Spirites/fun day matchday thread

Normally whilst we’re winning as well, too many ham heads in the stands that don’t understand if we have the ball, the opposition can’t score🙃

Up the top end of the East, they scream and bellow for lumped up front hoofball & when the inevitable happens that it runs through to the keeper/out of play, they go and moan about that n all🤣🤣

My take on today

Positives

Marquis looks a different animal this year. Lean, strong ,quick, he is a certain starter for Saturday and will get 20 goals if played regularly this season.

Evans back to the Evans we all know and love. Played some lovely through balls today and looked up for it and lively all game.

Jones. This kid should not be loaned out.For the short cameo he played he looked absolute quality and was actually the best player on the pitch for the last 20 mins.


Negatives


Cox. Very shaky with his feet. Must have gave the ball to chesterfield at least 5 times from playing out at the back. I'm a bit nervous if he is our No1 this year.

I must admit. I'm in the we need an upgrade on belshaw camp. However there is no way I'd be starting cox next week after today's viewing belshaw has to start for me.

Well just got home , the two boys had a good day ,plenty there for 7 year old who did me proud by 'scoring' in the shooting game, not so much for teens, got there around noon, plenty of queues for kids stuff, plenty of money being spent in store including by me for the lads shirts , should be pleased they wanted one and i was ,i think! did not go into ground till 12.50 , did not see any interaction by players with kids and fans, may have missed it, a lot stayed on after full time so not sure if they were rewarded, shame if not. Forgot about being cashless so gave grandson cash to get himself some food, queued for a while then had to come looking for me to pay by card, yes i know it's my fault but it still annoys me!
As for the game well i know we can't read to much into it but blimey the number of time we lost possession in dangerous areas either by getting caught in possession or by a woeful pass was worrying, i include the new keeper in this who was a mixed bag, made some good stops and pinged a few great passes BUT he was guilty of some terrible passes at the back and got caught a few times as did his fellow defenders, still early doors though. there were some positives , Marquis must start and i see no reason why Ryan Jones should not be in the first team squad, Hoole gets better and better and has 'filled 'out looking a much tougher proposition now, the highlight for me was Jones overlapping down the left before pinging a superb cross on to the head of Marquis who although did not quite get the header right, that's what i love to see! Spirites were neat and tidy but did not make most of plenty of possession. Based on today, 'work 'to do and if we are going to play out from the back, which is an admirable approach, a big improvement is required.

Obviously not been watching all our friendlies this season.
Belly guilty of the same on many occasions.
That’s simply the way we are playing at the back, it’s going to happen everygame. The low drilled pass from our area into midfield is always going to be a 50/50 ball at best.
The keepers are not the only culprits guilty of giving the ball away.
Not a great advocate of this tactic, but that’s the chosen way and I can’t see it changing anytime soon.

I’m still not convinced that playing that way in league 1 is the way forward either.
I’ve been watching Rovers for 40 years and most of that has been in the 3rd tier.
The sides that have won promotion usually have had big tough centre backs a team who get stuck in , masters of the dark arts and mix it up but certainly aren’t afraid of getting it forward quick and direct often.
The game v sheff weds last season springs to mind we had tons of possession but lost 2-1 and our goal and only shot on goal came from the one and only time we went direct.
I realise footballs changed a fair bit over the years but in league 1 last season for example the 3 teams that won promotion didn’t dick about with it like we often do they played like I’ve just explained that the promotion sides do.
Not saying it can’t work but I think you’d probably have to have a top squad for the division and if you haven’t then I think you’ll struggle and looking at the sides who have failed playing that way over the years they have often struggled and been relegated getting caught in possession in their own half often and losing many games because of it.

Not much in the game if I'm honest. Chesterfield probably passed the ball better than us for large parts but lacked a cutting edge.

We had less attacking play but looked more dangerous, scored 2 and could have had a couple more.

As others have said, Chesterfield pressed high and forced a number of errors from our defence and keeper. Against a better opposition we could easily have conceded 3 or 4 today. Cox was the main culprit but Wilson and Crama were also guilty of giving the ball away in dangerous areas.

Swansea's style of play suited us but Chesterfield did there homework and we struggled to play through midfield as much as we did on Tuesday.

There were plenty of positives to but we'll need to be better to take anything off Portsmouth next week.

We still need 3 or 4 additions if we want to challenge for the top 6 in my opinion.

As I've said we definitely need to upgrade belly but he has never given the ball away in one match as much as Cox did today with really simple passes too and under little pressure on occasions. Belly would have taken dogs abuse today if he did what Cox continued to do.
He's a young lad though so hopefully hel improve as time goes on.

Portsmouth lost at home to our nearest and dearest today 1-0