Nigel’s 6 month anniversary

[AlienBlade]

I'll keep banging on about it because it's often forgotten, but for me one of his biggest errors in judgement so far this season was to call off the Colchester game due to internationals when days before he'd said he wanted to play. We'd just beaten Swindon by harnessing the power of Gus Uhlenbeek to make it four in a row in the league after the horror of Gillingham. We were due to miss Adams, Edgar, and the already-dropped McFadzean. Instead we cancelled it, and had the disastrous Bury and rearranged Colchester game that sapped all confidence from us. We've not been able to get any level of consistency since frankly, and given we were only going to miss two players (one of whom, Adams, had been mixed in terms of performances anyway) it seemed baffling and a mistake at the time. We may well have still lost had we gone ahead with it, but I personally think we'd have ended up with some points.

The reason wasnt just about the two players who would miss the game (adams and edgar) it was about the raft of new injuries that came just before it... on top of the injury list we already had. Meant we would down to less than the bare bones. That was the reason he called it off.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

The reason wasnt just about the two players who would miss the game (adams and edgar) it was about the raft of new injuries that came just before it... on top of the injury list we already had. Meant we would down to less than the bare bones. That was the reason he called it off.

Against Swindon we lined up as follows:

Howard
Freeman, Edgar, Collins, McEveley
Adams, Reed, Basham, JCR
Sharp, Sammon

Subs: McNulty, Woolford, Alcock, Higdon, Long, McFadfean, McGahey

The only injury that Adkins mentioned at the time was the one collected by James Wallace.

We would have missed just two from that starting lineup, and one from the bench. K.Wallace would have come back into the defence following suspension to replace Edgar probably (or McGahey after his decent game at Fulham), which basically means we needed to replace McFadzean on the bench (replaceable with anyone) and Adams.

Adams, lest we forget, missed both Bury and Colchester games due to "deselecting himself" so we hardly benefited from waiting till he returned for the rearranged game.



We would not have been down to "the bare bones".

 

[AlienBlade]

Against Swindon we lined up as follows:

Howard
Freeman, Edgar, Collins, McEveley
Adams, Reed, Basham, JCR
Sharp, Sammon

Subs: McNulty, Woolford, Alcock, Higdon, Long, McFadfean, McGahey

The only injury that Adkins mentioned at the time was the one collected by James Wallace.

We would have missed just two from that starting lineup, and one from the bench. K.Wallace would have come back into the defence following suspension to replace Edgar probably (or McGahey after his decent game at Fulham), which basically means we needed to replace McFadzean on the bench (replaceable with anyone) and Adams.

Adams, lest we forget, missed both Bury and Colchester games due to "deselecting himself" so we hardly benefited from waiting till he returned for the rearranged game.



We would not have been down to "the bare bones".

I suppose you forget Reed was also called up then??

Mcgahay was still coming back from Injury as was Flynn, Kennedy and Scougall, Coutts


So lets see who would have played

Howard
Freeman Collins McEveley Wallace
Woolford ........ Basham JCR
Sharp Sammon

Bench
Long Higdon Mcnulty Alcock, McGahay, ........ , .........

So i count 4 gaps.. granted we could have brought in a couple kids for the bench or filled it with the midfield spot...

If you dont think thats the bare bones... i give up...

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I suppose you forget Reed was also called up then??

Mcgahay was still coming back from Injury as was Flynn, Kennedy and Scougall, Coutts


So lets see who would have played

Howard
Freeman Collins McEveley Wallace
Woolford ........ Basham JCR
Sharp Sammon

Bench
Long Higdon Mcnulty Alcock, McGahay, ........ , .........

So i count 4 gaps.. granted we could have brought in a couple kids for the bench or filled it with the midfield spot...

If you dont think thats the bare bones... i give up...

I had admittedly forgotten Reed, who you will surely admit has hardly been a regular feature. If you don't think calling that game off upset our momentum and that we'd have been better suited trying to maintain for a one-off match, I might as well give up too. Instead of us being buggered for at worst one game, it did us for two in quick succession.

 

[AlienBlade]

I had admittedly forgotten Reed, who you will surely admit has hardly been a regular feature. If you don't think calling that game off upset our momentum and that we'd have been better suited trying to maintain for a one-off match, I might as well give up too. Instead of us being buggered for at worst one game, it did us for two in quick succession.

was the run due to not having to swap and change many players though... or was it the lack of a gap between games....

I mean you could argue that if it was the semi settled nature of the team at that point... then changing several players or having to play youngsters even for one game would have done more to upset the momentum than not playing it. a reason given as to why Clough was "failing" (it's obviously all speculation and hindsight is a wonderful thing)

as for Reed he hasnt featured and that's because we now have the likes of Coutts, Baxter, Basham and Hammond (although at that point he did feature quite a bit becuase 3 of those 4 were not available) We simply didnt have a midfield... (some would argue we still dont)

Adkins had admitted he would have liked the game to go ahead... and only conceded to call it off late in the day (which to me says there was other injuries or knocks he was worried about which if played on would have resulted in more long term injuries. thus having even more detriment to an already small "available" list of players...

 

[zablade]

Defining month coming up. A disastrous run of results and he could find fans in full revolt and the board looking for a scapegoat.

Desperately needs at least one win out of the next four league games