An Angry View of Newport Newport so shit i named it twice game

Hitch wrote:

GreenSam wrote:

This is just not good enough. All round. Certain aspects of the club at the moment (no, not all by any means, but enough for it to be a problem) seem riddled with self-destruction and pettiness of spirit. A lack of division and disharmony that was not present in either of our previous two promotion seasons.

Wow this could be a triple negative!

So it makes the point I was intending to make correct then

GreenSam wrote:

The last two times I did a brief synopsis (or long synopsis if we're being honest) of a non-winning game were against Bury and Stevenage. Those were games that although we lost, the performance was admirable and we far from disgraced ourselves. Either game could have been won and we were up against strong opposition on both occasions. Those two, followed by the good win against Northampton left me with genuine faith that things were turning around and we were finally becoming a more consistent team that clicked as a team unit and did not merely have boom spells and bust spells. What the last three games have shown however is that the Northampton game was simply the end of the boom. We're now in a bust spell. And my god isn't it just awful.

Whilst the second half was better (more on that later), the first half was one of the worst halves of football that I've seen from us all season. Gormless, spineless. Lacking in any real urgency or creativity. At least when a team is running around like hares but are positionally disorganised, you at least know their hearts are in the right place. There's nothing more horrible as a fan than seeing a half of football of such grey, non-descript, tepid nothingness. A few passes side to side and into places where a player is being tightly marked. No pressing. No forward runs. No second balls being won. Just the drip drip drip of a raindrop against a window on a wet winter afternoon. A waste of time to even watch. The amount of times I said to my mate in the first half 'it feels like we've been playing for hours' is too many to count. Performances as depressing and shambolic as that half was are genuinely horrible to watch.

Hartley and McHugh were well off their best form in that first 45. Both of them far more panicky around opposition attackers than they usually are. Hartley started off being still composed on the ball but even that ability ebbed away as the game went on. Neither of them looked like the 'rocks' that they usually are for us. O'Connor had the worst 45 minutes of football that I have ever seen him have in a green shirt. His defensive awareness and discipline which is often an 8 or 9 out of ten was down to a 2 or a 3. He just had a bad bad half in which very little went right for him. Mellor was very patchy too. Let too much get past him defensively and (as was the case with most players in the first half) offered zilch going forward. I am far from convinced by Holmes-Dennis. Talented young lad and has ability? Yes but he's far too much of a liability for me to ever feel truly safe watching him play. It's just little things like a lack of anticipation and awareness. Not being aware to where Hartley's passes and clearances are going. Switching off for the millisecond which allows the opposition to gain ground. It's all the more frustrating because he's not crap. Somewhere inside him, he's better than what he's shown for us imo but he just hasn't got the head to match his feet. Bobby Reid also showed nothing in the first half and the game passed him by. Reuben didn't (couldn't) move and Lewi was our only forward spark in the first half with a few inventive runs and passes which came to little due to the lack of gumption on behalf of his teammates. Lewi along with Nelson and McCormick (who did what they had to do efficiently and without fuss) are the only three who emerge from the first half with any credit.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see the fuss with Olly Lee. I'm not saying he has NOTHING to offer...but I am saying he doesn't have MUCH to offer. He seems to do 4 or 5 very nice little pass and moves every game. But those five actions detract from the fact that he is very poor at most other facets of his game. He's even weaker physically than either Bobby or Banton. His decision making on the ball is woeful. For one good pass there'll be four duff ones. He doesn't press or win second balls. He's just generally not very good in my view. He's the kind of player who would have been more suited to our team of two and a half years ago than the squad we have got now. It's nothing personal against him- as Steve Evans would say, I just don't rate the bloke. I really hope he proves me wrong by scoring the winning goal at Shrewsbury to secure our play-off spot but I can't see it. All he offers is the odd good pass and the odd threatening run forward (which has resulted in only one goal). Its just not enough at the end of the day. And whilst most players who had stinking first halves picked up their game in the second half, Lee did not. Yes, we won four in a row with him in the side in which he did make some good contributions. But we have now also had these last three games with him in the side. That cancels it out.

As for the second half...well, yes, it was a lot better. But it still wasn't great. Whether the half-time booing motivated them or whether it was mere coincidence, they certainly emerged from the tunnel with a lot more oompth about them. I would say that we were the better team in the half. Not 'fantastic' as Sheridan said but it was a fairly good half. We controlled much of the play and looked to be playing at a tempo which was exponentially quicker and demonstrative of more self-belief than the soul-destroying tempo which we played the first half under. O'Connor picked up his game a lot and took hold of the midfield by the scruff of his neck. Bobby Reid did the same. In spite of his faults, he is comfortably our most creative player by about a million miles (excluding Harvey and Norburn who are never given the chance to play under this manager). Mellor stopped having such a nosebleed every time he got outside his half and whilst he was still far from the best Kelvin Mellor we've ever seen, he began to get a bit more involved. The same went for Holmes-Dennis who wasn't afraid to actually run in a remotely threatening way outside his own half. Reuben did as much as he could in spite of being not even a quarter fit, winning some good long-balls with his body and laying them off. He was absolutely wrecked by the end though and it really does come to something when Sheridan first hears about the re-occurrence of the foot injury in the post match interview with Sparksy. Lets just say I would question the medical procedures there. I feel so bad for Reuben. He's had this injury since September and it's only getting worse. I worry that it may be one he'll never shake off in the long run though I sincerely hope I'm wrong on that front.

Back to the matter at hand, Alessandra was the one player if anyone who was actually worse in the second half than the first. He seemed to revert into headless mode for much of it. Hartley and McHugh continued to be not quite their best. Luke and Nelse continued to do all they had to do well. Two substitutions were then brought on (once the fourth official had finally bothered to key the right numbers into his technology and resultantly the right names were read over the tannoy): Banton and Blizzard. The former showed no lack of effort and desire (as he has demonstrated a lot recently following his apparent road to Damascus moment) but also not a great deal of end product. Blizzard had a stinker but in all fairness to him defensive midfield just isn't his role. It's almost as silly as putting McHugh at left-back. Generally, we had most of the half both before and after the subs. We had chances. Blizzard should have scored in stoppage time. Bobby should have scored a one on one. Bobby came close to scoring another when he performed a fantastic turn and flick just on the edge of the penalty area before hitting what would have been a great goal just wide from a tricky angle.

However, in spite of it being an improved second half it still was not a perfect second half. Newport too had two very good chances that I can remember on the counter attack. Also, each club should arguably have had a red card and a penalty each for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity (their man on Reid, McHugh on Zebroski). Arguably then, it was 1-1 in the questionable decisions stake. The referee was having a very good game up until the first flashpoint after which he seemed to lose his marbles and give bad decisions against both teams. So, a half which was better but in which we were still vulnerable on the counter attack and could easily have lost the game.

This is just not good enough. All round. Certain aspects of the club at the moment (no, not all by any means, but enough for it to be a problem) seem riddled with self-destruction and pettiness of spirit. A lack of division and disharmony that was not present in either of our previous two promotion seasons. If we go up, I know for certain that I'll still go absolutely mad with happiness on the day. But it will nonetheless be the most underwhelming promotion in Argyle's history. Sheridan's post-match reaction and the rumours about gesticulations made to some supporters just about some up the negative vibes around Argyle right now. It just doesn't FEEL like one of those times to cherish and remember. We could still scrape into the top seven due to all the other teams around us fluffing their lines. We could still win the play-offs due to a boom run of form occurring in the month of May. But although logically it is possible, it simply does not feel as though it'll happen due to that deep void where the unity and general sense of a promotion season ought to be located. In spite of our strong squad of players, we aren't a string team. There's so many issues of mental fragility and we fall apart whenever the initial plan doesn't go well. Sheridan's livid post-match reaction just intensifies this sense of gloom and bad feeling. Trash-talking the fans is NEVER a good idea. Even less so when they made a great atmosphere for the first 25 minutes until it became clear to everyone just what a dull performance we were witnessing.

Sheridan and Argyle had a very happy period of engagement. He did a fantastic job keeping us up when we were right in the cack and in those few months we played not as a collective of fairly talented individuals but as a team. Since then however, be it down to the location, the lack of his preferred coaches or any other factor, it simply has not happened. He always has the team performing as worse than the sum of their parts. There could be a millions reason why the 'marriage' between Argyle and Sheridan hasn't worked out. But it's time to admit that (whatever the circumstances he's dealt with) that it simply has not worked out.

An acrimonious summer divorce is on the cards. The only question is: is it worth sacking him right away? We all know it'll probably come in the summer. Perhaps worth getting a caretaker manager in until May to see if a temporary man at the helm would give us that shot in the arm we need to see us over the line. The other advantage of this is that it gives us time to recruit properly for the right man to lead us forward in the long term. I'd make the change right away. Yes, sticking with Sheridan COULD see us go up anyway. But come on, who honestly is anticipating it?

Match ratings are difficult due to the disparity in quality between the two halves. But here goes:

McCormick-7

Nelson-7 MOTM
McHugh-5(high 5, could be 6)
Hartley-5

Mellor-6
O'Connor-6
Bobby-6
Lee-4
THD-5

Reuben-6
Alessandra-5

Blizzard-4
Banton-6

can you retype that all again

Well a tale of two Saturdays for me. Last week I was in a 43000 crowd watching some of the worlds best rugby players in Cape Town where my DHL Stormers were outplayed by the Waikato Chiefs from NZ. A passionate full on committed performance by both teams in front of an equally passionate crowd in an iconic stadium. Forward 7 days to the (used to be) love of my life, Home Park for Plymouth Argyle versus Newport County. Oh dear, how depressing it all was. Journeymen players all over the pitch, a glimpse of any skills to excite not to be seen. A crowd consisting of enthusiastic sprogs (good luck to them) and the world weary older generation (like me) who in the majority seem to have been ground down by the dross that has been served up for so long, God knows where they find the strength to pitch up week in and week out. The ultimate disappointment is that there seems no prospect of anything changing for the foreseeable future. I shall not be wasting any more 22 quids whilst I'm back here.

The atmosphere was pretty good, the away support was numerous and noisy (relatively speaking), and the second half was entertaining.  We could have had two goal-of-the-season contenders: firstly from THD when he caught one of their players in possession and had the shot saved, and secondly when Bobby Reid took the ball down beautifully, touched it round a defender and then fired wide.  But it really wasn't great.  It's beginning to look as though League 2 is our natural level.  Get your season-tickets now folks, you don't want to miss out on tickets onext season's big games against Eastleigh, Barnet and Morecambe!