Match Thread: Rochdale v Port Vale

[Guitar Ray]

We can talk about formations and tactics til the cows come home but the biggest factor for me since the cancellations, and possibly going back beyond this, has been a distinct lack of tempo in our play.  Last night we were rolling the ball around like it was a friendly, certainly first half, just knocking it around on the halfway line, and when we lost the ball there didn’t seem to be enough urgency overall.   OK the pitch was tricky but everything looked so slow.  Add to that both teams kept turning the ball over, numerous unforced errors, making for a very scrappy affair.

In the end Wilson has to score that chance and it’s game over.  We’ll done to David Amoo who was great when he came on.

[saintvaliant]

Sadly I think the season is slipping away from us. 2 wins in 10 games and 9 goals in the same period. 

Whichever way you dress it, that isn’t promotion form.

Not without mitigation given what the squad has experienced over the past 3 months but that’s life.

I can only see the season being salvaged by a change in system to throw a bit of caution to the wind but the management team seem entrenched with playing 3 at the back, even against dreadful sides like Rochdale last night where they played most of the game with 1 up front.

[valeparklife]

Feel like the most used phrase this season has been "we should have been out of sight".

[darren1810]

I'm not having a pop at anyone here, we all have opinions rightly so. 

But I'm not feeling the comments like we've been scrapping for our lives, it's an improvement,  we will be up there next season etc 

You have to grab the bull by the horns in the moment.  This season has been decimated by injuries but last night bar Conlon that was our strongest side. Who knows what the summer will bring but I for one would expect Stockport ( if promoted) to be right up there ,then a couple of the relegated teams plus the usual suspects.  

This has been a massive opportunity to have success ( might still happen) but as predicted games in hand means nothing and the gap is not good. As other posters have said let's go for it. 

I'd much rather miss out by 3 points giving it a damn good go with a few humdinger 3-2 or 4-3 games than this slow plodding safe football we are playing. 

If you miss out by 1 point, 3 points or 17 points the end product is the same. 

That game was there for a 3-0 spanking of yet another mediocre opponent.  

In fact over the last 5 or 6 weeks I'd describe Salford Orient and Rochdale as the epitome of league 2 mediocrity.  We got 2 points from 9. 

As you can tell I'm still brassed off !! 

 

[Jacko51]

8 hours ago, Santa said:

Lucas isn’t even on the bench these days. What makes people think he’s ahead of Stone in the eyes of the coaching staff?

In my opinion both Stone and Covolan are better than Holy. 

[Guitar Ray]

9 hours ago, Santa said:

It’s not about Wilson’s miss, it’s more about all the chances we didn’t create due to approaching the match in completely the wrong way.

We might as well give up on the idea of getting in the play offs if we don’t have the cojones to play those sort of matches properly. A decent side doesn’t come away from that sort of situation with a hard luck story. F F S 

The “chances we didn’t create” are purely hypothetical though.  The fact is that in an admittedly poor performance Wilson’s miss actually happened.  Having said that we have to defend better for their goal.

[Raveninblack]

8 minutes ago, valeparklife said:

Feel like the most used phrase this season has been "we should have been out of sight".

 

10 minutes ago, saintvaliant said:

Sadly I think the season is slipping away from us. 2 wins in 10 games and 9 goals in the same period. 

Whichever way you dress it, that isn’t promotion form.

Not without mitigation given what the squad has experienced over the past 3 months but that’s life.

I can only see the season being salvaged by a change in system to throw a bit of caution to the wind but the management team seem entrenched with playing 3 at the back, even against dreadful sides like Rochdale last night where they played most of the game with 1 up front.

I agree, we need to be more assertive and have more speed up front, the youngsters up front lack guile and are too much of ‘a work in progress’ for other clubs: get at teams and put them on the back foot, but we won’t play many teams worse than Rochdale but our fate is still in our own hands with two games in hand with Newport at home and others like Exeter away, we still have a chance but we need to stop fearing other teams and ‘get at them’ but the dreaded Stevenage are next!

[Guitar Ray]

4 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

In my opinion both Stone and Covolan are better than Holy. 

Not sure why but when I watch Holy I can’t help but feel the guy looks decidedly lacking in confidence.  No idea why this should be.  He’s not had much to do to be honest.

[Beech]

 

Looking back if Wilson buries his chance, which he should have done, the game finishes 0-2 and we're all saying what a professional, "little fuss" performance it was, that we won it without getting out of second gear. But I don't think anyone can't not agree that we're just not going after teams enough currently. We generally start games so slowly now, and if we do get a goal we seem more than content to sit on it and hope it will be enough.

I can't help but feel how many more points we might have had of late had Conlon been fit. Just his set piece ability alone might have turned one or two draws into wins. He's such a big player for us and hopefully when he does return he can be 100% match fit instead of playing at 70%.

[Breadwinner]

My marks .

Holy 6 nowt do 

Gibbons 5 he usually gets us playing at a tempo last night everything he did was poor ,did he limp off injured or were we only giving him 45 mins .

Smith 7 as a stopper terrific won everything ,going forwards as one of 3 nothing happening there. 

Walker 7.2 thought he won everything too apart from 94th minute calamity where it looked like the team had took a bung let them have a totally undeserved point which should not have being forthcoming .

Hall 7 same as Smith and Walker .

Hussey 6.7  set up the goal and generally did well in keeping Vale in major control most of second half .

Pett 7.8 thought he moved the ball on well kept us winning ball and was generally excellent .

Garrity 7.9  same as Pett headed us ahead with a  fine finish shame we cannot play him.in Wilsons position as well and there aint  2 of him he is a brilliant player my star man .

Cooper 6.6 tried but never really got past players and struggled had a shot saved was working ever so hard but lacking quality .

Wilson 4 should have buried that chance after smashing work from Amoo generally is playing like a lost soul no real impact doesn't get in behind doesn't win anything at all in the air in general the last few games I've seen of him v Northampton and last night he as being generally not showing much at all .

Proctor 6 5 we were doing OK especially second half with Proctor doing good team play till he limped off .

Subs Amoo 7.0 livened us up in final third I thought he did well .

Worrall 6 4 better than Gibbons had a shot saved .

Charsley 6.5 buzzed about looked like he had some go in him .

So generally it wasn't a bad display OK scoreline was I agree with most posters of that but a bad display is letting opposition have shot after shot with nobody putting there bodies on the line the fact Rochdale who used be in league one last year had maximum 2 shots all night shows that defensively as a team we are rigid and determined and good .

However attacking wise we are not fluent and we are not sparking at present and we need to do so pronto .

I'll go against most on this forum and say this we are capable of winning 14 of last 16 games if we improve our attacking impetus it was the final third what let us down last night as we pressed them so well for 93 minutes generally and made them look a awful side .

Need to find a way of getting Garrity further forward and sorry to say this Wilson needs be dropped I can see why he isn't prolific and spends more time injured than playing he hides well thats no use there's no hiding place .

740 hats off to the travellers including lad and nephew .

Keep the faith 

UTV 

 

[PV1973]

37 minutes ago, Guitar Ray said:

We can talk about formations and tactics til the cows come home but the biggest factor for me since the cancellations, and possibly going back beyond this, has been a distinct lack of tempo in our play.  Last night we were rolling the ball around like it was a friendly, certainly first half, just knocking it around on the halfway line, and when we lost the ball there didn’t seem to be enough urgency overall.   OK the pitch was tricky but everything looked so slow.  Add to that both teams kept turning the ball over, numerous unforced errors, making for a very scrappy affair.

In the end Wilson has to score that chance and it’s game over.  We’ll done to David Amoo who was great when he came on.

Rochdale just sat back and we couldn’t find the gaps or make the gaps should I say. That’s where you need a bit more creativity and maybe even a tweak in formation during the game to try and unlock them. 
 

Oh well BW at least your ratings are good for a laugh at least. Gibbo 4 and everything he did was wrong is wrong, his sub was planned to give him 45 mins of match fitness if you read crosbys comments. Walker took a bung? WTF. Worrall is still out of form. Cooper couldn’t keep hold of the ball and it kept coming back. Wilson 4 and he hides, ridiculous. 
There is another team out there that we are playing against, if they set up as they did and we play a formation like we did then we will struggle to be creative and that’s what happened last night. You need to understand what’s happening on the  pitch more to see why certain players aren’t actually getting into the game as we hope they should do. 

[Smugsy]

18 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

In my opinion both Stone and Covolan are better than Holy. 

I think all three are a much of a muchness tbh and none of them fill me with a lot of confidence

[Coyney Valiant]

6 minutes ago, Beech said:

 

Looking back if Wilson buries his chance, which he should have done, the game finishes 0-2 and we're all saying what a professional, "little fuss" performance it was, that we won it without getting out of second gear. But I don't think anyone can't not agree that we're just not going after teams enough currently. We generally start games so slowly now, and if we do get a goal we seem more than content to sit on it and hope it will be enough.

I can't help but feel how many more points we might have had of late had Conlon been fit. Just his set piece ability alone might have turned one or two draws into wins. He's such a big player for us and hopefully when he does return he can be 100% match fit instead of playing at 70%.

That’s right but when Hussy takes a cracking corner why FFS is Wilson taking them you can’t make it up 

[smada]

Not apportioning any blame here whatsoever, but did anyone think Holy was very slow getting down for their goal, I know he's 6' 9" but it seemed to me to take an age to move as it trickled towards him.

[Joe B]

Average of 72.5 needed to finish 7th over the last 6 full seasons.

Leaves us needing 27 points from our last 16. We need to win 9+ of our last 16 games (or the equivalent, so 8 wins 3 draws), which is quite a tall order considering we've only won 4 of our last 15 and can't score more than 1 per 90.

And this is only to finish 7th.

3rd is an average of 83. We'd need 37 points from 16, or to win 12+ of our last 16.

We've completely bottled autos and have left a very narrow path to 7th (which only brings a 1 in 4 chance of promotion).