The first half was just passable but the second half was one of the worst performances i have seen from a Crawley team for a long time. the passing was slow and laborious and lacked ideas but we did have our first shot on target in extra time so after 180+ minutes. This performance is not going to win matches and get the supporters coming back week after week. Our league position reflects the way we have played the first two games and with a manager who thinks it wasn't to bad if he stays he will take us down. They have got to stop playing at academe pace and play at men's league pace.
Yeah I thought the first half was okay. We competed and we didn’t play so much tippy tappy along the back line and played more long balls in behind. It was like we’d realised we need to play a different style from pre season and at HT Kev must’ve told them to go back to tippy tappy pre season football as we were passing it around the back line for 2 or 3 minutes at a time the last 15-20 minutes, no urgency at all when behind and then the usual whack in forward for the last 6 minutes of injury time when we realised ‘oh shit we’re losing’
So no one noticed the numerous long balls we attempted throughout the game? Ok
The long balls played to our short forward line amongst their three giant centre backs? A master stroke from the bloke in charge, eh?
What polish and shining equipment are you using today, Steve?
JTG
Are you under the impression I thought all those long balls were a good idea? Strange, I explicitly said they didn’t work in my first post on this thread. But for me it does give the lie to the diagnosis that our problem is we are only doing “tippy tappy”, which of course was the obvious point I was making.
I suppose the problem is that we have started the season with two fixtures that would be challenging even with a settled side. Both were narrow defeats from which we might have come away with something, though I acknowledge we were overrun in terms of chances at Carlisle. The unsweetened run continues.
I suppose the problem is that we have started the season with two fixtures that would be challenging even with a settled side. Both were narrow defeats from which we might have come away with something, though I acknowledge we were overrun in terms of chances at Carlisle. The unsweetened run continues.
It doesn't matter whether they are "narrow defeats" or "hammerings", the result is the same...................... NIL POINTS.
I suppose the problem is that we have started the season with two fixtures that would be challenging even with a settled side. Both were narrow defeats from which we might have come away with something, though I acknowledge we were overrun in terms of chances at Carlisle. The unsweetened run continues.
With respect to both teams, I wouldn’t have them a title favourites, they are probably mid table to play offs. We should be aiming to get something from these games whether we’re going for promotion or not.
Alex; there has to be somewhere between Barca and Wimbledon.
Play attacking football without resorting to lumps forward. Yesterday we had the worst of both worlds. Tippy tappy with no progression and hoof ball with tiny forwards.
I suppose the problem is that we have started the season with two fixtures that would be challenging even with a settled side. Both were narrow defeats from which we might have come away with something, though I acknowledge we were overrun in terms of chances at Carlisle. The unsweetened run continues.
I think we should see where we are in November before we really properly assess how the season is going. Obviously two defeats in a row without any goals scored is not ideal at all but a couple of great results in the next two weeks would lead to the mood changing quite dramatically. We also still have the rest of this month of the transfer window left so still time to upgrade the squad. Yesterday was bad but I didn't agree with booing the players at the end (I'd only ever resort to that if I genuinely felt that they weren't trying their best, and that would be on quite an extreme case too)
Such a dissapointment yesterday. One of those games where we would not have scored even if the game had gone onto midnight. 2 defeats - fair enough, it's the 2 games without a goal that I find most alarming. I'm no expert but Telford seems fairly small and was up against 2 massive centre halfs. Surely the manager would have known this beforehand? Why not play say Nadesan up the middle, holding the ball up and playing in the smaller man? Knives out for Betsy already, but at least he had the front to come onto the pitch and applaud the crowd after the game. Would have been far easier for him to head straight down the tunnel. The only postive I thought, was the attendance figure, over 3800 - surely our best home league gate for quite a while? Thing is, with performances like yesterday the crowds will decrease quick.
Last Edit: Aug 7, 2022 12:59:38 GMT by WestStandMan
Post by broadfielddave on Aug 7, 2022 13:15:04 GMT
I waited a day to respond in order to let a cooler head prevail, so here goes. In the interest of balance, I'll give both sides of the argument, just to make sure everyone disagrees with me in some way.
It was a turgid performance. We lost our final home game of last season to Leyton Orient 2-0, so technically an improvement, but I've just checked and we had 18 shots that day, rather than 3. Yesterday, as others have said, first half was fine I guess. The move that ended with Tilley missing was sublime, and Betsy rightly pointed out it was exactly what we want to be doing (apart from ballsing up the finish). The EFL highlights show even mentioned it as the best passing move in the country yesterday.
The problem was, not only did we not do it again, we didn't even seem to try. Apart from that our tactics appeared to involve playing risky passes at the back, before launching 60 yard high balls to the two smallest strikers in the league. I actually disagree with people who say it was too 'tippy tappy'. It was too one or the other for me. Every pass either seemed to be too safe and backwards, or smashed long with no hope of it resulting in anything positive for us. 'Tippy tappy' involves lots of/too many short passes, which it wasn't. It was some short and some very long, with nothing in between.
The main worry so far is that we don't seem to have an idea how to get the ball to Telford in any way, let alone giving him service where he can get some goals. The long ball thing might even work if he had a strike partner who was more Ollie Palmer than Tom Nichols. It did seem to be a tactic as well, because from what I could tell, the shape appeared to be when we had the ball, four would stay in a line at the back and pass around to try and find space, while six would go forward in another almost straight line, but about 40 yards away from anyone at the back, so the only option would be to smack it long. We didn't seem to have a midfield half the time, which is probably why Balagizi stood out so much when he became a one-man midfield for periods of the first half. Jenks showed some promise early on but I don't remember anything he did after about the 25th minute (or whenever that Tilley chance was).
Second half and they get the goal. Not sure it was even a corner, our players were pretty outraged at it being awarded, but someone had to be closer to James on the edge of the box, especially given he did the exact same thing last week. After that, it just felt like we had a young team with lots of players unfamiliar with being in that position. Too many players not willing to take a risk, which again just ended with Conroy smashing the ball out for a goal kick more often than not. The intro of Nadderz and Kwesi made a difference, although the former was far too wide in a position where it nullified his pace, arguably his only useful attribute in those circumstances.
My main takeaway was that there is a long way to go for this team. Wherever it wants to get, it doesn't even look 10% of the way there right now, which means by the time we start to see results, hopes for a promotion challenge could be more or less over. That being said, it was always likely this would take a while. It is a style of football that you are never going to drill into a team overnight, especially when you can't just bring in a bunch of elite players. I am a bit confused by some of our recruitment choices, with seemingly too much experience gotten rid of and replaced by complete inexperience. Way too much was asked of young players with hardly any senior football under their belt yesterday. We are absolutely crying out for an experienced centre midfielder who knows the league, can direct traffic in the middle of the park, help out the likes of Balagizi and Jenks and take a game by the scruff of the neck. As we can't pop Bully into a time machine, that must be priority number one before the end of the month. May sound harsh but I just don't think Hess or Powell can do that.
All that said, and while I understand the frustration, the booing on the final whistle was beyond the pale. Yes it was a poor performance, yes it was frustrating to see players with space in front of them turn around and pass backwards in the 91st minute, but make no mistake about it, every single player on the pitch wanted to get a result yesterday as much if not more than any of us did. I thought he was poor but hearing Travis's post-match interview you could hear the disappointment in his voice, not just through media training. He was genuinely gutted.
We have a tremendous hardcore fanbase who go home and away and live and breath this football club, so if any of them booed, ok. I still disagree with it but they've probably earned the right. The vast majority from yesterday though, you want to talk about players giving it their all? What about this town's complete inability to get behind the football club? So some people who came yesterday won't be back again? Good, **** em. If you only support a team if they do everything you want them to do all the time, Crawley definitely isn't for you.
This manager is new, a lot of these players are new, it hasn't started well, but that's all it is. A start. Two bloody games. If you don't like Betsy and you don't like the players, fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion. And to be clear, airing those grievances on here is of course completely fine. It's what places like this are for, some good old fashioned venting, but in the ground, if you expect the players to do their job then you have to do yours too, and support. Actually support. Not just clap the odd tackle and then scream abuse at a player because he passed it backwards.
Here's to only improvement from here on in, on both sides of the debate.
Much I was disappointed by the result today, I was more disappointed by the reaction to Betsy at the end. For a young guy starting out here in management, he needs better support than that.
The game was nothing special, pretty even mostly. My Orient mate was moaning about their performance at half time on text to me which sums up fan expectations quite broadly. The story was we missed what looked like a tap in for Tilley and they took a more difficult chance, albeit from our poor organisation - but was that their first corner of the game in the second half?
I’ve heard a lot about Betsy being a restricted passing play guy but there was numerous long balls by us today, few of them any good.
At this early stage, the problem looks to me Nichols and Telford look too much similar players and lacking a hold-up player up front to keep the ball there. A few other of the signings looked below par.
On the plus side, there were decent performances from Balzagi, Omole and Tilley. Something to build on if it wasn’t for the pressure being put on so early, trying to manufacture a crisis here before the season barely starts. Hmmm
You haven’t stopped waxing lyrical about Betsy since he became manager getting all excited about pre season results that most of us know mean diddly squat thrashing non professional teams, whilst many of us can see the guy hasn’t got a clue how to set up a team to be successful in this league. Just watched his after match interview and he is delusional going on about the one chance we missed! I was no massive Yems fan but he got us mid table on the smallest budget in the league and that was despite the worst injury record I’ve ever known. Yes at times we were a little too direct but he was trying to win football matches and using the resources available. Now just feels like we a watching a youth team trying to develop. All he seems to care about is stats and style of play. Given that he has one of the top budgets in the league he’s put a poor squad together that most savy league two sides will put to the sword with ease.
Either you have me confused with someone else or just don’t actually read my posts. I’ve always had a pretty open mind on Betsy and still do, anyone who makes up their mind on him after two games isn’t even really going through the pretence of being fair to the guy. Others, for example, thought much more of the QPR performance than I did given the comeback was against their reserves but I did think we were good against the Hearts first team.
When it became clear the extent of the changes Betsy was intending to make in personnel and style, I instantly knew his project would take time to bed in and there would be setbacks and losses along the way early on as the combinations were worked on and players gel. That’s why midtable is the realistic target for him up to the next transfer window.
Given he has a very good reputation among good judges in the football world, I do expect him to get to work solving the problems thrown up by our opening games and my current belief is he’ll make a good crack at coming up with solutions but we’ll see, no certainty in football. I’ll certainly be backing him anyway. It’s August and I’ve never known a fan base not do that so early in the proceedings.
If we don’t do that, I don’t think it will be about the football but people expressing unease about the new ownership and just using Betsy as an excuse. Again, hugely unfair to a young manager