Away Match Day Thread 10/10/2020 L1 Gillingham v OUFC

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Yep, and despite multiple mistakes by multiple players throughout that game, including the same multiple players who contributed massively to the overall outcome of that game.

We win together, we lose together. We make mistakes individually, and as a defensive unit, and it costs us, we produce moments of magic, individually, and as an attacking unit, and it wins us games, cup finals, and promotions.

Players will have dips in form, and will lose their place in the side, and players will come into the side, hit form, and keep their place, until they too, make mistakes, lose form, and lose their place in the side, and the pattern repeats itself. No team remains unchanged all season, it's the nature of team sports.

If Eastwood was dropping clangers every single game, and costing us goals that lose us the game, every week, then he'd be out of the team by now, but every keeper in the world makes mistakes that cost the team goals throughout the season, that will also cost the team games as well, but you can't just drop them because they cost you a goal here and there, or you'd never have any continuity between the sticks, it's a position that requires perspective.

You could also argue, if the defenders did their job, the goalkeeper would never have been called into action, and had the chance to make a mistake in the first place!

We'll also ignore all of Eastwood's penalty saving heroics in the playoffs, that helped us get to the final, and league cup penalty shootout heroics, that helped us get to the quarter finals shall we!?!?

Give the guy a break, we're in this position because the whole squad, and management are under performing in their roles, both individually, and as a team.

Hang on a second...his ‘penalty heroics in the play-offs’ were only after he’d been beaten at his near post at Pompey and just preceded his and Moore’s complete catastrophe at Wembley!

Since then, he’s been at fault for a goal at Lincoln, he’s conceded a penalty at Accy after punching a player in the head and he was at fault for the first goal yesterday. We’ve only played 4 league games for Christ sake! How many mistakes are acceptable in your opinion?
 
Just got a chance to watch the goals (missed the game as I got to go to an actual concert yesterday). From the extended highlights, the misses looked worse than the defensive lapses to me, apart from maybe their third goal
 
Didn't see or hear anything of the game yesterday because I was working, but watched back this morning.

The comparisons to Blackpool last year were annoyingly accurate. We played some really nice football, and unlike at Lincoln, this included a number of great chances to score. The misses from Brannagan and Taylor were criminal, but there were several others where you would have also expected us to score.

Defensively we just not there. Comments about a Duberry type player are fair. We need a nasty bastard there who is going to scream and shout at his players to get into position. Elliott Moore is a decent centre back, but is not a leader. Sam Long is a player every club needs, but is also very quiet (and too small to player CB regularly). I like Atkinson and think he'll be a great player for us, but is also a quiet character. The defence is crying out for a Craig Short, and maybe that's something we can do more of behind the scenes.

In the same way, I don't see Henry as a leader on the pitch. Maybe Brannagan was struggling a little with the responsibility of being captain, but we need someone who can drag the team through these difficult games. It might not be a popular view, but I think we're missing Mackie on and off the pitch.

The questions over Eastwood are fair, he's made errors in most games this season which have cost us. But he's also made some fantastic saves, including at least 2 yesterday that he had no right to make. But he's got a makeshift defence in front of him and it's been a very stop start kind of season. I'd stick with him, and look to these next block of games to get back into top form.

Overall, a very disappointing result but a performance that was much more promising. With everything around covid and the way Crewe acted, I expect a real backlash on Tuesday and a thumping home win to hopefully get us back on track.
 
Who would have thought that a defence of a RB at centre back, a right winger at RB and a LB returning from injury would ship goals ...

It’s a results game and we simply have to be nastier. KR teams do seem to lack that at times. For all the good positions he’s managed to get teams into, they do fall at the final hurdle. Plenty of play off campaigns that have ended in heroic failure.

Gorrin would could be that nasty player we need to get into sides. I know that @RyanioBirdio has been calling for it all season.
That first paragraph pretty much sums it all up unfortunately. I haven't yet read the subsequent posts so apologies if Im going over old ground but Robinson seems to have got himself into a bit of a pickle with his team building this ‘summer’. The squad is just too imbalanced. He hasnt really addressed replacing our most important player from last season, seems to have a permanent blind spot with the fullback positions and has brought in a couple of players that I think he’ll ultimately have to admit didnt come off (Kelly and Clare) For him to apparently say after the game that the defence isnt his priority beggars belief and worries me. Ok, we have players coming back from injury but, with 42 games to go in a truncated season, its a sure bet that the threadbare defence will be hit with more injuries leaving us with slightly inferior/inexperienced players filling in or players playing out of position
 
Scotchers - don’t fall into the trap of thinking that Tuesday will see a backlash against Crewe. They look a very tidy outfit
with a plethora of young talent with one or two older heads.It will be a tricky game.

We seem completely incapable of producing a clean sheet which means we must score two or three to win a match.

Robbo said yesterday he isn’t keen on bringing in an experienced CB which is worrying in my view!
 
Like many last season I didn’t think Longy was the best right back we’ve had, but he’s better than Clare defensively anyway
 
It's strange that most of the people who have been slagging off Sam Long for years are now saying we need him to start at RB.
Nothing against Sam Long but the fact that people are now suggesting hes a solution to our defensive problems just shows how dramatically the standard of the back four has deteriorate in the last 12 months. He wouldnt have got a look in a year or two ago. For this to be happening on KR’s watch is bordering on negligence
 
He gives his all whereas on a couple of occasions yesterday Clare just gave up the chase
 
That first paragraph pretty much sums it all up unfortunately. I haven't yet read the subsequent posts so apologies if Im going over old ground but Robinson seems to have got himself into a bit of a pickle with his team building this ‘summer’. The squad is just too imbalanced. He hasnt really addressed replacing our most important player from last season, seems to have a permanent blind spot with the fullback positions and has brought in a couple of players that I think he’ll ultimately have to admit didnt come off (Kelly and Clare) For him to apparently say after the game that the defence isnt his priority beggars belief and worries me. Ok, we have players coming back from injury but, with 42 games to go in a truncated season, its a sure bet that the threadbare defence will be hit with more injuries leaving us with slightly inferior/inexperienced players filling in or players playing out of position

I think some of it stems from how lucky we were with injuries to our key defensive positions last season. In all competitions last season we played 52 games including the playoffs. Our defenders managed:

Chris Cadden 23 games
Josh Ruffels 44 games
Rob Dickie 47 games
Elliott Moore 31 games
Sam Long 27 games
John Mousinho 33 games

A few others made sporadic appearances (Berkoe, Jones, Hanson who may have filled in at RB), but largely we had a set and settled defence that barely mustered an injury between them, especially Ruffels. We were so lucky we didn’t need to reconsider another left back at any point.

Dickie moves on as we all knew he would and we brought in Atkinson who we all know is learning but I said repeatedly before the season began that the defence was the main area where at most we had plateaued from last season. Whilst early to say, Clare doesn’t look as good an option as Cadden, we’ve already lost Ruffels and Mousinho and have resorted to playing Long who has developed into a dependable RB back into his less effective utility role at LB and CB.

For all the attention put into the flashier positions we’ve overlooked the need for another option in the defence. A dependable 25-30 year old with 100+ games at League 1 level who say can ‘yeah, I play centre back but I played half a season at LB’. Omar Beckles (who we’ve all talked about for different reasons recently) would have been the perfect player. I just hope there’s another one similar out there.
 
Clare’s casual defending at fullback is deeply concerning. Allowing Graham to skip past him yesterday and not make an effort
to stop the cross was abysmal whereas Gills defenders were blocking everything.He was then partly involved in the second goal
and lost Graham in the box for third after a tired looking Ruffels was bamboozled on the flank by their fullback.

Clare is not a defender.
 
I can only imagine that KR is playing a simple mathematics game. "If we score more than we concede then we win the game" Ergo, we need more attackers, not defenders.
When we win, the fans are happy so, we need more attacking players.

Frankly, I'm surprised he doesn't just pick a side of attacking mid-field and strikers. Do we have to have a keeper? - Great! all 11 outfield then! Sorted. We should score shed loads like that.

Problem with that is that then, all the opposing sides would field defence only and continually lob the ball towards the goal. There is sense in playing a balanced side and ensuring that all areas of the side are able and trained in their roles, I'm just not sure sometimes that KR adheres to that belief.
 
Clare’s casual defending at fullback is deeply concerning. Allowing Graham to skip past him yesterday and not make an effort
to stop the cross was abysmal whereas Gills defenders were blocking everything.He was then partly involved in the second goal
and lost Graham in the box for third after a tired looking Ruffels was bamboozled on the flank by their fullback.

Clare is not a defender.

The Gillingham defenders were blocking shots, not crosses. We got plenty of crosses in, including the one that Taylor should have scored from.

And I can promise you that Jordan Graham will get past plenty of League One fullbacks this season and put crosses in - he’ll get past plenty of good ones, too. It’s just football, it’s what happens. You can’t cut out every cross
 
Hang on a second...his ‘penalty heroics in the play-offs’ were only after he’d been beaten at his near post at Pompey and just preceded his and Moore’s complete catastrophe at Wembley!

Since then, he’s been at fault for a goal at Lincoln, he’s conceded a penalty at Accy after punching a player in the head and he was at fault for the first goal yesterday. We’ve only played 4 league games for Christ sake! How many mistakes are acceptable in your opinion?
Jesus, you've slept on it, and you're still whinging?!? :rolleyes::sleep:

Throughout a season, a goalkeepers mistakes will cost you games, but his saves will also win you games, and Simon Eastwood is no exception.

Yes, he's made mistakes, but are you going to deny that he saved us points, and won us games in the league last season, or got us to the quarter finals of the league cup, and the final of the playoffs, with his saves?

If we're gonna drop Eastwood because of his mistakes this season, then we've got to drop the whole backline, for the same reason, but do we have the players with the relevant experience at the moment to replace them, unfortunately not, so it's a risk.

Steven's is getting games in cup games this season that he wasn't before, so Robbo obviously feels it's time to start progressing him, and has praised him for his progress, and has said he's now in a position to genuinely push Eastwood for the no1 spot, but maybe Robbo, who see's the players in training every day, doesn't feel Steven is quite ready to step up to being a league one goalkeeper yet, as let's face it, he's still a very inexperienced goalkeeper, especially at league one level, and it's a big step up from hardly ever being used, even in tinpot games, to suddenly being no1 in a league one side, and hopefully this is the season when he'll get the game time, to gain the relevant experience, to then step up and take his chance when it comes.

For what it's worth, I have repeatedly said in previous posts throughout last season, and at the start of this season, that I thought Stevens should've been used in ALL league cup, and tin pot cup games, so he could gain the relevant senior first team experience to genuinely challenge Eastwood, and maybe if that had happened, he'd already be our no1 goalkeeper by now, but as it stands, he's got virtually no experience as a senior goalkeeper at all, let alone a league one keeper, and is that Robbo's fault, for not giving him game time in cup games, and progressing him sooner? Maybe.

As I've also said, repeatedly, I'd be all for Jack Stevens being given his chance to stake his claim for the no1 spot right now, but I'm not going to drag Simon Eastwood's name through the mud in the process, as he doesn't deserve it.
 
There was no effort whatsoever from Sean Clare to stop or block the cross from which they scored and to compound things
Oliver was not marked by Long for the header.

We just don’t look organised at the back and in both fullback positions we look vulnerable.
 
So yesterday has gone we can’t do anything about that game SO what can we do with the players we’ve got to make Tuesday and going forward better imo Clare shouldn’t be starting at RB but then who could you put there because we haven’t got a CB to partner Moore unless Atkinson is ready Maybe drop Taylor and start winnall ( controversial) I know but we can’t let him get comfortable he should’ve scored yesterday BUT whatever KR does he needs to get his team playing and winning
 
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