Chester FC V York City MATCH THREAD

Sorry Alabi

Win or lose, I'm backing the Blues. Onto a tough game against FGR.

This was always a tough game with a good in form York side coming with lots of confidence. What is concerning though how poor our midfield is and has been since the cirque du Solihull shambles. We are getting over run every game in the middle of the park and we will always concede. Alabi has been poor last few games but he is getting no service in to him and nothing to latch on to. With the likes of Marsh, OBrien and Davies being signed having trained with the first team for a period of time before handing them contracts why are they not being given a chance because surely they are good enough to be given a wage.

I usually try to avoid posting anything negative, but there was no silver lining today.

Could not have been worse. 11 Sunday league players would have done better. No one knew where they were supposed to be or what they were supposed to be doing. What was the pass success rate, 10%?

I was concerned when we appointed McCarthy in the summer, but was very happy to explain eat humble pie when we were on a good run. It's now painfully obvious Sharps was the key man

The decision to offer a massive contract extension to McCarthy was very amateur, and has left us im a catch 22 position. We can't afford to sack him, but can we afford to keep him in charge?

Jesus wept, personally I didn't think we were to bad, then came some piss poor subs, I thought Dawson was one of our better players, Alabi looks disinterested. Hunt was unlucky not to put that chance on goal in.

Good thing we did have that run or we'd be well in the bottom 4, which we could still get drawn into.

You must of been watching a different game to me, thought Dawson was our best player until the useless **** McCarthy decided to take him off.

McCarthy out.

Well i have to agree we were poor yet again. We started well for 5 or so mins, but that was about it. The reason for today and 2017's general downturn in results are as follows:

1. Loss of Mahon and Akitunde
2. Playing Sam at right back rather than Centre back pairing with Astles.
3. No support for Alabi - at least a striker should have been signed in Jan to help the poor fella out, played well in most of 2017, though is looking a little like having to shoulder the burden by himself of sole striker is starting to tell.
4. No width, we should have signed some young wingers on loan on the cheap earlier in the year.
5. 4-4-2 , should be kept simple...it works providing you play the best available players in their best positions - which again has rarely happened this year.
6. McCarthy - he has tinkered far too much, i realise that this is due partly to injuries and partly to "planning" for next season, but none of it has worked at all.

To even it out the plus's i can think of:

We know that we cant keep a lot of the team and we know that if we do we are up shit creek.

Need to sign Alabi, Astles as a priority otherwise we are up another smelly creek without a paddle.

We've learnt that even though McCarthy does have a lot of stats about games, he pays no attention to the basic ones that count. Namely points 2,3,4,5,6 which are things he could have had an impact on.

Completely agree. Dawson was one of the only players who wanted the ball and tried to pass. To say he is the worst ever Chester player beggars believe.

Why is it?

Have to say I agree about Dawson can't understand why Mcarthy took him off thought he was the one who was trying to get us to play football and pick the right pass, how did Durrell get MOM all he did was hoof the bloody ball.
It really doesn't show much positivity when you go 4-5-1 at home to a bottom 4 team. 
They wanted it more and worked harder than we did, don't like to have a pop at players but only 3 or 4 can say they played well there, and Mcarthy took 2 of them off
Will be very interesting if we lose our next 2 games which at the minute is very possible and the teams below pick up point we could theoretically be just 2pts above the bottom 4
I hope to god we are not but you just never know in football

Apart from Dawson and Waters (first half) we were dreadful.
Don't know what people expect Alabi to do. Isolated up top by himself for most the match with Durrell pumping 40 yard balls to absolutely nobody.
Might as well play with 10 when Richards is on.

Calling him a **** I'd reserve that word for terrorists, corrupt politicians, Steven Vaughan, Piers Morgan. Not a Chester manager struggling to win home games.

McCarthy’s line of thinking really worries me, on the pitch since Christmas he’s made a succession of baffling decisions, and continues to do so. But he’s also doing it off the pitch as well, like what he was coming out with about Hudson the other day, which I couldn’t possibly disagree more with.

York’s best players are clearly their forwards, so Hudson, Dawson & Astles in particular decided to dally around passing the ball to each other, right amongst their best players. Their worst players were their centre backs, Bencherif, whose been plodding around this league for years and strangely enough an out of position Sean Newton who can’t defend for his life. Despite that they had an easy afternoon as we pretty much just isolated Alabi up front by himself again. We certainly should have scored two goals ourselves with Durrell and Hunt’s one on one efforts but that really does show just how bad York were at the back more than anything.

The changes did nothing, made us worse in fact. Hunt coming off I don’t understand in the slightest unless he was injured, didn’t appear to be. We ended the game with both full back positions filled with players out of position. Luke George isn’t going to go forward and create anything and Vassell is going to struggle on the wrong side.

It’s a regular discussion around where I sit, but every single team that comes here seems to have an easy time of it and is able to comfortably pass the ball around, even Witton managed it. We’re too defensive and stand off teams. Unfortunately I think it’s playing a part in why the crowds are struggling, we’re really not entertaining to watch, even when on our good run in the season people weren’t exactly flocking here to watch. We defend corners with absolutely everyone back with no outlet whatsoever. It puts us under pressure and we more often than not succumb to it. I was a bit critical of some of our moany home fans last week, but to be fair it only takes to sit through another home game to realise why some get that way.

The whole game was a bit of a free hit for us, but we just looked like we went for a point from the off with how we set up. It looks like that most home games to be honest. Strangely enough as the game started York didn’t even look that up for it in my opinion, felt like a friendly. But they got their goal and grew in to it.

Football is a simple game but Macca is making it look hellishly complicated at the moment.

Oh dear.
I'm probably one of the most optimistic posters on here but their was just no desire today. We were outplayed by a York team who look like they were chasing the play-offs. Fair play to them, I hope they stay up. We were ok in the first half, Dawson passed the ball well and Waters looked a threat. Sam Hughes was my MOTM today. He was up for it and was determined. But the second half was dire. No width at all and hardly any determination. It just showed if we kept hoofing the ball up. For all of us people who turn up every week, we deserve to go home with a smile on our faces, but I still can't believe we haven't won at home all year. Tbh we should be beating teams like York. It was a lovely day with a large crowd but we still can't win at home. I'm ever so glad we are where we are, otherwise we would be in trouble. Hopefully we can overcome two tough away games by continuing our current away form. There's always hope.
This result won't stop me from going to Forest Green however, I want to go on that long journey to return with 3 points!
COYB 🔵⚪🔵⚪.