1874 v Congleton Town (Tuesday 13th October - 7:45pm KO)

[Jack Owen]

A huge early season game tonight as Congleton Town come to Townfield.

Both teams in need of an elusive 3 points. We're going to need EVERYONE loud, proud and behind our Greens from minute one to the very last. No matter what happens in the game.

See everyone later. UP THE '74

 

[Graham Spencer]

Best of luck tonight lads - let’s hope we can get that much needed result
See everyone later

 

[Edge]

A goal conceded from a set piece & a bullet header from the captain

Another odd game. The bears had dozens of corners & long throws, all the possession yet never really created much.
A better team would probably hammer us

And yet after we scored they looked shaky at the back
But we just couldn't keep the ball or get out of our half to put any pressure on them

 

[Briswa]

For me another poor performance with little to give me confidence for our future chances.
We tried hard but are just not good enough and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves imo.
Congleton were the better side but created little and you could see why both teams are in the bottom four.
The only small positives were another steady performance from Beddow and Osbourne. Slightly better when Yao and Wood were on together.
We need a massive improvement on tonight’s showing.

 

[richard webb]

A poor game between 2 poor teams. Nowhere like the games against Bootle and Shifnal. I didn't think the ref was as bad as the Bears supporters (or team) did. More important comments follow:

Golden goal 13 minutes. 50/50 £50 - 62747 both claimed. Football card - Rangers picked by Chris Simms. Waitrose MoM Niall Osbourne. Attendance 285 (which is poor especially considering that Congleton had a good following).

 

[JAS94]

Must win that, and all I can say is at least we didn’t lose…

Extremely poor in both halves. Congleton looked to get the ball down and play football, whereas we resorted to hopeless long balls.

Questionable lineup for such a big must win game, changing the spine of the team by bringing Woolley into midfield and pushing Ibrahim and Simms further forward. We’d have been better sticking with the midfield that caused Bootle and Shifnal problems, if Duffus wasn’t available, simply making a like-for-like change up front would’ve made more sense. The reshuffle didn’t help and left us on the back foot for large periods in the midfield battle.

I also can’t understand why we have 7 players on the line defending a corner before the opposition have even set themselves up. It just invites them to attack the line and keeper, who has little chance of claiming anything with 16 players jostling on his line.

We desperately NEED a left-back. It’s woeful that we’ve gone this long without one and moved Niall over to the left. We’ve looked extremely vulnerable defensively since, and there’s no excuse for not addressing it by now.

Few positives - Crane’s work rate, Wood looked good when he came on, Simon had a decent game IMO, and Niall was Niall.

I’m trying to keep faith in that we can turn it around, as much as I can. But I just can’t see where the next win is coming at present

 

[James Wood]

Must win that, and all I can say is at least we didn’t lose…

Extremely poor in both halves. Congleton looked to get the ball down and play football, whereas we resorted to hopeless long balls.

Questionable lineup for such a big must win game, changing the spine of the team by bringing Woolley into midfield and pushing Ibrahim and Simms further forward. We’d have been better sticking with the midfield that caused Bootle and Shifnal problems, if Duffus wasn’t available, simply making a like-for-like change up front would’ve made more sense. The reshuffle didn’t help and left us on the back foot for large periods in the midfield battle.

I also can’t understand why we have 7 players on the line defending a corner before the opposition have even set themselves up. It just invites them to attack the line and keeper, who has little chance of claiming anything with 16 players jostling on his line.

We desperately NEED a left-back. It’s woeful that we’ve gone this long without one and moved Niall over to the left. We’ve looked extremely vulnerable defensively since, and there’s no excuse for not addressing it by now.

Few positives - Crane’s work rate, Wood looked good when he came on, Simon had a decent game IMO, and Niall was Niall.

I’m trying to keep faith in that we can turn it around, as much as I can. But I just can’t see where the next win is coming at present

Not a great performance. Came third to too many second balls, on the odd occasion we had to clear our lines, time and time again we just only got it to the half way line and as a result they were straight back on to us.


Their No 4 was v impressive but had all the space and time in the world to dictate play and ping the ball about freely. I’m astonished that we didn’t see this and get someone to get into hiding face.

I’d hate to think what the corner count was but they must have had 20+ and the possession to go with it.

Positives? 1 We didn’t lose 2 The goal was a peach. 3 Good performances from Max Beddow, Mitch, Niall (as ever) and Josh Wood.

But I’m perplexed as to why we didn’t start with both Kenny and Evra from the start as IMHO with their pace and physicality they pose a real threat to opposing defences