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[Brum Alty]

I had the pleasure of seeing my second Robins gameof the season yesterday with my seven year old son who I am trying to make into a fan. I have just had a look at the Boro board and they are saying what a great bloke Heathcote is  laughing and joking with them.  I thought he was arguing with them but maybe this is worse.  He hardly watched any of the second half when he was facing the wrong way.  He was in the dressing room for about five minutes at half time.  The team looked like they had never done a free kick since our last relegation.  I guess he probably stormed off at the end as well.  I manage a Sunday side but could not tell you what formation we played yesterday how it changed. Little wandered about like a  lost boy.  If we have to pay £15 to watch this then the manager could at least watch it with us.  A fella I talked to at the snack bar said the board was made up entirely of his friends (is this true?) and he was under no pressure at all.  That is not healthy, surely the chairman cannot be happy with yesterday when he sat behind the goal.

[markecky]

It was the vice chairman that sat behind the goal in the 2nd half

[Sarf London Alty]

Brum Alty,

Not a lot wrong with your assessment there. I would add the caveat though that Stevenage are a quality team, certainly far and away the best I've seen us play so far this season and set up for the FL on that evidence. However, the first half was quite simply an embarrasment. If my Thursday night 7a side team let in the two goals we did I'd be annoyed. We were trying to work out behind the goal who was meant to be playing where/doing what and we couldn't, certainly it looked like the players didn't know either. No organisation, no spirit and almost an air of indifference as the goals went in it seemed. An utterly appalling display and no-one who was there could argue to the contrary. Victory over poor Lewes next weekend will no doubt paper over the cracks but the malaise appears to run much deeper.

[SW]

Fully agree that for both first half goals the defence appeared unsure who was supposed to do what. Coburn was rightly frustrated. Contrast with the spell we had in the 2nd half were we passed the ball around and attacked down the right flank but their defence was magnificently organised and we couldn't get that critical final threatening ball in.

[Leon]

My thoughts from yesterday's game:

- I suspect that even if we'd put out our best eleven, organised into the best possible formation, we'd still have lost yesterday. Stevenage looked a very good side, so I don't think we should get too furious about this particular result. It's the ones that have gone before that have put us in the mire.

- Particularly away from home, we have to start with Johnson or if not him, O'Neill. We need a target man. Little and Denham up front, away from home, does not work. When it got switched to Little on his own up front (with Denham on the right and Elam on the left), I really did begin to despair - if I never have to watch Little play up front on his own again, I'll die a little bit happier. And then, just for a final flourish, we switched to Denham on his own upfront with Colin playing right wing. Madness.

- My concern, as it was in the first half of last season, is that GH is not getting the best out of the players he has. The dropping of Doughty seems to me an admission of failure to get him to do the job he was signed to do. You can already feel GH's mistrust of skill players is going to cause problems with Elam (whom we, incidentally, should really get behind rather than heckle - he's exactly the kind of class player we need and that was his first start, after all). We're not getting anything like the kind of performances from Greg Young that we got last year.
What hurt a lot of Alty fans yesterday was that the team looked callow, uncertain and flat - I think this comes from not being given a positive gameplan for games like this. The people in charge of the club have banged on about being part-time etc. so much that the players look like they don't believe we have any right to compete with teams like Stevenage. The part-time thing gives us an excuse to fail, an excuse we're currently taking.

I think this squad is good enough to stay up but based on results so far, we're not going to. Draw your own conclusions.

[Alty TV]

I think this comes from not being given a positive gameplan for games like this. The people in charge of the club have banged on about being part-time etc. so much that the players look like they don't believe we have any right to compete with teams like Stevenage. The part-time thing gives us an excuse to fail, an excuse we're currently taking.

Nail hit firmly on the head.

[Longman]

I think this comes from not being given a positive gameplan for games like this. The people in charge of the club have banged on about being part-time etc. so much that the players look like they don't believe we have any right to compete with teams like Stevenage. The part-time thing gives us an excuse to fail, an excuse we're currently taking.

Nail hit firmly on the head.

Agreed.

[ASMO]

Young looks to be missing shotton beside him .Oneill should repace Jonson  i know he had a bad season last year  but we know from is first season he can do it thats why he was named player of the year in that season  i would give him a game against vauxall motors on tuesday  so he gets some match action ready for lewes

[OldhamAlty]

O'Neill has been the most commited player I've seen in the friendlies we've been playing, but he's just not as good as Dale Jonson. He should definitley be second choice behind him though in terms of someone to play alongside Col.

[Jezza]

I think this comes from not being given a positive gameplan for games like this. The people in charge of the club have banged on about being part-time etc. so much that the players look like they don't believe we have any right to compete with teams like Stevenage. The part-time thing gives us an excuse to fail, an excuse we're currently taking.

Well, preseason when the pressure was off, we all revelled in our scoring goals for fun football with players playng in their best positions etc......the writing was on the wall when even then the manager was warning we had to be more defensive.....the freedom to express ourselves lasted until an entertaining game where we lost 4-3 after which there was very little dissent from the fans...just a disappointment at losing to Barrow and perhaps a few mutterings about tightening up the defence.....since then the team had been changed around and the whole things has gone to pot...I'd be more encouraged losing 5-4 to lewes than beating them 1-0 with the only shot of the game.

If the defence isn't defending change the defence and maybe give instructions to one of your midfielders to sit back a bit..we seem to have changed the entire team into defensive mode???

Stevenage are a good side...a good plan might have been to defend stoutly with 4 defencders and 3 midfielders and counter attack with speed with 3 nippy forwards?