w/e Saturday 10th February 2024

[Son of Cod]

Those Stockport goals were gift wrapped and came with a card too. Trying to play out against the best side in the league when you're in a relegation scrap, it's just suicidal madness. If Artell is this 'builder' we are told then it looks like he's literally taking the place down before building it back up.

He will be back on his UK podcast tour before too long at this rate.

Agreed, an absolutely madcap plan. His refusal to adhere from this style of football has resulted in him already alienating himself from a huge section of the fanbase. I guess his thinking is that we won't be playing Stockport every week but it's very frustrating that we've gone from a manager who only ever set us up to stop the opposition playing to one that couldn't give a shit about the opposition.

 

[AdamStag]

Agreed, an absolutely madcap plan. His refusal to adhere from this style of football has resulted in him already alienating himself from a huge section of the fanbase. I guess his thinking is that we won't be playing Stockport every week but it's very frustrating that we've gone from a manager who only ever set us up to stop the opposition playing to one that couldn't give a shit about the opposition.

I suppose technically you can play in a way of not caring about the position, we actually struggle more when clough worries about the opposition when we actually do much better when we just do our stuff and have the opposition worrying about us.

It’s certainly possible to do it, just with respect you’ve got be actually good enough to do it! Maybe he’d be best off doing the basics until the end of the season, see you over the line and go from there with implementing this style.

 

[Indian Dan]

Get the feeling they’ve got bored of it all now tbh, especially given wrexham are the new media darlings (until the next new farcical owners come in).

If they were so bothered why let the best player go in the window?

They looked OK to me - a bit one dimensional with that lump Smith up top. Bit strange really as they appeared to be dangerous but without ever looking like scoring - until 92 min anyway. We had 25 attempts yesterday and 4 or 5 of those were simple chances if not sitters. I enjoyed it yesterday.

 

[Ainsty]

Disappointing to drop back out of the play-offs so soon after Notts - a couple of very fortunate late winners for Harrogate and MK are the sort of luck you need to be successful. Looking at the sides above us, to finish in the play-offs we need to be better over the course of the next 16 games than 2 of them, which doesn't seem so unlikely. We haven't played Barrow at all yet so hard to judge that, but we were no worse than Crewe when they beat us (apart from being utterly impotent, missing a couple of sitters and Crewe sealing it on the break in injury time), and I'm fairly sure we're better than Harrogate and Wimbledon. MK and Wrexham I'm not convinced we'd get the better of necessarily, but one of those will finish top 3 with Mansfield and Stockport anyway. Definitely starting to bunch up behind us as well - Newport in good form, Morecambe and Accrington both capable and even Bradford aren't entirely out of it either. I think anyone below that would struggle to get into the top 7 from here though.

I can't speak about MK but it isn't correct to say the Harrogate goal was "fortunate" or lucky. Harrogate were resilient against an early onslaught from Colchester. This is similar to the display against Stockport holding out for a draw against the league leaders. As the match continued we came to dominate and, for the last 30 minutes, only Harrogate looked like scoring. Finally, one of the crosses from the left was poked home.

 

[joethegill]

I can't speak about MK but it isn't correct to say the Harrogate goal was "fortunate" or lucky. Harrogate were resilient against an early onslaught from Colchester. This is similar to the display against Stockport holding out for a draw against the league leaders. As the match continued we came to dominate and, for the last 30 minutes, only Harrogate looked like scoring. Finally, one of the crosses from the left was poked home.

I was referring to the goal itself, I obviously have no idea about how the game panned out. My first viewing was this morning through a morning-fog brain but having read your comment I've just gone back to see the goal again. I maintain it's a lucky goal because 99 times out of 100 the Colchester keeper collects the weak shot that was straight at him, and it certainly doesn't squeeze out of his hands and then backspin directly behind him - it's a fortunate goal.

 

[GTFCfish]

It’s certainly possible to do it, just with respect you’ve got be actually good enough to do it! Maybe he’d be best off doing the basics until the end of the season, see you over the line and go from there with implementing this style.

Yep, I get it that it’s his way of playing and if the players were good enough to do it then I’m all for it.
But they’re not, the players he has trying to play out from the back are absolutely shite so he needs to ditch this asap and get this season done and dusted first and then once he gets his own players in in the Summer who can actually implement his style then go back to it.
You can see the style that he is trying to play and when it comes off it looks good but we’re currently handicapped by having a load of shit in our team.
“You can’t polish a turd” springs to mind.

 

[JJ1990]

I will say this for Artell(yes I know, Crewe fan jumping into an Artell discussion, shocker), he did the same thing with us back in 16-17, 17-18 and 18-19. Took him 2 full years to develop his style and get the players in place before results started to turn. I do admire him for sticking to his principles, as I think you can't just turn them on and off. But what he had going for him with the Alex is his playing career and promotion with us as a player. He doesn't have that rope with Grimsby fans. He'll be out of a job if he's not careful.

 

[Gladders]

I actually admire him for it. But I do agree we need to get safe first before he insists on it.

Don't know how true it is but apparently this Saturday was the first time we conceded from mistake by playing out from the back, so there that if true.

We just have some shite in defence so going to take a while to do something, the next few games will decide what's happening, if we can get 6+ points from the four around us then we should be safe particularly if FGR and Sutton don't turn it around. If after these games though we are still in the thick of it he needs to learn to change his tactics and not keep insisting we won't be relegated just because he says so.