Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 11 November 2017

Division 4

Exeter City 2 Stockley (29), McAlinden (53)

Grimsby Town 0

Attendance: 3854 (255 away fans)

To quote an Exeter-based journalist David Byrom “Favourite thing from the game today was a Grimsby fan shouting 'If anyone gets over a five in your player ratings today then I'm never buying your paper again - this is dire!' at their local reporter."

James McKeown, because he did his job competently.

PS: our local reporter awarded McKeown, Clarke, Dembele and Jaiyesimi 6/10

“Our problem is obvious, we’re not taking those opportunities when they come along.” [No, No, No Russ we are not making opportunities, it doesn’t get as far as fluffing them.]

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Paul Tisdale helpfully made some excuses for anyone who wants some:
"We defended really well behind the ball, let's not forget about all those basics, it was a game of basics - we made very few mistakes, we were very committed in really bad conditions.
"It's not the rain that's bad, it was the pitch that was bad for football - I think all players enjoy playing in drizzle but the pitch had no life in it, it was really hard to keep your footing and certainly difficult to play football on.”

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I will defer to science to describe the game. From the excellent Experimental 365. This graph shows "each club’s expected goals tally (the number of goals that the average team would have scored from the chances that they created) increased [or in Town's case didn't] over the course of the match."

The first half was dire, the second wasnt much better. It wasn't the worst game I've seen this season, but it was close. Calling for Slade out is as effective a solution to the current problems as punching a wall would be. Slade needs to understand that if he wants a majority of supporters to rally around him and the team, we need to see, some risk taking, some inventive dynamic attacking play and dare I say it some tinkering, even if we arent losing many games.

They were better than us. They had attacking intent.

Prior to the corresponding bore-fest fixture last season under Paul Hurst which we drew 0-0, Exeter sat second from bottom of the table. Many Exeter fans were calling for Paul Tisdale to be sacked. It's tough to be patient as a Grimsby fan watching such mind-numbing football at the moment, but as Exeter showed last season by making the play-off final, sometimes it's worth it.

Crying all the way home for 6 hours, with less optimism than at any time since we returned to the League.

Dean Whitestone

The referee did little wrong: 6.9.

As delightful as the drizzle in our faces.

In a word: tired