering this style of play all game. Until it finally showed up in the last 10 minutes. We looked like we lacked ideas especially after going 2-0 down and looking to get ourselves back into the game. The lack of plan B to change the game was ridiculous. There were 3 strikers on the bench but instead we put Garner upfront?! We have Sands, Johnson and Lavelle-Moore yet we put the CB up there, with two subs remaining... that is simply ludicrous. When considering that Jones was isolated for large swathes of the game, putting a supporting striker on would have given us another option and gives Stalybridge something else to worry about.
Credit has to be given to them for the way they played, because their gameplan worked to a tee. The time wasting was absurd however, not helped by the incompetence of the referee who always seems to have a shocking display whenever he is down for one of our games.
Overall a very bad day at the office, which are happening a bit too often.
