Aldershot Town match thread

[bobbie moore]

Mellor sat in stand

[barrowranger]

They played well... but...

Symington looks like a Sunday league player. No touch and no pass.

cowps watched players run by instead of doing something and his passing was woeful.

Haworth bottled everything and what he does 5 step overs and then rolls the ball to the opposition I want to punch him in the face. This needs coaching out of him.

I do think edmo is the right man for now but he needs to get people playing together in the same style. We have howarth throwing tricks, cook expecting long ball, pilks forcing play down the wing.
We need a style and stick to it.

On the plus size grandy had a blinder of a first half. Won everything and unless by eyes were playing tricks on me I saw him play a pass out of defence instead of a hoof.

[Jim]

No 14 Beckles had Cook in his pocket all day long by the way, great performance from the guy. Fair play.

That's the one I was on about earlier when I couldn't remember his name, won everything and seemed to be all over the place. He had Cookie sized up from the first ball in to him.

I can't help thinking that, for all his threat, Cook's presence encourages the team to play in a predictable way, which is easy for good sides to counter. I wonder whether we should try ringing the changes with some permutation of Walker, Grimes and Wilson?

[SKIPPER]

Edmo's maybe playing the long-game and resting his star-men for Tuesday. We're going to have to get used to the Sat/Tues fixtures and quick. We hardly had a midweek fixture last season so let's put the Aldershot game down to tired-legs. First away win at Macc...0-2

Bunkum ! Call me an old fart but if I remember rightly when I was younger our midweek games used to be played on a Monday and I don't remember players ever missing because they were tired. Any player who says he is tired is quite plainly not looking after himself in a professional manner between games.

[Kieran]

That's the one I was on about earlier when I couldn't remember his name, won everything and seemed to be all over the place. He had Cookie sized up from the first ball in to him.

I can't help thinking that, for all his threat, Cook's presence encourages the team to play in a predictable way, which is easy for good sides to counter. I wonder whether we should try ringing the changes with some permutation of Walker, Grimes and Wilson?

Absolute nonsense! I see your point in that perhaps it encourages us to be too direct, but drop Cook? You're having a laugh, without him we'd probably go down.

Poor yesterday but I think we need to give Aldershot some credit. They were more organised and fitter than us which is becoming a regular thing, worrying with full time training and makes you wonder what exactly we do at Lancaster every day.

Edmo's team selection? Puzzling.

[whitty1969]

I can't help thinking that, for all his threat, Cook's presence encourages the team to play in a predictable way, which is easy for good sides to counter. I wonder whether we should try ringing the changes with some permutation of Walker, Grimes and Wilson?

Absolute nonsense! I see your point in that perhaps it encourages us to be too direct, but drop Cook? You're having a laugh, without him we'd probably go down.

Poor yesterday but I think we need to give Aldershot some credit. They were more organised and fitter than us which is becoming a regular thing, worrying with full time training and makes you wonder what exactly we do at Lancaster every day.

Edmo's team selection? Puzzling.

Edmos signings puzzling, edmos team selection puzzling, substitutions puzzling.
Seems to be a pattern.
Van den kak signed. 1 year deal. 3 [SwearFilter] poor performances now sat in the stand for the season.

Grimes. Forfana. Broek + co need to go out on loan for game time.

[Exiled Bluebird]

I thought we were poor all over the pitch yesterday, with Jason Walker being the only player to make a consistently good contribution.

While some players let themselves down with bad games, I think Edmo has to face up to the fact that some players aren't up to the standard we need if we are serious about looking up rather than simply staying up.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that Simon Grand is simply not a good enough footballer for this level. He is reasonably competent defensively, but is not confident in any way with the ball at his feet, and only seems capable of pumping the ball into the channels, no other ideas at all. If we want to make progress, we need at least one central defender who is comfortable with bringing the ball out of defence at his feet and finding a pass into the feet of a midfielder. There are always going to be times when the ball has to go long, but it can't be the only option. Apart from the fact it is football that very few people are interested in paying to watch, it is asking the opposition to come and have another go three times out of four.

I thought Ashton didn't have too bad a game on the whole. He does sometimes find himself out of position and getting exposed by pace, but he put in some good tackles and worked hard. Whilst I would always like to see a younger player with plenty of energy to burn getting up and down at full back (someone in the mould of Wilmer-Anderton), I think his experience will serve us ok for now.

Pilkington looked off the pace, but looked maybe to be carrying a niggle/injury still. Howarth continues to frustrate. Definitely good to have a player in the team who is willing to run at defenders and commit people, he gets us corners every game (and most of the time free kicks too), and isn't shy of pulling the trigger like some. But his final product is often lacking, he is lazy/cowardly in defence and is at times incredibly greedy. It often feels like he is playing for Andy Howarth rather than Barrow AFC.

Lacey worked hard again but makes bad decisions too often, both with reckless tackles and misplaced passes. I'm the same as others in wondering what has happened to Mellor, yes he started slowly, but he should have had man of the match against Eastleigh, he worked hard defensively and looked assured in possession. Just the kind of player we could do with.

Cowps started really brightly yesterday, clearing up well in defence and using the ball well going forward, but seemed to really fade as Aldershot began to get on top, misplacing several passes. He is the kind of player we need to drag us back into the game when things aren't going well, and I think that in time he will get to that level. He is definitely better used in midfield than defence, I hope he gets a run of games in that position now.

Cook looked slightly off his game yesterday, and at times a bit disinterested. I think some of that can be put down to getting pushed and pulled all game by both of their centre halves, and the referee not giving anything from the start until he was subbed. The only thing I would say is that he has dealt with that before and come out on top, but yesterday, it wasn't to be. Good to see Wilson get a little run out at the end. Not really time to do too much, but he did look (understandably) apprehensive, not really wanting to commit himself when there was a half chance. That should go once he gets some more game time under his belt though.

The player who let the team down the most by a good distance in my opinion was Symington. I've never once seen him contribute in a positive way, I'm not sure what Edmo sees in him. Yesterday, though we definitely didn't deserve anything out of the game, he came on and was directly responsible for the second two goals for Aldershot (giving away a needless free-kick for the first and standing watching as the scorer ran straight past him before recieving the ball for the second), meaning you could make the argument he lost us a point. If Edmo has any backbone about him that should mean that he isn't involved in the first team squad again for the foreseeable future, if at all. Especially as he offers very little going forward as well, wasting probably our best chance towards the end by running from one side of the pitch to the other, getting nowhere, when several passes were on. We can't keep carrying players because they are well liked by people at the club, there isn't room at this level, everyone should be judged on what they do on the pitch.

After the positives to come out of Tuesday (I'm not in the "best thing since sliced bread" camp on that one, but there was definitely some good stuff in patches) it was really disappointing to take one step forward and two steps back. Purely from a commercial point of view, we are shooting ourselves in the foot with the football we are offering. There were four lads sat behind me in the stand who were clearly at their first game. One of them had a kiddy involved in the half time stuff, and had brought his mates along with him to watch the game while he was there for his child. They were obviously football fans, and yesterday was an opportunity to pick them up as regular/floating supporters. From what I could gather there was someone who worked with them who had been trying to get them down for a while, so they had already been primed. But the consensus was that it was boring to watch the ball being played long at nearly every opportunity all afternoon (apart from a ten minute spell after Aldershot scored the first one, had our lads been told they weren't allowed to pass to feet until they were one down?!).

I don't think they were expecting a passing masterclass, just something to keep them interested. I share their frustrations, but will of course be back at Holker Street next Saturday. They will almost certainly not be back any time soon. That is lost revenue that can be directly attributed to the poor entertainment on display. As a business, at some point someone has to be held accountable for that.

As negative as this post is (hard to not be after yesterday's display) I'm still fairly upbeat about the rest of the season. There is plenty of time to get things in order and start playing the type of football that will lay the foundation for making good strides next season. We have to start playing positively though, imposing ourselves on the opposition rather than worrying about them, and giving chances to players who show on the pitch they can create things, rather than players living on reputation. This has to come from the manager and his staff. I hope they can see that too.

[Middleton Nick]

I wonder if some of the players Edmo was looking at pre season did not want to come and play for Barrow.I say this because we have ended up with a bunch of players, bar about three,who are simply not good enough.I was looking for a midfield general.We sign Mellor with previous league experience who you would expect to shine dropping a couple of leagues down.I'm afraid at the moment its Corporal Mellor.He needs to show more.He was poor at Braintree and was subbed.As Whitty says some of these players need to go out on loan for game time,but I don't know where.Someone mentioned NW Counties.

[Steeley]

Where was Grimes?

[Jonty]

We just never got going at all yesterday and it was a very flat performance compared with the Lincoln game. How much that was down to Aldershot nullifying or us just having a really bad day- I don't know- probably somewhere in the middle of that. There was just too much missing from our game and we were second best all over.

What does he do for Tuesday- change it, or keep the faith and put this one behind us as a bad day.

[A.B.]

Where was Grimes?

On the bench, Steeley.

[The Real Slim Azza]

Where was Grimes?

On the bench, Steeley.

Wasted at this club.

Likes to have the ball at his feet and turn and run at the defence.

The player with the best, most recent experience and hes played very rarely.

[Kieran]

Grimes. Forfana. Broek + co need to go out on loan for game time.

Grimes needs to be on the pitch never mind out on loan. How a lad with his ability, experience and pedigree can't get a sniff I don't know, bewildering.

[The Real Slim Azza]

Grimes. Forfana. Broek + co need to go out on loan for game time.

Grimes needs to be on the pitch never mind out on loan. How a lad with his ability, experience and pedigree can't get a sniff I don't know, bewildering.

Spot on Kieran.

Sort of question that Russ Dodd should be asking instead of rimming them out

[Steeley]

Where was Grimes?

On the bench, Steeley.

Shite that, doesn't get on ahead of Symington who is awful and Wilson who's been in a wheelchair since he left junior school.