After a 4 hr journey and a huge M50 tailback, I arrived at the turnstile at
exactly the same time as Malcolm Fawcett and his lady
friend/girlfriend/wife. The match had just started and quite a bright start
at that. Don't tek any notice of the reports from the Swansea fans that
they launched wave upon wave of attacks in the early stages. I turned to
Malcolm at 3.15 and said - 'Is it me or is most of this game being played in
their half?'
The team was as follows:
Weaver
Barr Brightwell Whitehead Clark
Hopper Prokas Skelton Searle
Walker Tracey
Unfortunately, the following may not be in the right order as the long
tailback stoped me from grabbing my notebook and pen on the motorway. But
it is a fairly accurate description.
They came out with a couple of quick attacks, with not a lot to show though.
This lasted a couple of minutes, and then we went mad for it for about 15
minutes. The rest of the half the spoils were pretty even.
Clarke and Searle were linking up on the left wuite weel. It seemed a good
idea that they have both played left back and wide midfield in the past,
this enabling them to swap around a bit Clark overlapping several times to
good effect Clarke has learnt to pass too. He looks pretty good when
passing 5 yards inside to Prokas, who is now willing to drop back to help
with distribution. Clark even managed to put a few decent crosses in when
he went upfield. He easily had the beating of their full back when he went
forward. The only bad thing about Clark in the first half was taking out
their right winger in a very clumsy challenge. I thought it might be red,
but hence, only a yellow.
On the right, well what can I say. Barr at right back and Hopper further
forward. Barr is no Clark. Occassionally tried a short pass, but normally
to either a marked man or across field. Most of the time a hoof is still
his favourite option. As a defender, still not up to it. He did one superb
sliding tackle which the referee decided to interpret as a foul. He was
closer than me and the foot to ball rule was so obviously followed he must
have been in Land of My Fathers mode at the time. Hopper at least had the
sense to realise Barr does not have the skill, so he was dropping back to
assist, and his short passing has improved immensely. Unfortunately, not as
good as Searle at beating his man, and all too often a long ball forward to
the front two was his ploy.
The two centre halves. Brightwell has improved hugely to the quivering
wreck I saw last year at Plymouth, Scarborough and Mansfield. OK - I only
saw 3 games, but he was the worst on the pitch for all 3. Against Swansea,
he seems to have taken on a Franz Beckenbauer personality - and not bad at
it either. He was always a couple of yards behind Whitehead and always made
himself available to receive, often beating the first man to challenge him,
and finding a yellow shirt 90% of the time. His tackling is also much
better. He made several crucial clearances and his only frailty seems to be
his lack of pace. He only looked dodgy at one point, when they almost
scored midway through the first half. Othe than that - a mountain. I am
eating my words as I thought he was a waste of space, but he has proved me
wrong.
Whitehead is still a star. Only one mistake I saw - other than that not a
problem.
The back four seemed to enjoy passing it from one side to the other,
patiently waiting for a colleagur further upfield to become free and passing
well, as opposed to panicking and hoofing - much better ato watch and so
much more effective. Thing is - now we have a striker who can actually keep
the ball up, we could probably get away with hoofing it. Funny old game -
innit!
In the centre of the park, much has improved. I suspesct with the inclusion
of Skelton over Anthony, Anthony may realise he is not in the plans of
Wilko. Skelton looks to have potential. Didn't do anythng spectacular,
just got on with the job. I was worried about him being pressured to
provide the creative spark. But surprisingly, Prokas has started passing
forward. He even managed a superb 20 ydshot on goal in the first half which
on any other day would have gone in, but Roger Freestone just having one of
those days, managed to stretch to the top corner and get rid of it. It was
going to take something special to beat him.
Tracey I was disappointed with . After all the talk of him last week, he
really didn't do a lot. Walker on the other hand, was up for it. Chasing
everything, on top of his first touch which is brilliant. He wins a
surprising amount in the air for a short bloke. His vision - he seems to
have an eye in the side of his head. He plays mostly with back to goal, but
he was holding the ball up, waiting for 3 defenders to commit, then
offloading. Soley will positively love running through from midfield off
this lad.
Finally - Weaver. To sum him up I would repeat what Malcolm said - 'The
best thing Tony Caig ever did for this club was leave'. Weaver made 3 point
blank reaction saves. We will do well to keep him if he does sign. Pure
class.
In the first half, the score could have been 2-2 - both attacking forces
creating loads and the defences and in particular goalkeepers going beyond
the course of duty. The ref was biased as hell, penalising us for nowt and
giving us nowt. In the second half, Swansea didn't get a touch for 13
minutes (yes I did look at my watch). Then about 10 mins after that they
scored after a 5 minute spell of pressure with about 300 corners in
succession. After that we died a bit and it wasn't until things changed
that we started to play. Skelton went off and Roddie came on the left side,
with Searkle taking a central role. Roddie can beat his man, but his
crossing was poor. Then Thorpe came on and I lost the plot, couldn't see
who went off but I was a bit confused that we had played 3 different player
wide left. Thorp did now except a couple of crap crosses.
Pitts came on and I think he replaced Barr - but as I say I lost the plot a
bit. I remember Prokas running about 50 yards and playing rather a nice
FORWARD ball to Thorpe who wasted it. The last 10 was a seige as we went
for it, but came away with nowt.
Until next time.
Tata
Chris MacFarlane
An away fans perspective. I for one enjoyed the game yesterday, as did most of the North Bank judging by the various chants and cheers once we had scored. Roger was the man of the match as he saved us from our feeble efforts at goal. 3 brilliant saves, that I think he made look good! Roberts was brilliant again down the right, with Price adding good support and attacking options, but unfortunately it meant that we were slightly exposed behind him. Roberts created numerous opportunities for us, but a lack of a half decent striker meant we couldn't convert anything. Thier keeper did well mind. Absolutely no movement down the left, Howard (Mr I can run backwards and sideways at the same time, but don't ask me to tackle), was rubbish. Superb pair of bound and Smith, how did we manage to keep them? Thomas, worryingly quiet. O'Leary, great running and tackling, he does look a bit suspect in the air. Cusack, ran more than usual. Watkin, held the ball up really well, with great lay offs. Should have scored. Bird, tried too harsd almost. I can't see him starting the next game. Alsop came on and our first touch was from Bound, high and long, only to see Alsop jump, miss the ball completely and end up on his arse. Appleby, Ithink he did actually show aa lot more passion yeaterday. He created some chances for himself out of nothing which he was unlucky not to find the back of the net with. Overall, with a good striker, or one on form, it would have been 5-0. But a the end of the day, 3 points, regardless. Shame about the defensive attitutude at the end. Ref had a good game apart from missing 3 blatant hand balls and a couple of hard tackles on the creative Roberts. Rich Carway till I die
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