Crewe v Carlisle

[hellogregory]

Yeah. Dreading this. I bought my train tickets months ago. I did contemplate not going after saturdays performance and Accrington the week before, but think I'm going to grin and bear it.

We are absolutely terrible. Terrible defensively and even worse going forward. Even if Michael Raynes does what he does best and presents us with an open goal, there's still only a 1 in 10 chance of us scoring it.

I'd be amazed if we get anything, but I'll go there in the hope that a miracle happens.

 

[JJ1532]

Shaping up to be quite an important game for both teams, given they are out of form at the moment.

Be interesting to see what Artell does with the team, could make as many as 4-5 changes from last Saturday's shambles. My team would be: Garratt, Nolan, Raynes, Stubbs, Pickering, Walker, Wintle, Lowery, Cooper, Dagnall, Porter. Bench: Richards, Bakayogo, Ng, Grant, Ainley, Dale, Bowery

Feel Artell needs a decent result from this one as another defeat ahead of 2 tough away games would not be good at all. Carlisle do look to be struggling and I'd like to think we can make the most of what looks to be a leaky defence.

To be fair to Raynes, he's been generally excellent so far. Had a poor game on Saturday, but other than that he's been really good. Hopefully he doesn't try too hard against his former team.

Going optimistic and predicting a 3-1 win.

 

[hellogregory]

Raynes wasn't too bad for us, but he had a calamity in him. There's a fairly long list of them from his 2 years here. Anything in the air he wins, which is why I think I'll get up and walk out if we launch long balls to donkey Bennett.

 

[cufc17]

Can't see us getting anything here, except a hammering that is. Dagnall and Porter will have a field day, Cooper will run the show and Raynes will just need to stand next to our striker and dominate him.

This fixture last year should've seen us thrashed but for a lot of luck, and that was Crewe under Davis. They had a comfortable win at Brunton Park under Artell too.

I fear this could be a bad defeat, like a 5-1 bad. It feels like Curle's reign is coming to a close for me, there is no excitement or optimism this season.

 

[shoddycollins]

Going to this one, my first regular league away game since we got relegated. I'll try and enjoy the trip out but don't expect to derive any pleasure from what is going on on the pitch. Crewe win all day long this one.

I think Raynes' calamities were more to do with Curle's insistence on his defenders being ball-playing defenders. I think it's his big weakness, he played at the highest level and no doubt he was expected to do more than just be a stopper and expects his defenders to do the same, 'no more boomsville' as Raynes described it when he first signed for us. Usually defenders enjoy being given this freedom at first but they either struggle with so much time spent on the ball or they worry they'll be dropped if they clear it instead of trying something clever and so take ridiculous risks which end up costing us a goal. Curle has said himself that he doesn't want them to play it every single time but they're so eager to impress him they don't err on the side of caution at all.

 

[Habbinalan]

Going to this one, my first regular league away game since we got relegated. I'll try and enjoy the trip out but don't expect to derive any pleasure from what is going on on the pitch. Crewe win all day long this one.

I think Raynes' calamities were more to do with Curle's insistence on his defenders being ball-playing defenders. I think it's his big weakness, he played at the highest level and no doubt he was expected to do more than just be a stopper and expects his defenders to do the same, 'no more boomsville' as Raynes described it when he first signed for us. Usually defenders enjoy being given this freedom at first but they either struggle with so much time spent on the ball or they worry they'll be dropped if they clear it instead of trying something clever and so take ridiculous risks which end up costing us a goal. Curle has said himself that he doesn't want them to play it every single time but they're so eager to impress him they don't err on the side of caution at all.

A visit to the Beer Dock can take the edge off what's on offer on the pitch, provided you can tolerate the pretentious twaddle that accompanies the serving of some excellent ales.

https://beerdock.co.uk/pages/retail-outlets

 

[shoddycollins]

I think Curle has entered that stubborn phase that comes to all managers who spend a few years at the same club (Tisdale has probably been through two or three of them) where they can see what they're doing wrong but so can everyone else and their ego won't let them accept they were wrong. Curle will just keep pressing his philosophy of ball-playing defenders and keep searching for that rare unicorn of a defender who can pick out a nice forward pass and dribble past opposition players without compromising their ability to stop attackers and somehow isn't playing at a higher level.

We really need Curle to take this poor start to the season as a chance to rethink how we play or else he'll get sacked, and if he gets sacked we'll replace him with whoever happens to be available mid-season and who will tell the defenders to just defend, we'll improve enough to finish lower mid-table and then get stuck with a Greg Abbott type mediocre gaffer who gets us finishing in 13th or 14th several seasons running, boring the fans stiff before dropping a bollock and getting us relegated. Curle is still the most talented and ambitious manager we've had in a long time and are likely to have any time soon.

 

[hellogregory]

I'm not as Curle out as I was after Accrington. I was fuming that day but think getting soaked on an open terrace along with the shit performance escalated things for me. Still the facts remain that since the beginning of this calendar year we've been in the form of a team in a relegation battle. That is no blip! I do think if we ever want promoted from this league we will need to sack Curle, but my doubts over sacking him are coming from the ideas of who the fuckwits in charge will replace him with.

 

[hellogregory]

Prediction

Crewe 3-1 Carlisle

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

I fancy us here. Two tough aways at Wycombe and Coventry coming up after this and, if we can start hitting the target and stop playing predictable football like we have done in the last two days, we should win this game.

That said, I genuinely believe the key reason we've played predictable football is because of how defensive Cambridge were which meant we hardly had a sniff of goal because we always struggle to break teams like that down, and how early Exeter scored which let us chasing the game for 85 minutes which is another weakness of ours.

Crewe 2-0 Carlisle (Porter, Cooper)

 

[shoddycollins]

So we're all agreed in this thread. Crewe win, I'll start the next thread now then.

 

[cufc17]

1-0 Grainger

 

[shoddycollins]

Is Gresty Road a dry stadium then?

 

[cufc17]

2-0 Grainger penalty, good old Raynes cocking up.

Crewe sound very poor and we sound comfortable.

 

[cufc17]

4-0 now, sounds like a top team performance against a poor Crewe side.

 

[shoddycollins]

good game. Kelvin Etuhu playing like two men, Reggie Lambe in total baller mode as a false 10, Shamal George looking confident despite an early slip and Clint Hill a class above everyone else on the pitch.

 

[cufc17]

5-0 right at the end, Hope.

This team is decent, nothing special, but a lot better than they've shown most of the season so far. Well done Curle, never ever imagined this result today.

 

[hellogregory]

My god that was easy.

I don't know if we were good or Crewe were horrendous, but they didn't get a sniff.

Clint Hill breezed through that 90 minutes.

My battery is nearly dead so I'll post more lster

 

[hellogregory]

good game. Kelvin Etuhu playing like two men, Reggie Lambe in total baller mode as a false 10, Shamal George looking confident despite an early slip and Clint Hill a class above everyone else on the pitch.

He was doing a man marking job on cooper and he did it v well

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

I'm not even dissecting that shit because every player who featured was shit.

Carlisle the beneficiaries of the worst comedy act since Mrs Brown's Boys, the Crewe Alexandra "defence".

Raynes lost his head wanting to stick one past Carlisle badly, Walker's hollywood balls to the Carlisle fans all first half, Nolan getting done by Reggie Lambe all day, Ben Garratt regressing faster than Simon Grayson's receding hairline and as for George fucking Cooper, he might as well retire and take Artell's advice of becoming a milkman on Conference North wages.

Artell got it badly wrong today and deserves blame as well, but calling for him out would be absolutely stupid. He's made some mistakes (neglecting the fullback position and failing to provide adequate competition for Ben Garratt being the biggest along with a sudden unexplained change to our style of play compared to last season when we pressed, harried and battled with tempo for 3 points.) but I genuinely believe he'll turn this around. Missing four players today and due to the overstocking of similar, negative, lightweight midfielders, they're all getting a game in stupid positions. I'm laying off Wintle, kid had a Weston at RWB but that's not his fault. As for the rest of them, in first thing Monday Morning. Carlisle had a shaky fucking keeper waiting to cock up badly today and we couldn't even be arsed to test him. What happened to attacking football again?

 

[Crewelad87]

I have no words for that.

 

[shoddycollins]

Just listened to Artell's interview. The Crewe fans seem to agree with his assessment but he doesn't half come across like a cock, sounds like he wasn't willing to take any responsibility.

 

[JJ1532]

When the manager messes up his team selections and tactics for yet another game, you're going to be up against it. Why on earth did he go back to a 3-4-3? Why on earth does he continue to not put Nolan at RB and switch him out there in the 2nd half 2 games in a row? Why on earth does he continue to hammer obviously square pegs into round holes week after week? Why on earth do we look so horrifically clueless when it comes to our attack work? Why on earth do we go from bright and energetic to a complete shit show as soon as we go 1-0 down. I knew as soon as the 1st went in that we were done for.

Artell can't legislate for the players collapsing in the 2nd half, but they are his players playing his style of football. The holes in the team HE had the opportunity to plug(a back up keeper, creative midfielder, right back) but failed to. And he should have known they needed plugging. These players are the ones he coaches week in week out, he has to take a fair chunk of the blame. I can't see us getting anything out of the next 2 and then its Stevenage, a team who we struggle to beat. I'm struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel at the moment, because Artell is looking increasingly out of his depth the more time goes by.

As for Carlisle, fair play. Yet another team who came and made our bunch of amatuers look like pub players. They were superb today, especially Hill, the 2 lads in midfield and the front 3. They were clinical and jumped all over our mistakes.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Just listened to Artell's interview. The Crewe fans seem to agree with his assessment but he doesn't half come across like a cock, sounds like he wasn't willing to take any responsibility.

The last time we lost 5-0 at home, our previous cockwomble of a manager said "If you take out the 5 goals there was nothing between the sides."

I'll happily take honest assessments of our failure today over that horrific shite every week, even if Artell and Lunt proper fucked it today.

 

[TimeyWimey]

No defence for Artell and Lunt anymore (no pun intended). Absolutely fucking abysmal throughout. Wouldn’t know where to start in what was wrong. Thank god as Crewe fans we are completely numb to utter horseshit like that.

 

[dannyc5]

Good to see we have improved the defence.

 

[hellogregory]

Credit to Keith for not caving in to the pressure to start Bennett because of his 10 minutes last week. I think playing Bennett would have suited Raynes to a tee.

Instead we went for Miller and Lambe and they caused Raynes all sorts of problems. Curle knew this would be the case! Raynesey had an absolute nightmare. I thought Mike Jones was back to his best, he controlled the midfield. Clint Hill was immense at the back, even at 4-0 he was barking orders, pointing, organising, getting our line correct, telling young Brown where to be. An excellent debut, just the player we needed.

 

[TimeyWimey]

He was doing a man marking job on cooper and he did it v well

To be fair Cooper has been abysmal for most of this season and has simply made a meteoric rise to be our most over rated player. Five offers in August? Should have snapped their hands off. As I said at the time, would rather have a decent right back.

 

[Carver]

WOW what a turn around from 2 week ago, the Crewe fans are sounding much like we were after the Accy defeat.

I hope this performance and result is not just a flash in the pan and we build on this.

Sad though to still see Raynes cocking up in a defence lol.

 

[Crewelad87]

Things could look really bleak by this time next week. I don't see this team getting anything at Wycombe nor Coventry.