Ebbsfleet v Bluebirds

[Wintergreen]

I agree with you, in most of what you say yet,to be honest as I see it it comes down to cost and class, just wish it would of been Ian ev and not fat food Cox maybe we would of been class

I think you're right bud, Evatt is the right man at the wrong time, I hope he doesn't get too downhearted about things in his new career, we're staring into an abyss once more but we are in it together - I hope. In hindsight, Cox's prime concern was with milking the cash cow, this has now overshadowed the worthy achievements of his team; form comes and goes, class is permanent.

[xerxes]

There was absolutely no reason that we should have lost that game today.

From the rest of your post, it would appear that there are 7 reasons why we lost the game!

[Suffolk Blue]

I can't believe people stay in on a Saturday night to write stuff like that ^^^

No worries Boylie. Most of that rant was composed whilst sitting in a hour long queue to get through the Dartford tunnel. Sort of gave it an extra edge. I'm now back on the medication and all is calm.

[Jim]

I can't believe people stay in on a Saturday night to write stuff like that ^^^

No worries Boylie. Most of that rant was composed whilst sitting in a hour long queue to get through the Dartford tunnel. Sort of gave it an extra edge. I'm now back on the medication and all is calm.

From what I have seen of Barrow this season, yours seems a pretty fair analysis. The question is - how would you change things if you were IE? Constructive answers only (not aimed at you SB). My only answer to the goalscoring problem would be to get forward quickly and get defenders turning. As for the defence, settled back four with Granite plus 1 in the middle and Brown and Jones on the wings.

[michaelstreet75]

Quotes like "best manager since wilkie" and this is the best football in 50 years are absolutely staggering, yes evatt could well be a decent manager, however including his brief stint at Chesterfield his record is 6 wins in 24! For all our half decent football every now and again we are no better of results wise than under our previous managers, I'm not getting on the managers case as hes does ok with the budget and players he has at his disposal, however i feel some posters on here are geting carried away and not looking at cold hard statistics which are far from great

[tictactoe]

Have we all, myself included, just got carried away with watching good passing football but underneath that we really are not that good? I hope it all turns round for Evatt and he keeps us in this league whilst all the mess off the pitch sorts itself out

[Jonty]

Quotes like "best manager since wilkie" and this is the best football in 50 years are absolutely staggering, yes evatt could well be a decent manager, however including his brief stint at Chesterfield his record is 6 wins in 24! For all our half decent football every now and again we are no better of results wise than under our previous managers, I'm not getting on the managers case as hes does ok with the budget and players he has at his disposal, however i feel some posters on here are geting carried away and not looking at cold hard statistics which are far from great

No getting away from it, you are right in what you say. A lot was written prior to the recent run of losses which have set alarms ringing. I still believe the squad is good enough to turn things around on the pitch.

[The Tomahawk Kid]

Quotes like "best manager since wilkie" and this is the best football in 50 years are absolutely staggering, yes evatt could well be a decent manager, however including his brief stint at Chesterfield his record is 6 wins in 24! For all our half decent football every now and again we are no better of results wise than under our previous managers, I'm not getting on the managers case as hes does ok with the budget and players he has at his disposal, however i feel some posters on here are geting carried away and not looking at cold hard statistics which are far from great

Good post!

All through this season I've wondered about some of the bizarre comments on here regarding us playing great football. Now and again, and in brief spells, maybe; yes. But it's results that count - and we're not picking up points.
I glanced at the National League table this morning - our position is slightly worrying. In a couple of weeks we could be in the bottom four. We need to start winning games!

[Suffolk Blue]

No worries Boylie. Most of that rant was composed whilst sitting in a hour long queue to get through the Dartford tunnel. Sort of gave it an extra edge. I'm now back on the medication and all is calm.

From what I have seen of Barrow this season, yours seems a pretty fair analysis. The question is - how would you change things if you were IE? Constructive answers only (not aimed at you SB). My only answer to the goalscoring problem would be to get forward quickly and get defenders turning. As for the defence, settled back four with Granite plus 1 in the middle and Brown and Jones on the wings.

Actually Jim when you boil my rant down my anger was mainly directed at our attacking play. And I dont even think its a issue of playing one player or another. The failure is more systemic than individual and fundamentally stems from the style of play we've adopted.

Lets leave aside the fact that Ian Evatt as a central defender having played at the highest level would know better than any of us how to construct a defensive line at this level like the Berlin wall. Yes he may be constrained in resources in this respect and yes losing Granite in the warm up turned out to be critical and was very unlucky. Notwithstanding all of that IE has set out to play a particular style of attacking football. And I'm happy with that even if it means that we drop the odd defensive clanger (though we are currently doing it too regularly).

And yes we clearly need some attacking height up front. That's pretty obvious. So what does that leave us with right now that we can hurt the opposition? The answer has to be our youth, fitness, energy and pace which actually we have in good measure especially when pitched against an aging Ebbsfleet side yesterday. Contrary to my original view there were times especially in the first half when we really did look dangerous. These were all caused when we ran at pace at the Ebbsfleet defence with the ball to feet. Each time we failed to execute a finish. Disappointing but not however actually the problem.

The problem is that with the assets we do have, on most occasions we continually chose to slow the game down when approaching the opposition area and then play overly complicated one touch football. This looks pretty on the eye, with players running into space to receive balls and then passing the ball on. But it was all done in front of the Ebbsfleet defence who must at times have got tired just watching it. There was rarely any penetration. Its no wonder that when we do score generally speaking the quality of the goals is high. The complicated nature of our play ensures that when it works it looks good. But it will only work in out of 4/5 attempts.

Its as if the squad have read and learned well the texbook on "the right way to play football" but the sections on striking and/or finishing have been omitted. This is not a failing caused by our lack of resources so much as tactical weakness which exhibits itself as naivety and translates itself rapidly to the opposition. At times yesterday it really looked as if rather than express themselves and do something different they were playing by numbers. Thus assuming something would happen than making something happen.

We still have a tendency to talk about Ian Evatt as if he is far better than the club hes managing and I've detected a willingness to attribute failings to the club rather than the manager. He may indeed be a very good manager in the making but we should not forget that this is his rookie year in management. The problem highlighted above is one pretty much of his making as he has dictated the prefferred style of play and assembled a squad that he thinks can within limitations best play that style. He is moulding the squad to play in a certain way and that way is currently being found wanting due to an inability to finish what we start. Addressing this problem, even with the existing squad would guarantee survival in the VN.

[The Tomahawk Kid]

I agree with your post.

Too many people on here seem to think Ian Evatt is a great manager - why?
Because we're playing good football?
To be honest; the football really isn't that good! BUT in comparison to recent seasons - it looks world class.
We can't defend and we can't score goals - yesterday's game was a clear indication of the latter.

To be fair, I think the guy has the right ideas - he just doesn't have the quality of player needed to turn his ideas into results. And with no resources at his disposal where is he going to get the quality players he needs?

It's going to be a long season...

[Barrowabc]

I agree with you, in most of what you say yet,to be honest as I see it it comes down to cost and class, just wish it would of been Ian ev and not fat food Cox maybe we would of been class

We were class under Cox

If you liked hoof ball then guess it was class, just not for me

[boyliegladbach]

I don't know how a few people on here have never made it into top level management themselves, make it sound so easy

[Nigel Bamford]

12 teams have scored fewer goals than us. 6 have conceded more. The problem is not up front. How many times this season have we failed to hold on to a lead? Sort the defence and we'd be solid mid-table at least.

[Big E]

The squad was always going to evolve under Evatt. He's got a style he wants to Play, and I'm sure he's astute enough to realise where it's breaking down. He's not been helped by injuries , but I'm guessing we'll see a few comings and goings. If he is to progress as a manger and move up the league's, he has to show he can figure it out for his own career, I'm sure given his background hell6give it the best shot he can

[Pedro]

The squad was always going to evolve under Evatt. He's got a style he wants to Play, and I'm sure he's astute enough to realise where it's breaking down. He's not been helped by injuries , but I'm guessing we'll see a few comings and goings. If he is to progress as a manger and move up the league's, he has to show he can figure it out for his own career, I'm sure given his background hell6give it the best shot he can

He has been a good player and as his position was as a defender worrying he cannot sort the defence out