24 hours later and time for reflection.

[The Butler 0]

This is not a plea for the defence but:-

Can you imagine what it must have felt like for the majority of our side, playing for the first time in front of an expectant 25,000 crowd.

Most have little or no experience to call on of such a situation.

The ones that do Doc, Drury,and Otsemobor make a pigs ear of defending and leave them 3-0 behind.

From there on in no one tried to rally or help the new boys, the CAPTAIN was noticeable by his performance only (lack of)

The new goalkeeper panicked and had a disaster, again no one tried to help him

I remember Flem putting his arm round our keeper and reassuring him after a blunder, just to help the lad.

We ended up with a team that looked like a product of Birds Eye, totally frozen.

They may not be world beaters,some may not be Div 1 material, but I cannot believe they are all THAT BAD.

It takes a steady reassuring arm,from manager and/or captained . A calming influence.

That''s unfortunately where we now fall apart. Who is going to perform the task.

[nutty nigel 7,509]

[quote user="The Butler"]

They may not be world beaters,some may not be Div 1 material, but I cannot believe they are all THAT BAD.

It takes a steady reassuring arm,from manager and/or captained . A calming influence.

That''s unfortunately where we now fall apart. Who is going to perform the task.

[/quote]

I agree with this Butler. I have posted elsewhere that I don''t believe our squad of players are as bad as the team performance yesterday. I don''t think they were managed correctly. I don''t think they were prepared for the game correctly. I don''t think the best eleven were picked. We can''t replace all the players so a change of manager is the next step. It should have happened in the summer. If it was one game I would say KTF but come on, the last game was at The Valley and we weren''t prepared for that either.

The Doc is a decent defender but is not a captain. He has the respect of his fellow professionals but is far from inspirational. Drury is another one of the same mould. Do we have anyone who would be an inspirational captain?

 

[gazzathegreat 0]

Butler, you know me, a more compassionate and forgiving person you couldn''t hope to find, BUT

We are talking about professional footballers (well so we were led to believe). Not all of them were new, what excuses can Drury, Doc and Semmy have? Is it that they can''t take the fact they helped relegate us last season? As for the new boys, well, what can you say. - personally I am sure some of them will go on to be adequate players. Some at least were before coming to Fortress (formerly) Carrow Road. Even Chris Martin has played in front of the same size crowd against quality teams.

Only Wes, Cody and young Tom Adeyemi emerge with any credit from the game. Especially Cody, why we have to ask was he not on from the start? And after half time, why did Gunn wait ten minutes before bringing on any subs? Let''s face it, he was found out last season as being completely unable to manage the team and is only in the job because Delia and Michael think he and the Ian deserve it.

What the whole squad need now is someone to get them motivated. It should be down to them, but lets'' face it, neither playing in front of a full house or for our shirt was enough. They had no game plan and after the first sign of pressure folded like playing cards. Where was Gunn or his coaches? What did they say at half time? What indeed did they say pre match?

You are right, we badly need someone like Flem on the pitch and haven''t had anyone of that stature since, well Fleming.

But most of all we need an experienced PROVEN (capitals just for you, Delia) manager who can get us out of this mess. Though God only knows who would be mad enough to take NCFC on at this time.

[Beauseant 0]

Having had  a significant amount of anaesthetic alcohol and a decent night''s sleep I''ve been trying to rationalise yesterday, and, the Butler''s points about the captaincy are spot on, I think that an even bigger issue is that yesterday the true reality of life in League One hit us right between the eyes. After a preseason of beating nmediocre Scottish opposition and a half paced Wigan we suddenly found ourselves up against a big, quick, physical side who competed for everything and gave us no time to play pretty football.

Whenever Colchester got the ball they broke quickly and with numbers. Yes, it was sometimes a bit route one, but my God it was effective. We, on the other hand played pretty triangles where it didn''t matter and allowed our opponents to get everyone behind the ball and ready for the next counter attack. I have read some criticism of Martin and Holt, but in my view they both worked really hard to make something of the shocking service they received. I also fear that our opponents have worked out that Wes is appalingly one footed and easily frustrated and I suspect, until his inevitable sale once someone meets the asking price (" we wanted to keep him but the money was just too good to turn down."), you will see him consistently given the option to go onto his right foot . He is not the Messiah that some posters think he is.

A combination of being square at the back and having no pace in the centre at all doesn''t fill me with any confidence, and if I ever see Otsemebor in a City shirt again I will be tempted to take up a new career as a sniper.If we are to get out of this hellhole we are going to have to cut the frills, roll up our sleeves and be prepared to win in any way that we can. Unfortunately too many players seem to share the attitude of some posters that we are somehow in this division by accident because we are a "big" club, whatever that means.We will not get out of this situation by playing, or trying to play, champagne football, but by hard graft. Do the likes of Gill, Whaley and OTJ have it in them to do that? Yesterday suggests not.

[Mister Chops 7]

[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="The Butler"]

They may not be world beaters,some may not be Div 1 material, but I cannot believe they are all THAT BAD.

It takes a steady reassuring arm,from manager and/or captained . A calming influence.

That''s unfortunately where we now fall apart. Who is going to perform the task.

[/quote]

I agree with this Butler. I have posted elsewhere that I don''t believe our squad of players are as bad as the team performance yesterday. I don''t think they were managed correctly. I don''t think they were prepared for the game correctly. I don''t think the best eleven were picked.

[/quote]I agree with most of this - I can''t say what our best XI is, but from the Man U game Adeyemi looks twice the player Gill is.  Likewise I can''t believe Wiggins would be less effective than Drury, and Alnwick is clearly superior to Theo in goal.  Askou for Nelson would help too, as would Spillane for Otsemobor.But given points 1 & 2 of yours, 3 is kind of academic.  I suspect whatever team we sent out there yesterday would have been ill-prepared and complacent, not up for it, and would have been equally taken to pieces.  The fault must be apportioned across manager and coaching staff - what do Butterworth and Crook do?  They don''t seem to lead much defensive or attacking coaching and Crooky doesn''t seem to have an eye for a player...

[Rustys 1st Touch 0]

Our defence has been a hige problem since the Premier League season we just aren''t able to keep it tight at the back and have conceded way to many goals. As well as this we''ve no composure in the back four, nobody who can put their foot on the ball and dictate our play out of the back calmly and simply.To me Stefanovic and Askou or Doherty should be the centre back partnership, the Doc and Nelson are too similar in their approach and style. We need players with different skills at the back. Malky and Fleming in our promotion season were different types of defenders who complimented each other well.Another question is how much is it going to cost to settle Stefanovic''s contract, I''d assume the club will have to pay a percentage of his final years salary such as 75 % or 60 % in a lump sum. Is it not worth giving him a chance till January and see how he copes with League One? Surely he can''t be any worse than what we witnessed on Saturday.

[Buncey 1]

Nail hit on the head on this thread. Since we were promoted we have not know what our first XI is, particularly in defence and it is no surprise that since that time we have been nowhere near replicating a defensive set up as good as the drury-mackay-fleming-green one.For over 4 years we have looked towards our back five and had a lack of confidence in them to win games. Our players cannot trust our defence to keep clean sheets and the pressure can be seen throughout the whole team. The past 4 years, like they have off the pitch, have simply been a case of waiting for the mistake to happen, waiting for us to throw away the game, whether we take the lead or not. Because of all that the players heads just drop. The passion and spirit that once flowed through our team, led by true leaders on the pitch like Iwan, Malky, Fleming, Holt and even Dion is gone. There''s no influential player on the pitch to take those players at 1-0 and tell them to get their chins up, that they can win. I do not believe that this team, or even the disastrous team of last year are as bad as some of the cloggers we had during the Hamilton and Rioch eras, nor do I believe that the team we have aquired this summer is one not able to be promoted up through this league. It is this negative atmosphere that has run through the team, the managers, the fans and the entire club. You could just feel it inside when the complete f***-up of the first goal happened. The players could feel it, and the whole atmosphere of the home crowd was just let down. We all know what happened.