Alloa v Cove

[Vegetableman]

Good first half but cove were poor , got the possession second half but were pretty toothless 

Neill playing well against his old club , nice to get a win and a clean sheet but we are not out of the woods yet 

some good moves with final pass being poor . 

[Waspie]

Did we change formation? I thought Taggs, Neil and Debayo started as 3 CBs and that we stuck with that. 

Anyway, the game was dreadful and we have PJ Morrison to thank for two huge saves at 0-0. After managing to scrape ourselves ahead though we defended pretty well. Taggart key, just wish that we didn't have to use him there and if we do that we'd signed a decent right sided full-back. 

Very positive to get a win and clean sheet. We were still extremely limited and way less effective than we should be but 3 points very welcome and hopefully a wee confidence boost. I was encouraged by Devenney's attacking performance in first-half too. Thought Devine did well when he came on as well. Very unfortunate to be the only defender dropped after last week. Thought defence looked better with him there than we had with Debayo. 

Must be said that Cove were grim,  no penetration at all despite being given the ball for long periods of the second-half. If you can't create against a struggling Alloa side low on confidence then alarm bells should be ringing. Not sure that deep role suits Sena. He might not always know what he's doing when he's pushing on but Cove would probably have benefited from his chaotic charging around.  Don't recall many performances poorer than that from a full-time team. 

[Kevchenko]

A more than welcome 3 points and clean sheet to go with it. 
 

Watching on the stream it looked a pretty standard back 4 in the first half and flirted between a back 5 and sometimes a 4312 in the second with Roberts looking the most advanced in midfield. 
 

Deveney had the freedom of the Recs in the first half and was playing well - @LeodhasXD today should have balanced a bit of the XG for the left flank! - but he was really poor after halftime and Rice was spot on to bring Cammy on there. 
 

Steven looked pretty decent, can see similarities between him and Offord from last year. 
 

Although they should have opened the scoring, Cove were very poor, would say that’s pretty comfortably the worst Cove side we have faced in the 5 or 6 meetings we’ve had. Was amazed at how little (if any) football they tried to play. Assuming they have a pretty big injury crisis as their bench looked pretty sparse even after Hartley signed about 400 players in the window. 

[pencils]

1 hour ago, Alloamad said:

Great three points but why did we make it so difficult for ourselves? I get BR is under pressure but why go five at the back second half?
Good first half with a back four, fb’s pushing on, midfield coping well and creating chances, scoring a goal.

2nd half, too deep, midfield overrun with a man less and end up sitting deeper and deeper. That 2nd half was a terrible watch and BR should have gone back to the back 4 imo. 
The formation change wasn’t working and we were lucky to ride the Cove pressure. 

It was a back 5 in the first half I thought? Kev and Devaney wing backs with tags, neill and debayo centre backs.

[AlloaAdam]

Certainly looked like a back 5 from the get go for me today. Actually think now that Taggart, unsurprisingly considering how much he’s played there for the last few seasons, is now better at centre half than he is at right back. Does Michael Doyle have a club yet? 
 

Thought we were alright first half, very poor second half and lucky that cove were poor, however a much needed 3 points all the same. O’Donnell was impressive for me when he came on.

[Kevchenko]

7 minutes ago, AlloaAdam said:

Does Michael Doyle have a club yet?

Dislocated his knee cap while on trial with Morton in preseason so think he will be at least a couple of months out. Another second half of the season spell at the Recs?!

[printer]

14 minutes ago, Waspie said:

Did we change formation? I thought Taggs, Neil and Debayo started as 3 CBs and that we stuck with that. 

Anyway, the game was dreadful and we have PJ Morrison to thank for two huge saves at 0-0. After managing to scrape ourselves ahead though we defended pretty well. Taggart key, just wish that we didn't have to use him there and if we do that we'd signed a decent right sided full-back. 

Very positive to get a win and clean sheet. We were still extremely limited and way less effective than we should be but 3 points very welcome and hopefully a wee confidence boost. I was encouraged by Devenney's attacking performance in first-half too. Thought Devine did well when he came on as well. Very unfortunate to be the only defender dropped after last week. Thought defence looked better with him there than we had with Debayo. 

Must be said that Cove were grim,  no penetration at all despite being given the ball for long periods of the second-half. If you can't create against a struggling Alloa side low on confidence then alarm bells should be ringing. Not sure that deep role suits Sena. He might not always know what he's doing when he's pushing on but Cove would probably have benefited from his chaotic charging around.  Don't recall many performances poorer than that from a full-time team. 

That's how I saw it. 

 Certainly defensively that's the best we've been this season. A couple of dodgy moments at the back, but overall more solid and hopefully the clean sheet can be built on AND we stick with the same back three that played most of the game.

Overall I thought we looked like we wanted it today and  deserved to be ahead at half-time. Most of our good attacks being through Deveney on the left. Generally we played pretty well first half.

Second half we seemed to drop deeper and deeper the longer it went on and stopped passing the ball. Cove stopped Deveney getting forwards and, without playing any great stuff, pushed us back and retained the ball better than we did.

Stevie Hetherington had a really good tussle with Megginson. It looked like he was asked specifically to pick Mitch up when he dropped a bit deeper. Apart from getting too close to him and getting turned a couple of times, he did a good job. Kev also had a good game. Taggs as well.

A really important, if anxious three points. Let's hope we can build on that.

[LeodhasXD]

Never meet your heroes... The one man Cove authority@CoveRangers1922was great today on commentary. Unfortunately cocked up the recording of the stream and had just the commentary running on a 9 second delay with the game audio 9 seconds before.... so can't use it for the highlights on the first 30 minutes.  My apologies. Blame the BBC for putting me off last week.

 

[Magic Hat]

A better performance today, especially in the first half. As others have said thought we played a back 5 throughout. 

Thought Devaney added a better balance to the team and meant Debayo could play in the centre, thought he was good until he got injured.

Kevin Cawley was absolutely excellent, still think he should be further forward but must be the first name on the team sheet.

The second half was awful to watch and we sat far too deep and were lucky for all Cove's possession that they were ineffective up front.

Still three points and hopefully we can build on it.

[Alloamad]

Sure the highlights will show if back for or five first half. Just shows people look at the game differently. Glad we are all in agreement that second half we sat too deep and I hope that BR takes action on this in future, especially against the poorer teams. No offence Cove

[Dink]

A welcome win today although it was very much the clichéd game of two halves. In the first half I thought that we played pretty well with Kev Cawley running things on the right and Devenney doing well on the left. I can understand the confusion over formations as although I though that we played with a back 5 Kev was playing very high up the park and at times Taggart was also getting up to support him. I also thought that Debayo looked considerably more comfortable playing in the middle.

I'm not sure what happened in the second half as we sat really deep and then struggled to get out. Also, our passing was dreadful and time and again we gave Cove the ball straight back. One positive was that for all Cove's second half possession our defence stood up to the pressure pretty well.

It's good to get a win and hopefully this gives us a platform to build from.

[Father Barrys Sign (Top Half)]

A clean sheet and a win. After the last few weeks couldn't have asked for any more. I wrote in the programme I'd even have taken a 0 0 to stop the rot and give us something to build on.

We played well in the first half and certainly deserved to be ahead at the interval. Second half was a tough watch sitting so deep. Obviously given recent games ot caused a bit of concern but we rarely looked in danger. Cove thankfully were pretty disappointing with Megginson in particular looking like he's lost a bit of his magic.

Watching the post match interview with the manager I have to say I was pleased for him. His setups are certainly questionable and at times I am mystified by some of his decisions, but there's no doubt he knows his game and he wears his heart on his sleeve. I'm desperate for him to turn this around and get the best out of this squad.

[Bigbrbairn]

Well played Alloa. Ricey's tongue lashing last week appears to have worked. Well done

 

Ps Thats because i hate Hartley!

Edited September 2, 2023 by Bigbrbairn

[CoveRangers1922]

3 hours ago, LeodhasXD said:

Never meet your heroes... The one man Cove authority@CoveRangers1922was great today on commentary. Unfortunately cocked up the recording of the stream and had just the commentary running on a 9 second delay with the game audio 9 seconds before.... so can't use it for the highlights on the first 30 minutes.  My apologies. Blame the BBC for putting me off last week.

 

Pleasure to join you on commentary. Impressive multi-tasking with the camera control, detailed comms and holding the fort with all the other media tasks. Credit to you.

Sadly wasn't a game for the purists but nevertheless 3 points and a welcome clean sheet to boot for the Wasps. Deserved the win overall.

Hopefully see you at Balmoral for the return fixture.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by CoveRangers1922

[LeodhasXD]

Can only apologize again for the commentary @CoveRangers1922 I didn't have the time to fix it in the end and once I had isolated the first half as best as I could It was just easier to dub new commentary. Enjoyed having you to bounce thoughts off of although my brain clearly not working at times today!

[Rory]

Didn't notice how tight the Cannon offside was right at the end, from where I was standing he looked miles off.

Was also good we got Taggs in the box for corners/free kicks yesterday, he's usually one of the ones left back 

[printer]

Didn't realise live how good Taggs' lay off to Sammon was for the goal.

As I'm sure most will agree, it would be good to stick with that eleven (Devine not Debayo) and formation for a few weeks, give them a chance to gel further and, hopefully, put a run of decent performances and results together.

That's maybe a bit harsh on a few others, but surely is the way forward.

Edited September 3, 2023 by printer

[Waspie]

On 03/09/2023 at 09:46, printer said:

Didn't realise live how good Taggs' lay off to Sammon was for the goal.

As I'm sure most will agree, it would be good to stick with that eleven (Devine not Debayo) and formation for a few weeks, give them a chance to gel further and, hopefully, put a run of decent performances and results together.

That's maybe a bit harsh on a few others, but surely is the way forward.

Wee bit conflicted on that as I certainly don't think that formation makes the most of the players we have and the football was turgid again last week, despite the win. Wasn't also entirely correct to say we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot as Cove could have been two up before we scored. That said, with the exception of Cawley being RWB that team pretty much had everyone in natural enough roles (I'd always prefer Taggs on the flank but he is obviously also very effective as a CB) and the 11 was fairly strong. While it still isn't the best use of what we have, we do without doubt desperately need some continuity and we could do a lot worse than give that shape and team a few weeks.

While it's still very early days the standard of the league so far (Falkirk apart to be fair) has been extremely poor. If we ever did manage to get a settled team making the most of the players we have then we could certainly make the top four again.