0 - 0 at half time. Visitors down to ten men, Witton have had a penalty saved.
Lost 1-0. Blyth scored a penalty, then had another man sent off towards the end.
Witton team:
Matt Cooper, Cliff Moyo, Josh Glover, Ben Harrison, Marc Joseph, Anthony Sheehan, Josh Hancock, Michael Powell, Kyle Wilson, Chris Luby, Danny Andrews.
Subs: Jon Dawson, Jonathan Breeze, Matty Purcell, Stephen Hughes, Harry Ashworth.
If Carling could sponsor the worst second half football performance in the world that second half against 10 then 9 men must be a good candidate. It was absolute garbage. Not seen a worse game since Camel Lairds at Witton a couple of years ago. Why do we keep booting the ball in air to our small forwards??? You see better football watching some Sunday league games on the bloody Barony! Granted first half we should have been two goals up and cruising. We gave away a totally needless penalty and our chances to even get near to a goal scoring chance in the second half were limited by 10 SORRY 9 men!!! .sick SBL
Were most of us surprised that we ended up losing? I doubt it. The ability of this team to have a good spell and then collapse is frightening - in both senses of the word. I don’t blame Josh for the penalty miss, their keeper gambled and it paid off. I don’t blame Luby for his misses, he may not have been fit and he did at least get in good positions. I don’t blame the management for this run of form, they have rung the changes and released players after giving them a fair chance. I DO blame the rest of the squad collectively, although there are certain players who are mostly blameless.
As well as continuing to give away crazy penalties, their inability to adapt to a game when circumstances change is very worrying. We all know what happens when a team goes down to 10 men. It’s not easy to beat a side that withdraw and say ‘break us down’ but I do expect a side with 11 men to at least dominate and make lots of chances- we didn’t. At times in the second half Blyth dominated us. The atmosphere is now pretty dead and the crowds are down - without the families and the kids we may not have got 300. The players OWE US. People devote so much time and money to this club and we have had no return on that this season. Now we have got the leaders on Tuesday. Expectations are low but you never know.
better to have a bad spell now rather than the end of the season when its too late to do anything about it.UTA.
Agree with much of whar RonMoy said, the players need to stand up and be counted - Pritch and his mgt team are as committed as can be and I would want to play for them, at the end Pritch was so upset it hurt to see, so lets get behind the club and be patient One thing is for sure We all make mistakes and I think Pritch has made a few with signing ( doesnt every manager ) but he does soon see it and will get it right either with these players or with additions so it is up to the players to up there game and deliver.
For me the absence of the over lapping full backs is clear to see.
With gards and Danny on the right and woodsy and Josh on the left teams couldn’t keep up. You hardly ever saw the “punt” up field.
We’re clearly lacking the attacking threat they had when in the side at the same time.
UTA
First game I’ve seen since the opener at Buxton and have to say that very disappointed not a lot seems to have altered, effort, drive and guile all sadly lacking, yes the injuries have made a difference but for me too many ‘shoe ins’ players in bad form, lack of confidence etc with not much in reserve to ‘freshen up/threaten’.
Fair play to Blyth, half a dozen away fans made more noise than 300 home fans and with ten men and then nine we rarely troubled them and there was hardly an onslaught.
As CJ says Pritch knows what he’s up against and a stuttering start is hardly a crisis but changes in either attitude or personnel are needed.
Felt really sorry for Pritch on Saturday, you could see how gutted he was after the game and that he was wishing he was out on the pitch himself. For me we are not that far off, we are just missing a leader or two on the pitch, Pritch would be ideal (if only he was a few years younger!)
It wasn’t a good performance by any means, particularly second half, but we should really have been a couple up at half time. We’ve got to stop collapsing though when things aren’t going to plan. Its been an awful start to the season but i’m convinced we will get there. Just to make things worse for me I was sat next to two of their six fans on the train on the way home haha! Good lads actually. Had to agree with them their tall lad in midfield that got subbed at the end was superb and ran the game for them, good player. Anyway keep the faith. UTA