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Thread: Mansfield Away - Player Ratings

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    30,594

    Mansfield Away - Player Ratings

    “We build too many walls and not enough bridges”

    For the past year, one thing I can say is the standard of refereeing in League Two is actually really high. It’s definitely better than the standard of refereeing in North America that’s for sure. However there’s always an exception which breaks the rule and today’s effort by Darren Drysdale was, to put it simply, possibly the most biased overall refereeing performance I can remember. Do Sheridan and Drysdale have history? Is Drysdale’s Wife or boyfriend from Mansfield? Who knows, but one thing is undeniable – he had clear influence on the game today (Drysdale, not his boyfriend).

    Even without referring to the elephant in the room, every time we tackled (cleanly) or made any sort of physical contact our players were penalised. Mansfield on the other hand, were allowed to elbow, leave their feet in, kick, push, and have open season on our players. It’s almost impossible to retain any sort of possession against a physical “in your face” side like Mansfield under these conditions. After the non-sensical and bizarre award of the penalty, I’m surprised he didn’t snatch the ball and smash it past Adam Collin himself, it looked like he wanted to.

    That’s right, you can stand there laughing while Tom Parkes lies on the floor with blood on his face following an elbow to his head. That’s not even worth a free-kick, but when our players dare to try and defend to stop your team scoring you’re going to give a penalty – for nothing.

    Anyway, let’s talk about our team for a while. I could understand the changes Sheridan made to the side before kick off. Bring an extra midfielder in to shore things up against a strong side so your midfield two don’t become over-run, it makes sense. However, what I didn’t appreciate was we were going to remain 4-4-2 rather than play a 4-3-3. Yates remained on the right flank, Etuhu moved to left hand side of the midfield four and Hope slotted in alongside Bennett upfront. The Ghost of Christmas past reminds us it is always a mistake to play Hallam Hope upfront – he’s most effective on the left. So I disagree with Sheridan’s team selection on this basis, if you’re going to stick with two strikers, one of them 100% has to be Nadesan. Hope and Bennett do not work together as a front two they have the combined intelligence of a telegraph pole and a wasp. I would support the inclusion of Bennett in the side, no he isn’t perfect in the role we’re asking him to play, but he’s the only forward we’ve got who can win a header, hold the ball up and play with his back to goal. Instead of signing another midfielder, maybe we should’ve signed someone who was more naturally suited to this role...

    The midfield on the other hand, worked relatively well defensively. Glendon was outstanding on the ball and they protected the back four adequately. Liddle continues to struggle a touch at right full-back, but the defence, despite a couple of threadbare moments when we were searching for an equaliser looked very good for tier four level.

    I couldn’t grasp what the manager was thinking with his substitutions who looked like they didn’t understand where they were supposed to be playing. Was our tactic to overload our right flank with players? We had Yates, Nadesan, Campbell and Sowerby all treading on each other’s boots, but whatever was happening with this chaos it would’ve brought us a point if Yates hadn’t fluffed an easy point blank header at the end of the game. And this is what it all boils down to, you can complain about the referee, the opposition, the rain, the stale pies and Hurricane Martha but at the end of day if you can’t score the simplest of goalscoring opportunities do you deserve anything out of the game?

    Collin – 7 – Made some excellent solid blocks, smart saves and used the ball quite well (he’s certainly improved in this department since his previous stint). Arguably rooted to his line a little too much and bought the dummy for the penalty, but when he did come off his line looked safe pair of hands.

    Liddle – 4 – The weakest link at the back, struggled to stay with the pace of the game and was brushed aside with ease on numerous occasions and too often lost at sea. It’s time to give Miller another crack at things, despite his horror show at Exeter, it would improve the right side of our team immeasurably to have a genuine right-back playing at right-back.

    Gerrard – 7 – Slow as your Grandma but solid as the walls around her outside toilet. Still has a long way to go to full fitness but the destructive power he brings to our back four is priceless.

    Parkes – 7 – Another fully committed performance from Parkes and another facial scar for his collection. He seems to be feeding off having a player like Gerrard alongside him. Maybe having that grating scouse whine in his right ear all game is keeping him awake and concentrated. When Gerrard becomes fitter Parkes will probably be granted more licence to get forward...

    Gillesphey – 6 – So very different to Grainger on the left, but solid enough and used the ball quite well. Struggled a little positionally and with the decision when to overlap, but with Etuhu in front of him in midfield and no genuine width on our left he did a decent job on a difficult afternoon. He needs to learn how to tackle with his right boot and kick in other directions to the direction he’s facing, but I don’t want to be too harsh. I’m not sure left-back is his best position.

    Glendon – 7* - Even with the Battle of Rorke’s Drift kicking off around him he still had the class to calmly buy himself some time and spray the ball around the pitch with precision and quality. I don’t think he gave the ball away until the 55th minute, at which point he was immediately substituted. Easily the best midfielder on display for either side and he should feel slightly let down we didn’t use the ball better from any of the moves he instigated. Deserves to keep his place on this display.

    Devitt – 5 – Wasted in the engine room, but when he did get the ball he too often wasted it (a common theme for our more creative players). I’m not going to knock his running and his effort, which is commendable but it wasn’t working for Devitt today. I’d rest him next game and give Glendon an opportunity in the middle of the pitch with Etuhu. He can use the ball much better than he did today.

    Etuhu – 6 – Solid but slightly marginal to proceedings on the left side of midfield. Most effective when he drifted inside and joined in the fray. Still looks like a different player from last season – but needs to start in the middle of the pitch as it’s where he’s going to end up playing anyway.

    Yates – 3 – Very poor. Effort, work rate, tackling back, running – second to none. Use of the football – criminal. Maybe if we played a genuine right back he could concentrate on playing further forward, but the amount of times he gets the ball in good positions then hands it straight back to the opposition is unacceptable. We know have a plethora of right-sided midfielders at the club – Sowerby, Campbell, Devitt etc. To have an attacking player who is consistently failing to produce a meaningful contribution is not good enough when our squad is full of genuine alternatives. The headed chance he wasted at the end of the game says it all, you’re not going to get an easier opportunity to score a goal and it should have earned us a point.

    Bennett – 6 – A tale of two halves for Richie today. Excellent in the first half, owned the ball in the air and won countless headers which Hope failed to capitalise upon. It was frustrating to watch this, especially as Nadesan had the nous to make the most of one of these flick-ons last week. Disappeared a little in the second half as he became more isolated, through no fault of his own. Substituting him seemed harsh, especially as we were intending to throw the kitchen sink at Mansfield, we missed him in the penalty area when the ball started to arrive in there.

    Hope – 1 – Awful. Chasing shadows upfront like a demented chicken. Used the ball like he’d never seen it before and his early season form has instantly evaporated. I’m a big fan of using Hope as our agitator on the left flank, where his pace is a threat and his right boot can be used to simple effect cutting inside. As a striker however, he doesn’t have anywhere near the brain to make it work. His movement is random, his use of the ball pedestrian (at best) and his anticipation of what is happening around him is almost nil. Playing upfront is too difficult an ask for such a limited footballer, he should play on the left or not at all.

    Subs:

    Sowerby – 2 – Looked lost and confused. I know it’s only half an hour, but he needs to up his game massively. Gave away some silly fouls which, quite surprisingly for the afternoon, were actually fouls.

    Nadesan – 6 – We actually started to look a threat when Nadesan provided an actual brain in the final third, but it’s a bit of an odd decision to leave Hope upfront and take Bennett off alongside him.

    Campbell – 5 – Quite bright for a late substitution and used the ball quite well on occasion. I’d quite like to see him start on the right wing in place of Yates, he uses the football much more deftly.

    My team for the next game would be:

    GK – Collin
    RB – Miller
    LB – Gillesphey
    CB – Gerrard
    CB – Parkes
    CM – Etuhu
    CM – Glendon
    RM – Campbell
    LM – Hope
    CF – Bennett
    CF – Nadesan

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Posts
    20,094
    Thanks as always Piglet. I landed at Toronto to hear the result and wasn't surprised until my lad told me about the dubious penalty. Seasons are won and lost on decisions like these.

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