A Turning Point?

[Lloyder5]

The players have now set the standard for their manager. He would be right now to expect the levels that were achieved in the 2nd half at D&R as a minimum in every game to the end of the season.

[AustrianAndyGull]

The players have now set the standard for their manager. He would be right now to expect the levels that were achieved in the 2nd half at D&R as a minimum in every game to the end of the season.

Absolutely right. If we do that then we stay up no problems IMO. It's as plain and simple as that. We aren't a totally atrocious and incapable side like Plymouth or Accrington so as long as we perform to something like what we can we'll be fine.

My argument was that we were'nt doing this and there was no indication that we WOULD do this so i predicted relegation and defeats in most games on this basis which many people didn't like and accused me of being negative. Play like we did at Daggers ( which we should have played like this in so many more games this season anyway ) and i am so positive we will stay up and i wouldn't even worry about it. Today is critical for me as it will give me an indication of how much progress we have made this week. I can take a defeat with a good performance chucked in as i know we can beat some of the poorer sides playing this way but throw in the usual safety first sh*t and we're back to square one and won't look like beating anybody. Then the daggers game will be just another false dawn. I trust Knill to get the attitude right and come 5pm today the turning point could well and truly have arrived.

[Modgull]

If Plymouth and Stanley are atrocious why can they get wins and we are still without a win in February and March. This is going to the wire with York and ourselves favourites on form to go down.

[lucy6lucy]

Its has the potential to be a turning point, we are at least creating and having shots on target in the last 2 games, it is only a matter of time and quick that we will get a win. Remember going Morecambe the other season and lost 2-0, but we played well and the next match we beat top of table Rochdale 5-0 and then went on that amazing clean sheet run. Must get a 4pt return in next 2 games.

[brucie]

This is the problem isn't it. Other atrocious teams are managing to win games. We played well enough in our two away games and might well have won at Dagenham if we had eleven men on the pitch.
Plymouths return against Bradford and Dagenham was excellent.
Really we need four points minimum against Chesterfield/York but probably six points.Talk of these two draws being a turning point mean nothing though.
Realistically there is probably more chance of us turning up with another non performance against Chesterfield than there is of us winning the game.
If we couldn't do it against Wycombe/Oxford why are we likely to fare better against Chesterfield/York.
There is more pressure on us now than there was befor the aforementioned games. If the players froze then what is to stop them doing it again.

[AustrianAndyGull]

If Plymouth and Stanley are atrocious why can they get wins and we are still without a win in February and March. This is going to the wire with York and ourselves favourites on form to go down.

I don't know the answer to this modgull and it's just typical when we get a decent point away at Southend, the 2 teams who can't really seem to win many football matches both end up winning. Winning games temporarily relieves pressure and it only takes a win for struggling teams to find that bit of extra belief from somewhere.

That is why we HAVE to win at least one of these 2 home games coming up IMO. It's all ifs and buts BUT IF we don't then i seriously have zero ideas when our next 3 points is going to come from and IF we don't win one of these next 2 then we WILL be going down. At the end of the day we've drawn our last 2 but that's only 2 points and we're still no better off in some respects. Some of the other teams are bound to win when we lose draw so it is absolutely vital that we get a win asap and next week. If we come away from this week with a point we could be worst case scenario 4 - 5 points from safety and that is way too much for a team with only 1 win since 1st December 2012 to claw back. This week is the marker and we cannot blow it. I'd take 3 points at a push as at least it gets us that all elusive victory and the confidence that comes with it but 2 draws aren't good enough.

[coley in stripes]

Good post Brucie....It's down to win or drop. A point gained at Southend is good but altough we are further up the table, we are now 0 points clear. Two draws by this time next week will see us bottom !!

[Trojan 67]

What has gone before results wise has gone, it's done. What happens now is what counts.

Look at the tail end of League Two and see that any two from the bottom ten teams can mathematically get relegated (as 50pts is "considered safe" then anyone below Bristol Rovers).

It could be that one, maybe two teams will go down with more than 48pts. Three wins may not be enough. Even three wins and a draw may not be enough.

Four wins for us and I'll be happy, it means we stay up.

What happens now is what counts.

[SuperNickyWroe]

What has gone before results wise has gone, it's done. What happens now is what counts.

Look at the tail end of League Two and see that any two from the bottom ten teams can mathematically get relegated (as 50pts is "considered safe" then anyone below Bristol Rovers).

It could be that one, maybe two teams will go down with more than 48pts. Three wins may not be enough. Even three wins and a draw may not be enough.

Four wins for us and I'll be happy, it means we stay up.

What happens now is what counts.

looking at the fixtures troj, we may not need that many points as there are a lot of the bottom 8 teams playing each other.

[hector]

I really hope that these two points picked up in trying circumstances are indeed a turning point. I have a feeling that everyone will be 'up for it' on Tuesday, players and supporters alike. Obviously an early Chesterfield goal may prick that balloon of optimism and we would be back to square one but I would hope that the last two games have given the players a bit of belief back and they can start getting the results that they were getting during September and October.

A defeat yesterday would have been catastrophic with regard to any progress made at Dagenham but the fact we salvaged a point from Roots Hall, which we rarely do, should encourage the players.

[ferrarilover]

It's got everything to do with how we played. Aside from the first 10 minutes, at no stage were a pretty good Southend side any better than us yesterday. The rudderless Torquay who turned up against Aldershot and Wycombe would have been beaten 10-0 yesterday. Under Lingy, Rene would have come out second half and been as hopeless as he was first half. Under Knill, he came out and pressed from the front which caused them all manner of problems. Under Taylor, Poke would have continued to punt aimless goal kicks to the middle of the park as he did for the first half hour. Under Knill, he knocked that on the head and we retained the ball much better. Without Ladabie (is that right?), we would have lost the last two games. No one else in the squad would have been where he was for both his goals. That is to say nothing of his all round play against Southend.
It's come extremely late in the season, but we are finally playing the football of which this squad is undoubtedly capable. Nathan Craig in central midfield, a couple of decent loanees, some useful halftime adjustments and suddenly we're playing some nice football for long periods, scoring some goals and picking up points.
We have played Dagenham with ten men and two substitutions (an oft overlooked factor of having a man off so early) and, despite suffering a cruel turn of luck late on, we came out with a draw. Much as Southend, went behind early to their only shot of the first half, playing our hardest remaining fixture away from home and come away with a point.
We are so different now in terms of attitude, application, formation, work rate and personnel that everything which has gone before is entirely irrelevant to what may happen in future.

It's seemed like a long while, but some among our number we to have forgotten that it wasn't more than 15 games ago that we were looking at the Playoffs for the third straight season. It's been very nearly the worst third of a season in 100 years and we STILL aren't bottom. We haven't been in the relegation places, the teams below us have been down the bottom all season. We had to play as badly as possible and suffer some terrible luck to find ourselves where we are. Plymouth have had to play as well as they can and get a little slice of fortune to pick up the win.
Contrary to the silly assertion above, it is now more likely that we will play well than badly on Tuesday, because playing well is this team's default setting. We've had a dreadful recent run. All we have to do is stop the slide. Plymouth's default setting is now playing badly, such is the timescale of their decline. The same is true of Accrington. Now they don't have the grotesque advantage of forcing away sides visiting their hovel to play on a freshly ploughed field, the have returned to their natural state of being an average Conference side. The only problem they have is being stuck in the wrong division.
With the relative talent present in the squads of those at the bottom, Plymouth and Accrington need to get lucky every week, we only need to play to our potential a couple of times and we will be sufficiently clear.

Matt.

[Alpine Joe]

Modgull

If Plymouth and Stanley are atrocious why can they get wins and we are still without a win in February and March.

There'll be plenty of theories on that one Modgull, but I think it's got a lot to do with our current difficulty in scoring at home. No one expects atrocious clubs to win away, but the odd win at home over a period of a couple of months can still be possible.

Accrington Stanley won at home on Saturday, but needed to scorethree goals in order to do so.
If we go back to January the 1st (to keep things neat), Argyle have won three games at home since then, and to win all three they've needed to score more than one goal, in fact all three games have been won by the same scoreline: 2-1.

We however, have not managed to score more than one goal during a home match since January 1st. That's a long time to go with only being able to score just one, or sometimes no goals during our home matches. But as I mentioned in the 'Home games' thread two weeks ago (3rd march)

if you look below the play off places there is only one side (Chesterfield) who have scored more goals at home than us.

So to still be among the top home scorers by early March we had to score plenty of goals earlier in the season. For example in our 5 home games during October we scored 4,3,2,2 and 1.

Yet despite plenty of goals the moaners who wanted the style of play changed were growing in number. The demand for '2 up front' had quite a lot of backing, but those opposed to change could still point to the number of goals we were scoring at Plainmoor and a reasonable league position that might see us challenge for at least a play-off place if games in hand were won.

November changed everything. Only two home games, but those results (the F.A Cup loss to Harrogate and the 4-1 defeat to Southend) saw a surge in new recruits onto the side of the moaners. It was enough to tip the balance, and as we entered December I think Ling gave up trying to hold back the popular tide and accepted that some sort of 4-4-2 system would have to be brought in to appease the fans.

Unfortunately for the club and the supporters, sticking an extra man up front did far more to weaken our defensive capabilities than it did to bolster our attack. In fact, as glaring stats such as never getting more than a single goal at home since new years day show, it actually weakened us in goal scoring terms.

'Be careful what you wish for, as you might just get it'....and there's more than a grain of truth in the old saying.

Any business obviously needs to attempt to keep it's customers happy , and we can only guess as to whether the Board put pressure on Ling to change the playing system. Lingy had a few run-ins with loudmouth fans, but they got what they wanted and 4-4-2 was introduced. And what a monumental disaster it's been, the goals dried up and the results sent us spiralling down the league.

Saddled with a system that didn't suit the players we had, we've now had the expensive job of spending out on loan players in an attempt to make the damn system work before it relegates us.

You'll get no apologies from those who moaned, ranted and fussed to bring it about. 'Oh, it's only not working because we don't start with Thompson' or 'Nathan Craig has to be one of the central midfielders for 4-4-2 to function properly' are just two of a whole host of excuses they'll give you. Then again, should we blame Ling or the Board for caving in to them and agreeing to this change which turned us into one of the atrocious trio you mention ?

Trojan doesn't like us looking back and examining that, and he's right that the important thing now is to have a United front for the games ahead, but when you see threads asking if all the fault lies with either the players, or the Manager, or with the Board, ask yourself if the choice should really be confined to just those 3 options, and whether some others didn't noisily play their part in leading us down this path to the difficult spot we currently find ourselves in.

[standupsitdown]

I think we are indeed going to look back on that cold night at Dagenham last Tuesday as the turning point in the season.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Disagree, the turning point was tonight. The monkey is off our backs, we have continued momentum, we have won a game, a game we could quite easily have drawn in the end but we didn't. Now we move forward knowing that we can win games of football, something we've been unable to say since Exeter away. If we had drawn tonight then the turning point would still not have arrived until we got a win. That night was tonight.

[standupsitdown]

I'd say that Dagenham was the turning point in terms of performance and spirit - the way they came out after half time and played with determination, winning the 50:50s that had been lost in the first half. Perhaps Knill's half time talk was the turning point as since then we haven't looked like a team heading for relegation (well I assume we didn't last night - I wasn't there).
But yes Chesterfield turning point in terms of the result.