Chester FC V Gateshead MATCH THREAD

Thanks for the advice.

This is very alarming, is he still injured?

VERY TRUE. As i went to the club office on Friday to check all i needed to show was the coupon i had been given.Barrie Hipkiss himself told me that 600 went out.
I also had an email from Alan Povey to confirm you just had to show the coupon on the gate...turnstile 8/9 South stand.
I went with 2 mate's for FREE....TRUE!

Bonecrusher,I'm sorry to hear that you had paid and i'm certainly not causing shit but i was given 4 FREE coupon's from staff at MBNA who have no interest in football so passed them to me.
Sorry if it causes shit but it's for the club to deal with how it dishes out free ticket's.
Look's obvious that the freebies were for mbna only then?

Take away the usual hysterical over-reaction comments on this thread and virtually all of the more measured analysis is saying the same thing - a dreadful performance caused by the wrong tactics, formation, players not performing as they can, out of position etc. The common element in all of this is Macca. I'm sure he is honest enough with himself (probably in private) to admit he got it wrong yesterday. I still have confidence in him, a slump does not make him a bad manager but I think we're reaching the point where we need to see just how good he is (or could be) because he really needs to start turning this around; it's not just the defeats (those I can take) it's the manner of those defeats.
That said, post match threads are all about opinions and "advice" from fans as well as the chance to let off steam. I'm no different, so after a bottle of vino collapso last night (I said at the game I needed a slurp before posting) these are my views for what they're worth.

Yesterday was highly frustrating for all the reasons mentioned in other posts
I feel we really missed an opportunity to both raise the profile of the Club with the TV coverage etc and also impress the kids who were there - how many are pestering their parents to come back after that display?
I still believe we're safe (it's going to take quite a sequence of results elsewhere to drag us into a relegation fight)
I wonder if Macca is guilty of over-thinking on tactics/formation - I think we must revert to a simple 4-4-2 especially at home where we're facing 7 more games that are almost "dead rubbers" because we need positive, attacking, entertaining performances to keep people coming through the gates.

I don't think there's anything seriously wrong with the team/club that can't be sorted by getting back to basics; I just think we've lost our focus a little.

The play-offs have gone, relegation ain't going to happen.

Let's have a "real go" at teams until the end of the season, take stock then and move on.

My next game is Southport - I'll be there hoping and believing in a win and a performance I can be proud of - really that's all I ask for

I have no problem with that Alan. Thanks for clearing it up.

I've spoken to two people today who watched the game yesterday, who aren't Chester fans and don't watch a lot of football at this level, and they didn't think we played too badly and thought the club in general came across quite well.

Do we overreact at times by calling a 2-1 defeat things like 'embarrassing' and 'a horror show'?

I think they mean the ground and attendance 

In any case, I think 'embarrassing' is very strong rhetoric to describe anything that happened yesterday. Disappointing, yes, but if you're genuinely embarrassed then maybe you need to rethink your choice of club.

I, along with non-Chester fans I know who watched the game, thought we came across as a well-run club operating on a tight budget, facing obstacles and, yes, making mistakes, but trying to do things the right way. I think that's admirable and proud, not embarrassing. Embarrassing to me is Forest Green losing two to three million a year and still making a right hash of getting out of this semi-pro division.

Every team has a bad spell during the season we are having ours but it won't last and we will come out of it soon, Barrow are the same at the moment D&R were very poor but got it together a few games before they played us, also Forrest Green have been very hit and miss since they played us.

Thanks for that. I don't know why they all sit together and it's not down to me I'm afraid to tell them.

First half we played some great football and the boys looked well up for it. Vassell going off injured was a pivotal moment in the game and it changed the whole shape of the team. Second half we sat far too deep, again, and with the changes made it all became a bit of a shambles. But still, we only lost 2-1 and they didn't create all that much. And don't think anybody else has mentioned it but their number 5 and captain was superb. He mopped up everything. He kicked and headed everything. 

www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/sport/second-half-inexcusably-poor-chester-12593292
Nice to see my recount of the match make the chronicle website.

Think McCarthy as the technical nowse to be a decent a manager, but as someone else has already mentioned, he could do with a assistant that actually attends matches and could give some sort of advice or a plan B when things aren't going right. 

I remeber edgar David's didn't do away matches while at Barnet which I thought was ridiculous, but big Chris doesn't even bother with home matches here. You couldn't make it up.