De_La_Vega

Craig Davies? Behave son, the guy was binned off by incompetent management after scoring a decent number up front on his own.

Madness.

Toddy is harsh too. Though crap, when he scored once the scoreboard (remember that?) flashed up a "hot Toddy" graphic which was class.

True, but Grounds isn't Denis Irwin either. Tarky has the basics but makes stupid :censored:ups. At least you can work with that rather than someone who is just :censored:.

I disagree, and not about the Grounds-Irwin analogy.

He has little pace, is not strong enough to be an enforcer, is positionally suspect and adds to that a tendency to make stupid mistakes. None of which has changed in the last two years.

There may yet be a defender in there, but if we stick with him to find it then we will ship a shedload of goals in the meantime and the reward will not be that special.

Best bit for me was the immaculately respected minute's silence. There were some very drunk people in our end, but to a man we showed respect. That was great.

Got a round of applause from one of their staff afterwards. Good work from us

Goals were our biggest issue last year, but that said the strikers don't bear all the blame because some of our build up play has been poor.

Whatever happens we need to decide how we are going to score and build a team to get the best out of the strikers.

As for Simpson; there's a good player in there if we can play to his strengths... smashing the ball at his head is not the best way to use him.

Tarkowski is not Rio Ferdinand.

Brown is a poor footballer, but to be fair is athletic and can defend. Although it is a position that we could upgrade I would say there are positions where we need to do more work.

Crap

Good player, good guy, good move for both parties as it turns out. No issues with him, and I wish him all the best. However no applause - that's reserved for returning legends or special cases. So Sheridan or Richie as managers, Taylor or Paul Murray as players; they're the ones that matter.

Win the league. Why not?

I watched Doncaster over Christmas and they were totally average, so what is there to fear? I wouldn't sack him if he didn't get there, but so far I have only had Swindon talked up out of the whole division and I haven't seen anything to be afraid of.

Work out how we are going to score, and all the rest will fall into place.

No interest. I only watch Latics to stop them going bust

I wanted the kids off, but to be fair agree with the majority of the original post.

If the club get fined then I'll be angry, but the reason for it would be that they went on against Yeovil too, not just today's incursion. I disagree with them going in while the game was in play, but it does happen every year so some people in here should just chill out and stop being so soft.

Sad thing is that these straitened times see us on the pitch for Yeovil and Crawley...

 

 

I'd disagree - I think it's the physical battle in CM that he's ideally suited for. He's a big lad; and he won plenty of balls in there tonight just from his frame, size and power.

 

I really liked the driving surge / run forward in the 2nd half from him. Exactly what we've missed from CM all season.

 

He has drive, power, technique and ability on the ball.

 

With a full pre-season, more committment to fitness regime and a manager who believes in him; I hope for big things next season from him.

Performance today was exactly what I meant... Not a problem in the tackle one-on-one, but struggled to get to grips with their midfield as a whole.

 

 

Nope. I think the starting XI needs a bit of an overhaul but I'd like to see those youngsters with potential making up the rest of the squad. They'd be cheap, it would be satisfying to see them succeed and it would give us extra room in the budget to buy higher quality first teamers.

Tarky this year has shown that if you aren't ready then having decent players around you will not stop the team losing. Any good player will get frustrated by weekly defeats caused by poor defending.

To that end, going into a season expecting lots of games from Tarky and Belezika is a very dangerous proposition.

I'd like to see Taylor, Mellor and Winchester get significant game time, although I am still unsure of Winchester's best position. Millar has looked sharp too over the last couple of games, so he may be worth a punt...

Definitely need reinforcements at centre-half though.

Sorry, not clinical up front.

Don't agree with Simpson bashing, he's one of the players with more to offer than we have exploited.

We have always had talented players here, but they have been spineless at times and underperformed massively. Some of those who are able to bring experience have to be retained, and for my money Wes would definitely be one of those.

If you analyse our season, all the bull:censored: aside, we have played out the same poor game week in and out. That includes being clinical up front and giving away sloppy goals at the back. Not many, but the drip-drip effect has eroded everything we have tried to do.

If JYM goes, as expected, then we are perilously short at the back. Bouzanis is too unreliable off his line to be a comfortable fit, Tarky shows no progress from the sloppy errors that he makes every week and Belezika is not ready.

The young players need to be encouraged through, and I want to see a lot more of Winchester and Mellor fulfilling the talent they possess. But we need to strengthen in defence and work out how we intend to score. So if that means Smith staying then we need to work out how to get the wingers onto the front foot.

Boring as piss football. If it weren't for Latics then I'd have stopped watching.

Fair enough, but I'll agree to disagree - I think he lacks a bit of the physical edge. Or then maybe what I mean is more about aggression.

Simpson played up front on Saturday and was poor... But when did he become a target man. We played no football and hence he struggled.

Not been great this year, but some of the criticism is OTT.

Proper footballer but has a slight tendency to overplay and isn't particularly physical.

That said, grew into the game against Bury and did okay and looked decent tonight. He's got a quick brain and can play, now he looks a bit fitter I've been pretty impressed with the performances. Like Millar really.

Hope to see more good things from him.

Simpson was good tonight, physical and aggressive in a way that Baxter wouldn't be. Plus, last year he was our best player until we pushed him wide left from where the whole team struggled. We should learn from that.

By the way, I do realise that those two elements are counter-intuitive, but I would suggest that of late he has put a much better shift in wide left than he did last year...

IF we put Baxter back in then it would have to be in place of Barnard, to try and drop off to playmake and get the ball wide for balls into Smith. It could work, but that is the only change I could see from tonight.

Harsh on Simpson, it's tough out there for a right footer especially when we are struggling for fluency.

Good tonight apart from the first 10 and last 5.

As for ref watch - shocking miss of that tug on Smith in the first half. Appalling.

Did alright, some good defending but dubious ball skills. Needs to learn to react a bit quicker, and towards the end was winning little in the air even against Hayter.

That said though, early days so I'll cut him slack. Tarkowski is my worry - far too many mistakes... We'll miss JYM when he goes.

Hope Cliff has been keeping sharp, I was surprised to see the way he seemed to vanish from sight of the first team, as much potential as Tarky has

What, the potential to gift the opposition a goal every week through schoolboy errors?

He's going backwards this lad, every week I panic as he makes serious misjudgments that usually pitch us into the :censored: in a game where otherwise we are under no major pressure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-22138057

Does this not sound suspiciously like people are blaming Latics fans? Interesting...

It did fill up quickly, when I got there at 2.30 the queue was about 60-70 people but by the time I got in that was up to about 200. But that still left half an hour to sort something, with the option of delaying the kick-off.

Pathetic, and some of the excuses coming out of the authorities now are even worse. These people's jobs are to deliver a football game successfully to the paying public, and if an extra 400-500 fans is the worst you have to deal with then you should be very pleased, and able to accommodate it.

It seemed really obvious what the answer was, with so few people being in the far stand. Poor behaviour from all concerned.

I got there half an hour before kick off and it was already getting apparent that there was going to be an issue, so they had plenty of time to think...

Agree with most of that - Millar looked a nothing player at first but he was excellent today.

Croft MOM for me though, down to a tremendous workrate in that second half