County v Bradford Park Avenue: Match Thread (02/09/2017)

Bumped into city legend Paul power on the way home,is he a resident of edgeley regular visiter to EP?

i would echo everybody's frustration. after a bright opening, the first half was mostly a non-event from a county perspective. minihan brought a full length dive out of their 'keeper as his volley was tipped round the post. we had a couple more half chances, but bradford had the best opportunities other than minihan's. oli johnson failed badly, scuffing the ball past the left hand post when it had all opened up for him, and hinchliffe had to make a flying save later in the half that looked excellent and may well look even better from the camera's position. thought oswell showed some great touches in holding it up/laying it off in the opening forty five.

i hoped that it was just one of those afternoons where if you're patient, eventually the possession will tell and you'll get your rewards. didn't turn out like that. the midfield three just slowed everything down every time we got moving. minihan was having loads of involvement on the right, but as hermann...um...says, he needed to beat his full back most of the time. what ended up happening was he would try and cross everything low on jim's instruction, but because he could never get a yard of space ahead of the defender, the full back just got blocks on virtually everything.

was glad to see the subs come on from a stronger looking bench, and thought that stopforth initially livened it up. had a great little passage of play with minihan where between them they worked the ball out of the right corner and into the box with slick, short passing. this led to warburton curling a decent looking shot a yard wide. about the only time hampson got into a decent position he pulled it back to stephenson well, but the subsequent shot sailed well over the bar from close in. bradford had missed some very strong chances of their own though, and it was only through hinchliffe's solidity and some wasteful finishing that we managed to keep a clean sheet. regardless of how conservative they were in playing deep, stifling us in the final third, and wasting time, they will also rue that they didn't take all three points. they even looped one onto our woodwork in the closing stages - there really would have been mass fuming if they had nicked it.

midfield. too slow in possession. too many touches required. stopforth quickly showed the attacking advantage of crisp, first time passing, and initially injected some energy into things. which jim sapped from him by moving him to right back. sam walker is looking very average at the moment. we might have been too narrow, but if he can't thread a pass in ninety minutes, i'm not sure what the point of him is. thought ball was fairly decent, but completely agree with hermann's great point - he looks miles better there, but it really doesn't seem to be working because we look so vulnerable at the back. winter was my villain of the piece. looked variously slow, actually immobile and clumsy today. looked like a player from several levels lower to me. his touch was dreadful, passing poor, and he seemed to labour around the pitch. first game back though, so hopefully he'll improve rapidly, and back to touch mediocre, passing fairly mediocre, but at least having some presence on the pitch.

warburton has a lot of improving to do, too. just not enough telling contributions from him today...or monday...or last saturday. i appreciate that it was congested around him today, but like sam walker, he's a player we're relying on to help unlock things, and at the moment he looks like he's lost his keys. oswell looked decent first half and has really nice touch a lot of the time. nothing happened for him second half though - he had no service and became pretty peripheral to proceedings. stephenson shoots like he's bought a 50p ball from a newsagent or a beach-front shop. doesn't matter how he addresses it, that ball is going high in the air. wasn't as bad as his sitter last saturday, but you're getting into the realms of ronny rosenthal to find something that is. hinchliffe gets a pass. kicking was a bit crap today, but saved us a couple of times and is just a reassuring presence. my man of the match.

did anybody else think that the ref was quite generous to us today? he did book a couple of theirs for timewasting, but we also thought he let a few incidents go where we thought a foul was committed by a county player, and gave us a few free kicks where we hadn't seen a foul. given the possession and the referee, we really shouldn't be talking about such a frustrating afternoon.

frustration eventually got the better of jim. he had already zipped to the dug-out for a spare ball and hit it to our thrower with the outside of his foot -like he was a class above what was in front of him- and then rather blotted his copybook when the ball went into the main stand and he bowled another ball onto the pitch, only for the original ball to come back on, and time ticking away while getting rid of the spare ball. at least he understood the importance of upping the tempo. if only his midfield did. eventually, the ball went out, boshell picked it up and jim went to get it from him. boshell, like a tw##, held it away from him and even rolled it round his back into his other hand to waste another couple of seconds. some unseemly pushing followed, involving backroom staff from both teams and a lot of players.

there's something he's not getting right with what he's putting out on the pitch at the moment, but he's properly bothered about it. need a big improvement on tuesday. i'm tempted to say we're likely to be better if southport are prepared to come and try to win the game, but then again they might do it with our back four looking so shaky. was lewis montrose the only reason for our solidity last season? surely not the only one?

People (the same culprits - remember pealauncher?!) calling for Jim to go on Facebook.

I've just worked out that, at the same stage of the 2007-08 season (8 matches), we had 13 points, compared to the current 11. We then lost the next four that season, so had 13 points from 12 games. And got promoted.

Ridiculous to be calling for Jim to go at the start of September.

I wonder who they've lined up to deliver a promotion while transitioning us from PT to FT.

Too many defenders?

Deja vu?

although having said that, i could see three working better with o'halloran in there.