[Archived] Northampton

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

First half performance was simply nowhere near the standard set by the Shrewsbury game..absolutely nowhere near good enough.For large parts of this match I thought a big,physical Northampton side bullied us out of the game and we had no reply.

A better second half saw Bell really impress and we could have snatched a win if we had had our shooting boots on!

It's going to be a real fight folks for automatic promotion make no mistake.

Thought the home crowd was very poor today for a side going for promotion,like a morgue at times...WE need to do better.

[Cherry Blue]

Ref was a joke. Disappointed with result and to me confirms we are a play off team not top two.

First half they wanted it more and we gave little to Graham with Samuel not involved. Still waiting to see what Armstrong can give us but to be honest they didn't give us any room. Bell looked good after a nervy start.

Overall they gave us something different to think about by running after every ball.

[Darwen Rover 007]

I knew this was a banana skin the minute I read Mowbrays comments saying we should be getting 6 points in this game and the Walsall one 

 

...mindset 

[Gav]

We're on a terrific run, and whilst it's disappointing not beat Northampton at home, to salvage a draw on the day was a good result. 

The improvement seen this season for me has been nothing short of remarkable, You don't usually turn 8yrs of hurt into success overnight, yet Mowbray is having a bloody good go!

Keep the faith, onwards and upwards.  

[Exiled in Toronto]

I don’t blame Mowbray for going with the same team; bringing in three new players straight away would’ve put a big dent in morale imo. After today he has licence to make changes.

i also likes the intent and timing of the subs, plus pushing both fullbacks way up. 

I don’t think I we dropped two points because of an over-cautious manager, we just didn’t have enough players on their game.

[blueboy3333]

Just now, Exiled in Toronto said:

I don’t blame Mowbray for going with the same team; bringing in three new players straight away would’ve put a big dent in morale imo. After today he has licence to make changes.

i also likes the intent and timing of the subs, plus pushing both fullbacks way up. 

I don’t think I we dropped two points because of an over-cautious manager, we just didn’t have enough players on their game.

Although when the opposition have 3 Centre Halves winning everything in the air and we are  lumping It to a lone frontman it makes you wonder if the manager didn't get it wrong from the start.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Just now, blueboy3333 said:

Although when the opposition have 3 Centre Halves winning everything in the air and we are  lumping It to a lone frontman it makes you wonder if the manager didn't get it wrong from the start.

We have no speedy wingers or bullying forwards. We just don’t cope well with three bruisers at the back. Fact is we over-rely on a Dack moment of magic or Charlie free kick and didn’t get either.

[Mattyblue]

Conceding an early goal is obviously always something you want to avoid, but especially so against that lot.

A real cynical bunch, just like they were at their place. The time wasting could easily have been stamped out, but the ref had no control over the game. 

Frustrating afternoon and it is this kind of home game against teams that will park the bus that we really struggle with.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

5 minutes ago, blueboy3333 said:

Although when the opposition have 3 Centre Halves winning everything in the air and we are  lumping It to a lone frontman it makes you wonder if the manager didn't get it wrong from the start.

I do wonder if that is part of the tactic - where we pick up the second ball in attacking midfield.

Personally didn't think it was a bad performance overall - but got to give credit to them who defended with passion. Only Conway and Samuel were poor - though not too impressed with Armstrong on this showing. Was concerned when he put Dack into midfield - but I thought he actually did a good job - allowing Payne to play in his favoured position (though I would drop Conway in the next match for him)

A bigger concern I felt - we are developing into a team of relatively small players - when playing a land of the giants team like Northampton we were at times bullied out of it (especially with yet another inept referee). Towards the end I was scared if they got a corner such was our general lack of height in the team. 

 

[West Yorks Rover]

Just now, Exiled in Toronto said:

We have no speedy wingers or bullying forwards. We just don’t cope well with three bruisers at the back. Fact is we over-rely on a Dack moment of magic or Charlie free kick and didn’t get either.

It might help if we had a big CB who was effective from corners and set-pieces, we had 9 or 10 corners today.

We haven't had one for years, yet it seems every other club in this league has an abundance of them in their squads.

[Paul]

17 minutes ago, Exiled in Toronto said:

I don’t blame Mowbray for going with the same team; bringing in three new players straight away would’ve put a big dent in morale imo. After today he has licence to make changes.

i also likes the intent and timing of the subs, plus pushing both fullbacks way up. 

I don’t think I we dropped two points because of an over-cautious manager, we just didn’t have enough players on their game.

That coupled with probably the most ineffectual referee we’ve seen this season and a disgracefully cynical Northampton side. 

It’s far from a disaster but we need to get going on Tuesday night. 

I totally disagree with the view Wigan are out of sight. For me it’s crucial we keep up the pace and then beat Wigan at Ewood. We need ourselves, Shrewsbury and Wigan fighting for two spots. Give up on catching Wigan and we are left with a straight 50/50 for second place - that would be a danger.

Disappointed but far from disillusioned. We can’t win every match. 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Just now, Mattyblue said:

Conceding an early goal is obviously always something you want to avoid, but especially so against that lot.

A real cynical bunch, just like they were at their place. The time wasting could easily have been stamped out, but the ref had no control over the game. 

Frustrating afternoon and it is this kind of home game against teams that will park the bus that we really struggle with.

I know we're stating the blindingly obvious but when you're playing teams who come to "park the bus" you CANNOT let them score first. If you do you've given them something to hang their hats on and you're really up against it. It's bad enough when they've got a 0-0 to defend.

[Waggy76]

3 minutes ago, Paul said:

That coupled with probably the most ineffectual referee we’ve seen this season and a disgracefully cynical Northampton side. 

It’s far from a disaster but we need to get going on Tuesday night. 

I totally disagree with the view Wigan are out of sight. For me it’s crucial we keep up the pace and then beat Wigan at Ewood. We need ourselves, Shrewsbury and Wigan fighting for two spots. Give up on catching Wigan and we are left with a straight 50/50 for second place - that would be a danger.

Disappointed but far from disillusioned. We can’t win every match. 

Neither can Wigan or Shrewsbury !

[RevidgeBlue]

Just now, Paul said:

That coupled with probably the most ineffectual referee we’ve seen this season and a disgracefully cynical Northampton side. 

It’s far from a disaster but we need to get going on Tuesday night. 

I totally disagree with the view Wigan are out of sight. For me it’s crucial we keep up the pace and then beat Wigan at Ewood. We need ourselves, Shrewsbury and Wigan fighting for two spots. Give up on catching Wigan and we are left with a straight 50/50 for second place - that would be a danger.

Disappointed but far from disillusioned. We can’t win every match. 

Completely agree neither Wigan nor Shrewsbury are out of sight, there's still fifty odd points to play for.

Poor perfotmance today imo but win on Tuesday and four points from the two games is far from a disaster. Anything less than that will be!

[Gav]

8 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I know we're stating the blindingly obvious but when you're playing teams who come to "park the bus" you CANNOT let them score first. If you do you've given them something to hang their hats on and you're really up against it. It's bad enough when they've got a 0-0 to defend.

They never came to park the bus did they? I'm asking the question because I wasn't there today?

Suely by it's very definition you'd not be taking the lead I'd that was the case?

[blueboy3333]

6 minutes ago, DavidMailsTightPerm said:

I do wonder if that is part of the tactic - where we pick up the second ball in attacking midfield.

Personally didn't think it was a bad performance overall - but got to give credit to them who defended with passion. Only Conway and Samuel were poor - though not too impressed with Armstrong on this showing. Was concerned when he put Dack into midfield - but I thought he actually did a good job - allowing Payne to play in his favoured position (though I would drop Conway in the next match for him)

A bigger concern I felt - we are developing into a team of relatively small players - when playing a land of the giants team like Northampton we were at times bullied out of it (especially with yet another inept referee). Towards the end I was scared if they got a corner such was our general lack of height in the team. 

 

It was the first half that cost us today. We let them bully us a bit and we looked a bit flat. However, there were still huge gaps behind their defence because they played a high line to, I presume, squeeze the life out of Dack. It worked. The counter to that was balls over the top of the defence but Graham isn't quick enough. The space was also out wide but we had nobody to exploit it. 2nd half they dropped deeper and deeper so it suited Graham more . Shame we couldn't get the winner as both Bell and payne put two cracking balls in that were waiting to be buried. Samuel missed a sitter when he swung and missed it and it hit his standing leg from 6 yards out.

Dack did ok but he's not a CM. NTFC had vacated midfield by that point so it was attack against defence.

Agree with you about Armstrong. Like Samuel he's a striker playing out wide and it shows. I would have loved to see him up front first half running into all that space behind them, he would have had a field day with his pace.

 

 

[briansol]

23 minutes ago, West Yorks Rover said:

It might help if we had a big CB who was effective from corners and set-pieces, we had 9 or 10 corners today.

We haven't had one for years, yet it seems every other club in this league has an abundance of them in their squads.

We did have Shane Duffy though. He won almost every header from corners, but couldn't direct them.

[Preben]

Our best header of the ball often takes the corners

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

38 minutes ago, Exiled in Toronto said:

We have no speedy wingers or bullying forwards. We just don’t cope well with three bruisers at the back. Fact is we over-rely on a Dack moment of magic or Charlie free kick and didn’t get either.

Said all season we need a battering ram up front in certain games.  Someone to chuck up front for ten mins who can dominate in the air.. Like gestede/Samba

[blueboy3333]

Just now, Gav said:

They never came to park the bus did they? I'm asking the question because I wasn't there today?

Suely by it's very definition you'd not be taking the lead I'd that was the case?

They hit us on the break from our corner for their goal iirc. Poor defending. They played a 5-4-1 so that tells you their intention. They came to spoil the game and it worked for them. They dived, time-wasted and had no intention of trying to play. Problem was we weren't good enough to overcome it..

[blueboy3333]

42 minutes ago, Exiled in Toronto said:

We have no speedy wingers or bullying forwards. We just don’t cope well with three bruisers at the back. Fact is we over-rely on a Dack moment of magic or Charlie free kick and didn’t get either.

Not a ringing endorsement of Mogga's forays into the transfer market. Speedy, tricky wingers is what you need when you come up against a well-drilled defence, which we often do at home. That game was crying out for Chapman. I thought Bell was excellent though. he isn't a winger but he's a better attacking full-back than Williams.

[arbitro]

Northampton set their stall out early as the took their time at every restart from the first minute and couldn't believe it when they got the bonus of scoring the first goal. Their game plan was clear but sadly an inept referee was oblivious to their shenanigans. I thought at the time Raya was a bit slow reacting to the cross. Despite lots of possession and endeavour we weren't quite smart enough to break them down (aside from the goal) as we played into their hands with crosses into the land of giants who simply headed the ball out. A recurring theme in games against teams like this is that we simply don't look like breaking them down with smart movement or getting in behind them. I fear we are going to have a few similar games between now and the end of the season. Losing Mulgrew was a blow and if he is out for any length of time it will leave us really short of quality at the back. Overall I can't criticise the effort and Mowbray was positive with his changes but we really need to find a way of beating teams who sit in deep.

[Gav]

12 minutes ago, blueboy3333 said:

They hit us on the break from our corner for their goal iirc. Poor defending. They played a 5-4-1 so that tells you their intention. They came to spoil the game and it worked for them. They dived, time-wasted and had no intention of trying to play. Problem was we weren't good enough to overcome it..

They dived, time wasted and took 10 minutes to make a sub at there place, reminded me of the European games we used to see at Ewood in terms of frustration felt, and the ref was awful also.

[Mike E]

My gut instinct tells me we just need to keep doing as we do. We went from 8th-2nd on current form. We can get back up there and stay there if we just keep buggering on.

[Hasta]

43 minutes ago, Gav said:

They never came to park the bus did they? I'm asking the question because I wasn't there today?

Suely by it's very definition you'd not be taking the lead I'd that was the case?

No. They came to sit deep and hit us on the break.

Once they did that they parked the bus.

Nothing at all wrong with that. They were a poor footballing side but well organised, physical and worked their backsides off. Yes they slowed it down a lot but the ref added the time on and we couldn't take advantage.

Bell was excellent, as was Williams at Centre back. Bell showed more going forward than Conway so I wouldn't be worried about playering him in front of Williams when Mulgrew is fit.

Disappointed that Dack was pulled so deep to accommodate the subs. Not sure in the logic there.. Hope that's not a sign of things to come if we are struggling.