Crewe at Home - Player Ratings

“To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden”

Football wisdom will have you believe the sign of a good team is to find a way to win when you are not at your best. And the reality is you’re not going to be able to play ***y football every week in tier four. We definitely saw a fully committed and determined performance from Crewe, you’d probably expect a reaction with the quality of player in their side and the extremely disappointing result midweek. However, to the credit of our management team and players we matched them blow for blow.

There’s still more to come from our team and squad. Etuhu and Devitt look a promising combination in midfield, although playing as a central midfield two leaves them a bit exposed and outnumbered. Gerarrd is still a distance off full fitness but looks like an excellent defender. However, what’s worrying is we’ve lost two players to what looked like serious injury this afternoon. Fryer was growing into is role excellently and Grainger looked almost like a new player this season – our squad is becoming to look a little thin...

Fryer – 7 – Commanded the penalty area superbly, kicked well and has added the awareness to his game to look to distribute the ball quickly to the flanks with his hands. Made an excellent save with his legs in the first half when Liddle evaporated to leave him one on one. My view of the tackle which injured him was that Green should have received at least a caution, possibly more – jumping in for the ball recklessly like this is unacceptable. It’s extremely unfortunate for him and for the club to experience an injury like this and I wish him a speedy recovery.

Liddle – 6 – Used the ball quite well and made some handy interceptions and tackles. The old Liddle did momentarily surface but Fryer got him out of the hole. That’s the problem for me, you know with Liddle in the team the opposition are going to get scoring opportunities, I can’t see his stint at right back as anything other than a sticking plaster. In fairness to him, however, he’s not the disaster area he once was.

Grainger – 5 – I thought he was struggling a bit this afternoon before his injury and was exposed for pace and poor positioning on a couple of occasions. I do appreciate his honesty and diligence. His injury, making a committed tackle, was again extremely unfortunate. Grainger’s performances this season have been creditable and he’s the only genuine left full back at the club.

Gerarrd – 7 – Criminally unfit and at times unnecessarily petulant, but the value of having a defender’s brain outweighs any negatives. Despite not being able to run and being as supple as wardrobe – he can defend splendidly and the other defenders feed off that. It’s a different kind of leadership to that which Clint Hill brought to the team, but when you have an absolute beast defending alongside you it’s got to fill you with more assurance as a player.

Parkes – 6 – Doing the ugly side of the game fairly well, but he’s a better footballer than this and can actually play more football than he’s currently showing. What is encouraging is his improved concentration, better fitness, positioning and reliability centrally. I wasn’t convinced Parkes could ever eliminate those lapses of awareness in defence which would cost us goals – but he’s proving me wrong.

Etuhu – 6 – Under Sheridan, Etuhu has become a different player. Whether this is due to better preparation than under the previous manager or some actual man management, who knows? Anyway, it’s not an easy job playing in a midfield two when you’re outnumbered and over run but Etuhu’s performance was commendable. Can do better on the ball, but with a touch more sharpness he’d be different class in the engine room. His tackles, interceptions, blocks, headers and turnovers were excellent today.

Devitt – 7* - Under Sheridan, Devitt has become a different player. Whether this is due to better preparation than under the previous manager or some actual man management, who knows? Last season, Devitt looked like a winger struggling to find his feet in central midfield. Today, he was everywhere, winning the ball and using it with class and composure. Also showed impressive discipline to stay in position and work his nuts off for the team.

Yates – 5 – Worked well defensively, but Nicky Hunt had him in his pocket all afternoon. I do kind of appreciate the fact he tries to run at and beat his man every time he’s on the ball, but sometimes you just need to keep it simple. Some of his short passing is actually pretty good – he should do more of it instead of trying to be Lionel Messi all game. Maybe he’s trying too hard and needs to relax and find his rhythm more, it’s finding the difference between optimum and maximum when it’s so easy to over step.

Bennett – 6 – Looks battered to the point he needs a break (after only five league games) and I’m going to reiterate – playing with his back to goal fighting for headers all match is really not his game and we’re not playing to his strengths. I have every sympathy for him but can also understand the criticism he gets, however I give him credit for doing a job for the team – and the winning goal came from a header he won.

Nadesan – 7 – Ran himself into the ground and showed pace, strength and above all – composure to win us the game. The awareness he brings to our forward line is invaluable. I’m hoping we can secure his services for the full season (or longer) and when he becomes fitter he’ll also get better.

Hope – 5 – It’s the Craig Curran effect. Get yourself into fantastic positions time and again but then you don’t have the composure or technical ability to do anything other than waste the ball. It’s classic Hallam Hope, skipping past players on the wing, drawing fouls, doing everything brilliantly until you get to the penalty area and then it all goes horribly wrong. The amount of possession Hope wasted in excellent areas of the pitch was extremely frustrating today, but like Yates he does a decent defensive job on the wing working back.

Subs:

Gillesphey – 6 – Tentative start, as you might expect and tried to use his right foot on occasion with horrible consequences. However, was steady enough playing in what’s not his strongest position. His left boot has more variety than Grainger’s thumping club and he grew into the game really well.

Collin – 6 - Quite a lot stiffer than Fryer and a little tentative coming off his line, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and call it ring rust. Made a top class double save to retain our clean sheet and to his credit, doing this after coming off the bench shouldn’t be underestimated.

Glendon – 6 – Always seems to have time on the ball and uses it with accuracy and intelligence. Bringing this extra class onto the pitch effectively sealed the points for us and could (through Hope) have put the result beyond doubt. His addition allowed Devitt to bomb forward more but with Nadesan leaving the pitch it left Bennett more isolated. It’s not a bad selection dilemma to have when you’re winning games, do you sacrifice some width or your second striker to give us extra dominance in midfield? It is, at least, a great option to have off the bench. I’d like to see Glendon starting games, but you can’t drop either Etuhu or Devitt, Nadesan has come in and been brilliant, it would be really harsh (and alter the shape of the team a lot) to leave out Hope or Yates and we’d be too light upfront without Bennett – so where do you fit Glendon into the side?