Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 12 September 2015

Conference Premier

Grimsby Town 4 Bogle (53 pen, 81), Amond (60), Arnold (85)

Aldershot Town 1 C Walker (30)

Attendance: 3869

Those superficial champagne swiggers and occasional observers wanted to have a selfie with Omar Bogle for persistent purposefulness.

Amond worked very hard and his two volleys were stunning examples of inner excellence, while Baron Monkfish was a good old pro using his head not his legs to sensible effect. It certainly isn’t Arnold who was flaky and flash.

So pop-pickers, who’s number 1 with a bullet? The surprising selection is Craig Disley, who many didn’t notice, simply because he was doing a minesweeping role in front of the back four and behind the attacking four. His strategic positioning was magnificent: the errors of others were not noticed because he was there to pick up the pieces. He molly-cuddled Robinson to the point where the midfield appeared to function.

Sometimes you gotta see the big picture.

"There's no doubt we were the better team but when you go a goal behind suddenly the ball is bouncing around and they just sort of kicked the ball aimlessly."

More on this

"I thought we deserved something out of the game for our first-half performance. In the second half, there was a major influence which wasn’t any of their players and we paid for it because we lost concentration."

More on this

Town were irrepressibly and infinitely superior – and eventually remembered to become so in statistical form. And remembered to keep the ball on the floor. For the avoidance of doubt, those two things are linked.

We had the usual Mck-flap, the usual type of goal conceded and as usual the state of the opposition hardly having had the ball or any efforts on goal. Town were, as usual, generously unwilling to ram home this superiority by avoiding double figures.

Sometime soon we’ll need to solve the Robinson conundrum. We can laugh about it, shout about it, but Shorty’s got to choose for him to stay or not. Every way you look at this Robinson will lose. He’s too slow in foot and mind, he can pick a pass or two, but he’s not fit for Town’s needs right now. There is a dishevelling of the team balance.

One day Town will play opposition that can defend, and have a midfield.

But we’re the entertainers these days, so bask on the sunny uplands before the winter gloom and the bump and grind of seriously stalking fluky Forest Green begins.

Aldershot were big men and they were sometimes in shape. A simple contraption simply designed to repel meteors and comets, they were simply hopeless when subject to ground attack. It’s as simple as that. They struggled when the ball was below the waist. It seemed well beyond their ken.

Beckles was lithe and fast, but not much else, while Oliver had aspirations towards becoming immobile. He was just a bouncing bollard, and when Town stopped trying to triple-bluff them with aimless, artless wellies above Amond’s head, poor Oliver was exposed in the light. Brodie has long since become a caricature, throwing typical tantrums, the narcissistic nit.

They’ll be physically big enough to survive, but should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Utterly miserable and without soul.

Settled into the rhythm of the season, relaxed and resigned and rejuvenated by a rollicking second half.

Mr I Hussin (Liverpool)

He made decisions. Some of them weren’t wrong.

He gave Town the first penalty for the times he didn’t – he probably felt there must have been one in there sometime, so what the heck. He was perversely intent on not issuing any yellow cards, which just encouraged the flea-bitten scrabblers to carry on clobbering, but at least meant Pearson and Toto, the Itchy and Scratchy of the Bananarama, didn’t get booked.

If a score of 5.765 seems generous, it also may seem mean. Hey, I plucked a number from thin air, much like most of his decisions.

Déjà vu, with knobs on. Tonight we rule the world because here come the goals.

In a word: simple