League 2 General Chat Thread

[Baratheon]

Away at Mansfield today, we're probably going to get a pasting.

I wouldn't bet on it! Didn't you give us a dicking at your place?

 

[Casey]

Will gladly take the 3 points tonight but were hanging on at the end. Bossed it first half, 2 up and hit the bar twice and should have been home and hosed. Then a goalie howler gives Crawley some hope early in the second half but Crawley didn’t create much in fairness, v weak up top and not sure what was going on with their keeper - was shocking on the ball.
Still, gave some game time to the new lads and rested Labadie and Dolan for Spurs who were both badly missed.

Glad to hear we gave it a go.

Weak up top = no strikers. Our one senior striker came on at the start of the second half.

No creativity; Mark Randall injured, Josh Payne suspended, Dean Cox recovering and Billy Clifford not trusted.

Keeper originally joined us as a coach but our other keepers were bloody awful so we had no choice and to be fair he has done really well for us.

Casey

 

[GTFCfish]

I'm confident today that if we can keep it tight, and have a little bit of luck, we might only lose this one by 2 or 3 goals. Fingers crossed!

 

[mowgli]

Shit no Sam Saunders which means Bloomfield in midfield Plus Gape,Bean and O'Nien,can't remember the last time we played 4-4-2 with The Beast and Cowan-Hall up front,can't see us getting many chances today with Mackail-Smith,Freeman and Tyson on the bench which is a stupid decision unless they're carrying injuries.

 

[PaulHaddock]

We’re playing 3-5-2 with a 37yo and 33yo as two of the CBs and 35 and 30 year olds as the wingbacks! Actually can’t wait to see what happens here.

 

[mowgli]

Left it late but that's 3 wins on the bounce Craig Mackail-Smith in the 92 minute in a 3-2 win at Crewe

 

[Luke Imp]

Silly twat 'ere put a HT treble on of Luton, Mansfield, Wycombe for £225 but cashed out with Wycombe and Luton winning, not realising the Mansfield game was so far behind.

 

[chrisblor]

We're going to get relegated. I can feel it.

 

[Si Robin]

I wouldn't bet on it! Didn't you give us a dicking at your place?

Indeed, but we have a much better home record than away.

Sounds like today's game was an absolute ding-dong, with Evans and Raynor up to their old tricks (our commentator's stance). I won't comment on the reds until I see them later. Always gutting to lose in the last minute though.

 

[AdamStag]

Indeed, but we have a much better home record than away.

Sounds like today's game was an absolute ding-dong, with Evans and Raynor up to their old tricks (our commentator's stance). I won't comment on the reds until I see them later. Always gutting to lose in the last minute though.

Sorry Si, but it had nothing to do with evans and raynor. It was down to your side being one of the most shameful, shambolic dirty sides I've ever witnessed at field mill, an utter and complete disgrace.

Time wasting from the off, 2 elbows to our players resulting in straight reds. Feigning injuries from the off. The yellow card for the Cheltenham forward for diving after 5 minutes was an indicator of what was to come.

The game itself was terrible. We nearly fell for cheltenhams tactics. What was bizarre about cheltrnhams antics is that when thst when they played football they were alright

Big win for us though, massive win

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

If we continue to lose games the rate we're losing away from home, pencil us in for the bottom two.

Just been a weird season. Never have had, and won't have, the chance to field our best XI this season. We don't draw games. We don't win games back to back and a bad run of games where we lost 10 in 12 earlier in the season has us deep in the mire irrespective of our recent win 1, lose 1 form. There are players in this side who are ill-equipped for a relegation scrap, we've now lost 2 of our 3 experienced forwards to injury, we've lost our best CM to a season long injury, our best CB (imo) is yet to make a single appearance this season due to injury, we've sold Cooper (that I'm not arsed about because, despite his limited quality he was too inconsistent to win games on his own) and, despite overhauling a rotten defence last season, it appears to have somehow got worse.

It's weird, I genuinely have liked watching us play at times this season and I couldn't say that any time under Davis between the second Wembley win and the day he got sacked. But the defence makes too many cock ups, we have an overrated goalkeeper who has regressed dramatically, a lightweight midfield (though the addition of Paul Green and a returning Ryan Wintle who played well today could change that) and a constant inability to take our chances when we're on top. If we sorted out the basics like a lot of teams in this league have done so and became a little more streetwise, we wouldn't be in this mess. But we are and we won't be changing the manager between now and Summer so these lads have got to pull their finger out their arses and sort it out. 16 defeats in our last 22 league games is relegation form and it's a good job the other 6 games were all wins as I dread to think where we'd be right now...

 

[Si Robin]

Sorry Si, but it had nothing to do with evans and raynor. It was down to your side being one of the most shameful, shambolic dirty sides I've ever witnessed at field mill, an utter and complete disgrace.

Time wasting from the off, 2 elbows to our players resulting in straight reds. Feigning injuries from the off. The yellow card for the Cheltenham forward for diving after 5 minutes was an indicator of what was to come.

The game itself was terrible. We nearly fell for cheltenhams tactics. What was bizarre about cheltrnhams antics is that when thst when they played football they were alright

Big win for us though, massive win

Which is why I'll wait to see it with my own eyes later. The Cheltenham fans who went are calling it the complete opposite way.

 

[cufc17]

0-0 draw at Stevenage

 

[AdamStag]

Which is why I'll wait to see it with my own eyes later. The Cheltenham fans who went are calling it the complete opposite way.

Fair enough.

To help point you in the right direction one of the 2 sides had 2 players sent off for elbowing the opposing players.

 

[Luke Imp]

Which is why I'll wait to see it with my own eyes later. The Cheltenham fans who went are calling it the complete opposite way.

Adam isn't one to exaggerate, though.

 

[AdamStag]

Adam isn't one to exaggerate, though.

Correct

 

[Conker]

Cheltenham were the biggest bunch of nonces to come to the Mill for a long time.

They even managed to piss the grounds man off for deliberately ruining the pitch during warm-up.

 

[TimeyWimey]

If we continue to lose games the rate we're losing away from home, pencil us in for the bottom two.

Just been a weird season. Never have had, and won't have, the chance to field our best XI this season. We don't draw games. We don't win games back to back and a bad run of games where we lost 10 in 12 earlier in the season has us deep in the mire irrespective of our recent win 1, lose 1 form. There are players in this side who are ill-equipped for a relegation scrap, we've now lost 2 of our 3 experienced forwards to injury, we've lost our best CM to a season long injury, our best CB (imo) is yet to make a single appearance this season due to injury, we've sold Cooper (that I'm not arsed about because, despite his limited quality he was too inconsistent to win games on his own) and, despite overhauling a rotten defence last season, it appears to have somehow got worse.

It's weird, I genuinely have liked watching us play at times this season and I couldn't say that any time under Davis between the second Wembley win and the day he got sacked. But the defence makes too many cock ups, we have an overrated goalkeeper who has regressed dramatically, a lightweight midfield (though the addition of Paul Green and a returning Ryan Wintle who played well today could change that) and a constant inability to take our chances when we're on top. If we sorted out the basics like a lot of teams in this league have done so and became a little more streetwise, we wouldn't be in this mess. But we are and we won't be changing the manager between now and Summer so these lads have got to pull their finger out their arses and sort it out. 16 defeats in our last 22 league games is relegation form and it's a good job the other 6 games were all wins as I dread to think where we'd be right now...

We’re just pants and it’s going to be close call if we survive because, as you say, not much is going to change in personnel before the summer.

Any idea who the ‘experienced player’ looking like leaving is? Graham McGarry mentioned it pre match but his inability to put together a single coherent sentence didn’t help.

 

[Baratheon]

Cheltenham were an absolute disgrace. The worst I have seen for a long time and I would expect better from a team with such a (usually) decent manager. Even he was sent to the stands for pushing Raynor. Justice was done in the end but this was not a good advert for league 2 football.

 

[Si Robin]

Clarify something for me, was Paul Raynor in our technical area at the time - if so, why?

 

[JJ1532]

If we continue to lose games the rate we're losing away from home, pencil us in for the bottom two.

Just been a weird season. Never have had, and won't have, the chance to field our best XI this season. We don't draw games. We don't win games back to back and a bad run of games where we lost 10 in 12 earlier in the season has us deep in the mire irrespective of our recent win 1, lose 1 form. There are players in this side who are ill-equipped for a relegation scrap, we've now lost 2 of our 3 experienced forwards to injury, we've lost our best CM to a season long injury, our best CB (imo) is yet to make a single appearance this season due to injury, we've sold Cooper (that I'm not arsed about because, despite his limited quality he was too inconsistent to win games on his own) and, despite overhauling a rotten defence last season, it appears to have somehow got worse.

It's weird, I genuinely have liked watching us play at times this season and I couldn't say that any time under Davis between the second Wembley win and the day he got sacked. But the defence makes too many cock ups, we have an overrated goalkeeper who has regressed dramatically, a lightweight midfield (though the addition of Paul Green and a returning Ryan Wintle who played well today could change that) and a constant inability to take our chances when we're on top. If we sorted out the basics like a lot of teams in this league have done so and became a little more streetwise, we wouldn't be in this mess. But we are and we won't be changing the manager between now and Summer so these lads have got to pull their finger out their arses and sort it out. 16 defeats in our last 22 league games is relegation form and it's a good job the other 6 games were all wins as I dread to think where we'd be right now...

It's not like me to feel upbeat or defend the team after a defeat, but I will today.

Deserved to be 1-0 up, yes Wycombe had more of the ball, but they weren't creating much up until their equaliser. Ref gives them a harsh free kick when he'd let a foul of the exact same nature on Lewis Reilly go only a minute earlier and they equalise from it. Then for the 2nd, Akinfenwa clearly handballs it and they score from that. What hope have you got against 12 men? I know, we should have defended all 3 better, but the first 2 don't come if the ref is even semi-competent.

As you say though, the squad is in flux at the moment. We're losing players to injury, getting some back from long lay offs, bringing in new faces, selling established ones. For them to perform how they did today was quite pleasing. Yes, you're right, the way the defeat came was very similar and now we're not far off the bottom 2. But hopefully once things settle down, we'll come out of January with a better squad than what we took into. Get through these next 2, which are very tough games against teams we struggle against and things get a little easier. I'm more optimistic after what I saw today.

 

[Baratheon]

Clarify something for me, was Paul Raynor in our technical area at the time - if so, why?

I believe so. It appears he was trying to protect Danny Rose who was on the receiving end of a string of abuse from your bench at the time. This was after he had received an elbow from your player who was sent off. As I said, an absolute disgrace.

 

[dedwardp]

The first half today was possibly the most horrendous 45 minutes of football I've seen from us in a long time (fortunately I was away for the Cheltenham capitulation the other week). Absolutely dreadful, indescribable. Grimsby actually looked really good, the supposed long ball merchants were knocking it about with one-two touch passing and playing us off the park, it was a travesty that they were only 1-0 up at the break and not three or four. We lacked any tempo whatsoever, just strolling about at walking pace, knocking it back and forth amongst the centre halves and then occasionally a misplaced ball back to Grimsby. Enough to send anyone to sleep.

Second half we came out much better with some pace, a bit of a purpose to our play and put Grimsby onto the back foot. Grabbed an equaliser within minutes and then looked the most likely to get a winner but our poor finishing continues to haunt us. Last 15 minutes or so we tailed off again and it became a bit more of a non-event once more.

From being a point off the top three at Christmas and the form team in the division for about 17 matches or something like that, our season has completely fallen apart. We should be eyeing up that third spot but instead we're six games without a win and we look like limping towards a midtable finish now. Absolute rubbish. Until Christmas we were playing some really good stuff at times but we've become so disjointed it's beyond belief.

 

[AdamStag]

I believe so. It appears he was trying to protect Danny Rose who was on the receiving end of a string of abuse from your bench at the time. This was after he had received an elbow from your player who was sent off. As I said, an absolute disgrace.

I think Mansfield were up in arms 1 and all after that, just what exactly where Cheltenham trying to do?

It was infront of us, danny Rose was getting dogs abuse from Johnson (as yoh say, he's always seemed decent and a nice bloke so I'll assume this was an isolated incident) after recovering from an elbow to his face, raynor came across as it was clearly unacceptable.

Johnson was either/and brave/stupid for trying to sit in the west stand with the home fans, it must have took about 30 seconds for him to realise this wasn't the smartest move.

 

[Conker]

Gary Johnson post match interview, Jesus Christ he completely lost the plot today.

Stagsnet report well worth a read.

 

[WH_Stag]

Cheltenham looked ok when they tried to play but yes they were the dirtiest team I've seen for a long time. Gary Johnson is a twat just like his son is.

Lively, entertaining game with lots of action, good league two game.

 

[GTFCfish]

Now you Mansfield fans know why Grimsby fans hate Cheltenham so much.
Every time we play them they do shit like that, then boast about it afterwards on social media.
Deplorable team.

 

[Si Robin]

I've seen the Wright red, and I have no arguments. Some are saying he's looking to shield the ball, but his arm is clearly in the Mansfield player's face.

I'll wait to see Taylor Moore's. An elbow from him surprises me though - he's always struck me as too lightweight at times, and almost scared to make a hard tackle, so to actually elbow someone goes against anything I've seen from him before. Wright on the other hand has form in this area.

 

[Si Robin]

Now you Mansfield fans know why Grimsby fans hate Cheltenham so much.
Every time we play them they do shit like that, then boast about it afterwards on social media.
Deplorable team.

Is James McKeown able to walk yet after Wright's vicious stamp 2 years ago?

 

[AdamStag]

Is James McKeown able to walk yet after Wright's vicious stamp 2 years ago?

Now you Mansfield fans know why Grimsby fans hate Cheltenham so much.
Every time we play them they do shit like that, then boast about it afterwards on social media.
Deplorable team.

In fairness to Cheltenham though today was a complete disaster by them, it's not something I've encountered from them before. They beat us 3-0 fair and square earlier this season.