FL2: Crewe V Torquay 9th October 2010

Can I ask you a serious question Scott?

On one site you slate the manager for the way he managed the team today, venting your frustration that we haven't won; and yet on this site you say nothing.

Is that because you know you are playing to a different audience on here, or because you decided to watch the game and stop posting via your mobile?

You were at the game I take it?

Just back from the game, 1:10 on train which makes a difference to the ususal 6 or 7 hours on the coach, well what a great game that was.

shame the ref was useless and our defence looked shambolic at times.

Arrived at crew at 12:30 and bought a loaf of bread (yes weird) but then bought some chips from the shop across from the stadium which were surprisingly very nice
now onto the game

a point was pretty much the least we deserved lthoug we lacked in defence at times.
Bevan: made some good saves, had little chance with the goals 7.5
branston made plenty of decent tackles and headers, although was poor at times 7
Ellis 2 goals and played well in defence 9
robertson was quite poor in defence 6
nicholson not had moments of class and poor 7
mansell, didnt tackle enough and looked out of positon alot 6
okane played well througout a great goal 8
stevens shcoking again, wimps out of tackles alot, when all the ball poor aswell 4
kee not a bad game, needed the ball a bit more 6
benyon good game, held the ball well and passed nicely 7
zebroski, made some good runs but didnt tackle enough 6

SUBS:
gritton and carlisle were quite poor looked knackered after 5 minutes, not good as subs.
i didnt rli see much of oastler

right our 2 goals were from set pieces and were taken well by ellis
our third goal was a beautiful shot by Okane.

right now onto the officials, they were good up untill 20 minutes, then from then on were probably the worst i have ever seen, giving us chants of are you Jarnail in disguise?
Benyon denied a penalty, but im not sure myself either way
their first goal seemed to be offside to me but im not sure
the first penalty decision was kinda ok, yes he did handball it in my oppinion but hit bar anyway
the second penalty well im not quite sure what the officials saw if anything was a foul on beven, or bevan shouldve been booked but in the end it was branston for some strange reason.

All in all a good day out ruined by the ref, the fans were very loud and vocal with minimal swearing untill the 75th minute in showing frustration from the ref

another thing to note, their second goal was a marvelous goal in which i could only applaude it, although they should never have had the corner / throw in if it wernt for some stupid play up the field.

forgot to mention their goalkeeper made 2 cracking saves in the deat of the match to make it a point.

Where has our defence gone? its very strange, we havnt got rid of anybody???

sorry for the long post, and i look forward to youre replies

Iam also looking forward to the football league show as it is bound to be the pick of the matches today

Absolutely gutted. Unbelievable. And all the other feelings that you can imagine after dominating a game, deserving to be 3-1 up and then having the game ripped away by a dubious penalty near the end, but then still having a couple of chances right at the death to win it, mind so did they.

OK, now the disappointment out of the way and the starters finished, moving onto the game itself.

Doing this on my mobile so apologies for  any spelling mistakes.

There are bound to be some who focus on winless runs, failure to do this, that and the other, however we were MAGNIFICENT. I was so pleased with the way we played, AGAIN. I was very pleased with the way we played last week at  Shrewsbury and we were even better this week, it's a travesty that we only got 2 points from our travels. On the plus side, if we keep playing like this it will come good in the end. I'd be very disappointed if we are not in the mix come the end of the season. 

The game itself;
We dominated from the start. It was obvious early on that we had come to play football as we knocked it around well and Crewe struggled to contain us.

Both of our goals were from set pieces. Superb delivery from Nicholson and fantastic finishes by Ellis, the Second taking a slight deflection, but both unstoppable.

In between the goals there was an incident where a ball was lumped forward by a Crewe player which Ellis left for bevan, but Bevan didn't come, Crewe player got in, got a shot on goal which bevan saved. IMO Bevan should have come in the first place, but he tore a strip off Ellis. The ball was cleared up the other end for a corner to us, Bevan comes marching out towards halfway line demonstrating with Ellis, even bucks is talking to Ellis, he turns away from them jogs to catch up with play, our corner, arrives late at the back post and knocks in the second goal.

We continued to dominate the rest of the half, but then drama just before half time. First a penalty, I think for handball, that is missed. Struck well but hit the bar. Then a hoof forward, breaks to one of their players who struck an unstoppable shot that Bevan could do nothing about.

They started the second half brightly but we can closest to scoring when Zebs worked his magic down the right wing, got to the byline, crossed to the back post where an unmarked Stevens volleyed over when it looked easier to score. 

Crewe were starting to get a hold in midfield so Stevens was replaced by Carlisle, followed shortly by Oastler replacing Kee changing to a 4-5-1. We then took charge of the game again and got our third soon after.

Benyon turned his man on half way and raced towards goal only to be brought down mid way, as he went down he grabbed the ball. Then either him or Oastler quickly placed the ball and took a very quick free kick to o'kane who absolutely lashed it in from 20 yards, fantastic strike, well worth waiting up for tonight.

At that point I thought the game was over. I couldn't see any way back for Crewe, how wrong can you be??

Another fantastic strike gave them a sniff, an unstoppable shot that gave Bevan no chance. 

By now the ball wasn't sticking up front so Bucks took o'kane off and stuck Gritton on up front with Benyon. IMHO bucks got it right tactically. It's just that some of the players aren't doing it right now. We needed someone up front to hold up the ball and stop it coming right back. Benyon can't do that, he does well to get in front of his man but then he falls over, they get the ball and bang it forward so no restpite for our defence. Unfortunatly Gritton is way off the pace now so whilst the tactics were absolutely right  Benyon & Gritton are not capable of easing pressure on the defence by keeping hold of the ball up front.

I still thought we would hold on and we would have if the ref, who started to lose the plot, had not given a penalty in what looked like a good old fashioned goal mouth scramble. This time they made no mistake and they grabbed an undeserved equaliser. 

We still had two chances to snatch it at the end, but then again so did they.

Two points dropped rather than a point gained.

A very good team performance and also some excellent individual performances;

Bevan; I thought he looked a bit shaky at times but also pulled off a couple of good saves, one of them just prior to the penalty decision.

Nicholson; good game, great going forward, dead ball deliveries were top notch. Also got in a goal saving tackle in the first half that was timed to perfection.

Branston; excellent all afternoon. Dominant in the air as they lumped things forward and broke up play nicely. Organised the defence well and a calming influence when things get tense. Booked for verbals after the second penalty decision. You know he is playing well when he executes a perfect Cruyff turn to beat his man, quality.

Ellis; sublime. An excellent defensive performance capped off with two superb goals. Just edged branston for MoM.

Robertson; solid enough game.

Stevens; not a bad first half, but showed nothing second half and then substituted.

Mansell; another solid game, tough tackling, covers the ground well, distribution just needs to be a bit better, or just give it to o'kane.

O'kane; superb for the first hour, bags of talent, played some exquisite balls, FANTASTIC goal. Tired a bit and was subbed as bucks tried to tighten things up. This lad is going places.

Zebs; another solid performance, won a good few headers as well as beating a few players. Got a knock with about 15 minutes to go and faded/struggled. Let's hope it's nothing serious.

Kee; I thought he played well invent first half. Playing in the hole between benyon and the midfield and linked up really well. Tired quickly but that was understandable after the amount of running he did.

Benyon; bit of a disappointment to be honest. He does really well to get in front of the defender to take the ball but then let's himself down by going to ground so gamely and so often. 

About time we on the forum had a whip round and bought him some longer studs for his boots.

Carlisle; not to much impact on the game.

Oastler; got something about him. Certainly not going to pull out of any tackles. Got stuck in, won a few tackles     with his tough tackling. Wouldn't be surprised to see him start next Saturday. A ball winner, if he can distribute it as well the he's gonna be a good asset.

Gritton; to slow and cumbersome. Didn't  hold the ball up at all. Struggling.

Wroe; where was he?? I've not heard anything officially. Lots of rumours flying around. Let's hope we do get a good price for him, if he goes.

No doubt the defence will get some stick because we conceded three, however 2 of the goals were unstoppable shots from outside the box and the other a dubious penalty. I thought they played well.

Overall I thought we played well, deserved more than we got. I'd be loathe to say we were robbed but it certainly feels like it right now.

Personally I thought Benyon was very good today. He got on the end of so many aimless balls and tried so hard to make something of them only for Zebroski, Kee, Stevens and O'Kane not to get there quickly enough to support him. Some complete tw@t amongst our lot even screamed "get up Benyon" as he rather tiredly got back to his feet after running around every blade of grass for 75 minutes.

But it was a good game. We scored two lovely headers before they woke up. The game itself was a cracking game I thought. Both teams play good football. They are a little bit attacking and intricate with their passes but are weak at the back and we were a bit more direct in attack whilst being more solid at the back. Their left winger (Moore) was excellent and gave Robertson a lot to think about.

As regards the penalty decision we were lucky enough to speak to Mark Ellis in the pub after the game and he said it was a definate penalty. Nico was about to clear it and Branston steamed in and took everyone out.

Although I can't fault the effort of any of the players it's obvious that Billy Kee is probably carrying a bit too much weight to do himself justice, don't fret Billy I know just how you feel;) The new lad from QPR looks like a decent player. He has a bit of pace and ability about him. Danny Stevens was probably the most peripheral player today. He didn't really get involved that much and their right back Tootle was starting to attack at will so it was sensible to replace him.

The pre-match chips were lovely and the Royal Hotel was adequate for a beer. A rather strange pub though. The furniture looked like it had been stolen from a 1989 Barrett show home and the warning sign at the bar made me laugh warning that the Pub would refuse to serve people wearing "Sports Clothing" (eg Baseball Caps and Tracksuit bottoms). The creation of a chav free zone in Crewe seems quite ironic. It reminded me of Life on Mars.

A few photos.

What a bloody amazing world we live in today, there am I in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere logged into the internet on a hand held thing that has no wires that started life as just a wireless phone while me mate tufc01 is a few hundred miles away using a similar devise and putting live updates on our forum that I could read the second he posted them.

Thanks for the great updates Rich and thanks to everyone else for your great match reports and as I only heard the last ten minutes on the radio on the way home followed by Dave Thomas’s summary, your match reports have all been a must read.

Another away game and the second on the trot where it seems it was a case of two points dropped and yes it is now eight games without a win and while we don’t want to make too much about that fact, let’s hope after all the records the team have broken recently, they don’t end up breaking another one.

Very pleasing to hear all our players played well and I’m pleased for Mark Ellis who must be feeling a whole lot better tonight after scoring two goals today than he did last Saturday night after making the mistake that cost us a goal.

No surprise to learn that O'kane had another good game and he is only going to get better and I find myself asking the question will we ever see Wroe play again for us? Maybe Bucks got in Oastler not just to have a look at him but to do a job for the first team knowing he might be one down in midfield if you get my drift.

After some concerns from a few fans about the fact we were not scoring goals we go and get three in one match, just a shame we let in three at our end and DT said Branston tripped a player in the box for the second penalty so hopefully that might be confirmed on the football show.

Despite two good away performances they only earned us two points and we can sing the praise of the team for such good performances but its points that will take us back up the table and a lack of them that will take us back down and we do need to see out games when we do have a two goal lead to ensure its us who gets the three points.

I don’t think the last two away results would have done enough to help the gate for our next home game and what I feel is important is the team put on the same sort of performance at home as they did today as home fans recently have certainly not seen the best of the team or the football they obviously can play.

I've noted previously and retain that you hold a positive opinion of Paul Buckle, and I did say I was asking a serious question ~ meaning that I didn't want to come over as being facetious.

I always checkout the tale end of the "other site's" match threads precisely in order to avoid all those moronic one liners and was immediately struck by the obvious contrast in the posting of some rather stupid comments made about the manager and how he conducted the match tactics ~ obviously from people who weren't there ~ and then saw yours, and was rather surprised. I too listened to that commentary and noted DT's comments, but rather had the impression in my head of a tactical battle going on between Dario Gradi (or is it the Danny O'Grady Merv Benney thought managed them?) and Paul Buckle. It sounded to me (and I stress sounded, so that was merely my take on it) as if by bringing Gritton on the manager was going for it and trying to win the match and not settle for a draw.

I wondered if you had decided to post on that site rather than this as you'd imagined you'd get short shrift on here posting tactical observations based on a radio commentary and had decided to post them on a site where there is frequent distaste for the manager posted usually based on disappointment over a result rather than anything more rational.

Thanks for answering my query!

Chris can you use a flash for your pickies mate, can`t make out a lot of what`s there due to how dark the photos are, if that was a cricket match it would have been stopped for bad light!