Last weekend Cheltenham Town welcomed visitors Accrington Stanley to the Abbey Business Stadium, however despite pre-match confidence among supporters of a victory for their home side they instead went home wondering why the team played so badly following a 3-0 defeat.
And yes the performance was that bad. In all fairness to Accrington they did their homework on us and played well themselves, but their is no reason on our part to explain how they got away with it. All three goals were due to sloppy defending by Cheltenham and two of them involved mistakes by player of the month for August, Harry Hooman. He looked lost at the heart of the back four and after the third goal even the stadium announcer put out a request for a lost boy called Harry to return to his mum, much to the amusement of supporters. His inexperience shone through in the mistakes that he made. For the first goal he misjudged the bounce of the ball, but instead of quickly chasing back to get it he left it for Scott Brown, only for the Accrington striker to intercept and ultimately punish the young lad. The second goal was a result of sloppiness from the whole team. A corner was not cleared by Cheltenham, on mre than one occasion, and the ball was slotted home by Accrington from the edge of the area, The final goal was a result if a mistake by Hooman. As the ball was played over the top Accrington he decided to step up late in order to play offside, however it was not successful as the Accrington player was let through on goal after easily out-pacing Steve Elliott. In my opinion he should have covered for Steve Elliott, who this season is another year older and another year short of pace. Instead he allowed Elliott to be involved in a foot race which nine times out of ten he is going to lose.
Blame cannot be solely placed on Hooman's shoulders though as I don't think that any of the team played well. The attackers looked short of ideas which ultimately caused our inability to break down the opposition defence. This resulted in a lot of high balls to the forwards which isn't ideal seeing as McGlashan and Harrad aren't exactly the tallest of forwards. But even the simplest of passes weren't completed. Marlon Pack looked a shadow of his former self, which made me think that maybe his mind was eleswhere following the closing of the transfer window the night before. Perhaps he wished a bigger club had come in for him, or he had been refused permission to speak with another club. Or it could just be the simple reason that he had a bad day at the office. Chris Zebroski hasn't excited me yet either. He seems clumsy on the ball and hasnt really got himself in scoring positions. I wasn't sure when Mark Yates signed him and I havent seen anything yet to prove me wrong. There is always one player each season that frustrates me the most. In the past it has been the likes of Brian Smikle, Danny Andrew, Josh Low, Andy Lindegaard, Barry Hayles, Craig Armstrong and this season I have a feeling it could be him.
Mark Yates should also take part of the blame for the performance. He set the team up in a 4-4-2 formation which left us short in the middle of the park and therefore we found it a struggle to keep posession as we were outnumbered in that area. He also took too long to change the system and the personnel when we were two and three goals down which gave us no chance of getting back in the match. One player that did manage to excite me was once again Jermaine McGlashan. He again managed to beat the opposition left back on many occasion, something he seems to do in most games. I do feel that his final delivery could be a bit better as his crosses sometimes aren't that threatening.
After watching the game on Saturday something came to my attention which I dont quite understand. Whenever the ball went wide of the goal or a shot was missed. Scott Brown always seemed to clap his hands and praise/encourage the defence. From the stand, this even looked the case when the defending wasn't great, for example when a player was given too much space to have a shot. I think he needs to be more vocal and tell the defenders when they make a mistake so it doesn't happen again as well as praising them when they do defend well.
All in all, it was a day to forget for Cheltenham fans. It was just one of those days when nothing went our way, we had no lucky breaks and nothing seemed to go right. The chances are that this was just an offday and that performances will get better, hopefully starting next week against Wycombe who once again will be tough opposition. It is important to get behind the players and hopefully look forward to some better results. But all that comes with being a Cheltenham supporter, it never all goes how we want it to.
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