⚽ Match Thread vs. Newport County AFC 23.11.24 [EFL L2]

[Boomerangpie]

We're very lucky we can still drag 9,000 through the turnstiles. Grimsby have 5,500 ST holders and were at home the same time as us yesterday and only got 4,900, their fans are fed up with them keep throwing points away at home.

Why is it luck that we are dragging 9000 through the turnstiles? It?s because of the owners plain and simple

[the_anticlough]

One of those days doesn?t really work when we?ve scored 2 goals in 5 home games.

Gulp! That's a goal every 4 hours of home football. FOUR HOURS of play!!!! That sounds like something worth finding the reason for.

[Boomerangpie]

One of those days doesn?t really work when we?ve scored 2 goals in 5 home games, and not much better away.

We have loads of those days.

Yet with a 1-0 win we could have gone 3rd.

We are clearly struggling to score, thankfully we also don?t concede many. Another clean sheet something we struggled with massively last season. We must be close to matching last seasons total already in that regard

[jacobncfc]

Gulp! That's a goal every 4 hours of home football. FOUR HOURS of play!!!! That sounds like something worth finding the reason for.

Especially when one of those two goals, against Wimbledon, was a scrappy one from a corner that somehow just bounced in.

[Mapperleypie]

It's certainly not the free flowing attacking football we got used to under Williams.

Despite our clear dominance on Saturday you would not call it all that entertaining (as it has not been for the last couple of months). I know at the end of the day it's a results business but if you fail to entertain without winning consistently the attendances will eventually catch up with the product on offer.

[jacobncfc]

It's certainly not the free flowing attacking football we got used to under Williams.

Despite our clear dominance on Saturday you would not call it all that entertaining (as it has not been for the last couple of months). I know at the end of the day it's a results business but if you fail to entertain without winning consistently the attendances will eventually catch up with the product on offer.

Feels like Maynard went all in on fixing the defence and goalkeeper and our general play without the ball, with the assumption that we had a couple of really creative individuals so goalscoring was never going to be a problem. Having lost them we don?t have really set patterns of play or anything to fall back on in attack.

[Boomerangpie]

That?s how I see it.

Although the patterns of play are there but they aren?t ending up at a Jodi Jones or Dan Crowley type players feet currently. The backups to those two understandably don?t have the creativity or same level of magic in their boots. They are both game changes

[MAD_MAGPIE]

It?s a worry but what I saw yesterday and quite a few times was a decent L2 team that controlled the game with 100% effort and had 27 shots, a few speculative but really if you have 27 shots and in around the box that much you should be scoring.
We?re missing 2 players with massive goal contributions, does it beg the question we?ve put all our eggs in one basket with them two budget wise ? maybe, but if we had let even one go people would have gone ballistic. I?m not saying SMs pep but I?m struggling at the moment to see regarding team selection/tactics/commitment what he?s doing that wrong, what was glaring yesterday bar Jattas/Didzy proven goal scoring records no one else really is a goal threat.

This is where I’m at as on this occasion I don’t think SM did anything wrong. The manager can only have so much influence.

Along with the 27 shots we also got caught offside three or four times in the second half. So that’s over 30 chances in which we broke Newport down and could have scored. That comes down to what is the hardest thing to do in football score goals. Shots on and off target were simply not clinical enough.

SM also cannot be blamed for injuries to key players like JJ, Crowley and add to this we have no Macca.

What it needs is patience and once we are back to full strength and some fresh faces in January I’m confident we will be picking up wins where we have got draws like against Doncaster, Crewe and Newport. With JJ and Crowley I think we win at least one if not two of those games.

[jacobncfc]

Along with the 27 shots we also got caught offside three or four times in the second half. So that’s over 30 chances in which we broke Newport down and could have scored. That comes down to what is the hardest thing to do in football score goals. Shots on and off target were simply not clinical enough.

I don?t think this is quite right - just because you?ve had a shot doesn?t mean you?ve broken the opposition down. The vast majority of our shots were either from outside the box, so a very small chance of scoring, or with five or six defenders between the ball and the goal making a block likely.

What I thought was striking watching the highlights was how, while we did have a few reasonable chances, they pretty much all came from us winning the ball back from Newport in their own half. We were able to create next to nothing from our own spells of possession, which is a bit of an issue for a team that has so much possession.

[durhampie]

I don?t think this is quite right - just because you?ve had a shot doesn?t mean you?ve broken the opposition down. The vast majority of our shots were either from outside the box, so a very small chance of scoring, or with five or six defenders between the ball and the goal making a block likely.

What I thought was striking watching the highlights was how, while we did have a few reasonable chances, they pretty much all came from us winning the ball back from Newport in their own half. We were able to create next to nothing from our own spells of possession, which is a bit of an issue for a team that has so much possession.

You can pass the ball around as much as you like in your own half, its what you do with it in the opponents half. When we do get into attacking positions our crosses into the box are poor, and are easily dealt with by the first line of defence.
A few times on Saturday from crosses into the box, Newport won the ball and broke towards our goal. Fortunately, unlike Crewe they didnt manage to score..