Cod Almighty | Match Stats
Saturday 15 September 2018
Division 4
Grimsby Town 0
Oldham Athletic 3 Surridge (63, 65), Baxter (90+2)
Attendance: 4746 (882 away fans)
Nepotism. It's the only explanation I can find for Charles Vernam being smothered in love. Town were a mouse that roared until the sponsors' sweetheart replaced the hobbling Jordan Cook.
Being least mentally weak isn't sufficient for the coveted garland of frozen fish.
He's the oldest player, he's the most experienced player, he's the player with the top level, international pedigree. Danny Collins has nowhere left to hide. It looked like a game where he realised he should have retired in the summer.
What he'd say if he were the pundit on BT Sport, hired for the day to watch any old lower division guff. Just substitute "they" for "we".
"We have to score the chances we create, and in the second half we found a way to lose a game that we were in after about an hour. I think we need to be mentally tougher as a group, because when setbacks come or when momentum shifts, we're not resilient enough in those periods and we’re getting punished."
It's all very well analysing each game as if it was an academic exercise, but this is real, Mikey. You're in charge, you're not writing a thesis for module 7 of your coaching qualification. You're dealing with humans, not algorithms. A little bit of emotion in your voice wouldn't go amiss.
Frankie finally remembered the script of the repeating soap opera at half time:
"I think the first half was a bit frantic, we just said…get on the ball, play down the sides and that’s what we did in the second half."
Durr, yeah, Bunnboy, it's what happens in every home game this season.
Sitting in this bunker, here behind the wall of despair and desperation, we're still waiting for the worms to turn as Town were perfectly adequate for 25 minutes. Then Cook got injured. Goodbye cruel world, it's over, walk on by.
Yes, the grand return of 4-4-2 with two strikers striking and men running around was working, if not a treat, then enough to keep the home fires burning. Cook and Thomas were troubling the Oldhamites, but the troubling thing is that without Cook's niggling persistence there was nothing to follow but Vernam's fluttering and flitting.
After half time? It's the same old story. Mental collapse. System failure. They have no personality without Welsh. The two old heads, Woolford and Collins, simply shrank into themselves when the world imploded.
You know, there hasn't been a booking in the last two games. In reaction to the surfeit of sendings-off they've ceased to compete.
Oldham are better than Bury. Oldham are about as good as Yeovil. Oldham are athletic, pacey and prepared to do what is necessary to stop the opposition, anywhere on the pitch.
In the end they looked two divisions superior to this insipid, desiccated version of Town.
Every single one of their outfield players was superior to anything in black and white. When they finally listened to the manager and attacked down the sides, Town crumbled and they had a party. Their defence look capable of imploding against, you know, strikers.
They look like the standard play-off team – all energy and confidence, with an undercurrent of competence and organisation.
Our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless.
Mr N Kinseley (Essex)
The walking raspberry was determined to avoid bookings and 'big' decisions, waving away many a penalty area plunge and indulging the Blue Meanies in their low-level spoilings. He was, at least, consistent in his persistent refusal to see any evil done to Thomas, but resistant to the notion that Thomas may, sometimes, not have fouled blue shirts.
He had no bearing on the outcome and, ultimately, fulfilled his function to start and stop this farrago: 6.978.
Latic acid burns through the hollow men.
In a word: pusillanimous
Town: McKeown, Hendrie, Davis, Collins, Famewo (Pringle 76), Embleton (Hooper 68), Woolford, Rose, Hessenthaler, Thomas, Cook (Vernam 25)
Subs not used: Russell, Whitmore, Robles, Clifton
Oldham Athletic: Iverson, Hunt, Clarke, Edmundson, Taylor, Branger Gardner, Missilou, Lang (Nepomuceno 61), Surridge (Miller 83), O’Grady (Baxter 78)
Subs not used: De La Paz, Graham, Maouche, Hamer