IceStationLatic

If you're driving into Sheffield via Manchester Road/A57, when it joins Fulwood Road and you pass through Broomhill, the Broomhill Friery was always pretty epic when I was a student at Sheff Uni

Nice work!! I don't think we're that bad for songs - every non-Tic I know has always loved the M'Voto tune and says it's the best they've heard for a while.

But we weren't in the drab blue for the second half of last season.... And our performances have actually picked up substantially in the last two games, wearing the French blue, even though we haven't won like we did at Portsmouth. Would the kit have been an issue if Baxter's goal had stood, as it should have done, to complete a rousing comeback - or if the referee last night had thought Slocombe was one of our players and let the goal stand. Grounds certainly did have any problems picking out the invisible Derbyshire ghosting in at the near post. Rather than the kit, it's just the team - that are still moulding and improving - that were pants in the first half. We all know it's actually the Angry Owl's fault.....

We would be moaning for a different reason if he played it back or square and it was a mistake leading to a goal. Is it that bad to play safe - as a defender who can hardly spray passes like Iniesta, just get rid into a channel, let a forward chase and try win a throw. Leave the tippy tappy to the midfielders when we have some space. If they are pressing and it has come back to him, with our midfielders under pressure - laces out Cliff! Sometimes it's best to play percentage football - but not all the time, admittedly. If it's going long too much, why are we giving it to Cliff to be the playmaker, the other lads needs to get involved and start working it. I don't think Big Jean sprays it short either by the way...

Simpson will start I reckon. The boss has said Baxter isn't match fit yet - I think he'll be an impact sub again. And it's a convenient excuse to avoid dropping Robby and crucifying his confidence - although I agree he needs a kick up the backside as he's just not producing. The alternative action would be to start with Baxter and really attack them from the off, before subbing him as soon as he starts tire - but I don't think PD will do this. Going forward, I think PD will stick with 4-4-1-1, with Baxter and Simpson exchanging the number ten role. Our four midfielders need to be very fluid, though, to stop us being outmuscled and outnumbered in central midfield all the time, and the link between a sitting central two (off the ball) and the strikers being cut off. Some incisive, quicker forward passing is key. Hopefully the confidence of coming from behind twice and ending the game playing well will roll into Tue night. It's a big game.

Simon spends

Against County it's time for the players to do the home version of Portsmouth and prove a point. If they bag a win, it will be typical of us to lose against Scunny - but really Scunny and Coventry are looking winnable home games as they are struggling. Preston is the home game after that... The next two away games, Brentford and Crewe, shouldn't fill us with fear either. So as well as being key for Dickov, the next few games are massive. Even if we lose/draw against County, there's a chance to go on a run - it's key we can win a few games on the bounce; that's the only thing that will start to cure our mental fragility, and as a result lead to the silly mistakes drying up

I'm mad - I think the next couple of games are all perfectly winnable. And we've had a decent record against Notts C at home recently...

Is the squad that small? It was bigger than MK Dons' when we played them. They've added since, however

Was it really a stupid admission to say 'judge me after ten games'...? What's happened at Chesterfield and Coventry maybe shows it wasn't. And he's hardly going to get away with saying, judge me after 15/20... It was just a typical thing to say to try to counter a lot of negativity from the fans after only three league games. Yes it does set him up for a fall, but if we were doing really pants, and playing pants, after ten games then he'd be on thin nice in any case - whether he'd said it or not.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/sport/football/oldham_athletic/s/1588007_chesterfield-fc-2-oldham-athletic-1 Anyone at the game see this..... -- Dickov, who had a 10-minute summit with chairman Simon Corney on the pitch after the final whistle, warned his men: “It’s going to be a long 11 days. If they think they are going to get some time off they have another thing coming.” --

Exactly. He wasn't amazing but he was growing in confidence and offered some good passing, despite the main stand groaning at him for no reason. I'd give Mellor a go in a similar role. He's maybe not as good as passing but has the strength we lost from Wes. Overall, your point backs my view that we should have kept the same formation for longer - just tweaked it. This belief that we improved in the second half is rubbish. They should have been out of sight by the hour mark. They missed two sitters. We stopped playing football and just hoofed it. Only had Smith's shot and a few tussles in the box to show for it. If we'd built on first half, we might have had better passing and more chances like the great move, with Winchester's through-ball, that pit Montano through. We deserved to be level at half-time based on possession and chances; we deserved to lose by full-time.

This. If Winchester was that bad, how come they barely had a shot first half apart from the penalty - and then over-ran us in midfield after half-time and should have been two or three goals up by the hour mark.

Against a rubbish side? Where did Stevenage finish last season... And they didn't get the ball until we changed our formation

Cisak Brown. Byrne. M'Voto. Grounds Furman. Simpson. M'Changama Croft. Smith. Montano

I think this is completely the reason behind the formation yesterday, you know the one that people have been describing as the most baffling ever. But as they tried to pass it five-a-side style, our lack of confidence showed and we had ppl in the crowd groaning every time Winchester touched the ball or every time we moved it back to the back four. Irrespective of Simpson up top or lack of service to him (they sat deep so this was hard), the few times we persisted we worked it into good areas - Montano's shot and M'Changama firing over. Also, they hardly had the ball. What was odd to me was the sudden transition to direct football to Smith. They over-ran us in midfield and should have been two or three goals up by the hour mark! I'd have tried Smith in the same formation second half - still tried to pass it but have him as an outlet to give them an extra thing to think about. Simpson didn't seem to cause them any problems.

I think this is completely the reason behind the formation yesterday, you know the one that people have been describing as the most baffling ever. But as they tried to pass it five-a-side style, our lack of confidence showed and we had ppl in the crowd groaning every time Winchester touched the ball or every time we moved it back to the back four. Irrespective of Simpson up top or lack

I watched a team yesterday that was a shadow of its old self. One that couldn’t get hold of the ball in the first half. No movement. No outlets. Just stood off as the opposition passed it around, albeit without much cutting edge. A manager on the touchline constantly moaning at the fourth official. A team that slightly picked up in the second half but still couldn’t score. 　 　 　 　 　 　 　 Stevenage. 　 　 　 As for the other team, ‘the worst half of football ever’? If that’s the case, what would the other team’s fans think? They wouldn’t care of course - they got the scrappy three points away from home. But this pub team from London that we should be comfortably beating at home it seems - even though they finished about ten places higher than us in the league last season - only had one meaningful shot on goal in that first half, the ‘token gift goal’ that we seem to kindly offer. The calls immediately came for 4-4-2 - ‘4-5-1 at home is a joke’ - even though we have been getting rinsed in the middle of the park and need to compensate for M’Changama’s light frame. Dean Furman was a ‘a waste of space’ for being at the centre of all our passing and tracking back to prevent dangerous counter-attacks on countless occasions. Fair enough the un-droppable Simpson wasn’t working up top, but the system just needed tweaking - if that’s what was working well in training all week. We just needed some pointers on passing with one touch instead of two, improving service to the final third. The amount of times we worked it at the back and the crowd groaned - even Winchester was moaned at when he kept the ball ticking over. The two occasions the players didn’t cave in and hit a pointless long ball, we worked it back again from the back and it led to Montano’s shot from the left and M’Changama’s shot over - we wouldn’t have had those chances had we booted it 40 yards. Ironically, when we did hit it long - ‘forward’, ’get it up there’ - unsurprisingly it did lead to jack all and was greeted with more jeers! Watching Swansea passing on MOTD last night. Did their fans groan and boo when they had to work it back to the centre-backs on two occasions before being able to cut through the midfield with some passing? You could sense, despite the groans, that they were slowly building in confidence in that first half after a very nervy start. But worrying for me, was the un-Dickov like reaction at the break. It was if he listened to thE boos at half-time (what do they achieve), the calls for a plan B, the calls to make substitutions earlier. We abandoned trying to play football. We just played kick and rush to Smith. As soon as we took off Winchester - that’ll do his confidence the world of good - they suddenly over-ran us in midfield. They had two or three clear-cut chances in the first ten minutes of the second half and should have put the game to bed. People are saying that, after that, we improved and deserved an equaliser. We could have equalised, true, but all we did was punt the ball in the final third a bit more. Apart from Smith’s good shot and a few penalty claims, did we really threaten the goal any more? They just sat back, naturally, and we had a bit more urgency chasing the equaliser, naturally. Does this mean 4-4-2 is the obvious answer, not for me. We need to try to play football. You can only score when you’ve got the ball (like we did first half), and more importantly, the other team can’t score when you have the ball. However, we need to be patient, and move the ball quickly, to play like that. We have a flat back four as we’ve bought full-backs that don’t overlap. Therefore, we need five in the middle, or a 4-2-3-1. We need Montano and Croft to improve a lot. Having said that, I’d give Hughes a run from the start next match and bring on M later on. What concerns me is that, in shaping our team around Simpson, we can only ever play 4-4-1-1, and it’s not working. Whenever he is dropping deep, he’s just getting into squabbles and getting booked - he’s not breaking up play and then allowing us to counter-attack through the middle. I hope Mellor is fit and ready soon; he might offer the muscle in the middle that we are missing with Wes being out? Also, we have a young team that needs backing. If you want them to win, you have to cut them a little bit of slack. You don’t have to be a happy clapper to do this. Some of the comments from the Main Stand towards Winchester were embarrassing. And as soon as we took him off, they should have scored another two goals in ten minutes. Worst ever? Even the boos at half-time were a bit tepid if that’s the case. We just need to get off the mark, and stop over-reacting. These idiots and so-called fans abusing their own players on Twitter need to get lost. And these tired cliché criticisms about Paul Dickov need to bore off - he just moans at the fourth official all the time… he only moaned for a fraction of the time Stevenage’s manager did, and it seemed to work for them - so boooo PD, you should have been moaning more! Maybe then we'd have got a free-kick when Smith was fouled! And it says a lot about the atmosphere around the place at the minute that a kit-man is getting abused on a public social networking site. 　

Taylor, Chris - missed Trolls - arseholes

Good player maybe, but it appears as though it's one with an agent that was taking the p*** - good on PD for telling him to do one. If he's happy to do stuff like that to wrangle extra money, what do you think his performances would be like once he's got the 'contract'....

"What the f... Is on your head!" That is all

*wasn't lol

Was slagging off M'Changama, just pointing out the fact he got done for skill by Powell for the second goal - maybe should have tried to bring him down on the edge of the box and taken the booking? Surely Tarky would have had to have emulated Usain Bolt to get back and DEFEND. Wasn't M'Voto was in the box too - he didn't get in an argument and he didn't get back in time.

Some utter bollocks here. Tarky was man-marking and stuck with his man. Simpson was marking the next lad and inexplicably drifted two yards forward, allowing his man space for a free header. His fault. He admitted it. Tarky bollocked him afterwards. I fail to see how he was to blame for seconded goal either. It was M'Changama that was skinned. People really are stretching the boundaries of fact to slag off a 19-year-old who is supposed to be one of our own. Sad times

There wasn't a lot in that. We gifted them a goal; they almost gifted us an equaliser when Simmo fired across goal. We limited their passing game fairly well. Losing Wes was a blow - we struggled to link up with the forwards and create enough chances. Powell was awesome for them. Croft was good for us. Better than getting pummelled 5-0 at least. Yes, they (promotion favourites) are not in top gear yet, but neither are we. We are still struggling at defending set pieces though. It was Simpson that left his man I think - Tarky bollocked him