russell_anderson wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:19 pm
Hadrian wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 3:32 pm
Carlisle were good in the first half but we more than matched them. A goal immediately before half-time is a tonic and, for whatever reason, they raised their game in the second half. We were overwhelmed rather than giving up and couldn't cope. Possibly the best second half positive performance by opponents I have seen so far this season - as good in its way as Orient's at Holker Street, which was a master class in preventing football.
Afraid I don't agree with that in any way. Orient were a far better passing team than Carlisle. Defensively, Carlisle were solid but that meant getting to the ball and heaving it forward. There was next to no build up from the back. In fact, in the first half with the wind, Carlisle were pretty clueless and had no idea how to keep the ball in play whenever they hit a forward pass. They played better in the second half but almost all the goals were mistakes by our players usually the right side of the defence. I hardly remember an attack of significance coming from the Canavan/Brough side in the second half.
Feel free to disagree.
Last night wasn't a night for long passes, with a westerly swirling unpredictably around the ground and both teams failed with three out of every four long balls while both teams passed pretty accurately otherwise, given the conditions (Barrow slightly better, to my surprise). The big difference was that Carlisle took four times more shots, three-quarters of which were on target (Barrow 1 from 4) and the goals came when we let Carlisle get into a position to score as much as their creative ability. Despite that, Barrow had more possession in each half - something we have seen previously when Barrow have lost - but weren't allowed or were unable to make use of it.
I was referring to the Orient home game, which I also attended - perhaps you meant the away - and my reference was to the way Orient prevented Barrow from playing the free-flowing football that had been a trademark previously, rather than to make a passing comparison between Orient and Carlisle.
