The Villagers v The Town

[BlackHaddock]

So The Mighty Mariners travel down to Middle Earth to play on a New Lawn against a team like us, so far unbeaten this season. We should have a decent following and hopefully the good people of Gloucestershire will turn up in numbers too. One goal either way, or a draw.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

So The Mighty Mariners travel down to Middle Earth

Well, we certainly will pass and pretty well, just might not shoot too much. I'm increasingly positive about our squad though, lot of new young faces who are only going to improve as they play more games together. Should be a good contest but we've got the wherewithal to win it.

 

[GTFCfish]

Fair to say two very differing styles of play going head to head in this one.

 

[Indian Dan]

Head to head is about right after watching you play Bradford. Don’t know why, but I had the idea you were more of a passing side.

Pretty brutal stuff.

 

[Son of Cod]

Hearing rumours that we're bring in Craig Disley and Shaun Pearson for this one in an attempt to bring back those 1-0 wins we got so used to during the Conference trips down to TNL.

Head to head is about right after watching you play Bradford. Don’t know why, but I had the idea you were more of a passing side.

Pretty brutal stuff.

Well last season, on the three or so occasions we played well passed it about nicely. Passed rings around Lincoln before Akinde (pen) popped up, for example. We weren't direct last season though. It's the acquisition of Hanson that has brought this about.

 

[Indian Dan]

Surely you can’t build a season around Hanson, though.

 

[Son of Cod]

Surely you can’t build a season around Hanson, though.

Why not? Every team has a focal point. Last season once teams figured out that to stop us all you really needed to do was to bide your time and stop Elliot Embleton and Wes Thomas we were pretty toothless. We picked up a decent haul of points when Embleton was relatively new to the side and not really known. It's not difficult to stop a young attacking midfielder in his first pro season or a lone striker who can't hold the ball up or win headers when you've got hardened L2 midfielders and defenders. Having Hanson is different to that though, every single manager in this division knows that when we rock up to their place now, Hendrie and Hewitt are gonna be launching balls into the area. Knowing Embleton was half the battle won last season. Knowing about Hanson means bugger all. Stopping him on the other hand? Them balls are going into your box and he's gonna be winning a fair amount of them. It's quite possible in preparing for games against us that the dynamism that Whitehouse, Clifton and Hessenthaler bring or Max Wright coming off the bench and driving at a defence or Ogbu's erratic ways are gonna slip under the radar.

 

[Chris FGR]

Time to batter some fish, again.

7-1 on aggregate last season, it could be said, we were head and shoulders the better side, could it not?

This time it looks like Grimsby will be head and shoulders above us, definitely in height as they've gone for the Lincoln hoof it to the massive bastard up front approach. We'll have to skilfully tiki taka our way around them, if we move quickly and don't run in straight lines we should be ok, lads of that size can't change direction very quickly.

 

[Son of Cod]

Time to batter some fish, again.

7-1 on aggregate last season, it could be said, we were head and shoulders the better side, could it not?

This time it looks like Grimsby will be head and shoulders above us, definitely in height as they've gone for the Lincoln hoof it to the massive bastard up front approach. We'll have to skilfully tiki taka our way around them, if we move quickly and don't run in straight lines we should be ok, lads of that size can't change direction very quickly.

Our midfield trio are perfectly sized for running in several directions. But yeah, it goes without saying that you were head and shoulders above us last season. Both teams have had solid starts without really setting the division alight from what I can tell this time around. Should be a tight one this, but I'm gonna get bullish here and predict a 2-1 win the Mariners. Collins for them with Matt Green and Moses Ogbu off the mark for us.

 

[Agombar stool]

How is the legend that is Moses Ogbu working out?

 

[Son of Cod]

How is the legend that is Moses Ogbu working out?

Only came on for a a few mins at Morecambe. Ahkeem Rose went off vs Bradford though and he came on on about 25mins I think it was. He certainly has something about him. He's not afraid to get on the ball and he likes to knock it about. He picked a few passes out of nowhere that caused a problem or two. But he also looks like he has no idea what is going on at times. All the makings of a legend, I think. Started vs Donny on Tuesday but haven't seen those highlights yet as I need to reset my iFollow password.

 

[Chris FGR]

Should be an interesting tactical battle between the two 'Yorkie twats'
as SoutheySWFC would call them.

if Grimsby play 3 in midfield they might outnumber us, as we often play a 3-4-3 with our wing backs playing like advanced wingers, and our left and right cb's pushing out wide when we play out from the back. Quite wide open if they win it off our 2 in midfield. We'll try and dominate possession, so maybe we might switch to a 3-5-2 if we're worried about their midfield. With Rawson out we lack height, especially if Godwin-Malife and Stevens start instead of Kitching and McCoulsky. If that happens our only two outfield players over 6ft would be Matt Mills and Nathan McGinley. Set pieces might be an issue. Mills v James Hanson should be a good battle though.

We're a very young squad this year, and light on numbers. Will struggle to fill the bench with 3 players out, unless we put an academy lad there like on Tuesday. Still reckon we've got this if we play well. Won't be a thrashing for once though, cos we don't do scoring goals this season.

One thing almost certain to happen is Matt Green scoring, reviving the old tradition of players called 'Forrest' or 'Green' scoring against us. Danny Forrest being a particular culprit, the prick. Plus Green has always caused us problems in the past.

 

[Son of Cod]

For once Haven't we beaten you three times as many times as you have us?

Hopefully, Coops will do exactly what I've said above and spend all week getting your wide players pumping balls into the box for Mills and your defence to practice neglecting to consider our CMs and we'll overrun you in midfield. Would quite like to see what Elliot Whitehouse is capable of with a bit of space in front of him.

 

[Chris FGR]

Well I can only ever remember us thrashing you, the rest have slipped my mind.....

Would expect Coops has done that tbh, we have to really given the threat you pose. Mills himself has also been doing a fair bit of work with the defence what with being player coach and stand in assistant manager, so I'm sure we know what to expect on that front. Whether we can cope with the incoming aerial bombardment and stop your midfield at the same time remains to be seen, but we've been surprisingly tough to score against so far. The fact we'll have a lot of the ball will help with that I think, the more you chase the less effective you'll be once you get the ball. That's the plan anyway.

 

[GTFCfish]

How is the legend that is Moses Ogbu working out?

Came on against Bradford when Akheem Rose went off and I thought he was great, loads of time he nicked the ball off a Bradford player and the only way they could get it back was by fouling him. Early days but lots of promise.

 

[GTFCfish]

Head to head is about right after watching you play Bradford. Don’t know why, but I had the idea you were more of a passing side.

Pretty brutal stuff.

I was pretty surprised too to be honest but I strangely enjoyed most of it, had it been another team playing like that against us though I’d have called fuck out of them.

 

[Chris FGR]

Fair to say two very differing styles of play going head to head in this one.

I thought Jolley was meant to be a stylish, sophisticated type of modern football coach? Not a Cowley-esque brutal hoofballing dinosaur?

What's gone wrong?

 

[Gladders]

I thought Jolley was meant to be a stylish, sophisticated type of modern coach? Not a Cowley-esque brutal hoofballing dinosaur?

He saw hoofball won the league easily so he is just adapting his plans like any good stylish modern coach would.

 

[Chris FGR]

He saw hoofball won the league easily so he is just adapting his plans like any good stylish modern coach would.

Cooper sticks to his footballing principles come what may. Says we might take a few batterings along the way but so be it. Gotta admire him for that tbf. No reason you can't tiki taka your way out of this division, you don't have to shithouse your way out.

Having a decent ref for a change would be useful, some awful challenges on our players so far.

 

[Gladders]

How is the legend that is Moses Ogbu working out?

Like SoC says, seem to be of those players that confuses not only the opposition when he has the ball but also himself. Ball sticks to him as he runs past three players one minute, the next minute he falls over his own toe and leaves the ball where it was. Will be good in a winning side, but fans will soon call him a donkey with no idea in a losing one.

That said so far so good and he did seem strong and could hold the ball up when it came to his feet against Bradford so hopefully he will prove to be a good player.

 

[GTFCfish]

I thought Jolley was meant to be a stylish, sophisticated type of modern football coach? Not a Cowley-esque brutal hoofballing dinosaur?

What's gone wrong?

As a couple of others have said it’s pretty much down to Hanson, he’s just so bloody good in the air that I guess it would be daft not to use that tactic. Gone full circle really as when Jolley first came in he inherited a team of dinosaurs who were heading back to the National League and for the last few games of that season got them playing like Barcelona.
Last season we tried to play football from what I saw although I only actually managed to get to about 8 games, but just weren’t that good at it.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

is it possible to see FGR in their camos?

 

[Chris FGR]

is it possible to see FGR in their camos?

Apparently not, given how the ref last week failed to notice any of Oldham's players trying to murder half our team. Clearly thought they were tackling thin air or something. Haven't worn it in the other two games.

 

[Clarkey_GTFC]

Think 3 games in is a little early to call us a hoofballing side. Not that I'm disputing it but I see it as Jolley adapting to the league, a successful hoofballing side can dominate. He's capable of putting together a slick pass and move team as we sometimes demonstrated last season but finding players skillful and intelligent enough to do it at this level is probably trickier than finding a handful of 6'4 lumps to dominate set pieces. I'm sure if we had an Elliott Embleton again we could have the best of both worlds.

Not going to get carried away by our decent start as this is the type of game that can and will send us crashing back to earth but I'm confident we can get a better result than last season. Will be interesting to see if we keep the same side that played Bradford or if anybody did enough on Tuesday to be selected. Sounded like Cook did enough to be in contention as well as as Pollock but he's going to find it very difficult to get in with the arrival of Waterfall.

 

[Chris FGR]

Tbf nothing wrong with going that way, it does work. I disagree you can't get players at this level to pass it though, just need to spend a lot of time on the training ground and put up with the inevitable embarrassing fuck up from time to time.

We've got the cheapest squad we've had in years, full of youngsters 15 out of our 21 players are under 23, and a few are out of non league. But we're still going all out for the passing/possession style. It can be done.

 

[Clarkey_GTFC]

Oh I definitely agree it's doable, plenty of sides go up playing a great game. I think hoofball is probably an easier to master style while outputting the same results though. To be honest I've seen us play a pretty game and get absolutely nowhere so I'm perfectly fine with us going this way. If it results in more goals I don't think anyone will complain.

 

[GTFCfish]

I remember last season we started off trying to pass it around, Danny Collins tried a 30 yard pass back to McKeown in our first game if I remember correctly....

 

[Chris FGR]

I remember last season we started off trying to pass it around, Danny Collins tried a 30 yard pass back to McKeown in our first game if I remember correctly....

Our goal of the season!

 

[Agombar stool]

Only came on for a a few mins at Morecambe. Ahkeem Rose went off vs Bradford though and he came on on about 25mins I think it was. He certainly has something about him. He's not afraid to get on the ball and he likes to knock it about. He picked a few passes out of nowhere that caused a problem or two. But he also looks like he has no idea what is going on at times. All the makings of a legend, I think. Started vs Donny on Tuesday but haven't seen those highlights yet as I need to reset my iFollow password.

Came on against Bradford when Akheem Rose went off and I thought he was great, loads of time he nicked the ball off a Bradford player and the only way they could get it back was by fouling him. Early days but lots of promise.

Like SoC says, seem to be of those players that confuses not only the opposition when he has the ball but also himself. Ball sticks to him as he runs past three players one minute, the next minute he falls over his own toe and leaves the ball where it was. Will be good in a winning side, but fans will soon call him a donkey with no idea in a losing one.

That said so far so good and he did seem strong and could hold the ball up when it came to his feet against Bradford so hopefully he will prove to be a good player.

Could be a future Grimsby Legend by the sounds of it.

 

[PaulHaddock]

Waterfall and Ogbu come in for the injured Öhman and Rose respectively.

Don’t think today will be a draw, FGR will out-football is or we will out-muscle them.