whitehead was marking the big tall guy when clearly carr or morley should have been marking him. carr was atrocious flogging goals and marking fresh air birch had a very bad game should have got a tackle in to stop the first goal caught time after time switched to midfield for a couple of goals then back again. he got no support from connelly who was again very poor. glennon had an awful game culminating in a corking error for their fifth goal when he let the ball pass through his hands.
in midfield we had nothing. cullen has nice touches but doesn't look particularly fit. galloway looks overweight and unfit and onlt seems to play to take corners connelly as i said is/was rubbish
up front stevens never got a sniff, dobie worked hard and had some nice touches was unlucky a couple of times when his shots were blocked halliday came on and linked up quite well with dobie and cullen heggs came on and missed a sitter from 5 yards before seemingly screaming abuse into the carlisle crowd (anybody see/hear what was going on here??)
the support was as vocal as any you will have ever heard at a carlisle away match. ian atkins blue and white army went on for about twenty minutes at the start of the second half encapsulating rochdales 5th and 6th goals without even pausing for breath or expletives. it must have really pissed off the home fans who got excited when they scored but failed to make themselves heard over the blue army.
Chris Kearton
I only saw the end of that incident and may have misunderstood but the impression I got was, from my limited lip reading ability, Heggs mouthed the words while gesturing towards Atkins "he doesn't know what he's f#####g doing !"
I would agree with this as Birch and Connely certainly didn't know what they were doing and Carr and Whitehead seemed to think that each other should be marking the forwards !
However a comment like this coming from a forward who has scored around 25 goals in 10 years of a career can't really be taken seriously although who signed him ?
I think the main blame for this defeat was Atkins getting the tactics totally wrong and from the awful start to the match the players lost heart. Atkins was very subdued all the match - that for me was the most worrying part of the night. If Atkins loses confidence then we are without doubt going to drop out of the league.
The support was brilliant - I really cant remember a crowd like it, after the match it felt like leaving Chesterfield about 5 years ago when Steve Norris and Kevin Davies ripped us apart and we never got into that game either.
I'll be there on Saturday - PLEASE DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT PLAYING HEGGS !.
Rant over
Trevor Potts
As Chris Kearton has said, after the first goal, it was obvious that Whitehead should have been marking the other striker as he was constantly outjumped and outmuscled. Carr would have done a better job with the tall striker
Both wingbacks were virtually playing as wide midfielders, leaving a flat back 3 at the back. This left acres of space for Rochdale down both flanks - they chose Birch's side, and as he had pushed on, Whitehead was constantly covering Birch at right back, leaving just Carr and Morley in the middle. Witehead was effectively trying to mark 3 players.
The 3 midfielders were slow to get back to help - Connelly in particular, so him and Birch were swapped, but Atkins seemed to fail to realise it was the formation, not the personnel. So for the 3rd (I think) goal, Connelly pushed on and down the flank it went, Whitehead came to cover the right back slot, and there we were, up the creek in the middle.
The obvious thing to do was either go 532 or go 442 to close the flanks, and swap the markers. Instead, it was in the 2nd half that Atkins changed it to 4-3-3 with Halliday switching to midfield at every opportunity to get more of the ball. This allowed Cullen to get further forward, and we started to create a little bit. Even Heggs created the odd chance, particularly when running into the inside right position, plus he fluffed an awful chance when it was easier to score.
Hopefully we will now be back to a flat 4 or 5 man defence, and hopefully Atkins will say nowt til after the event. He opened his mouth before the Exeter and Rochdale games, and it backfired. I wish he wouldn't do that.
Chris McFarlane
Have to agree, it was unbelievably bad at times and for me it isn't over yet. Going to work after three hours sleep I just know when I open the door I will be greeted by a chorus of 'Sally' and other such songs, don't you just love working with armchair prem' supporters?!
The support we took down to the match was amazing, never stopped singing for the whole 90 minutes. One of the Rochdale stewards said they'd never experienced an away crowd like it.
Anyway by tonight the match will be in the past, it was awful but its gone. I'd settle for one 6 - 0 defeat over two 2 - 1 defeats anytime. I think the team we have now has the guts to bounce back from this, roll on Saturday!
Bumble
Carlisle's revival came completely off the rails as they suffered a six goal humiliation at play-off contenders Rochdale - their heaviest defeat of the season.
Dale were well worth their win which could have been embarrassingly more for the Cumbrians.
Carlisle never came to terms with the pace and movement of hat-trick hero Paul Connor and his fellow strike partner Clive Platt.
Carlisle boss Ian Atkins was disappointed with his team's performance and said: "The three central defenders never coped with their long balls. They just couldn't handle it and we got punished. Some of the players think they've cracked it but will now be back to earth. We will have to dust ourselves down and get on with it on Saturday against Blackpool.
Their strike partnership cost quarter of a million pounds and that sums it up. We now need to go undefeated for the remaining games and we are capable of doing that."
Carlisle started like they meant business forcing three corners in the first two minutes. This proved to be a false dawn as Rochdale took over.
Paul Connor played in Gary Jones after eight minutes for the Dale man to place his shot across the helpless Matty Glennon into the bottom corner.
On 22 minutes a Stuart Whitehead foul on Connor allowed Lee Todd to step up and curl the resulting free kick into the top corner of the net.
Conner had two further scoring opportunities before he scored Dales' third on 30 minutes, after holding off a Whitehead challenge to slot passed Glennon.
Worse was to follow four minutes later when Platt played in Connor who grabbed his second goal with a thunderous shot into the top left hand corner.
With traffic virtually one way the Cumbrians were more than pleased to get to half time without conceding further goals.
Carlisle again started the second half brightly with Jon Cullen getting a header on target from a Gordon Connelly cross after 53 minutes.
Mick Galloway then fed Dobie in on the left only for Neil Edwards to turn his shot away for a corner.
Cullen then ripped a fight foot shot wide of the post before a hopeless cause became completely lost on 61 minutes.
Dale full back Wayne Evans hit a speculative shot from 40 yards only for Glennon to completely misjudge the bounce allowing the ball to bobble through his hands and into the net.
Three minutes later the final nail was hammered home when Conner snatched his third as the Carlisle defence allowed him to turn and volley passed Glennon.
The only positive thing to come out of the night was the magnificent of the 842 strong Cumbrian support whose performance unfortunately was not matched by the players.
Mike Corry
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