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This is my first post so be gentle with me.

I have only missed 2 home games all season and can only think of 1 side who were worthy winners. Southend tore us apart and we were lucky to get away with only conceding 4. Rotherham were a close 2nd but I think it was the fact we were on a bad run rather than them being any good. Recent weeks have seen Wimbledon , Oxford ,Wycombe and Port Vale go away with 3 points. All these teams we would have beaten last season. The only difference between then and now is the pace at which we go forward. We must be the slowest team in the league getting the ball from our box to theirs. I have tried to see why this is . I think we seem to play the ball along the back line too much . We then play it to Jarvis or Bodin who lay it back to Mansell/ Lathrope/Easton/ who plays it to Nicholson /Oastler who plays it to Saah who launches it to a static marked Howe and were under pressure again. We were so much more direct last season without playing the long ball game. When did we last score a break away goal? It was our downfall against Oxford. The ball was played to Oastler who was the deepest player on the pitch. A bad pass and were were done 1-0 .Same thing happened again and it was 2-0. Slow build up play is great if your Barcelona but as you and the players know we’re not. Who’s fault this is I do not know. I have tried to work it out without much success, Is it the tactics of the manager ?. Is it squad selection?.When Jarvis was on the bench early in the season and Stevens started we seemed to be more direct. When Mansell was suspended for 3 games we won 2 and lost the other with 10 men to a rampant Bradford. When Downes is missing Saah seems a much better player. Should Poke kick it out of his hands quicker rather than waiting for the opposition to get back after an attack. Does a slower style suit Rene’s strengths . Are we missing Ian Morris ? For all the stick he gets we seem better when he’s on the pitch. I don’t lay the blame on any 1 player . Hopefully the new loan players will inject that pace we lack. All I want is for us to win games and stay up .

Good post Bob, and all valid points.

We have a lot of good players, even if they have lost confidence and direction, and a few of them are not the players they were a season ago. Much of our present predicament is due to playing the wrong formation and wrong tactics, which have been too defensive. It's no surprise that we haven't been scoring goals and have been putting ourselves under pressure for most of the time. That's not the way to win games.

We need a more attacking approach with two speedy wingers and a proper passing game. With the additions Alan Knill is bringing in, I believe we have a good chance of avoiding the drop. The big pity is that players were not signed earlier in the year, or we would not now be in a relegation scrap.

Presumably the club finances left very little room for manoevre, and it's only more recently that the club realised that by not spending a little more now, we would be financially worse off in the future. Most of us are not privy to what goes on behind the scenes, but that's how it appears to an outsider. Let's just hope it isn't too little too late. But I remain optimistic...sort of...

Hi Bob,

I agree with almost all of your observations, but to say we are slow at at getting the ball forward kind of ignores the fact that we have simply been p*ss-poor at building attacks full-stop. Quick or slow, the quality has just not been there.

To my mind, there are 3 methods of attacking the opposition; passing through the middle, dribbling down the wing, or sending it long. We have been inept at all of these. I don't pretend to know how we could have sharpened these skills, but Messrs Ling, Taylor and Knill are paid handsomely to do just that.

Labadie was, along with Pokey and Saah, a shining light against Oxford. I hope and pray that he, Chapell and our best player (RH) can drag us out of this sorry mess by creating a goal or two. The rest of the playing staff don't seem to have it in them.

As it happens, we weren't lucky to get away with only four at all. They had six shots in that match, four on target and scored with all four. If anything, it's a bloody travesty that we were beaten so handsomely. Excluding the Oxford and Rotherham home matches, where we conceded with the last kick of the game, the only match we have lost by more than one goal this season is that Southend match where they scored basically every time they had a bloody shot. Bearing in mind that across three matches this season, we managed 51 shots, 15 on target and zero goals, the Southend match does rather start to look like a bit of a fluke on their part.

The remainder of your post, however, and the general theme within it is something that Diamondgirl and I have been saying for months now (Jesus, are we ever wrong?) Our pace of attack is bloody abysmal this year. I watch other sides, much as the OP says, and see them do absolutely nothing special what-so-ever and go away with three points. That hole between the midfield and the defence has been a weak point for TUFC since I started watching them (and probably a long time before at that). I must have seen us concede exactly the same chance at least a million times now. We attack, the keeper gets the ball and bowls it out to winger halfway up his own half on the right wing. He runs to the halfway line and plays the ball forward to a point 35 yards out from our goal in the middle of the pitch. The second striker makes a run past both the ball and our criminally square back four. Ball is played through to the runner and either cut out or slammed towards goal. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes not. We NEVER create that chance because we are too frigging slow. In this regard, I must conclude team orders. There is no way that a team featuring Bodin, Macklin, Tommo etc that we do not have the ability to hit teams with frightening and devastating pace.
I think back to Port Vale away and long for those days back again. Nathan Craig releasing Tommo (is that Brucie I can hear mumbling at the back?) caused them all sorts of problems. There is one thing that teams at all levels hate facing and that is pace. Gareth Bale is a classic case in point. He's not all that good, not really. He's no Ronaldo, that's for damn sure. He's hit a few "worldies" (not sure why I felt compelled to use such an awful word) and done a few guys for a bit of pace, but by and large, that's been it. Pace frightens people, pace backs teams up, it gets defenders facing their own goal, all situations which managers desperately coach their teams to avoid.

All in all, decent introduction to the board and certainly raising an interesting and valid criticism.

Matt.

Welcome Bob and really good OP with some great points. Gullscorer, totally agree with your post 100% as mostly it is what i would have have said and Matt, spot on about having pace in the team. We do have it but i just don't think those players have been used properly and it doesn't suit Rene to have balls whipped in all the time for him to get on the end of. That is why i wanted a big man up front because if our wingers did what wingers were supposed to do and create dangerous positions and crosses then firstly we can attack with pace ( which is another valid point you make Matt - i've not seen a slower attacking team all season ) plus we have the option of slinging in crosses which someone other than Jarvis and Downes can get on the end of. It's all about tempo and pressing the opposition and subjecting them to pressure. When we play this slower tempo which we have done all season, the opposition can always get a foothold into the game even if they go behind because we don't keep at them with pressure so they have time to regroup and invariably they always seem to find a way of coming out on top second half.