Walsall Ratings

[ajojones]

Huraahh - this is more like the Notts I grew to love/hate over 50 years. Occasionally brilliant and Occasionally useless. Seems the glow has gone for now. This is a real test of character and I hope they don't stop trying to entertain. FWIW I think Walsall used the conditions better on a day one touch wasn't working as well. Only watched through Ifollow so can't give the ratings but we didn't look better than 5/6 of 10 anywhere. Is it January yet.

[ThaiPie]

FWIW I think Walsall used the conditions better on a day one touch wasn't working as well. Only watched through Ifollow so can't give the ratings but we didn't look better than 5/6 of 10 anywhere. Is it January yet.

Agree ajojones about Walsall using the conditions better. They also appeared to have a lot of pace in midfield which at times left Notts struggling. I think the average age of our CM midfielders is pretty high.

On their day, this team are going to win matches, but it doesn't seem to take much to knock them out of their stride, I'm thinking against Mansfield especially.

[optipez]

Agree ajojones about Walsall using the conditions better. They also appeared to have a lot of pace in midfield which at times left Notts struggling. I think the average age of our CM midfielders is pretty high.

On their day, this team are going to win matches, but it doesn't seem to take much to knock them out of their stride, I'm thinking against Mansfield especially.

Gosling, O'Brien, Bostock all the wrong side of thirty and it showed yesterday. Think we need a couple of central midfielders in their twenties with energy and physicality as much as touch to grind us through the season.

[kill_the_drum]

Conditions were terrible which excuses the poor football but doesn’t excuse the lack of fight.
I saw a team looking low on confidence yesterday and abandoning our style of play.
I thought Baldwin was our best player, followed by Jones.

[the_anticlough]

Conditions were terrible which excuses the poor football but doesn’t excuse the lack of fight.
I saw a team looking low on confidence yesterday and abandoning our style of play.
I thought Baldwin was our best player, followed by Jones.

Fair comments. I think LW let frustration get the better of him yesterday. The triple substitution tipped the balance their way in what was a balanced game. The box midfield just wasn’t doing its job, but he didn’t have anything better on the bench, apart from replacing Didzy (who had a stinker) with Austin and giving JB a new partner for a chunk of the game.
Brindley for Macari was another head scratcher. The former’s confidence seems shot to pieces, and worst of all losing the confidence of the team, they don’t seem to want to pass to him.
Great buzz around the ground before the match, like old times. The 1-2 home loss also brought back a lot of memories

[Observerpie]

Well this should be fun...

Stone 4 - Couldn't really do anything with the second goal but his distribution was shocking, constantly giving the ball straight to their players and hoofing it out of play, while almost gifting it straight to them in our own box while attempting to dribble it out. We're in desperate need for a goalkeeper in January.

Macari 5 - Was okay but but did look pretty nervous on the ball away and gave it away a few times needlessly. God knows why he was hooked for Brindley though.

Baldwin 6 - The best of the back three but that's not saying much, at least he didn't look like he'd drank a keg of Scumpy before playing today.

Cameron 3 - Awful performance from our 'captain'. At fault for their first goal by deciding to mark Baldwin, leaving their goalscorer with Nemane at the back post, forever playing the ball backwards and failed to provide and inspiration or motivation for his teammates whatsoever, choosing to berate them instead. He's blatantly not captain material.

Nemane 4 - Poor really. Beat his man a few times but was nowhere defensively and had no end product at all.

Jones 6 - Tried hard enough but just didn't work out today.

Austin 4 - Barring a few flicks and neat touches, he was anonymous, but I've come to expect that from Sam in central midfield, he just cannot play there. He's far better in the more attacking role.

Bostock 5 - Played a few decent passes and tried to get stuck in but was pretty ineffective, but as usual, we collapsed when we was hooked, in another strange substitution.

McGoldrick 4 - Similar to Bostock, he certainly tried but it definitely didn't come for him today. His first touch constantly let him down and he gave the ball away repeatedly.

Crowley 4 - As anonymous as I've seen him in a Notts shirt. Did nothing at all and gave the ball away easily for their second and decided to sulk instead of trying to win the ball back. Not sure what LW thought bringing Morais on for him would achieve though at all.

Langstaff 5 - Felt sorry for him today. Barely touched the ball throughout, but not through lack of trying. When the midfield isn't firing, Macca just cannot be effective.

Gosling 3 - I still cannot see what he brings to the team. As I said on the unofficial match thread, he plays like a player who retired months ago. Absolutely not the answer to our midfield woes.

JOB 3 - His effort was admirable but im not sure I've seen a player give the ball away so much in such a short space of time.

Brindley 4 - Don't see why he was brought on, and don't see him reigniting his notts career anytime soon. Should've released him in the summer along with a few others.

Morais 4 - The effort is there but I'm not sure the quality is with Junior, although I doubt any player could've changed the game for Notts today by the time he came on.

LW 4 - As others have said, his substitutions were odd today. We looked totally hopeless once they stepped up their game slightly in the second half and LW unfortunately had no answer. He did excellent things for us last season and at times this season, but today was incredibly worrying and certainly hasn't eased my worries about LW being able to find a solution to our current issues.

Uncanny, my take on the performances yesterday too. The substitutions had all of us scratching our heads. We couldn't understand why Jones and Nemane were switched sides for as long as they were when it clearly wasn't working,

[SmiffyPie]

Conditions were terrible which excuses the poor football but doesn’t excuse the lack of fight.
I saw a team looking low on confidence yesterday and abandoning our style of play.
I thought Baldwin was our best player, followed by Jones.

I managed to see the first 15mins before the gales over this side buggered my internet. I did think right from the kick off that there was a definite change in approach. The ball from defence was moved forward much quicker and the possession passing seemed to be only when required (instead of the build up). Has LW got a grip of the back line and told them to hurry it up and not get caught on the ball? Perhaps the whole team are caught in the uncertainty of a revised approach? Lost the game after that and had to make do with the BBC text thing!

[jackal2]

I managed to see the first 15mins before the gales over this side buggered my internet. I did think right from the kick off that there was a definite change in approach. The ball from defence was moved forward much quicker and the possession passing seemed to be only when required (instead of the build up). Has LW got a grip of the back line and told them to hurry it up and not get caught on the ball? Perhaps the whole team are caught in the uncertainty of a revised approach?

Great point. I saw and thought that too. What we saw yesterday might well have been a team beginning its transition to a more pragmatic style in terms of reducing the amount of time spent with the ball in defensive areas, and not yet confident in what it was doing. These things take time to get right, but it doesn't mean the plan is wrong. First half defensively I thought we did okay, hence the clean sheet at half-time, but in the second half both the players and the Head Coach seemed to have a collective seizure!

[kill_the_drum]

Great point. I saw and thought that too. What we saw yesterday might well have been a team beginning its transition to a more pragmatic style in terms of reducing the amount of time spent with the ball in defensive areas, and not yet confident in what it was doing. These things take time to get right, but it doesn't mean the plan is wrong. First half defensively I thought we did okay, hence the clean sheet at half-time, but in the second half both the players and the Head Coach seemed to have a collective seizure!

I’m not so sure. I think it stems from Stone being far more reluctant to play a short pass. Then as the game went on, the pressure came from the stands to gerrit forward.
It reminded me of the dark years where players would so scared to make a mistake, they wouldn’t take risks.

[jackal2]

I’m not so sure. I think it stems from Stone being far more reluctant to play a short pass. Then as the game went on, the pressure came from the stands to gerrit forward.
It reminded me of the dark years where players would so scared to make a mistake, they wouldn’t take risks.

There was an element of that, definitely, and Stone looks to be a problem. He was brought in supposedly because he had good distribution, but I've not seen consistent evidence of it, and as a goalkeeper he looks pretty ordinary.

I think there's broad agreement that we need to take fewer risks in defence if we're to concede fewer goals, but I doubt that Stone's interpretation or application of that principle yesterday was what Williams would have wanted. It's going to be a learning process where some players will successfully adapt and others won't, but that's fine, because it tells the manager and the recruitment team where they need to strengthen.