More threat from Allen from CB as well. I think pushing a CB more forward has a lot of merit in this side. I know Daniels has done it on occasion also. Often the opposition is confused by it.
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Cant we keep things on topic and stop the needless bickering, no need for personal insults like calling people a clown or troll etc. At end of day we won, be happy, celebrate like idiots.
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Yes. I nearly missed the goal seeing if was OK. Couldāve been nasty but all credit to him going full gung-ho to keep the ball in play.
Yeh, letās write off the final 33%/15 games thatāre left. How can you possibly say weāve failed already? 
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Only because you donāt have a sensible answer.
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Continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
There is no reason to expect the remaining 14 matches to be any different to the 39 we have played so far in league and cup. There will likely be random ups and downs, good results and bad results, but we will probably revert to the mean performance that kept consistently in the bottom half of the fourth division. The reason for that is that we will still be watching the same players coached by the same manager.
The squad is as poor as any we have had in the 60+ years of watching the team, and in that time we have never before had fans who believed that we should be satisfied with a finish barely in the top half of this division.
This season has been a failure because of the failure of squad building in the summer, team selection and tactics, and then a failure to address the most urgent need of a team sent out to play 352 - the need to sign two decent wingbacks.
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I know I had a few last night celebrating but Liam weakly gave the ball away while down the left wing when a simple pass down the line would have been fine. Liam was poor yesterday as was Knowles in my opinion. Isaac looked like Bambi on ice the first 20 minutes but got stronger.
Back three looked a little lost in the first half as they cut through us often. But fair play they dealt with it. Jacksonās loving life at the moment watching him celebrating over to his family.
Was surprised he took Flash off and agree with an earlier poster that we really needed 2 up top and Jamma was knackered. I would have left flash on and introduced Faal or DJT.
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He kept Matt on for the defence, in my view. He is just brilliant for defending corners. While he does not have the pace to be a defender, he can head the ball away all day.
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I agree with that, and I also think part of keeping him on was the success he was having against Flint, resulting us retaining the ball higher up the pitch for longer periods and not just inviting pressure. I donāt think DJT, Faal or Oteh would have had anywhere near as much success
A note on Faal even though it was a really brief cameo, he showed some real maturity in helping us run down the clock as we pretty much breezes through the six minutes added on. There have been plenty of forwards over the years, both young lads and experienced pros, that would have gone for glory and seen us get stung
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You say Faal wouldnāt have been able to retain the ball up the pitch as well as Jamma, but then you praise him for his cameo role and maturity in retaining the ball up the pitch and running the clock down?
Yep. They pushed Flint forward for the final ten minutes and during that time, Faal came on. Iād like to think that part of the reason for change was to stretch their back line and catch them on the counter as they pushed on, which we did a couple of times
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Some guy who was clearly was on something more than a few beers ran on the pitch albeit for about 3 seconds. Was being a nuisance all game so was glad to see him gone to be quite honest.
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Didnāt watch the game on Saturday but watched the full game on ifollow last night (commentary by the Mansfield crew).
My observations echo much that has been already said.
Smith is a āluckyā keeper. He makes mistakes but keeps getting away with them.
We got lucky 1st half; they created some good chances and the ball crosses the line.
I thought we matched them except in clear cut chances.
I can understand why Hutch got MoM as both he and Comley were constantly involved whereas the others were in and out.
Mattās 2nd half performance was good, but I was impressed with Josh Gordon who kept their defense occupied, did well to hold up and link up and was unlucky not to score 2nd half.
Credit also to Okagbue who is doing a great job.
A bit worried that Liam Gordon keeps getting caught in possession up field which leaves us vulnerable to the counter attack.
Overall, a good performance but a better result.
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Cloughie ay happy!
Apart from this being massively a over used quote, weāre not though are we?
Weāre trying to play as we have since the start of December and achieve the same level of success, not that we were particularly bad before that.
For the season as a whole weāre 1.35pts per game, if we continue at that weāre on target for 62pts, our best since relegation.
Hardly a level that is covered by thisā¦
Since December started weāve played 12 in the league and only lost 3 with 3 drawn, 50% win ratio and 1.75 pts per game. Keep that up for the remaining 15 and weāre on for 68pts. (Yes Iām ignoring the cup because itās irrelevant to the purpose of the maths here. But also because frankly losing to Southampton who were simply on a different level to us doesnāt worry me, as although roundly beaten we didnāt embarrass ourselves).
Win tomorrow and the for the season ratio goes up to 1.40pts per game maintain that and itās 64pts.
Or since the start of December 1.84pts per game, and again if we can maintain that form that gets us to 70pts in May.
Stay positive, the hasnāt been such a failure so far, the squad, selection and tactics largely work. Obviously they could always be better, butā¦
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Iāll match your cards above and raise you a Luton, Bournemouth, YoYoRovrum, Plymouth, Brizzle Rovers, Salop etc etc. we would regard them as our everlasting opposition from years and years agoā¦We currently sit handily grasping the lifeline of 16th spot in the 4th Division, hardly advancing are weā¦ I want us to succeed so so much, it seems as if we are moss growing on an abandoned, derelict ray of hopeā¦as you eloquently put it āAs long as Trivela provide funds for forward players who would lift the whole team to new heightsā you mean instead of cheap option loans who excel and then leave us struggling when they return to their parent club.
Come on you Saddlers, for goodness sake give us long suffering fans a glimmer of positivity, lets start our future NOW.
The āglimmerā is there . You just cannot see it.
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Where I disagree with you is that I really do not understand how you can think that the squad, selection and tactics largely are working. We are 16th in the Fourth Division. This has been another season without progress, or with any promise of future progress, since our standard of play in general has been so poor. That is why I say it has been a failure.
Since 1960 we have never been in such a bad run as we are now. Previously the worst spell in my experience was the Kenny Hibbitt era from 1990 to 1994 when we finished 16th, 15th, 5th and 10th in this division. That was when the club was broke, and on the verge of bankruptcy. After Hibbitt was sacked, Chris Nichol came in and won automatic promotion in his first season. Sadler is not going to be anywhere near achieving that.
I am not going to argue with about how many points we will have at the end of the season, except to say that the most likely number is 62, and that it is unlikely to be outside the range 54-70.
We were very lucky on Saturday when we won despite our defenders giving Mansfield lots of golden opportunities. While I was delighted with the win, I was concerned at how poorly we defended - bad defenders donāt become good defenders just because opposition forwards miss open goals, and referees donāt award a goal when the ball has crossed the line.
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While in principle, I agree with Clough - and thatās as far as the technology should go (no VAR please), I am not totally convinced that it was over the line. Looking over someoneās shoulder I caught a quick glimpse of a photo of the incident on tāinternet (which I cannot find) and while it looked over the line, I tried to judge, in the way that the TV does, what it might look like from a linesmanās perspective. It seem to me that it was one of those where the ball, was almost completely over the line, but not completely.
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