North Western Railwaymen vs Great Western Railwaymen

[Big Bird]

Wes Thomas goal was outstanding. Fantastic move started by Robert.

Brilliant win all things considered. Excited to see what this squad is capable of when together and firing.

 

[Crewealexfan123]

Well and truly sick of this now.. The club from top to bottom is an absolute disgrace. The stands are lifeless, majority of fans given up and completely fed up, the board continue to plod along dreaming of the next big sale whilst for some reason turning a blind eye at the horror show that we've become over the last 2 and a half years and a manager who's constant stubborness makes me want to walk down and sack him myself..

Let's be honest any half decent team would have beaten Swindon today, us no. Mentally we seem completely piss weak, physically we seem short of fitness (which is an absolute disgrace) and defensively we seem a million miles away from what is required at this level of football. Anyone like to offer a valid explanation why Davis walked straight back In today? Favouritism showing yet again.

I had a free ticket today and I only decided I was going at 2:40, sums up exactly how low I feel about the whole thing at the moment.

Bring on Millwall. A heavy defeat and that should (even though we know it won't, he'll still have a job for life even if he loses every game for the rest of the season) force the board to really put Davis under pressure.

 

[TimeyWimey]

A defeat, even the heaviest imaginable, would not make one jot of difference to Davis' position whilst some fans, Radio Stoke, Sentinel and Chronicle pedal the "he's turning it round" line.

Or even worse "I was entertained so don't mind losing" that was on Radio Stoke. Get a fucking grip.

 

[SRNP]

Well and truly sick of this now.. The club from top to bottom is an absolute disgrace. The stands are lifeless, majority of fans given up and completely fed up, the board continue to plod along dreaming of the next big sale whilst for some reason turning a blind eye at the horror show that we've become over the last 2 and a half years and a manager who's constant stubborness makes me want to walk down and sack him myself..

Let's be honest any half decent team would have beaten Swindon today, us no. Mentally we seem completely piss weak, physically we seem short of fitness (which is an absolute disgrace) and defensively we seem a million miles away from what is required at this level of football. Anyone like to offer a valid explanation why Davis walked straight back In today? Favouritism showing yet again.

I had a free ticket today and I only decided I was going at 2:40, sums up exactly how low I feel about the whole thing at the moment.

Bring on Millwall. A heavy defeat and that should (even though we know it won't, he'll still have a job for life even if he loses every game for the rest of the season) force the board to really put Davis under pressure.

Can only 2nd this. I watch the Alex to get away from the every day stresses of normal life. I'm coming away from games feeling ripped off and miserable and more bloody stressed.

Swindon had a makeshift team with injuries and international players, ANY team in the division would have torn them apart today (no offence) but when you give Crewe that much possession and let us dominate a game you know your team isn't full strength. 3-1 to Swindon. Our goal? wasn't because of good play king just ran out of options and surprised the keeper with a 25 yard bolt into bottom corner. 9 times out of 10 he would have missed. The "good play" was just us passing it out to the wingers, them running into the box getting tackled or crossing to 5ft 8in LDV then Swindon hoofing it up the pitch giving us the ball back just to repeat the process. They then got 4-5 good counter attacks and because our defence is probably the most ridiculous "professional" level defence, they scored 3. Yet we are "going in the right direction" fuck right off, some of our fans are deluded as fuck.

Davis has pissed me off enough to rant about him. The players are finding it hard to play for him. I don't blame any of the players for our performances, some people may say Colclough is selfish however I think he's just fed up. He's the only one that shoots or tries to get a goal. King got fed up because why bother trying to play "good football" tactics that Davis has set up when they all know it doesn't work? He just belted it out of frustration and it went in. Inman fortnight ago? couldn't be fucked just ran at the defence, turned in the box bolted bottom corner. If I was Ray id be straight to Davis's office asking why I was dropped over Harry..... Cooper? not getting a chance at all. Saunders is on his way out like Waters. LDV goes to Davis "why play me on the wing" he's then benched for 2 games, then shoved up front on his own when its clear he needs to work off a tall striker.....only one reason I can see Davis doing this and this is so LDV plays badly so fans don't moan when he drops him.

I'm honestly surprised the "Davis Out" Chants haven't started yet.

 

[Crewealexfan123]

A defeat, even the heaviest imaginable, would not make one jot of difference to Davis' position whilst some fans, Radio Stoke, Sentinel and Chronicle pedal the "he's turning it round" line.

Or even worse "I was entertained so don't mind losing" that was on Radio Stoke. Get a fucking grip.

I can understand that sentiment a little bit because bring 'entertained but shit' is better than last season where we were completely bored to death and still shit.

However these morons who for some reason will not get out of their little bubble and still believe Steve Davis is the best thing since sliced bread need to realise that it's not 2012 anymore. It is 2015, we are absolutely shit and are only likely to get worse unless something is changed.

A quote i have seen from a couple of fans on twitter is 'careful what you wish for' and although I know what they mean about sniffing around non-leagues etc but I just want to enjoy watching my team again, is that so bad to wish for?

 

[JJ1532]

Can only 2nd this. I watch the Alex to get away from the every day stresses of normal life. I'm coming away from games feeling ripped off and miserable and more bloody stressed.

Swindon had a makeshift team with injuries and international players, ANY team in the division would have torn them apart today (no offence) but when you give Crewe that much possession and let us dominate a game you know your team isn't full strength. 3-1 to Swindon. Our goal? wasn't because of good play king just ran out of options and surprised the keeper with a 25 yard bolt into bottom corner. 9 times out of 10 he would have missed. The "good play" was just us passing it out to the wingers, them running into the box getting tackled or crossing to 5ft 8in LDV then Swindon hoofing it up the pitch giving us the ball back just to repeat the process. They then got 4-5 good counter attacks and because our defence is probably the most ridiculous "professional" level defence, they scored 3. Yet we are "going in the right direction" fuck right off, some of our fans are deluded as fuck.

Davis has pissed me off enough to rant about him. The players are finding it hard to play for him. I don't blame any of the players for our performances, some people may say Colclough is selfish however I think he's just fed up. He's the only one that shoots or tries to get a goal. King got fed up because why bother trying to play "good football" tactics that Davis has set up when they all know it doesn't work? He just belted it out of frustration and it went in. Inman fortnight ago? couldn't be fucked just ran at the defence, turned in the box bolted bottom corner. If I was Ray id be straight to Davis's office asking why I was dropped over Harry..... Cooper? not getting a chance at all. Saunders is on his way out like Waters. LDV goes to Davis "why play me on the wing" he's then benched for 2 games, then shoved up front on his own when its clear he needs to work off a tall striker.....only one reason I can see Davis doing this and this is so LDV plays badly so fans don't moan when he drops him.

I'm honestly surprised the "Davis Out" Chants haven't started yet.

Sorry, but your summation of the game for me just smacks of being negative for the sake of it. Our players only shoot because they are frustrated? Maybe in previous games, but not sure how that was the case yesterday. We'd had a very good first half where we were unlucky not to go in infront. 2nd half, we'd again built some pressure, got away with the Garratt clanger and scored a good goal.

Remember, the goal came from Turton and LDV pressuring Ajose into losing the ball. We had been doing it all game, pressuring them, forcing them into mistakes. It's what we don't do enough of and what we stopped doing in the last 30 minutes. Turton and LDV forced Ajose to lose the ball, LDV lays it to King and it opened up for the shot. He took it, keeper probably should have done better, but he still scored. He hasn't had enough shots to say for certain whether it was a one off, although I'd argue it wasn't given his goal against Preston was of a similar standard. I certainly don't think you can say he took the shot out of frustration, it opened up for him. Had we been knocking it back and forth and creating nothing, then fair enough, but we hadn't. We'd created chances, good ones at that. Colclough's 4, Atkinson's, Inman. Chances that our general play for once deserved.

Look, to moan at whats been before is one thing. But I totally disagree that what we were doing yesterday wasn't working, it was. But we got done by an equaliser that had about 3 lucky bounces in it. First Ajose's through ball hits Davis on the back of the legs and falls straight back to Ajose. Second, Ajose tries to go round Turton and Nugent, it takes a double deflection off them and lands right into the path of Thomas. Third, Garratt makes a good save from Thomas, but the ball falls right back to Thomas, who sets up Smith to belt it into the corner. To me, that goal was just pure bad luck. 2nd, I think you hold your hands up and say we've been done by a great bit of football. Robert, Rodgers, Thomas, superb movement and link up play. Think the majority of teams at this level would struggle to cope with the speed and fluidity of that move. Yeah, from our point of view, you look for blame and there probably was some, including Harry. But for me, that was their quality proving too much for us, not just our inept defending as it usually is. 3rd, who cares, game was gone by that point anyway. You have a go at us for conceding 3 off 5 on target. But what about Coventry when we scored 2 from 3 on target? For me, it's swings and roundabouts. We've played a number of teams that have missed hat fulls of chances. We just happened upon a Swindon team that were clinical on the day, as we have been at Coventry, at home to Bury etc. Sometimes these things happen for you and against you.

As for Ray, he was dropped because Davis has hopefully seen the light. He's finally seen that Ray is a talented footballer with the mental capacity of an amoeba. The guy mentally will never make it was a footballer. Harry is the better defender in my opinion and bar getting done by Thomas for the 2nd, barely put a foot wrong yesterday. If Ray wants to know why he was dropped, watch Bury's first goal back and tell me what he was doing? Watch Wigan's goal and ask why a 6ft 4in CB is getting pushed over so easily by a 5ft9in winger. Maybe it was a foul, but your bigger(and supposedly stronger) CB should never be losing out there. Would you ever see Mark Ellis or Dave Artell getting pushed off the ball that easily? Yes, thats on the manager for releasing Ellis and replacing him with Ray, but maybe now he's seen the error of his ways?

Cooper? Did you see his sub appearance yesterday? Dreadful. Lost the ball every time he touched it and blew a great chance when he failed to control a cross in the area which, had he done better with, would have given him a clear shot at goal. Since Preston at home last season, I can't think of a single game where he's come on and done well. He's made 6 sub appearances this season and managed just 3 shots. I don't think you can make any sort of case for dropping him over any of the others at the moment. Saunders I'll give you, although Davis did say had he been fit yesterday, he'd have been on the bench and would have come on instead of Ainley.

Well and truly sick of this now.. The club from top to bottom is an absolute disgrace. The stands are lifeless, majority of fans given up and completely fed up, the board continue to plod along dreaming of the next big sale whilst for some reason turning a blind eye at the horror show that we've become over the last 2 and a half years and a manager who's constant stubborness makes me want to walk down and sack him myself..

Let's be honest any half decent team would have beaten Swindon today, us no.

The club from top to bottom is a disgrace? The board then. The same board that have kept us afloat for 30 years? Why haven't they sacked Davis? 2 incidents I think affect their thinking. First, their was fan pressure to sack Dario back in the 80s but they kept patience with him and it paid dividends. Now, this isn't 1985, we aren't what we were back then etc etc. But I think they have seen what patience can do and they are prepared to give it as long as possible before sacking Davis. Second, they appointed Holland and it didn't work. They sacked him and it got worse under his replacement. They have had their hands burnt by bad managerial decisions, so I think that explains their reluctance to sack Davis now. I find it hard to call a board with their track record a disgrace. Especially when all they've done wrong is perhaps show too much faith and patience in Davis.

As for Swindon, they had their first choice goalie, 3 of their first choice defenders(Thompson missing at RB), 2 of their first choice midfielders(Kasim missing) and their 3 strongest strikers. They had a much better strike force yesterday than they had done all season tbf. That wasn't as weak a team as I was expecting them to field.

As for the fans, I'm not sure how they have given up. If anything, they have shown new enthusiasm. They responded to the performance at Wigan and were fantastic in terms of atmosphere. And yesterday, they again backed the team up until they went behind, which is understandable. Those aren't the actions of a fanbase that have given up.

I am gutted with how we lost that yesterday. I am far from happy with Davis at the moment, he's doing far more wrong than he is right and he surely is approaching the last stand as our manager. But if I asked you whether the team that had 3 points from 6 at this stage last season was better or worse than the one that has 2 points from 6 games this season, what would your answer be? If I had to judge our first 6 games of last season compared to the first 6 games of this season, I would say there is no comparison. We've played better football, conceded fewer goals, scored more goals from open play(and not from crosses onto the head of Haber/Oliver either), not been walked off the park like Rochdale, Swindon and Gillingham did last season. Despite the fact we haven't won yet, I think we've bizarrely done better this season than last season and shown clear signs of improvement. We've not been good enough for sure and need to do better, but I think there is more potential for improvement at the moment than there was 12 months ago.

However, if our last 2 performances are anything to go by, we might not be far off. For me, Davis has 4 games to save his job, simple as that. We have Millwall(H), Shrewsbury(A), Walsall(A), Southend(H). No reason why, if we play like we have done in our last 2 games, we can't be targeting 2 wins and a draw out of that lot. We ground out 2 points from 4 poor performances and have now lost 2 games from 2 generally good performances imo. Now is the time to either combine the 2 and get some points or just get points anyway we can. If Davis only has 1 win from these first 10 games, he has to go. But for me, he has bought himself time to see what shape we are in come the end of this month. Then we'll know if this squad is possibly moving in the right direction or indeed are not. But for me, now is not the time to totally implode. The 10 game mark(or sooner depending on how the next few games go) is the time to really start protesting for me. If fans don't want to back the manager or the board, fair enough. But I think we should back the players. I think this group(which aren't being used effectively) has more potential than last years group. The players are trying their best and for me, aren't potentially far off clicking. Lets wait till the end of the month and see where we are then I say.

 

[jbet]

Sorry, but your summation of the game for me just smacks of being negative for the sake of it. Our players only shoot because they are frustrated? Maybe in previous games, but not sure how that was the case yesterday. We'd had a very good first half where we were unlucky not to go in infront. 2nd half, we'd again built some pressure, got away with the Garratt clanger and scored a good goal.

Remember, the goal came from Turton and LDV pressuring Ajose into losing the ball. We had been doing it all game, pressuring them, forcing them into mistakes. It's what we don't do enough of and what we stopped doing in the last 30 minutes. Turton and LDV forced Ajose to lose the ball, LDV lays it to King and it opened up for the shot. He took it, keeper probably should have done better, but he still scored. He hasn't had enough shots to say for certain whether it was a one off, although I'd argue it wasn't given his goal against Preston was of a similar standard. I certainly don't think you can say he took the shot out of frustration, it opened up for him. Had we been knocking it back and forth and creating nothing, then fair enough, but we hadn't. We'd created chances, good ones at that. Colclough's 4, Atkinson's, Inman. Chances that our general play for once deserved.

Look, to moan at whats been before is one thing. But I totally disagree that what we were doing yesterday wasn't working, it was. But we got done by an equaliser that had about 3 lucky bounces in it. First Ajose's through ball hits Davis on the back of the legs and falls straight back to Ajose. Second, Ajose tries to go round Turton and Nugent, it takes a double deflection off them and lands right into the path of Thomas. Third, Garratt makes a good save from Thomas, but the ball falls right back to Thomas, who sets up Smith to belt it into the corner. To me, that goal was just pure bad luck. 2nd, I think you hold your hands up and say we've been done by a great bit of football. Robert, Rodgers, Thomas, superb movement and link up play. Think the majority of teams at this level would struggle to cope with the speed and fluidity of that move. Yeah, from our point of view, you look for blame and there probably was some, including Harry. But for me, that was their quality proving too much for us, not just our inept defending as it usually is. 3rd, who cares, game was gone by that point anyway. You have a go at us for conceding 3 off 5 on target. But what about Coventry when we scored 2 from 3 on target? For me, it's swings and roundabouts. We've played a number of teams that have missed hat fulls of chances. We just happened upon a Swindon team that were clinical on the day, as we have been at Coventry, at home to Bury etc. Sometimes these things happen for you and against you.

As for Ray, he was dropped because Davis has hopefully seen the light. He's finally seen that Ray is a talented footballer with the mental capacity of an amoeba. The guy mentally will never make it was a footballer. Harry is the better defender in my opinion and bar getting done by Thomas for the 2nd, barely put a foot wrong yesterday. If Ray wants to know why he was dropped, watch Bury's first goal back and tell me what he was doing? Watch Wigan's goal and ask why a 6ft 4in CB is getting pushed over so easily by a 5ft9in winger. Maybe it was a foul, but your bigger(and supposedly stronger) CB should never be losing out there. Would you ever see Mark Ellis or Dave Artell getting pushed off the ball that easily? Yes, thats on the manager for releasing Ellis and replacing him with Ray, but maybe now he's seen the error of his ways?

Cooper? Did you see his sub appearance yesterday? Dreadful. Lost the ball every time he touched it and blew a great chance when he failed to control a cross in the area which, had he done better with, would have given him a clear shot at goal. Since Preston at home last season, I can't think of a single game where he's come on and done well. He's made 6 sub appearances this season and managed just 3 shots. I don't think you can make any sort of case for dropping him over any of the others at the moment. Saunders I'll give you, although Davis did say had he been fit yesterday, he'd have been on the bench and would have come on instead of Ainley.

The club from top to bottom is a disgrace? The board then. The same board that have kept us afloat for 30 years? Why haven't they sacked Davis? 2 incidents I think affect their thinking. First, their was fan pressure to sack Dario back in the 80s but they kept patience with him and it paid dividends. Now, this isn't 1985, we aren't what we were back then etc etc. But I think they have seen what patience can do and they are prepared to give it as long as possible before sacking Davis. Second, they appointed Holland and it didn't work. They sacked him and it got worse under his replacement. They have had their hands burnt by bad managerial decisions, so I think that explains their reluctance to sack Davis now. I find it hard to call a board with their track record a disgrace. Especially when all they've done wrong is perhaps show too much faith and patience in Davis.

As for Swindon, they had their first choice goalie, 3 of their first choice defenders(Thompson missing at RB), 2 of their first choice midfielders(Kasim missing) and their 3 strongest strikers. They had a much better strike force yesterday than they had done all season tbf. That wasn't as weak a team as I was expecting them to field.

As for the fans, I'm not sure how they have given up. If anything, they have shown new enthusiasm. They responded to the performance at Wigan and were fantastic in terms of atmosphere. And yesterday, they again backed the team up until they went behind, which is understandable. Those aren't the actions of a fanbase that have given up.

I am gutted with how we lost that yesterday. I am far from happy with Davis at the moment, he's doing far more wrong than he is right and he surely is approaching the last stand as our manager. But if I asked you whether the team that had 3 points from 6 at this stage last season was better or worse than the one that has 2 points from 6 games this season, what would your answer be? If I had to judge our first 6 games of last season compared to the first 6 games of this season, I would say there is no comparison. We've played better football, conceded fewer goals, scored more goals from open play(and not from crosses onto the head of Haber/Oliver either), not been walked off the park like Rochdale, Swindon and Gillingham did last season. Despite the fact we haven't won yet, I think we've bizarrely done better this season than last season and shown clear signs of improvement. We've not been good enough for sure and need to do better, but I think there is more potential for improvement at the moment than there was 12 months ago.

However, if our last 2 performances are anything to go by, we might not be far off. For me, Davis has 4 games to save his job, simple as that. We have Millwall(H), Shrewsbury(A), Walsall(A), Southend(H). No reason why, if we play like we have done in our last 2 games, we can't be targeting 2 wins and a draw out of that lot. We ground out 2 points from 4 poor performances and have now lost 2 games from 2 generally good performances imo. Now is the time to either combine the 2 and get some points or just get points anyway we can. If Davis only has 1 win from these first 10 games, he has to go. But for me, he has bought himself time to see what shape we are in come the end of this month. Then we'll know if this squad is possibly moving in the right direction or indeed are not. But for me, now is not the time to totally implode. The 10 game mark(or sooner depending on how the next few games go) is the time to really start protesting for me. If fans don't want to back the manager or the board, fair enough. But I think we should back the players. I think this group(which aren't being used effectively) has more potential than last years group. The players are trying their best and for me, aren't potentially far off clicking. Lets wait till the end of the month and see where we are then I say.

Have to commend your enthusiasm, but you'll be gone by March.

 

[dh625y]

JJ1532, great post, very interesting read.

I forgot that you lot are unlucky enough to have Vale as your rivals, this year's Bristol City on the forums. Trust one of them to pop his head up and have a dig.

 

[The Alex]

I don't go much these days but trust what JJ says tbh, don't think he gets much wrong and appreciate his posts

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Fair assessment from JJ. These players are ultimately very talented and aren't being played to their strengths. I believe the board will act should we be winless by October. We may have looked better but we really need to start looking like we can score a ton of goals rather than score one and set up not to concede.

Not there once again for the Millwall game, hopefully will be celebrating 3 points in Somerset come Saturday Evening. This is a big opportunity for us against a team very low on confidence and we must seize this opportunity.