Ramballs

It would be unfair of me to give a full opinion of the draw at Blackpool when I wasn’t there. I’m quite happy with the result because every point away from home is valuable but it’s the game on Saturday that will tell us if it was a decent point or not. There are a lot of fans around the messageboards who still appear to need 24hr suicide watch despite is picking up four points from the possible nine.

I’ve been browsing some of the messageboards and I’d like to share some of the more considered write-ups from yesterdays game.

First off, Milton_Keynes Ram from popside.com shared their post-match thoughts. MKR knows football and I think if you want a decent report of the rams performance, head over to popside.com and read MKRs comments after each match.

A clean sheet is always welcome but god that was a boring and crap game of football. In patches on Saturday at Scunthorpe we played better than we did last night, but the difference was a lot more solid against what was admittedly a very very poor Blackpool team who will probably struggle all season.

The first ten minutes we looked the more controlled and composed team and look to me like we would assert control and dominate the game but a few almost casual moments at the back, players trying to do too much on the ball, or no conviction when passing itl got the crowd into it for them and seemed to give their players the boost they needed and after that we never seemed in total control.

Addison and Buxton in particular looked more solid than at the weekend…..though given the type of forward Buxton was up against I’m not surprised. Moxey and Connolly on numerous occassions played their entire attack onside when they should be able to look across the line or/and take the lead from the centre backs and a better attack would have taken advantage. Savage too played them onside a few times when tracking back. To me I think the individual awareness of a number of players in these instances was poor, couple with poor communication from Addison/Buxton almost caused us problems that should never have occurred.

Green was missed tonight. Pearson started reasonably well in the first 5-10 minutes but rapidly faded out of the game and Savage never really took control of the midfield. Croft was exceptionally poor and should have been dragged off plenty earlier whilst Teale seemed frightened to take the full back on either side on. For the majority of the game Teale was up against Eardley the ex-Oldham right back we were linked with over the summer - looked a very good player albeit the first time I’d seen him.

Commons started well but then drifted more and more out of the game as it went on; surprised reading Clough’s comments about him post-match whilst Hulse was clearly not match fit. Although only on briefly Varney probably contributed more in the time he was on the pitch than in any other game for us besides the second half of his debut at Burnley last season.

Whilst we had problems with the offside rule whilst defending the amount of times Croft, teale and Hulse managed to get themselves offside at innocuous times was criminal.

Very poor and flat atmosphere from the travelling fans although the home fans made up for it. Did well to keep the noise in the ground given one temporary uncovered stand and one half built one. Never intimidating as some grounds can be but full marks for getting behind their team.

Finally if the rumours were to be believed about us being in for Charlie Adam over the summer I’m glad they weren’t true. Rotten rotten footballer.
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Over on the DET forums, ratpackramwrote:

Bywater 6 - nothing to do , one save in second half , dodgy ball control nearly let in their forward

Might get slaughtered for this but I was impressed with Varney when he came on for Hulse
what about playing him in home games alongside Hulse with Commons on the left linking with Moxey , push Teale on the right , get Croft on a diet and bring Barker in for Connolly.