York City stalemate with Rochdale in npower League Two (From York Press)

A game we would have liked to have won. But if you can't take 3 points, settle for 1 rather than 0.

"YORK City remain four points above the npower League Two drop zone"

I think you'll find we were three points above this morning. An extra point is useful, but not perfect. If we drew all our remaining games we'd probably stay up!

True take a point if we can't get all 3, to be honest we never looked like getting all 3 points, draw probably a fair result, but my o my the football at times was dreadful my necks hurting from looking up at the sky all night!

Rumour has it mills was in the crowd tonight is this true?

Reminds me of the old cricket saying, "We'll get 'em in singles!"

So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

YorkCityLoyal wrote:
True take a point if we can't get all 3, to be honest we never looked like getting all 3 points, draw probably a fair result, but my o my the football at times was dreadful my necks hurting from looking up at the sky all night!

Rumour has it mills was in the crowd tonight is this true?

Please take us back Gary!

A useful point with other results going our way'

Well, a point is a point I suppose, but that was as ugly as football gets. We didn't even look like we would get a shot in on target until McGrath provided some welcome excitement (after about 91 minutes...). I really hope NW has more and better ideas than hoofball and packing all 11 of our players into the box to defend corners, because to be honest we looked better playing Bradford and Rotherham under Mills than we did tonight. If it keeps us up, I won't complain - but if NW wants us to be just another unimaginative long-ball league 2 side, we should think about finding someone else in the long term, because it is a chore to watch.

On the positive side of things, I thought Smith was very good in defense and rightly tried to urge everyone forward when they were sitting much too deep. Rankine did a pretty good job too, but the players who should have been supporting him were too often not paying enough attention, and so we rarely won second balls. Ingham commanded his box pretty well and made a good save first half, so deserved the clean sheet despite the poor opposition.

Based on tonight, I think we should just about stay up, but I honestly don't fancy our chances against Port Vale unless NW has some pretty sweeping changes in mind.

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

That sounded awful , god Gary has put us in a desperate situation. I just hope Worthington can get some decent players in next week because I just don't have the faith this squad can avoid taking us down.

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

I'm afraid the default setting on here for a while has been to blame the fans for everything. The fact there was never actually one " Mills out" chant seems to have been completely ignored in the rush to avoid apportioning any blame to the outgoing manager who has left us with a pretty awfull squad of players.

duffy wrote:
That sounded awful , god Gary has put us in a desperate situation. I just hope Worthington can get some decent players in next week because I just don't have the faith this squad can avoid taking us down.

This was as bad or worse than what Mills was giving us. NW is the one who has set them up to play long/high ball football, to which we are simply not suited. The players (Blair especially from where I was watching) just looked at a loss as to what they should have been doing. At least Mills tried to force them to play entertaining football, so far NW has played 2 games and got 1 point against extremely poor opposition. Mills got 1 point from his last 2 games against fairly good opposition. I'm not saying we should have kept him, but watching the dross that was played tonight I think we might miss him before long.

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

Yes I remember your posts. Full of bright ideas about what needed to happen.

Fans like you did turn on Mills and the team and the atmosphere and confidence around the club evaporated.

So tell me, are you happy now?

We had 44% possession and 10 shots tonight against an awful team. Torquay had 25 shots away from home and scored twice. We conceded three against the bottom club on Saturday. We are going to get hammered against a decent team. They had so much space in the middle of the pitch, it was unbelievable.

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Last home game 0 points
Tonights home game 1 point = an improvement.
It might not be pretty but If It keeps us up all well and good rather pretty tippy tappy football taking us down.
NW is not a magician, give him a chance.

I honestly can NOT see us winning another game on that showing. Tonights game was dire with both teams creating nothing. But as previous posters have said "One point is better than no points".

We need goals. FFS Nigel, draw them a diagram!

duffy wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

I'm afraid the default setting on here for a while has been to blame the fans for everything. The fact there was never actually one " Mills out" chant seems to have been completely ignored in the rush to avoid apportioning any blame to the outgoing manager who has left us with a pretty awfull squad of players.

I think I'll wait for the opinions of fans who actually went to tonight's match thanks.

YorkCityLuke wrote:

duffy wrote:
That sounded awful , god Gary has put us in a desperate situation. I just hope Worthington can get some decent players in next week because I just don't have the faith this squad can avoid taking us down.

This was as bad or worse than what Mills was giving us. NW is the one who has set them up to play long/high ball football, to which we are simply not suited. The players (Blair especially from where I was watching) just looked at a loss as to what they should have been doing. At least Mills tried to force them to play entertaining football, so far NW has played 2 games and got 1 point against extremely poor opposition. Mills got 1 point from his last 2 games against fairly good opposition. I'm not saying we should have kept him, but watching the dross that was played tonight I think we might miss him before long.

Not sure about the oposition. Wimbledon are actually a far better team of late than Bradford are and Rotherham have a very average home record. The style of play under Worthington certainly sounds awful which is strange given he does not have a record of playing that way. End of the day though the board have made the decision and we have to trust that Worthington can bring in better than we have next week. It's all about staying up now regardless of the football, its not like we were gaining enough playing the attractive stuff under Mills.

YO1 wrote:

duffy wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

I'm afraid the default setting on here for a while has been to blame the fans for everything. The fact there was never actually one " Mills out" chant seems to have been completely ignored in the rush to avoid apportioning any blame to the outgoing manager who has left us with a pretty awfull squad of players.

I think I'll wait for the opinions of fans who actually went to tonight's match thanks.

I was not actually giving an opinion on the game.

Some people seem to think that win percentage is not important, or not a useful measure of a manager's skill. I think it is. What we need are wins. For the record, Nigel's career win percentage is 36.7% while Gary's is 43.5%. I've nothing against Nigel and I wish him all the best, but hitting your job target only 36.7% of the time is nothing to write home about.

duffy wrote:

YO1 wrote:

duffy wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

I'm afraid the default setting on here for a while has been to blame the fans for everything. The fact there was never actually one " Mills out" chant seems to have been completely ignored in the rush to avoid apportioning any blame to the outgoing manager who has left us with a pretty awfull squad of players.

I think I'll wait for the opinions of fans who actually went to tonight's match thanks.

I was not actually giving an opinion on the game.

No, you were giving your opinion on my post. As I said, I'll wait for people's opinion on tonight's performance.

How do you think we played tonight? Did you go?

YO1 wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

Yes I remember your posts. Full of bright ideas about what needed to happen.

Fans like you did turn on Mills and the team and the atmosphere and confidence around the club evaporated.

So tell me, are you happy now?

We had 44% possession and 10 shots tonight against an awful team. Torquay had 25 shots away from home and scored twice. We conceded three against the bottom club on Saturday. We are going to get hammered against a decent team. They had so much space in the middle of the pitch, it was unbelievable.

Yeah, sorry YO1, I pulled the trigger, jog on, I had a season ticket the season Brass took us down, did you?

pip007 wrote:
Some people seem to think that win percentage is not important, or not a useful measure of a manager's skill. I think it is. What we need are wins. For the record, Nigel's career win percentage is 36.7% while Gary's is 43.5%. I've nothing against Nigel and I wish him all the best, but hitting your job target only 36.7% of the time is nothing to write home about.

But that's frankly a pointless comparison when Worthington has been managing at the highest level, mainly with a club punching above its weight while Gary has not. If you want to compare it should be football league records. End of the day it does not matter anyway. We were just not picking up enough points to stay up under Gary so a change was made. It's often said on here that players need to be given a chance. Nigel has had TWO games with a squad that's not his own. Give him the chance to bring in one or two players and the time for the players here to adjust to his methods and then see where we are.

Dear York Press, please can you provide two discussion threads. One for sensible people and proper football enthusiasts to discuss football like grown-ups, and one for half-wits to slag each other off. Many thanks.

duffy wrote:

pip007 wrote:
Some people seem to think that win percentage is not important, or not a useful measure of a manager's skill. I think it is. What we need are wins. For the record, Nigel's career win percentage is 36.7% while Gary's is 43.5%. I've nothing against Nigel and I wish him all the best, but hitting your job target only 36.7% of the time is nothing to write home about.

But that's frankly a pointless comparison when Worthington has been managing at the highest level, mainly with a club punching above its weight while Gary has not. If you want to compare it should be football league records. End of the day it does not matter anyway. We were just not picking up enough points to stay up under Gary so a change was made. It's often said on here that players need to be given a chance. Nigel has had TWO games with a squad that's not his own. Give him the chance to bring in one or two players and the time for the players here to adjust to his methods and then see where we are.

Point taken

pip007 wrote:
Dear York Press, please can you provide two discussion threads. One for sensible people and proper football enthusiasts to discuss football like grown-ups, and one for half-wits to slag each other off. Many thanks.

Isn't calling people half wits actually slagging people off...therefore I submit that you ought to be placed on the half wit forum?

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

Yes I remember your posts. Full of bright ideas about what needed to happen.

Fans like you did turn on Mills and the team and the atmosphere and confidence around the club evaporated.

So tell me, are you happy now?

We had 44% possession and 10 shots tonight against an awful team. Torquay had 25 shots away from home and scored twice. We conceded three against the bottom club on Saturday. We are going to get hammered against a decent team. They had so much space in the middle of the pitch, it was unbelievable.

Yeah, sorry YO1, I pulled the trigger, jog on, I had a season ticket the season Brass took us down, did you?

So you had a season ticket when Brass took over. Does that make you some kind of war hero?

I followed City home and away that season and we can swap stories if you like.

Still waiting for your masterplan if the new manager fails.

YO1 wrote:

duffy wrote:

YO1 wrote:

duffy wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

I'm afraid the default setting on here for a while has been to blame the fans for everything. The fact there was never actually one " Mills out" chant seems to have been completely ignored in the rush to avoid apportioning any blame to the outgoing manager who has left us with a pretty awfull squad of players.

I think I'll wait for the opinions of fans who actually went to tonight's match thanks.

I was not actually giving an opinion on the game.

No, you were giving your opinion on my post. As I said, I'll wait for people's opinion on tonight's performance.

How do you think we played tonight? Did you go?

That's correct, I was making a comment on your post, which I strongly disagree with regarding your overall opinion that the fans are to blame for what's happened this season. I will give my opinion on the actual football played at the next home game after attending it as I do after every Saturday home game.
Can I suggest this is not the time for attacks on fellow city fans when the future of the whole club is at stake. Now is the time for everyone to stick together regardless.

YO1 wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

Yes I remember your posts. Full of bright ideas about what needed to happen.

Fans like you did turn on Mills and the team and the atmosphere and confidence around the club evaporated.

So tell me, are you happy now?

We had 44% possession and 10 shots tonight against an awful team. Torquay had 25 shots away from home and scored twice. We conceded three against the bottom club on Saturday. We are going to get hammered against a decent team. They had so much space in the middle of the pitch, it was unbelievable.

Yeah, sorry YO1, I pulled the trigger, jog on, I had a season ticket the season Brass took us down, did you?

So you had a season ticket when Brass took over. Does that make you some kind of war hero?

I followed City home and away that season and we can swap stories if you like.

Still waiting for your masterplan if the new manager fails.

Give the guy a chance, two games in, he's a football manager not a miracle worker! Would love to swap war stories, been and seen some very sad performances away from home over 40 years, went 15 years without a single away ground visit victory!

pip007 wrote:

duffy wrote:

pip007 wrote:
Some people seem to think that win percentage is not important, or not a useful measure of a manager's skill. I think it is. What we need are wins. For the record, Nigel's career win percentage is 36.7% while Gary's is 43.5%. I've nothing against Nigel and I wish him all the best, but hitting your job target only 36.7% of the time is nothing to write home about.

But that's frankly a pointless comparison when Worthington has been managing at the highest level, mainly with a club punching above its weight while Gary has not. If you want to compare it should be football league records. End of the day it does not matter anyway. We were just not picking up enough points to stay up under Gary so a change was made. It's often said on here that players need to be given a chance. Nigel has had TWO games with a squad that's not his own. Give him the chance to bring in one or two players and the time for the players here to adjust to his methods and then see where we are.

Point taken

I thank you for the gracious reply.

duffy wrote:

YorkCityLuke wrote:

duffy wrote:
That sounded awful , god Gary has put us in a desperate situation. I just hope Worthington can get some decent players in next week because I just don't have the faith this squad can avoid taking us down.

This was as bad or worse than what Mills was giving us. NW is the one who has set them up to play long/high ball football, to which we are simply not suited. The players (Blair especially from where I was watching) just looked at a loss as to what they should have been doing. At least Mills tried to force them to play entertaining football, so far NW has played 2 games and got 1 point against extremely poor opposition. Mills got 1 point from his last 2 games against fairly good opposition. I'm not saying we should have kept him, but watching the dross that was played tonight I think we might miss him before long.

Not sure about the oposition. Wimbledon are actually a far better team of late than Bradford are and Rotherham have a very average home record. The style of play under Worthington certainly sounds awful which is strange given he does not have a record of playing that way. End of the day though the board have made the decision and we have to trust that Worthington can bring in better than we have next week. It's all about staying up now regardless of the football, its not like we were gaining enough playing the attractive stuff under Mills.

Yeah if it keeps us up it's good enough for now. As you say in other posts, he's only had a couple of games to settle in- problem is, the quality of football has, if anything, gone backwards and our points return has not improved yet. No option but to get behind him, but I was unimpressed tonight.

Totally agree with YO1.Be careful what you wish for because that was the worst football i have seen since the days of Dolan and setori.Agree under mills we could,nt score but we at least created chances,we did,nt create 1 chance tonight,the players were clearly told just to hoof the ball aimlessly which was guaranteed as soon as worthington was givan the job.The last 2 years we have played some of the best football i have seen in 25years of watching city and that Hoofball tonight was an embarrassment,the midfielders will all be wearing neck braces till the end of season.As much as i love city i wont be paying to watch that **** again this season,evan if we stay up i wont be going back to watch that style of football under worthington.

I was the only person on here who wasn't happy with the NW appointemnt but I said give him a chance I went tonight and what a load of rubbish! Awful football hoof hoof! The players seem down with the tactics aswel. I thought with NW coming in we may have some fresh ideas but far from it! And playing rankine and walker together totally doesn't work they do the same sort of job hold ball up and win headers and if the wingers can't put a good ball in all night what chance do they have anyway! I'm the same wouldn't pay to watch that rubbish rather have giving it to prostate cancer in bucket before the game!

We are now four points clear of the bottom two, happy days! Back to reality, the game tonight, we never looked like taking all three points. One shot on goal equals tough times ahead, that was terrible tonight. If it keeps us up then so be it, the medicine might not be to our liking but if it keeps us up who cares?

For goodness sake NW cannot be expected to be playing beautiful football a week after his appointment.He will work with what he has and remember we are in a real dog fight.
I loved Gary mills style but we were being bullied and heading for relegation.His signings were poor and for the board to do nothing would have been a massive mistake.
Get behind Nigel , he can hopefully bring in some players on loan but the great football will have to be reserved for next season when he is able to assemble a squad to really compete in Division 2
Give NW a chance , get behind him and the team...... we are not giving up yet.
Forget the style of football this is a BATTLE which we need to win and then once won however ugly we can then concentrate on style
Get behind the club manager and Players and we can survive and live for another day

who knows if last nights game is a true reflection of Worhingtons preferred style of football,by the sound of things id sincerely hope not.but regarding the players,is it simply a case of the players we have at the moment just not being good enough?.Everyone rightly loved the style and attractive football we played under G.M thats something he will always have a right to be proud of,but Worthington has had two games to assess and do the best he can with the players he inherited and no chance as yet to bring in what he might see as an improvement,its easy slagging off the way we played under Dolan by the way but he would be grinding us out the one nil wins we need right now to stay up,sadly that wasnt happening under Gary Mills and it remains to be seen if it will happen under our new man,but surely if thats what we need to do over the last few games of this season in order to stay up we would rather that than go down in style.one thought that comes to mind is were we not three nil up and coasting when we played at Rochdale earlier in the season?,is it the general opinion had Gary still been in charge last night the game would have gone something like that? because this season if anything seems to have shown for whatever reasons things have been a great deal different at Bootham Cresesnt this season than on our travels,maybe a few weeks ago Rochdale would have come,fustrated us and hit us with a sucker goal getting nothing out the game.But of course all of that is speculation eh,this might have happened if G.M was still here that might have happened.

I can only comment on Saturday's match but it was obvious the ploy was hit it in channels early. Paddy Mac hardly had a touch and the only good that came of it was Chambers breaking free a couple of times after he switched sides with blair and played left.

As above there was a lack of winning of second balls and considering this should be part of the ploy doesn't yet inspire my confidence.

It's interesting bringing reed back. Did he even score for cambridge? No.

Maybe its Everson who should be brought back into the fold.

Personally I would of let Gary have the chance to play Wimbledon considering the spirited result (a draw) he got there with ten men in the cup. I think after what he did for the club he deserved at least that. We were 90 seconds from beating Rotherham.

I just hope the McGills haven't made a parallel mistake they made by sacking direct ball dolan with hiring direct ball worthington and we do win another match out of the remaining 8.

To quote a previous manager this WAS a massive point. Nigel will need another game or two to get to grips with things and it was good to see a different slant on things. Let's not forget that Nigel will have a lot to sort out and although we didn't win we gained a point without conceding a goal. Smithy had a good game and there were signs of a more effective attacking style. Why do people insist on quoting win percentages when it's all out of context; Gary was beating teams like Lewes and Bath whilst Nigel has managed at a far higher level. Roll on Port Vale and posters like yorkcitypuke & YO1 (out of 10) should go and follow Leeds or Man U as they'll fit right in there.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I was there tonight and I'm baffled by the number of 'new' posters springing up on here. By the way, Worthington hasn't lost a home game yet where as Mills lost plenty. Hopefully Nigels undefeated home record will still be in tact on Saturday.

the hoof ball i saw on saturday and what was apparently on show tonight might simply be a tactic until the end of the season. worthington may think that getting the ball up towards rankine and winning the second ball off him with men around him is the best way to cause other teams issues and get us what we need. the team mills left us with, yes, at times, played very good football, but we didn't have the menace going forward on a regular basis, which i believe we had on a couple of occasions at wimbledon, and we scored two goals, both well worked in my opinion. come the summer, whatever happens, worthington will hopefully have the ability to bring in players who fit his ideal ethos, players which aren't currently at the club. i hope he keeps us going, as i fear for the club is we go down, and i think he will keep us up safely with a couple of games to go.

Openallhours.......s
igns of a more affective attacking style! are you serious,did you go to the game?we did,nt have a shot on goal!and dont anyone expect the style to change next season if we stay up,it's hoofball with worthington always has been always will be.

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

Yes I remember your posts. Full of bright ideas about what needed to happen.

Fans like you did turn on Mills and the team and the atmosphere and confidence around the club evaporated.

So tell me, are you happy now?

We had 44% possession and 10 shots tonight against an awful team. Torquay had 25 shots away from home and scored twice. We conceded three against the bottom club on Saturday. We are going to get hammered against a decent team. They had so much space in the middle of the pitch, it was unbelievable.

Yeah, sorry YO1, I pulled the trigger, jog on, I had a season ticket the season Brass took us down, did you?

So you had a season ticket when Brass took over. Does that make you some kind of war hero?

I followed City home and away that season and we can swap stories if you like.

Still waiting for your masterplan if the new manager fails.

Give the guy a chance, two games in, he's a football manager not a miracle worker! Would love to swap war stories, been and seen some very sad performances away from home over 40 years, went 15 years without a single away ground visit victory!

Ok well if you want to take a trip down memory lane, you'll recall Alan Little winning promotion and then reaching the play offs the flowing season. He was then sacked with Cityin a si
Liar position as Mills departure. He was replaced by Neil Thompson who said he was going to discard with "tippy tappy" football and subsequently took us straight down, signing thugs like Sertori and Hulme on the way.

I don't watch a great deal of premiership football but every team plays passing football. The long ball stuff on show last night was reminiscent of the dark days of the 80's which I'm sure you can remember.

I really hope that isn't the way he is planning to play for the rest of the season. Basically hoofing it forward and hoping to get lucky and get someone in on goal, which we didn't manage to do.

Not going to judge Worthington on one home game, hoping for much better on Saturday, as we'll certainly need to be better.

openallhours wrote:
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I was there tonight and I'm baffled by the number of 'new' posters springing up on here. By the way, Worthington hasn't lost a home game yet where as Mills lost plenty. Hopefully Nigels undefeated home record will still be in tact on Saturday.

Think the problem is draws! We now share the lowest spot in the division for wins with plymouth ....8 ! what a different state of affairs it would be had 4 or 5 of those draws been wins?

I agree it was not pretty tonight and despite Rankines industry up front ( he did seem to get hold of the ball when it was hoofed up) there seemed to be no one about to latch on to any thing he could offer nor any of the mistakes from Rochdale. And, why oh why does everyone congregate in an area the size of the centre circle at almost every goal kick ??

I know we aren't playing with great flair but has anybody thought this could be NW plan just to get us safe, he hasnt been with the team overly long and this it the easiest and quickest way to score goals and hopefully win games or atleast get us some points on the board?? Just a thought.

Openallhours

You'll find that when Gary was in charge, Lewes were not in our division. I see your point, but just thought i'd correct you.

Entertainment value was poor but the effort, commitment and desire were in evidence and we got a point! The attacking personnel and combinations, remain weak and devoid of any fresh ideas for finding the back of the net! Both Rankine and Walker are triers, as too Reed when he comes on as a sub, but none have any real pace and if we are going 4-4-2, then it would be good to think we could have one of the front men to have a bit more speed. Ranks does frighten defenders from set-peces, esp. from high balls into the box and I would keep him in the side for Saturday but on last-nights evidence not sure he and Jason compliment each other but we hardly have a load of other options!! In addition, Ashley Chambers was lightweight last-night and must 'up' his game and get really stuck in and make things happen up front. Looking at our defeners, the coaching staff need to drum into Jack O'Connell not to dwell too much on the ball when he's the last man and been pressed because he cost us a goal against Bradford by trying to play back to the keeper and mis-cueing and did the exact same thing last night and we have Michael Ingham to thank (and a poorish shot), from going behind. O'Connell needs to be quicker and more positive in such situations. In his post match interview, NW mentioned the strong possibility of bringing in some new faces within the next two weeks - surely a striker is top of his priorities? For Saturday, Port Vale are currently dipping in form and have dropped to third place and this just might be a good time to play them and do a Bristol Rovers on them. We must try and drag Rochdale, Dagenham and Wimbledon back into the scrap for survival and it is nearly a must win game for us and looking ahead,the two consecutive home games with Accrington and Plymouth really are must win and "massive". COYR.

I have tried to reflect on last nights game and to put a positive spin on what I saw. Words absolutely fail me. That was the biggest pile of dross I have ever wasted my hard earned on. Who will we beat playing like that between now and the end of the season. I am not sure if we would score against Caerphilly Castle Ladies playing like that. We have a team who are being asked to play a style that they do not have the physical attributes to deal with. We might as well have played 1-4-6 for all the impact our midfield had in the game. We made a very poor side look accomplished, on our own patch. I doubt the Rochdale keeper has a more uneventful 90 mins all season.
I thought before the game that this result was pivotal in deciding the destiny of our season. I honestly cant see where the required points are going to come from. Port Vale ? Bristol Rovers ? Would / could last nights performance have been worse under Mills. At least we would have potentially gone down being entertained.

CaptainCreosote wrote:
I have tried to reflect on last nights game and to put a positive spin on what I saw. Words absolutely fail me. That was the biggest pile of dross I have ever wasted my hard earned on. Who will we beat playing like that between now and the end of the season. I am not sure if we would score against Caerphilly Castle Ladies playing like that. We have a team who are being asked to play a style that they do not have the physical attributes to deal with. We might as well have played 1-4-6 for all the impact our midfield had in the game. We made a very poor side look accomplished, on our own patch. I doubt the Rochdale keeper has a more uneventful 90 mins all season. I thought before the game that this result was pivotal in deciding the destiny of our season. I honestly cant see where the required points are going to come from. Port Vale ? Bristol Rovers ? Would / could last nights performance have been worse under Mills. At least we would have potentially gone down being entertained.

I've been wondering where the points were coming from for weeks frankly. It does not help when we have five strikers and none of them are league quality.

giggs08 wrote:
Openallhours.......s

igns of a more affective attacking style! are you serious,did you go to the game?we did,nt have a shot on goal!and dont anyone expect the style to change next season if we stay up,it's hoofball with worthington always has been always will be.

It was far from being a pretty game but I'm very encouraged by the clean sheet. Also, you could see the 442 as opposed to the 451 system that Mills used to stick to and fail with. I'd much rather take ugly points as opposed to pretty defeats.

openallhours - which games between now and April 27th do you see us picking up the required points for survival ? I am as anxious for survival and consolidation as anyone on here

CaptainCreosote wrote:
openallhours - which games between now and April 27th do you see us picking up the required points for survival ? I am as anxious for survival and consolidation as anyone on here

I predict that we'll win at least 3 more games before the end of the season; Accrington, Plymouth and Torquay. A win on Saturday would do as well.

Playing on a chewed up cabbage patch can't help decent footy. Why is the pitch so crap?

I never wanted Mills to be sacked and I am sure he would have kept us up but what's happened has happened and now is the time to get behind the new man.

To the moaners about long ball football - the facts are we need points right now and if hoofing it long 90% of the time is how an experienced guy like NW feels we will have the best chance of doing that then just get behind it for the run-in.

It seems outrageously harsh to start making judgements on Worthington's style of play already and I am optimistic this is a short term measure to keep us in the league. If our pass-and-move play is still nowhere to be seen come the start of next season then by all means complain and I will be as angry as anybody else because, as Swansea have shown, that IS the right way to play and it can get results at any level. However for the time being please just give the new guy a chance to do the job he was brought in to do and keep us up without all this negativity ! Surely we all want the same end result ?!

well we certainly didn't look like conceding a goal, that's one positive, rochdale were just as bad as we were, the forward play on show was dreadful.
i agree with previous posts worrying about where our next goal is going to come from. our best chances were from mcgrath and, once again, chris smith with his attempted turn and shot in the box from a corner.
ranks looked the more effective striker, he still has that ability to get the ball down and knock it past a defender, just he has even less pace than 2 years ago, but at least he tried. i'm surprised reed didn't get longer, he should have been brought on for a good 15 minutes at least.

as regards the tactics, surely to god the main thing is to secure safety? i don't care if we get the ball into the net by a missed handball or something right now as long as we remain in the league.
plenty of other teams play the hoofball tactic in this division and it works for them. worthington has now got us a clean sheet and his first point, port vale have only won 1 of their last 6....lets get behind the lads again saturday.

Well after a nights sleep and time to reflect, whats the verdict now?. A very poor game but actually we played slightly better than we did at AFC Wimbledon. I would prefer to see Jack OConnel play at Left Back, move Danny Parslow back into the centre of defence. Then if Lanre Oyebanjo is fit bring him in at Right Back. The rest of the line-up is not so easy to select because the likes of Chambers, Kerr, Blair, Walker and Rankine are just not doing enough, but choices are very limited. So unless we can get some super loanees in, it looks like more of the same. But I have to say that the general standard of football in Division Two is absolutely awfull.

OLD-HEAD I couldn't agree more, that was no better than watching us playing a conference side. marginally quicker and less time on the ball, but the quality is no different.

Now you've witnessed 2 games of the classy passing experience that is Nigel Worthington.

Are my words from last week still regarded as trolling?

"This classy football. What Norwich games have you people seen, what Northern Ireland games have you been watching. It's all long ball football"

NW will have seen enough by now to realise that some of the players just cannot adapt to his new style of play. The defence was adequate last night and the two midfielders did OK but were under too much pressure as a result of Blair and Chambers not functioning. Thought that Ranks ran the channels well with little support but Walker did not. (Playing like a man who already has his bags packed)
So what now if quality players are not available. Replace Blair and Chambers with two combative midfielders (Potts, Mcreadie, Platt or even Paddy) Play Rodman with Rankine up front with Reed in reserve.
This sort of line-up should ensure the required number of clean sheets and maybe the odd win.

To win matches you need to score more than you concede. Simple ! Whilst I acknowledge that we didn't, with the exception of O'Connells' abberation, look like conceding. We could have been there 'til next Christmas and not scored. Route one is fine if you have the personnel to employ it. Blair and Chambers looked completely out of their respective comfort zones and as a result you could see their confidence drain. All too often the ball was lumped forward to quickly to a solitary striker with little or no support. How does NW address these fundamental problems in three days ? Answers on a postcard please. I really fear for the run in

york fan 13 wrote:
I know we aren't playing with great flair but has anybody thought this could be NW plan just to get us safe, he hasnt been with the team overly long and this it the easiest and quickest way to score goals and hopefully win games or atleast get us some points on the board?? Just a thought.

That is exactly the plan, statisitcally this manner of play will net enough points to keep us safe. Next season will be totally different.

No it won't

He's a long ball manager.

We got a point !...... For which
I'm truly truly grateful,

But at what cost ?......
We've sold our footballing soul, and
within a few days destroyed Millsy's
Legacy, that took years to establish.

I'm not going to say it.........YET !!! But
Nigel, you've got eight games left,
we NEED you to do something .......
...........NOW.

Message from a Gary clapper...
You get what you deserve ... the big boot...truly awful game!
Wish Nigel all the best but ugly football for the rest of the season.. still if it keeps us up.
Keep the faith!!

JarrettRobinsonHughe
sCharlton wrote:
Now you've witnessed 2 games of the classy passing experience that is Nigel Worthington. Are my words from last week still regarded as trolling? "This classy football. What Norwich games have you people seen, what Northern Ireland games have you been watching. It's all long ball football"

We are you actually here ?

YO1 wrote:

duffy wrote:

Mad for Minstermen wrote:

YO1 wrote:
So you got your new manager, you got your 442 and you got Mills the sack... happy now?

Just sat through the worse game I've seen in years. It's the players I feel sorry for. They put their bodies on the line, aggressive throughout and couldn't be faulted for effort. However, they were obviously instructed to hoof it long at every opportunity. Kerr looked completely fed up. Not one player put their foot on the ball and played it short to feet. Horrible football, this isn't an improvement.

Pathetic, the fans did not get Mills the sack, Mills got Mills the sack, a run of abysmal results got Mills the sack. Blame him or the players, not the fans. Grow up.

I'm afraid the default setting on here for a while has been to blame the fans for everything. The fact there was never actually one " Mills out" chant seems to have been completely ignored in the rush to avoid apportioning any blame to the outgoing manager who has left us with a pretty awfull squad of players.

I think I'll wait for the opinions of fans who actually went to tonight's match thanks.

So be it ! .....
I went to both, Saturdays
Performance was poor, Tuesdays was,
nothing short of Dire.

Third time lucky ?

Start praying .......NOW !!!

Koala wrote:
NW will have seen enough by now to realise that some of the players just cannot adapt to his new style of play. The defence was adequate last night and the two midfielders did OK but were under too much pressure as a result of Blair and Chambers not functioning. Thought that Ranks ran the channels well with little support but Walker did not. (Playing like a man who already has his bags packed) So what now if quality players are not available. Replace Blair and Chambers with two combative midfielders (Potts, Mcreadie, Platt or even Paddy) Play Rodman with Rankine up front with Reed in reserve. This sort of line-up should ensure the required number of clean sheets and maybe the odd win.

Rodman and Rankine up front gr8 idea 2 players who couldn't break into a ---- poor Aldershot side.R U havin a laugh.

We can talk about managers and systems as much as we like but its the same players, they NEED to get us out of this mess. They have ability, hopefully NW can bring it onto the pitch. Give the guy a chance and hopefully the wins will come. a battling win could change our fortunes