Walking down Bloomfield Road, tangerine looks glorious in the sunsbine. I notice a man with tattoos where his eyebrows should be (but not tattoos of eyebrows, tattoos of something else, but I can't work out what the something else is)
I'm going to chuck my season ticket at Critchley if Rob Apter doesn't start...The Rapter is in. Thank fuck. My season ticket is on my phone and I've only had it a few months. Would be costly. Lets have some glory. A bit of incisive football. Some goals. That type of thing. I quite like the team although I'm not sure about a pairing of two players who don't score goals up front.
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We start pretty well, move the ball quite confidently and if I was in a better mood, I'd wax lyrical over a Sonny Carey switch of play that released Apter and note how a slick move where Jimmy put a cross in should have been met by someone. I'd also say we had a shout for a penalty.
As the half wore on, Stockport made a couple of chances from our sloppy play and maybe should have done a bit better with them. We seemed to have the ball loads, but not to do a lot, they had it less but created about as much as we did.
You might by now realise I'm not in the mood. Usually, I'd write too much, but it's all so familiar by now. We pressed, we harried, we knocked them off their stride a few times but we didn't actually have a shot that made it anywhere near their goal.
___
I thought we did ok for half an hour but we dropped off for the last 15 and looked to be losing our way. Stockport are disrupting us with niggly fouls and we're just getting frustrated with it.
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We looked a bit feistier again for a few minutes. I wouldn't say we're an explosive force of footballing brilliance in this spell, but we have some attacks and Lee Evans has a few shots from distance.
There's even a brief flash of fleeting joy as I think Ash Fletcher scores from a tight angle but the offside flag was up ages before he finished it.
Then we seem to lose our way again and, I'm checking the clock and thinking 'fucking hell this game is dragging on a bit' and we're letting a Stockport player wander through about 7 of our players and smash it home. It's an absolute sickening goal.
I know in my heart of hearts, this is over, a feeling that is redoubled when Critchley turns to CJ and takes off Apter. As much as CJ is sometimes the comic relief in a match blog, I don't actually mean this to be derogatory to him - it's the way that we don't change the set up, we just hope a different player yields a reward for the same basic way of playing. Apter is the only lock pick we possess. Stockport were always going to shut the door after scoring.
Still, y'never know do you?
It turns out you do. Grimmy is beyond criticism and I'll never slag the bearded wonder off, but fuck me, he has just thrown the ball straight back to them and everyone is in pure panic mode running around but not getting a foot in and they waltz up the middle and smash home a second. I slump. This is crap. It's been a crap match and we're 2-0 down now. I can handle crap football, but when it's crap and you're losing in such a pathetic manner it feels... pointless.
They add a third. They bully us. Someone little pushes someone big all over the shop. They score again. County fans make loads of noise. Watch the highlights if you want a proper explanation, I can't be arsed.
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I can't really find anything to more to write about what happened. We looked characterless. The North looked weird and naked without the flags. A soulless white backdrop for a soulless grey team. We looked exactly the same as the low points of last season but without Kaddy. If I'm really scratching for positives, I liked Baggot and Apter played ok first half.
Overall though, we don't look remotely on it and I can't see what the 'it' is supposed to look like. This is the problem: I can't work out what we're actually trying to do.
I can't see how we're trying to score goals. I get that we press and swarm on the opposition for a bit, but that's not a tactic we can keep up for 90 minutes. If we don't score by forcing an error from them, then we don't look remotely like scoring in any other way. In two league games I struggle to think of a good chance we've missed.
The players can't be as fundamentally as insipid as they collectively look. You don't get to be a professional player without having some self belief. It's almost a default attribute if you're going to make it through all the incredibly demanding stages to get there.
If you've not got a bit of something about you mentally, you'd have to be supremely talented to play at any level and even then, we've all seen players who just can't cut it, despite having all the technical skills. I don't see how it's possible we've accidentally recruited 25 of them all at once. There's got to be something in how we're preparing the players that explains how and why they lack the ability to adapt to a game.
Stockport played things perfectly. They survived our pressure, they took advantage of a ref who was keen to give the fouls but not dish any cards out, they sat a bit deeper as the game progressed, drew us on and then smashed us repeatedly over the head with lightning breaks. In a way, it was almost a bit like what we did to teams in the Championship - fight for everything, make it hard, go hard at them when there's a chance and show no fear. It's weird that it was the same Critchley inspired that team to believe, to play at a level that we weren't sure they could play at. This team just haven't seemed inspired at all. They don't seem to believe.
It feels churlish and spiteful to pick on individuals when collectively we looked completely and utterly confused by Stockport - as if they defended too well and attacked too directly and that was surprise to us - the much vaunted 'shape, in and out of possession' fell to bits and would be better described as 'a shapeless mess'
For about half an hour, we relied almost completely on hitting diagonals to the right hand corner as our only tactic - it achieved absolutely nothing. I'm getting sick of football that is rigid and fearful. I don't know what we gave Stockport to think about barring a bit of pressing and a few potshots. The same applied last week. The same applied quite often last season. We don't make opportunities, we don't put spells of pressure together, we aren't good to watch and we aren't great defensively either. In fact, we were shocking defensively today. It's two games in, I know that but...
... Stockport played to their ability and strengths. Crawley did the week before. They had a coherent plan, an approach to that particular game and they executed it along with some tactical tweaks and adaptations. We just seem to do the same fucking thing, over and over, changing players but changing nothing. The players try gamely for a bit, but their heads go when that plan doesn't work because there doesn't appear to be another plan.
What worries me most of all is the focus Critchley gave after the game on defensive errors. Yeah, the defending was crap and yes, Grimmy dropped an absolute clanger, but not for one moment did he say 'we're not creating enough and that's drawing pressure on us because we can't attack with any real conviction and sooner or later....'
I'm going to chuck my season ticket at Critchley if Rob Apter doesn't start...The Rapter is in. Thank fuck. My season ticket is on my phone and I've only had it a few months. Would be costly. Lets have some glory. A bit of incisive football. Some goals. That type of thing. I quite like the team although I'm not sure about a pairing of two players who don't score goals up front.
---
We start pretty well, move the ball quite confidently and if I was in a better mood, I'd wax lyrical over a Sonny Carey switch of play that released Apter and note how a slick move where Jimmy put a cross in should have been met by someone. I'd also say we had a shout for a penalty.
As the half wore on, Stockport made a couple of chances from our sloppy play and maybe should have done a bit better with them. We seemed to have the ball loads, but not to do a lot, they had it less but created about as much as we did.
You might by now realise I'm not in the mood. Usually, I'd write too much, but it's all so familiar by now. We pressed, we harried, we knocked them off their stride a few times but we didn't actually have a shot that made it anywhere near their goal.
___
I thought we did ok for half an hour but we dropped off for the last 15 and looked to be losing our way. Stockport are disrupting us with niggly fouls and we're just getting frustrated with it.
-----
We looked a bit feistier again for a few minutes. I wouldn't say we're an explosive force of footballing brilliance in this spell, but we have some attacks and Lee Evans has a few shots from distance.
There's even a brief flash of fleeting joy as I think Ash Fletcher scores from a tight angle but the offside flag was up ages before he finished it.
Then we seem to lose our way again and, I'm checking the clock and thinking 'fucking hell this game is dragging on a bit' and we're letting a Stockport player wander through about 7 of our players and smash it home. It's an absolute sickening goal.
I know in my heart of hearts, this is over, a feeling that is redoubled when Critchley turns to CJ and takes off Apter. As much as CJ is sometimes the comic relief in a match blog, I don't actually mean this to be derogatory to him - it's the way that we don't change the set up, we just hope a different player yields a reward for the same basic way of playing. Apter is the only lock pick we possess. Stockport were always going to shut the door after scoring.
Still, y'never know do you?
It turns out you do. Grimmy is beyond criticism and I'll never slag the bearded wonder off, but fuck me, he has just thrown the ball straight back to them and everyone is in pure panic mode running around but not getting a foot in and they waltz up the middle and smash home a second. I slump. This is crap. It's been a crap match and we're 2-0 down now. I can handle crap football, but when it's crap and you're losing in such a pathetic manner it feels... pointless.
They add a third. They bully us. Someone little pushes someone big all over the shop. They score again. County fans make loads of noise. Watch the highlights if you want a proper explanation, I can't be arsed.
---
I can't really find anything to more to write about what happened. We looked characterless. The North looked weird and naked without the flags. A soulless white backdrop for a soulless grey team. We looked exactly the same as the low points of last season but without Kaddy. If I'm really scratching for positives, I liked Baggot and Apter played ok first half.
Overall though, we don't look remotely on it and I can't see what the 'it' is supposed to look like. This is the problem: I can't work out what we're actually trying to do.
I can't see how we're trying to score goals. I get that we press and swarm on the opposition for a bit, but that's not a tactic we can keep up for 90 minutes. If we don't score by forcing an error from them, then we don't look remotely like scoring in any other way. In two league games I struggle to think of a good chance we've missed.
The players can't be as fundamentally as insipid as they collectively look. You don't get to be a professional player without having some self belief. It's almost a default attribute if you're going to make it through all the incredibly demanding stages to get there.
If you've not got a bit of something about you mentally, you'd have to be supremely talented to play at any level and even then, we've all seen players who just can't cut it, despite having all the technical skills. I don't see how it's possible we've accidentally recruited 25 of them all at once. There's got to be something in how we're preparing the players that explains how and why they lack the ability to adapt to a game.
Stockport played things perfectly. They survived our pressure, they took advantage of a ref who was keen to give the fouls but not dish any cards out, they sat a bit deeper as the game progressed, drew us on and then smashed us repeatedly over the head with lightning breaks. In a way, it was almost a bit like what we did to teams in the Championship - fight for everything, make it hard, go hard at them when there's a chance and show no fear. It's weird that it was the same Critchley inspired that team to believe, to play at a level that we weren't sure they could play at. This team just haven't seemed inspired at all. They don't seem to believe.
It feels churlish and spiteful to pick on individuals when collectively we looked completely and utterly confused by Stockport - as if they defended too well and attacked too directly and that was surprise to us - the much vaunted 'shape, in and out of possession' fell to bits and would be better described as 'a shapeless mess'
For about half an hour, we relied almost completely on hitting diagonals to the right hand corner as our only tactic - it achieved absolutely nothing. I'm getting sick of football that is rigid and fearful. I don't know what we gave Stockport to think about barring a bit of pressing and a few potshots. The same applied last week. The same applied quite often last season. We don't make opportunities, we don't put spells of pressure together, we aren't good to watch and we aren't great defensively either. In fact, we were shocking defensively today. It's two games in, I know that but...
... Stockport played to their ability and strengths. Crawley did the week before. They had a coherent plan, an approach to that particular game and they executed it along with some tactical tweaks and adaptations. We just seem to do the same fucking thing, over and over, changing players but changing nothing. The players try gamely for a bit, but their heads go when that plan doesn't work because there doesn't appear to be another plan.
What worries me most of all is the focus Critchley gave after the game on defensive errors. Yeah, the defending was crap and yes, Grimmy dropped an absolute clanger, but not for one moment did he say 'we're not creating enough and that's drawing pressure on us because we can't attack with any real conviction and sooner or later....'
We aren't creating enough - we're not testing the other keeper, we're not whistling the ball past the post, we're not smashing it off the bar three times in a row, we're not stood there with our heads in our hands thinking 'how is not going in?' - take all the errors away and you've probably got two draws against sides who were in the league below us last year because whilst margins are fine and quality in key moments and in both boxes does count, we aren't playing well and I don't feel as if we've been hard done by.
We play some nice football in spells, but we look toothless up front and wobbly at the back. That's really a sign that something needs to change because it's not working. It doesn't look near to working. Spells of being near the other teams box for a bit isn't enough.
To put it another way - that wasn't a £31 (plus booking fee) product. Yes, the fucking Sealife Centre might be a similar price bracket Julian, but fuck me, as a consumer, I wish I'd gone there because those rays that stick their heads up above the water are a lot more fun than anything at a testy, surly and anxious Bloomfield Road this afternoon.
Onward:
Onward:
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