Match Thread - Grimsby Town v Port Vale

[philpvfc]

He's had this before. I don't know if anyone else remembers but when we lost 5-2 at Watford in 1996, and played abysmally, Aspo and some of the other players came over to thank the Vale fans and they weren't thanked in return. Not sure if he'll remember but it was the first time I'd seen the Vale fans turn on the players and it wasn't a pretty sight. Hope we don't see a repeat.

 

Similar happened at Bradford after the game once, fans had a go at Aspin and Jeffers stepped in and took a swipe at a fan.

[Heatwave]

An individual error from a normally sound player left us with a mountain to climb. That said, it was so early in the game that we could and should have turned it round. That we didn't tells volumes on how much we depend on Manny Oyeleke because it seems that when he doesn't play, neither do we.

 

Given his injury record, he'll miss more games for us than he plays. Unless something is done about changing the system or bringing in a quality replacement there'll be a lot more Grimsbys before the end of the season.

[Bald Eagle]

Not having that,Pope is like Dennis Law at his best.

 

More like after drinking with George Best!

[cpade]

Miller has always played like that. If you look at the video of his best season with Dover you will see time after time that he takes it on himself rather than pass. It worked at National League level but it won't in L2 and that's what he's got to adapt to. Until he learns that developing a partnership is more effective than constantly taking it on himself, he isn't going to succeed. That's the paradox.

 

Did u go today? Miller made a big difference today. We had nothing without him

[CambridgeDon]

No I didn't go. I'm sure you're right and in my earlier posts, I questioned why he wasn't starting.

 

But my comment wasn't about today's game. It was about Miller's tendency not to pass when well placed. You can see it's paid off for him in the past - take a look:

but it's not working in a higher league.

 

Promising as he is, his game would improve a lot if his decision-making was better - when to pass, when not to, and when to go on your own.

[davehartshill]

Yet another absolute disaster under Aspin.

 

**** starting 11. **** tactics. **** substitutions.

 

Genuinely starting to believe there is something going on behind the scenes in terms of Aspin and his relationship with the players.

 

Get rid and go get Jimmy Bell (Coleman’s assistant). I’d want Coleman but he would never, ever come here. At least under Bell we would try to attack and play football.

[darren1810]

Jimmy Bell has just signed a lengthy contract extension at Accrington.

Non- starter

[smithie]

Shocking from Vale, but the abuse Aspin got at full time was embarrassing from Vale fans.

 

He was half a pitch away but strode over clearly having seen or heard something. Not good to see a Vale legend getting involved like that. Heaven knows what would have happened if he'd got to the bloke abusing him.

[oakesypvfc]

Anybody got a link for this altercation?

[Sandyford_Lion]

At least we beat Cambridge, Northampton and Crewe in relegation six pointers !!!

 

That is our hope for this season.

Macclesfield

Morecambe

Cheltenham

and the teams listed above are games we must not lose

 

Unfortunately Grimsby are also on that list.

A bad result today

[smithie]

Did u go today? Miller made a big difference today. We had nothing without him

 

For me, him coming on was only going to work if Whitfield came on at the same time. As it was there was too much to do by the time Ben got on.

 

It really was a stinking performance from nearly every player today.

[Sandyford_Lion]

I'm not for changing managers but Aspo needs a serious wake up call and pdq if you ask me. This was a perfect opportunity to get back on our feet after Tuesday but why did I think before the game that we'd lose, even though we're playing one of the worst teams in L2? The answer is that I have serious doubts about Aspo's ability to match his team selection and tactics to those of our opponents, how to pick the team up, and how to win away from home. And so it proved. This was Grimsby for goodness sake, a perfect chance to take the game to a team lacking confidence but no, we set up defensively as if we're playing Lincoln, and we got what we deserved. These are the times away from home when you need to take the game to your opponent. If we can't do this against the likes of Grimsby when are we going to? It's easy with hindsight but if the game report had said we'd really turned it on against them but lost against the run of play, it would feel a lot better than it does now. Reward is in direct proportion to risk - and it seems to me Aspo just won't take it.

 

After this, my biggest worry is the effect on the players because they will know when we're not playing our best side against weak opponents. With ineptitude of this order, how will it affect their confidence? Improvement is needed now and quick.

 

It's a good job there are far weaker teams in L2 or we would be in real trouble.

 

Hoping Macclesfield and MOrecambe, although both teams can score goals

We will score the least goals of anyone so i am not too sure about teams being far weaker than us.

[PV1973]

After Tuesdays horror show this isn’t the performance we wanted to follow it up with. Is that down to the initial starting 11 and the tactics though? I don’t mind having players like Kay or Joyce sitting in as holding midfielders, but then why go and play with 1 up front? Because the main problem we have in playing 1 up front is Pope having no support at all. Maybe it’s not so bad with someone like Whitfield playing in a kind of number ten role, but we didn’t even have that. Although the irony of that is we probably did have the better of the first half without really creating much at all.

 

Putting miller on gave them more to think about, because he is a live wire, but I don’t think we played that much better in the second half. We only had a couple of half chances from miller and Pope that they could have done better with. I think we waited too long to get Whitfield on and I was surprised Kanu wasn’t used too.

 

Personally I think we should have started on the front foot. We had no real pace to go at them so they knew we weren’t really going to get behind them.

 

I sound like a broken record but we don’t have any plan b still. Just lump it in the box and hope something drops. It’s so frustrating watching the same things not work and we keep doing them. That’s the extent of our attacking play. We’re not seeing full backs overlap to get behind at pace to put in dangerous crosses, we’re not seeing a midfielder breaking the lines on a regular basis to go past a forward, we’re not using a link up player in a number ten role, we’re not threading passes through for runners. I’m concerned that even through we’ve improved the playing side that we’re not seeing an improvement in tactics.

 

We are also still very vulnerable down our left side. Today showed it again. Granted the first is an horrendous mistake, (I’m sure it was Clark that put a Crewe player through with a sloppy back pass the other week too), and the second saw some really slack marking on that side to allow players behind us to again to cut a ball across goal. But anyway I think we struggled to get back from that first goal and we weren’t helped by the formation either because we just weren’t set up to attack IMO.

 

We have seen some good work this last few weeks (despite some shortcomings going forward and defensively) but I think today was Aspin reverting back to last seasons type, with too many changes and not just in personnel but in formation too. I think we should have a plan that we stick too, an identity almost, not change it every time we lose because I’m not sure that helps the players changing things.

 

Today was negative imo. That’s what gets the fans backs up, although I went early I didn’t see what happened at the end with the abuse he was getting. Overall I thought today’s performance was worse than last seasons at Grimsby.

[bycars bootboy]

Reality check.This club will finish mid table,no more no less.That will be Aspo's remit for this season.Any supporters who expect otherwise then I'm afraid are deluded.

[valefan16]

It’s frustrating to be honest, the squad is clearly better than last year, there’s nowhere on the pitch weaker than last year so we should be doing better... but it just feels looking at the games coming up that we are probably going to float around on tender hooks again looking over our shoulder.

 

I’m not sure what the answer is... is it change the management but then that’s another rebuild... what’s really poor is three games in a row we’ve conceded an identical goal... Exeter goal, MK’s 1st and Grimsbys 2nd... ball played low across the face of the goal for a tap in. We need to be learning from those errors.

 

We also massively need to go and figure a way of playing without Manny as the stats are worrying...

 

1 league defeat where he has played the majority of the game...

 

No points in games he hasn’t featured.

 

If playing a deep sitting formation you need pace to get up and support Pope, Whitfield should of started... isn’t Kanu meant to be pacey? Pope supported by Kanu and Whitfield would have made more sense with Hannant in the centre with Conlon and Hardcastle?

 

Worrall seems to be a shadow of the player he was last year...

 

How long can Pope limp through games if not fit? Potentially we could have a theee week break in November from league action (Mansfield is on international weekend and they have postponed on the last one due to call ups) with the FA Cup after Notts County so May be an idea to get it sorted then to miss less key games?

 

Lincoln will be tough, they’ve struggled a bit for goals the last couple of weeks and wouldn’t shock me if we got a result but we need something soon to stop the rot setting in. Luckily Cambridge and Macc Town are in dire form and Cambridge have equally tough looking fixtures coming up.

 

Some big questions to figure out again... feels a long time since this time last week when we were bouncing.