Urgh.
Another near miss, three points snatched away from the Yeovil Town right at the death as Altrincham pegged the Glovers back twice to grab a 2-2 draw.
Our man Ben was in the Press box for BBC Somerset at Moss Lane and here are his conclusions from a frustrating afternoon in the North West.
Oh, what might have been.
It wasn’t quite as free flowing as the game against Barnet but HargreavesBall was still the order of the day for the Yeovil Town.
The switch to a 4-4-2 from the off had me thinking we might change our style, but that wasn’t the case, we kept it simple, on the floor and tried to still use our threats from wide angles to creat chances.
Chiori Johnson added a bit more bite to the midfield, the former Torquay man isn’t afraid to put a tackle in, whilst Lawson D’Ath added a calmness to the centre of the park. With Altrincham dominating possession in a way Barnet did not on them previous Tuesday night, he helped utilise what we did see of the ball.
This is our style of play, win, lose or draw, home or away.
Speaking of D’Ath. Jeez, we’ve got a classy footballer on our hands.
It’s nothing we haven’t said 100 times before, but a fit and firing Lawson D’Ath is too good for the National League. He can do it all, run with the ball, spray passes, tackle, block, get forward, defend the whole nine yards.
The point here is, how do you now manage a player who is just so influential? His first 89 minutes of the season, with two games in three days at the back end of the week on the horizon and a history of injuries that says you cannot push him too far.
It’s just as important to know when to (when we can afford to) leave him out as it is, to know when to play him.
Something was up with Charlie Wakefield.
I spent the majority of the second half trying to figure out what wasn’t quite clicking with Charlie Wakefield.
He looked… a bit sad… like he needed a hug, he got one from Lawson D’Ath at one point.
A couple of times the ball slipped under his foot and out of play, a couple of crosses and shots weren’t at his usual standard and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.
With the team now Tom Knowles-less it does feel like a lot more eyes are looking at Wakefield to be the star man (pun fully intended) and as he adapts to a new style and new role when playing wing back, the general consensus is that he’s doing just fine.
I hope he’s okay and just had one of those days, we’ve all been there.
It’s time for us to talk about attacking set pieces.
I feel that it’s not been a huge strength of ours over the last couple seasons and for me, it stood out against Altrincham.
Only Notts County have had more possession this season than Alty, which means when you get the ball and the chance to get it in the box, you cannot waste it.
Sadly, we did on a few occasions, and on the times we did get a ball into the right areas, I wasn’t ever totally convinced much would come of it.
Both Josh Staunton and Max Hunt did connect with a header each from a dead ball situation, but both lacked the direction and/or power and it might be an area we have to look at improving.
There will be plenty of times this season where we give up the lion’s share of possession and I’d like us to look more dominant.
I guess we have to end with the new cult hero don’t we?
Gime Toure made a wonderful little cameo from the bench, got his goal of course, but added so much more.
He was trying to impose a little bit of game management (something we lacked after the clock ticked past 90 mins), he was trying to be clever, to buy a free kick, to slow the game down whilst also not being afraid to get on the ball and play – he and Jamie Reckord worked really well together a couple times on the left.
We’re nowhere near seeing the fittest version of Toure and that might be a while off, and the one thing we’ve been told is that there’s inconsistencies to his performances, but he looks bang up for it at the moment and he will provide an alternative to the Fish ‘n’ Mal combo which has started brightly.
All in all, it was so close, but so far from that elusive first win of the season.
Urgh.