I hate to say this but the lads were woeful today i can’t think of one player that stood out. Maybe it was a hangover coz of the way we lost at hednesford but they just didnt seem interested. It was just one punt up the field after another and thats not how we play! 
Bad, bad day at the office. Skem set the tempo and maintained it from 1st minute to last, can’t fault their performance at all.
We’ve got a problem in the middle of the park. For me, Cross is nowhere near good enough. Yes, his set pieces are decent but apart from that he offers very little. We need somebody else in there as we’re seriously lacking. This isn’t a knee jerk reaction to today but something that has been an issue for the last month. Can we not give Fallon another go in there?
We managed to get back into the game when Hancock and Andrews switched, why did we then move them back?!
Tuck was our biggest threat today. Why was he taken off? Was he injured? I can’t think of another reason why he was withdrawn.
It’s difficult to be too critical as we’re doing well this season but some things need to change to ensure we continue to be competitive.
Worst performance of the season, felt sorry for Tuck, he ran his socks off and was our only threat.
Oh dear…The only surprise was that we weren’t behind for more of the game. We were outplayed and outfought. Let’s try and move on. Does anyone else agree that our small front two, bless 'em, are not best equipped at this level. Because we are playing better teams ( Skem included) we are forced to clear our lines with high balls, which Tuck and Stott can’t win - so the ball comes back and we are under more pressure. Our creative players spent far too much time today facing their own goal or chasing back. In addition, far too much ball watching and drifting upfield by the full backs leaving oceans of space which Skem exploited.
Despite these shortcomings, the one thing that is difficult to take is the lack of effort, Poor Pritch was having kittens on the touchline. Let’s hope it was just a bad day, but I would like the big man up front option to be explored.
But on the bright side we did score a penalty! See theres always a silver lining :laugh:
We need to sell an extra 4,642 pies to offset the loss of money from the exit of the cup today and you think the queue is long on a normal game mooney 
Have to say I agree with a possible consequence of the way we lost at Hednesford, we could very easily have been three nil down and not have complained at all. How on earth we went in at HT winning goodness knows. From there though we conceded two goals from goalie punts and one player breakaways, which seemed to be inexcusable from being ahaead, The substitution of Tuck for Rory was utterly baffling and just didn’t work, I’d have put Mose on and taken a defender off to try and win it with three upfront and stepped the midfield up, but then in Pritch we must trust. Brilliant penno by Gards, no more to say exept GUTTED with that today!
I know it was an unaccetably woful performance but we were beaten by a better side on the day so as long as its put behind us and with a positve result (and display) on Tuesday evening from all involved bad days can soon be forgotton. Good luck to Skem in the next round. I hope that we revert to playing football on the ground instead of the hopeful lob over the top which might work if we had Peter Crouch at centre forward but sadly we don’t so PLEASE lets play footbal where it should be played. ON THE GROUND…l!!! bangwall
bad result but we will get over it the centre halves were all over the place from the kick off to the final whistle looked as if they had never played together before as for having a go at the fullbacks remember they were the best two in the league last season need to look at the rest of the defence. as for subs what was pritch thinking taking a forward off and putting on a midfielder then ten mins later taking off a midfielder and putting on a forward tuck was the player up front causing them problems
Have to disagree Noodle thought full backs are too intent on attacking when first priorities are defending. It is like playing with just 2 defenders at times they don’t provide any cover must admit though they are good at attacking!
I wasn’t at the game so can’t comment on yesterday’s events.
Regarding our full-backs, If you take away their licence to overlap the midfield, you lose a lot of creativity too. If Woody and Gards concentrate on defending i think it would prove to be detrimental to our goalscoring ability, which is just as important and keeping clean sheets.
But I can see people’s frustration, as we are often caught on the break.
There has to be balance. If one goes the other has to stay. And if they go, and we lose the ball, they have to bust a gut to recover their position.
We don;t need to change the way our fullbacks play, only to adapt slightly to a higher standard of football.
They can’t be afforded the freedom to attack that they were last season, simply because we are up against better teams. Teams who will punish us when players get caught out of position.
Well it wasnt a good display all round to be honest the fullbacks attacking may have been exposed but no one played well and Skem did play pretty well even our magician Pritch had an off day - we all make mistakes, as most have said we need to adjust to the higher standards ( i know skem are below us currently but are a good side ) crucial difference is we still dont have a strike pair ? and we have not replaced ollie james in centre mid ( potentially yes with connors and shaw but we have not really seen them yet ) "cross and sheehan2 and “tuck and stott” dont work that well unfortunately we keep trying it and we might beat poor sides like that but against good sides it seems not. I am not too worried because Pritch will get it right in time - its a shame to miss out on the trophy money and a bit of a run but now we concentrate on the league, must also agree with Robbo about the fullbacks both cannot go charging on, one could argue that that if we had a solid back 3 on there breaks we would have not conceded however they were pretty poor individual errors that cost us - but thats football well done Skem move on UTA.
Yes let’s forget about that game now and get behind the lads. They have given really good displays this season Fylde, Chorley, Marine etc! Just not our year to win the trophy!!
We can’t just leave this because its happened before when we played Kendal!! The problem appears to be when we play against teams that have pace up front. We can’t seem to adapt our game to cope with this and we still tend to go gung ho when we need to defend. We’ve shown we can do thisagainst teams like AFC Fylde and latterley Hednesford where we were unlucky not to get a draw
I’ve got to say I was dissapointed as soon as the team was announced as I would have gone with Josh Glover in front of our back four and played Rory with Sheehan to get forward to support either Stott or Tuck as a lone striker up front. I would also have said to our full backs to be very careful when going forward ensure that there is cover behind you before you go. Don’t want to discourage this but you can’t go gung ho everytime.
Connors would be a big assett to the midfield if he was fit and Joe Shaw is obviously getting there but will he be able to play the defensive role? I believe Ollie James was around Saturday too so if he coukld come back that would be the type of player we need there in midfield to let Sheehan play his normal creative stuff. As for Saturday we defended badly in the centre of defence as we gifted them all the goals with sloppy defending.
I’m really worried about all this as we don’t appear to have learned from the Kendal game. I can accept making a mistake once but we are becoming rather predictable in the way we play and need alternatives against the more pacier sides!! I’m sorry to moan and live up to my nickname but its because I really care as I’m sure our football management team do!! I’m still behind the lads but we do need to learn from this and come back stronger and our management team need to think about how the opposition play and turn out a team to adapt to the more pacier teams. I hope this is constructive critism its not meant to say our lads are rubbish more to point out some issues and how we can improve from lesson learnt. So briefly -:
Need to reaffirm with our two full backs that we defend first and get forward when there is cover behind you.
Midfield we need to be flexible with the squad here and play more mobile players when we play the pacier teams.
Front two do not compliment one another Foster and Stott ok, Foster and Tuck ok but Stott and Tuck don’t seem to be effective together Sorry!!
Onward and upward anyway!!Sure the boys will bounce back but we need to play a lot better on Tuesday night against a Rushall team that seem to be winning!!