[Redraine]

Originally Posted by Tin Monkey

Obviously the team were very poor last night, but some of the reactions on here are OTT in my opinion.

The problem is that in order to break down teams who defend in numbers, you need midfield players who can run with the ball and find penetrating passes. With Craney out/gone, we don't have players like that. Proccy ran his heart out and tried to do it, but he isn't that kind of player. Carden and Brown can't do it either, so you end up with possession, but no penetration. When that happens we resort to plan B, which is to play long balls up the middle, which the big Wrexham defenders ate up easily. Mullin struggled against those big lads and Dsane hardly had a look in.
Wrexham had 10 players behind the ball whenever we had it, so you need to be clever to work your way past them. We don't have it.

Away from home, teams aren't going to play like that. They will come out and play, which gives us more room to play to our strengths. At Bradford on Tuesday we had acres of space for Dsane to exploit, as their backline were pushed up to the halfway line. Last night, Wrexham defended from the edge of their area and packed the rest of their half, up to the halfway line.

We have never been good at breaking down teams who defend in that way, but we always had a chance when we had players like Craney or Roberts who could 'unlock' a packed midfield by running at it. Last night showed that we can't handle that kind of game now.

Wrexham came and did a job. They played in a similar way to how we often play away from home. Defend to the last man, then hit them on the break. All credit to them. They did it very well.

Absolutely spot on! To my mind Carden is just a slower, inferior alternative to either Proctor or Harris without either of those 2 player's finishing potential. Why he wasn't substituted with either Boco or Harris at half time is beyond me. Or maybe they weren't both on the bench?