Chester FC V Farsley Celtic - MATCH THREAD - VNLN - 10/08/19

Nice to see we left the own goals to Wrexham today.

Not far off

You go to ground, you give the ref a decision to make regardless of whether you got the ball or not.

Superb result. Solid start to the season. And, dare I say we are looking hard to beat!

Yep, Jonno said in his post-match interview he doesn't care if he got the ball, you don't go to ground like that in the area.

Good to get the win today, but we don’t half make life difficult for ourselves don’t we? How many times do we give the ball away needlessly? Grand being one of the min culprits. Overall, we do look more solid in defence as Griffiths has barely had a save to make in 3 games. Even when he did have to make a save today from the freekick it was top draw.

We should have won that game more comfortably though and on another day we win that by 3 or 4 goals. Some good individual performances, especially Waring and Jackson.

I’m surprised that we left it so late bringing Hughes and Elliott on, they should have been on much earlier, as Mahon and Dudley were pretty ineffective again. I thought Burton did ok when he came on, with the exception of going to ground to give the pen away. I just get the feeling he is too keen to impress and needs to calm down a little.

Good to hear that we’re getting the squad back to full strength, with Murray, Asante and Jones back the managers are going to have a selection headache.

Good 3 points that was we looked solid

Excellent save from Griffiths when they struck that free kick it was going in to the net

Jackson and Taylor were superb Jacko deffo man of the match

We were good value for the win today, could have been 2-0 up at HT if not for the woodwork.

Griff 7 - not much to do but other than a couple of dodgy moments was solid. Great save for the free kick.

K. Roberts 7 - Solid again, never stands out but does very little wrong.
Livesey 7 - Great game as always.
Grand 6 - Solid, just needs to cut out the Hollywood balls he gifts to the opposition.
Taylor 8 - Great game, looked really dangerous down the left but was ignored at times. Possibly after a poor performance Tuesday or maybe because we looked so dangerous down the opposite flank.

Stopforth 7 - Grafted & played well.
G. Roberts 6 - Decent but not one of his better games.
Jackson 9 - Fantastic, goal, assist & caused them no end of trouble.
Mahon 5 - Poor game by his standards.
Dudley 7 - Played well. Always looks a threat.

Waring 8 - Seems to be working harder than pre-season & was unlucky not to get a hattrick today mainly because of the wind. Deserved his goal.

Subs: Burton 6 - Had probably his best ever spell for us after coming on & following a decent performance Tuesday I was hoping he’d turned a corner. Then he gave away a penalty. By the way, the “he got the ball” defence is irrelevant, if you go in two footed from behind in the box it’s a penalty.
Hughes 7 - Looked lively & worked hard. Seems to have recovered well.
Elliott 6 - Played ok but missed an open goal. More to come from him yet.

Our attendances are disappointing, but two home games in five days is expensive, it's holiday season, and it was a foul day today. Anyone who had only budgeted to go to just one of the two games would probably have chosen Tuesday's with it being the first game and a slightly more exciting fixture. Not saying I'm happy with 1,600 but I'm not surprised and I don't really think an iffy performance on Tuesday had much to do with it. We just need to make sure we average higher than that.

Jackson threw in one of the best individual performances we’ve seen for a while today. Every time he got the ball he was causing havoc. We’re seeing the best of him now further forward.

Waring and Taylor were also good, Waring looks as if he absolutely loves it here as well which is good to see.

Burton actually did some really good stuff on the ball when he came on, but he needlessly gave away the penalty and his introduction coincided with us losing control of the game a bit. Not sure what to make of it.

I expected a scrappy game given the conditions and that's what we got. Farsley were pretty tough to break down, and can see why they have done alright so far. We did deserve the win, but god only knows why we spent 10 minutes camped in our own half at 2-0 up and invited the pressure when all we had to go was just manage the game properly. Burton unforgivably went to ground in the area and then things got twitchy. We deserved the win, but it could have easily gone against us too.

Jackson was outstanding, and Taylor was much improved from his patchy showing on Tuesday. Taylor wasn't really tested defensively today but he was a useful outlet on the left, and I'm starting to see why the managers rate him. Waring looks like he's relishing being the main man at the moment, his workrate is fantastic and he has the look of a player enjoying his football.

What struck me today was how wasted Dudley is. He does what he does well, but playing deep and laying off isn't exactly killing teams, and I feel like its often Waring up there by himself trying to make something happen against 2 centre half whilst also trying to run the channels. He's winning flick ons to nobody, because nobody is up there with him. Sometimes its difficult to see where the goals are coming from in this team, and we really have to try and get more bodies playing off Waring. I'm not against Dudley dropping deep, but his starting position should be further up the pitch so when he does drop deep he can at least drag a centre half out of shape and create space - he's not doing any damage where he is. Play him up front and you'll probably get 15 goals out of him, but play him where he did today and he'll get nowhere near 10. I have concerns about the shape in general, the 4-4-2 looks too rigid at times - I don't mind it away from home where its a bit more acceptable to sit in and make life difficult for the opposition, but at home its not great on the eye and we're not dominating or creating nearly enough.

Another thing that struck me today was that Griffiths needs to improve coming off his line. He was hesitant on a couple of occasions, and one of those times it resulted in him getting hurt. A big lad like him needs to be coming off his line and smashing anyone in his way - hopefully it's just a learning curve as I don't think he's played much men's football. He did make a brilliant save after the shithousery from their number 4.

Good start overall, but with plenty of things to improve on. A win on Tuesday would make it a great start.

Think the gate is in part a reflection of where we are in the football pyramid, and in part our performance on and off the pitch over the past 2 or 3 seasons. Winning attractive football with a realistic chance of promotion should gradually increase attendances. That said yesterday’s poor attendance of 1601 would have bettered the attendances at more than half of the matches in the league above.

Not far off the truth there mate.