The Cheltenham Roar

[Chrisr]

Having watched coley's after match interview I have to say he took responsibility. He was fair in his assessment of the game all round, I hope he does have a long hard look at his tactics and selections. The timing of unenforced substitutions is critical. All round there needs to be a session on communication, I noticed the looks on players faces when there was no outlet for them to pass to. we persist in playing one striker up front for long periods which is too much of an ask for a player. We don't get up to support the lone striker anywhere near quick enough. I just hope we can get it right. We have enough talent in the squad to beat any team in this division.

[cashman]

Whilst he took responsibility, he also said Cheltenham played ever so well !!! I certainly didn't and neither did anyone around our bunch, In fact i would go so far as to say, i thought they were one of the worst Div2 sides ive seen this season.

[maccawozzagod]

Originally Posted by cashman

To me to take Hughes off and replace him with a striker, when the game could have gone either way, was very poor judgement imho.

Absolute cock of a comment Cashy. It was 0-0 and they had just gone down to ten men, and took a striker off. We reacted correctly to that and went 3 at the back. It led directly to our goal.

No defending the shambles of a goal coceded but it wasnt because of a crap substitution

[cashman]

So all those that thought the same made a cock of a comment. and there was quite a few around us.

[Lord Stiffupperlip]

After the heroics at Chesterfield on Tuesday, I think we all thought this would be a walk in the park. How wrong can you be. Cheltenham defied their lowly league position and the odds to come back from 1-0 down to frustrate Stanley with only 10 men!
I can't agree they were a poor team. They were lively and passed the ball quickly and effectively. If they were poor, I've seen worse at the Wham. To keep 45% possession away from home is no mean feat. Even after Stanley scored and they lost a man, they continued to press our defence.
Must admit I too was surprised at the team selection thinking Coleman would play the same team that thrashed Chesterfield. Why no GTF?
Some of the later substitutions seemed illogical. Another frustrating performance in front of our own supporters, but perhaps no more than we deserved.

[choirboy]

Been out all evening at a superb Beer Festival at The Fort's Arms in Clayton le Moors, 'twas the centre of the whole Universe tonight!
Bitterly disappointed with our performance today against a very ordinary looking Cheltenham side!
I cannot understand why we started with three players wide on the right who are all of similar styles...O'Sullivan, Clarke and Boco could all play the same position but O'Sullivan did start wide on the right, with Boco on the left and Clarke buzzing around behind O'Sullivan! We didn't start with a single left sided player! Also Pearson was playing left back, (He is clearly right footed!) but did his job well as he always does!
The defence looked quite solid but we were sadly lacking in midfield. Seamus was coming back from injury but sadly rediscovered his early season mediocre form and contributed little. Scotty Brown buzzed about but lots of passes went astray and we always seemed to be beaten to the second ball in midfield today!
Up front Terry just does not do enough physically for me, although he took his header really well when he found himself unmarked!
After about twenty minutes I remarked that we were making a very ordinary Cheltenham team look good!
Free kicks for us ...OMG....two players running over the ball and the third kicking it way over the crossbar........must take a lot of practice to achieve that guys!
Refereering? ...pathetic! Although it was by no means a dirty match, Cheltenham could/should have had three players sent off! No 7 and No 28 both booked early on got away with a number of professional fouls later and should have both gone before the one sending off. Amazingly the Ref branded a second yellow for the professional foul on Terry when he was clean through on goal which did result in a red card but surely it should have been a straight red card anyway!
I took my youngest Grandson on for his first Stanley experience and after half time we moved from the Clayton End to the Whinney Hill 'Grandstand' to get a better view from four feet off the ground!. We sat about a third of the way down the pitch in the classic 'offside' zone behind the referee's assistant. I could not believe the lack of input from him at one incident where Beckles was going for a clearing header and got the right side of Cheltenham's centre forward to get his header in and had his shirt clearly pulled!. He still got his header away but as it happened I called for the foul to the liner shouting..."Liner, you must have seen the shirt pull because I saw it! You are supposed to 'Assist' the referee man! Do your job!"
Overall a fairly poor performance from us with an imbalanced side lacking in midfield and up front!
Must do better IMHO!

[Lord Didsbury]

Choirboy- it was the best referee performance I've seen at the Wham. A lesser man could have sent Boco off for a slightly late challenge but instead had the awareness to know there was no malice. This bloke played on at every opportunity. He was a breath of fresh air.
In my humble opinion of course!

[Lord Didsbury]

Cashy - Cheltenham were poor individually, but played well as a team I thought. They definitely knew how to contain us.

Whilst Coleman's interview was not entirely consistent I think he knows he has a good squad of players and ultimately the success (or lack of it) rests with him.

[AccyMad]

Best referee performance? Really - were we at The same game? He should've sent off their player for that terrible tackle in the first half on Rommy which sent him clattering into the railings near the dugout - he bottled it & ended up dithering through the rest of the game, maybe him not booking Rommy was his way of compensating for his earlier mistake but their players took their cue from that & subsequently got away with murder as Mr. Miller lost his grip on the game

[monkey hanger]

a few observations from a very forgettable game. i found the game to be a total bore. poor passes abounding and certain players always looking to pass backwards when they receive the ball. our free kicks in goal scoring positions are on par with a poor sunday league side and why do other sides look more dangerous than we do when they get a corner. do we practice either, if not we should really spend a lot of time on both as points have been dropped with other sides getting their set pieces right. neither side deserved a win yesterday. as for the ref. well where do you start. still playing to last years laws regarding goal scoring opportunity decisions. as we saw a few weeks ago hughes sent off correctly, yesterday their guy got a yellow then the red as he was previously cautioned. as for the romy incident he continued to follow up on his challenge which to me was excessive force as they call it. a day to forget, can,t be any worse next week against afc oyston unfortunatly i wont be their to witness it.

[smudgie]

Well my first game in a few weeks and I have to say my word it was poor. I almost nodded off in the 2nd half.

The ONLY bright sparks for me where O Sullivan and Gornell who scored a great header. As for the rest, massively average at best. Cheltenham bossed the game for large period's and I thought their number 7 in particular bossed the Midfield.

Massively forgettable afternoon out.

Will be interesting to see how many Tangerine's make the trip next Saturday. One thing is for sure, we need to improve.

[Exile on Spencer St]

No League 2 team is so poor that they haven't figured out how to frustrate Stanley by pressing them constantly. Cambridge looked pretty average.

From watching yesterday's 'highlights' (sic) one of the questions would be why did Mr. Chapman choose to parry the header that lead to their goal? I know all about light balls moving in the air and all that stuff, but the header wasn't that hard. The Cheltenham keeper simply caught an equally good header from Rommy. Chapman is a giant, he could touch the bar standing still. Why can't keepers hold onto balls that are headed more or less straight at them? An example of panic, as Professor Coleman mentioned?

[choirboy]

Originally Posted by Lord Didsbury

Choirboy- it was the best referee performance I've seen at the Wham. A lesser man could have sent Boco off for a slightly late challenge but instead had the awareness to know there was no malice. This bloke played on at every opportunity. He was a breath of fresh air.
In my humble opinion of course!

Lord D....
Whilst I applaud our referees general attempts to maintain the flow of matches, yesterday was an example where the referee should have pulled play up occasionally after twenty minutes or so to warn players that the yellow card would be next.
Cheltenham had more than an average number of tall players who used their height to 'Barge' into our two centre backs. Beckles deservedly got the MOM award because his strength enabled him to cope better than Hughes who was substituted. It was a 'Barge' by the Cheltenham lad that caused the incident where Boco was assaulted! Their lad was trying to win a throw in by 'sheilding' the ball to let it go out of play. Boco tried, as he always does, to get around his opponent only to be shoved unceremoniously into the dug out wall! It was indeed highly dangerous play and really compromised the safety of a fellow professional. Had this happened on the street, the Cheltenham lad could well have been on a charge of attempting to cause GBH! If the referee had blown straight away for the initial 'Barge' then the second offence could have been avoided. Actually the referee, who was very close to the incident, didn't even blow his whistle or signal for an offence. He was going to give a throw in and only took action as a result of the fracas that ensued! Good refereeing Lord D?....not in my book!
Having said all of the above it was not IMHO a particulalry 'dirty' match but the referee got several decisions wrong by not punishing the barging or the professional fouls enough and yes .....Romy should have been booked late on for that foul from behind which occured right under my nose on the Whinney Hill side!

To say..."This bloke played on at every opportunity."....does not necessarily make for a good performance by a referee ...IMHO!

ps Stanley need to do better!

[Outback Ozzy]

Positive from yesterday - over 1500 Stanley fans on, so the trend is on the up, however, if we serve up this tripe then that trend will quickly be on a downward spiral.

[Twenty Eight]

Originally Posted by mab

Josh windass is in the mainstand

Personally I prefer the other forward Danny Webber who was in the stand.