SBRed Match Thoughts Exeter City v Barnsley

[animallittle3]

Bit of a pig of a journey to have to make in December and fair play to the diehards making the trip down to the south west tomorrow , let's hope they are rewarded with 3 points .

I don't suppose any of us can predict with any accuracy what will happen other than we know it's a tough gig down there and won't be easy , all 3 results are possible and none of them would surprise anyone .

[Shadrack the Red]

I have got my confident head on with this fixture and really fancy us for the points, last week we once again managed to grab the points when our regular defensive blunders came to the fore ,but for Exeter to win I believe that they will have to at least score 2 or more goals to beat us , I expect Roberts to return and believe he will bring the solidity required to see us home, we will see !!

[perkytyke]

Well we used to be better away from home! 3-0 down to a poor team who are ripping us to bits.
Connell making mistakes right left and centre then blaming everyone around him, Captain my ar5e!
Connell and Phillips have been powder Puff tackling all game absolutely no midfield.
Shepherd rushing about to cover everyone in defence, 1st goal he is at L/B position covering Watson who should have been there, 3rd goal he's running to block at R/B cos nobody tracks the runner.
15mins to go and we are doing the pass it around the back routine again? Absolutely no urgency.

[NerfHerder]

5 minutes to go and this has been utterly embarrassing. Horrific defending (as usual) but also offering nothing going forward.

Never one for sacking managers and I am not saying I want Hourihane sacked but there are some really questionable things right now. For example, Adam Phillips who is known for his goal scoring and assists in his time with us, has been playing as a 6 in recent weeks and the as a right back for a bit of this game. In what world does that make any sense?

Defensively we need a reboot. Whether that is new players or new defensive coaches. How can we still offer so much space in the box to opposition attackers? Bonkers.

All the fans that made the trip down there this close to Christmas deserve a refund. And more.

[animallittle3]

Absolutely horrendous performance , shameful , poor performances from Cleary , Kelly and DKD and that's what you are left with , Hourihane is not helping himself either and questions are starting to get asked about his ability .

Saying that we've always got this type of performance and result in us , it's not that much of a surprise.

[perkytyke]

Keogh should go for me, since he's been brought in as defensive coach the back line has got even worse!
Conor needs to stop shoe Horning players into unfamiliar positions when he has options to play players in natural positions!
God help us at Liverpool it could be double figures if we are conceeded 3 against Exeter who have been having a rotten time in front of goal.

[animallittle3]

Keogh should go for me, since he's been brought in as defensive coach the back line has got even worse!
Conor needs to stop shoe Horning players into unfamiliar positions when he has options to play players in natural positions!
God help us at Liverpool it could be double figures if we are conceeded 3 against Exeter who have been having a rotten time in front of goal.

I've seen some good stuff from us this season and then there's performances like today , we seem to take one step forward and then one back , when we are good we are really good and equally we can be dreadful like today .

Classic inconsistency and it's frustrating .

I'm not sure removing Hourihane is the answer personally , at some stage we've got to stick with someone , sacking our HC every year isn't the answer given we are still in league one and probably will be next season too .

I'm more for building a team over time and giving Hourihane a real go , I see some positive things and eventually it may come good , a couple more transfer windows possibly and see how that works out .

I take the point it's a results business but making another change in the technical area isn't necessarily going to work either with who we can attract.

[Shadrack the Red]

That was totally shocking and more to the point embarrassing , there was not one player that gave anything like a decent performance and I feel totally upset for the travelling fans who will have forked out a small fortune to watch a bunch of so called players going through the motions, there are certain fans favourites who might be cut some slack because they are popular but is has to be said that Cleary, Kelly , Phillips and DKD were awful and the rest were not much better , maybe its a wake up call for some of our so called better players with the message that you are not as good as you think you are , hopefully we get a reaction against Mansfield and as a footnote for all the fans who are whinging about missing out on a Anfield ticket you can count yourselves as the lucky ones !!!!

[perkytyke]

I've got Anfield tickets, but not looking forward to it after today! There's getting beat after a good performance, then there's today!
For me even when we win the defence is awful, with the odd exception.
I agree Conor should be stuck with, but Keogh was brought in to do a job and is clearly not doing it, the defence is all over the place and not showing any Improvement game on game!

[animallittle3]

I think the season is only as good as the expectations you had and I don't believe anybody on this forum thought we'd be tearing the league up and I think many of us thought mid table so in that respect I reckon we are where we'd thought we'd be .

We've had a few teasing performances and we've a history of having surprising season's when success came when we didn't think it would , the current HC captained such a team under Hecky .

I'm not sure Hourihane will deliver success but equally I'm not certain he won't either which is why I'm advocating giving him time and at least 2 more windows .