Originally Posted by
drillerpie
Barrow lost loads of games at the beginning of last season so nothing to worry about.
Only kidding, there's plenty to worry about; we keep losing to crap teams and it's not as if we're unlucky. We aren't losing having peppered their goal with shots, we aren't laying siege to the opposition penalty area, opposition defenders aren't diving all over the place to block shots. No, crap teams are beating us without even having to play that well. Having said that, Maidenhead was probably a worse performance; losing away to relegation fodder is not as bad as surrendering a lead to a relegation fodder at home, so that's progress of a sort.
Something's got to give. Personally I'd like to see Ardley get a bit rattled, and pass that edge on to the players. No more seeing the players are up for a game and 'calming them down' so they can play 'the right way'. This isn't academy football, it's 5th division, old school, spit and sawdust football played by hairy-arsed blokes who are trying to keep a wage coming in. Until they start awarding extra points for 22-pass moves I'd like to see us do the basics like turning teams around, harrying, pressing, forcing mistakes and playing the game in the opposition half.
I hope our current predicament causes Ardley to question himself, re-evaluate his tactics and realise he's not working in a consequence-free environment. Sometimes a little bit of self doubt is a very useful thing.