I am going to start with an apology - I have not read anything anyone else has posted about this match, because I don't want to be influenced by what anyone else thinks before I write this, not because I am not interested or respectful of others' views. So if it is repetitive of other posts I apologise. I like to wait a bit before I post match comments so I can ponder and not just react emotionally, so here goes....
1.Really bad luck that Patterson and Cyrus were ill - I am sure they would have started instead of Goodall and Lenighan had they been fit, and I might not have been writing this. Nothing JH could have done about that.
2. Sod's law also meant that Curtis (who am I playing for this week?) Obeng had just left, but then JH did seem to harbour a delusion that he was a winger. So we had no cover at right back.
3. I could see the logic of playing Richman there (someone had to play there) but it did disrupt the central midfield (see below) which was a big factor at Alfreton. This was a tough one for JH and I can see why he did what he did, although I might have tried something different (see below).
4. There is absolutely no excuse for playing Goodall at centre half. Love Island Luc and Clayton McDonald were sitting on the bench, and Goodall is not a centre half, as he presumably demonstrated even to JH's satisfaction yesterday. He has clearly been a good player, but clearly NOT a centre half, and in my view age has caught up with him. He may be club captain but it is not compulsory to play the man. It is not a coincidence that we were 2-1 up at Alfreton when he came on and we lost 3-2. If he was going to play then right back would have been a better option IMO.
5. Had Goodall played right back then Richman could have played centre midfield, which would have been a big improvement. Apart from the fact that Richman was way out of position for the first goal (but then, unlike Goodall, he is not a full back) he would also have been much more effective than Lenighan. He has not yet completed a match for us and unless he improves his passing and positional discipline I am not sure he ever will.
6. It was clear pretty early on that Goodall was going to have a 'mare. Not only that, but by forcing Hannigan to play right central defence (we may have noticed he prefers left - remember Matlock when he played on the right?) this also made him much less secure, confident and effective, so he had by far his least impressive match in our colours. The difference in Hannigan when McDonald replaced Goodall (about an hour too late) was very evident.
7. The tackling and defensive positioning for the two goals was atrocious. Briscoe is not Lionel Messi, he is a player who struggles to get a regular start for Tamworth, but we made him look like a world beater in the first half.
8. Wilkinson was clearly injured, but just because Hobson was the choice as sub doesn't mean we have to lump the ball in the air up to him all the time, particularly as Belshaw was having a great game and dominating his area. Like most of NY's acquisitions Hobson is a limited player, and the change of formation really didn't work at all.
9. Also Marsh is not a winger / wide midfielder nor is Lawrie a central midfielder, so quite what that substitution was supposed to achieve also lost me a bit, although I know the squad is now paper thin.
10. If Tamworth had not literally missed 4 or 5 absolute sitters we would have suffered a defeat which would have reflected the true awfulness of our performance in this match, on the scale of the AFC Fylde debacle.
What we do now very much depends on the basis on which JH was appointed, which may require the club to be honest with us in this respect. If the enormity of the damage wrought by Young's reign had been recognised by the Board, and JH was told "this will take years to sort out, we know we are going down, please hold the fort while the inevitable happens and you/we can try and sort out the mess next summer" I can actually see that, but we need to know, because if JH is seriously trying to keep us up we need some serious and urgent re-thinking. because it ain't happening.
We have now lost 7 matches on the trot, and under JH 10 league matches out of 11. Over that period we have played much better away than at home (actually I mean less badly, but the point is valid). Our home performances have varied from insipid and uninspired to catastrophic (Bradford second half) and if I did not go to away games (and did not recognise the importance of supporting the team when they are deep in the proverbial) I would probably have voted with my feet by now, as I am sure many people have and will.
So the Board knows on what basis JH was appointed, and in my view should act in a manner appropriate to that, and tell us what the score is. They have eyes to see what is happening as we all have. If change is required it is required urgently, and if not we need to know precisely why not.
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Tamworth - Match Thread
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