Once again to Mansfield for yet another game in the Town of total football: I seem to have been loads of times there to watch the Hatters over the years. Not a lot has changed over those years in that the good folk of Mansfield are a friendly bunch, the beer is always good and the Mansfield recruitment criteria still calls for physical giants.
Our Nathan made one change to the side that beat Colchester comfortably last week bringing back our tallest defender captain Cuthbert, back to try to counter the aerial threat posed by the Stags and relegating the shorter Rea to the bench. New signing Luke Berry was given a place on the bench displacing Jordan Cook: maybe Cookie was injured or simply missed the coach, I don't know but it’s unusual for a Nathan squad not to contain him. The game started with Mansfield really exerting some physical pressure as expected, on our midfield and defence but thankfully we managed to survive that always critical 20 minute onslaught away from home. Well maybe that 20-minute line was a bit hopeful as the physical onslaught continued and the Stags took the lead on the 23rd-minute. The goal came about from a nicely flighted free kick that really should have been routine stuff for a decent defence in the air but we are lacking in that aerial power department and the ball found its way through for Bennett to prod the ball home from close range. Yes, not a bad free kick; yes, Mansfield were very tall and physical and sadly again yes, we are simply not strong enough in the air when defending set pieces. The Hatters tried to counter on several occasions but the going was simply really tough against a side where similar to the Barnet game, the home coach had effectively nullified Nathan's style of play. We reached half-time with Mansfield clearly in control and our central defence/centre midfield finding it difficult to cope. Yet another similarity with the Barnet game was the fact that Pelly was the only Luton midfield player able to stand up to the bullying: don’t flog him off Nathan, Pelly is a quality powerhouse! Would we be able to turn things around in the second half? Well we started to come more into the play and our full backs were now getting forward but then “ home alone” Shinnie pulled up approaching Becher’s Brook and for him, his day at the races was over. Not a big loss in truth as he had been bullied out of the game all afternoon: decent at home but ineffective away from home against the big powerful boys that close him down on instruction in this case, from Mr Evans. Shinnie was replaced by new boy Berry and the struggling McCormack replaced by Rea. Immediately the slight change of shape as we moved to a back three, seemed to take us up a gear. Berry although being a quarter of a foot away from six foot, really got stuck in and played some nice close passing football. We started to punch forward but on the 70-minute mark, a cracking good through ball from the home side caught us out and former Luton employee Angol galloped away from Cuthbert to nicely slot the ball past Stech: credit where it’s due, that was a good goal and to be fair Angol was a threat all afternoon. NJ realising there was nothing to risk, sent on Cornick for Olly Lee: incidentally, Olly had tried like hell all afternoon. Cornick started to link well with Berry and Stacey and was really tearing into the Mansfield defence who just could not cope with him. Some of the crosses he made from just about the corner flag goal line were absolute quality and on reflection, I really hope that Nathan does not fine him for any more than ½ an hours wages for playing so wide; come on Harry, this is Luton my son, we don’t do wide! From one clever Stacey cross , Collin's does what he is good at, connected and buried the ball into the net. Wow, we were waking up and taking the game to Mansfield. Then with a minute of normal time remaining, Dan Potts got in a cross for Danny boy to equalise: joy and elation! Where would it all end? Then Pelly surges into the area and fires one wide of the post: if Carling did match endings then……… Joy then turned to despair when the referee decided Cuthbert had handled in the area and we have an injury time penalty against us but let's not worry as “one flew over the cuckoo's nest” Stech turned the ball away; love the bloke he is totally nuts. So, there we are, for definite a point won against a very tough set of big Stags. Overall impression: I thought I would simply reproduce my gut feeling notes that I placed on 262 last night whilst warming a nice glass of soft red in my non-typing hand; it helps after a game and maybe gut reaction is as valued as overnight considered reflection. I try not to post my thoughts on a match day but hell, why not, so here goes: You can argue as much as you like about statistics regarding our goals conceded over the last two years; I really don't care. I take the approach of simply commenting on what I see in front of me at games and what I saw today was: The Negatives:
Overall, I am happy with a point and will accept the good feeling from a great fight back but NJ needs to keep trying, as I believe he is, to toughen up that centre back partnership especially when we meet the more physical sides. Some thoughts on individual performances: Stech: full marks for a good penalty save under tremendous pressure. He also made another top notch save in that second half. Stacey: had a lot to contend with and overall did well in that second half really getting forward. Cuthbert: not his best game but made some decent tackles on the deck. He could do with a bit more physical support alongside him. Sheehan: like Cuthbert, not his best afternoon and whilst having an abundance of skill on the ground, he is simply not strong enough in the air against many L2 sides. Potts: probably our bravest and most decisive defender yesterday and got forward well. McCormack: tried hard, shouted a lot but was under continuous pressure and never really dominated. Pelly: the only midfield player from the starting 11 to have the muscle to stand up to the Mansfield bully boys; note, I am not being critical of Evans here, he simply understands lower league football. O Lee: found the battle a touch tough but give him credit for never giving up. Shinny: we know he is a skilful lad and great at the Kenny but away from home in L2 maybe a different story Hylton: although obviously not yet back to his best, showed real determination and skill in that second period and took his goal well. Collins: like others, he was well marked by Evans’s boys but took his chance like a real striker should. Subs: Berry: not much of him in terms of height but he really got stuck in and made some decent play. Living where I do, I may have seen more of Berry than a lot of Luton fans and in my view, that was an excellent piece of business bringing Berry to Luton. Rea: he reminds me of the departed Jonathan Smith in that he always gives 100% despite his footballing limitations: relatively young and will continue to improve. Cornick: what a quality wide player; surely he will not be allowed to go the Gambin route to central midfield obscurity!
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After such a splendid show at home to Yeovil last Saturday and also following the cup defeat against Ipswich, it was time for our first away trip of the season. Barnet is a fairly easy place for most Hatters to get to so that’s a plus that enabled over 2000 travelling Hatters to attend the wide open space of the Hive.
Nathan named the same starting eleven as used against Yeovil with new signing Harry Cornick, a wide man NJ intends to convert to a not so wide man, having a place on the bench. Fairly soon after the start of the game Johnson of Barnet hurt his knee in a tackle and had to be replaced. Then on 20 minutes, captain Cuthbert seemed to strain his thigh/hip whilst stretching for a ball and had to be replaced by Glen Rea. Well in truth the two stoppages and substitutions were really the most notable events from that first 20 minutes apart from two Town moves that saw Pelly place a low shot off target and wide of the post & that dangerous man, and I honestly reckon he is great in the box, Potts, bringing a good save from the Barnet keeper. It really was a very forgetful first half and I surprised myself by putting a few more lines together whilst on the train that I thought I would be able to: oh, the final highlight of the half was the referee blowing his whistle to give us all a break. The general discussion amongst supports ranged from we will do much better in the second half to a point would not be a bad result. The way the second period started suggested that things were unlikely to improve: maybe that comment is a little unfair as although neither side appeared to my eye to be really poor, equally neither side looked good. I am not one to bang on about this formation or that formation or the knowing nod when folk talk of the diamond; to my view, football is a far simpler game than that and we did not help ourselves in the delivery of that simple game. We played far too narrow in a game that was calling out for some wide play and on such a spacious pitch. Vassell and Collins were well marked, in Vassell’s case often by two players: just how did Barnet manage to get 12 players on the pitch without the ref noticing? You would have thought that 12 man remark was indeed true as our team simply failed to find space or stretch the home defence; surely we were crying out for a winger to replace the luckless Shinnie who spent far too much of the afternoon slipping onto his arse; did the bench not notice that? We certainly had two wide men in Gambin and Cornick on the bench but when NJ decided to make a change he hooked off “slipper Shinnie” and replaced him with Jordan Cook. Now I am all for introducing Cook from the bench in the coming weeks when we are hopefully well in command of a game; I actually think he needs that soft introduction to build his confidence but yesterday where a scraper or wide player was needed, was surely not the place and time for Cook’s rehabilitation. The second substitution, this time with Vassell, who had been well marked out of the game, with Elliot Lee coming on, was again maybe not the best of choices as Elliot is more of a one for feeding in the box and we were just not getting much into the box; surely the allegedly pacey Cornick would have been a better option. As the game spluttered into injury time, McCormack lost possession and Barnet scored with a very sweet strike from range that whistled past the outstretched Stech to send the Hatters to their first defeat of 2017/18. In a way, although Barnet are probably a typical and useful L2 side and certainly not outstanding, you feared the late goal may happen and wham bang it certainly did. So there we go, trotting off to our various locations with eight goals scored and three conceded in the first two games so let's not get too down about yesterday’s defeat. However, I suspect that we have plenty more such “Barnets” to face who will do their homework on Nathan’s way of playing. Overall Impression: We were not good, neither were we bad yesterday and indeed you could say similar of Barnet. Our stars today; well in midfield, it was Pelly by a long way with slippy Shinnie spending far too much time falling on his arse. In attack, Collins tried very hard but frustratingly had to go wide to try and find some space. I would say that with the exception of Pelly and Potts that everybody else simply no better than average and sadly so often inconsistent in the execution of the simple aspects of the game. Was Nathan a touch out with his tactics, particularly the narrow style of play and use of subs? Well apart from the unfortunate early loss of captain Cuthbert; I would say yes. On the other hand, the Barnet coach, the absolute rookie 32-year old Rossie Eames, did his homework well on Luton denying players space, closing them down and using Barnet’s superior physical strength against us. I have no idea if either Rossie or Nathan will have wonderfully successful coaching careers but what I can say if that Rossie played his hand of cards better than Nathan did. I rather suspect that we will come up against sides that will not be able to cope with our style of play and against these we will do well but equally, I suspect that many sides will have coaches that will be smart enough to do a Barnet on us. Yet, it's not the end of the world; there is a long way to go and we have not reached the end of August yet so no panic or doom but we need to be better than we were today. Just as a final thought, you could argue that back in April when we won by 1-0 that we were not much better than yesterday’s performance and could easily have lost by 3-1 had “barn door Akinde” taken three relatively easy chances that he was presented with. A few thoughts on individual players performances: Stech: coped well enough and came out to collect the ball as required but not under an amazing amount of pressure during the game. Stacey: a very mixed game with some decent interceptions and some wayward passing. Potts: yes, Potts looked very solid and probably the pick of the defenders and also always a threat in the opposition's box from dead ball kicks. Cuthbert: he was doing well during his 20 minutes on the pitch. As he is the best header in the back four I really hope he is back for next Saturday. Sheehan: average adequate game defensively and also had a decent free kick deflected away from goal. McCormack: sadly he was not at last week’s level of performance and seemed to lack concentration later in the game; perhaps he was feeling the physical strain. Olly Lee: another with a mix of good and not so good; fairly well looked after by Barnet. Pelly: by some distance our best player yesterday, physically not willing to be bullied and determined in his forward play. Shinnie: whatever type of footwear was he wearing, was it carpet slippers? He slipped onto his arse to lose possession about five times in the first half. Slipping apart, he was closely marked out by Barnet and fairly well negated. Vassell: he did try but after such a transfer speculation week he was not at his best and again well marked by Barnet. Collins: I thought that Collins did reasonably well and his “league 2” helped him more than many other Luton players but it was difficult for him to find space yesterday and at times he was forced out wide to gain possession. The subs: Rea: did well enough and had a fairly decent game; let’s face it he is a developing defender and not a midfield player. Cook: neither good nor bad and to be fair he did make a couple of decent passes but as I keep saying, he is just so lacking in self-belief and until he overcomes that obstacle I doubt he will succeed. E Lee: only on for a few minutes. The Hatter Line up: Stech, Stacey, Sheehan, Cuthbert (Rea), Potts, McCormack, Mpanzu, Lee. O, Shinnie (Cook), Collins, Vassell (Lee. E). Subs not used: Shea, Mullins, Cornick, Gambin. Note: it was my intention to only report on away games this season and I may well adopt that due to other pressures on time; I am spending an ever increasing amount of time writing on my other site Stockwhittler. However, after yesterday’s glorious performance, I just could not resist writing a few notes.
Well after that Blackpool disappointment and period of hardly thinking about football, it was good to get back to the Kenny for our opening game of the season. The last three seasons have seen us open with some interesting “holiday break” trips at Carlisle, Accrington and Plymouth. Admittedly home to Yeovil did not seem to have quite that exciting touch but could hardly have suspected we would see such a great team performance that was about to be served to the faithful Kenny audience. After last Saturday’s final friendly of the pre-season, Nathan made one change to the starting line up bringing in Olly Lee for D’Ath who picked up an injury in training. That’s a shame for D’Ath as he was really buzzing in that last friendly. Straight from the kick off the Hatters were tearing at the Glovers apart and should have really been ahead within 30 seconds when Collins had space in the area to slot the ball past the keeper: right place right time but the finish was just a little off and the keeper made a decent save. Collins had another chance that was cleared away. Then after seven minutes, we started to get that slight groundhog day feeling when Yeovil took the lead from a free kick in a fairly central position outside of the area. It was a well placed free kick but to be honest I felt that Stech’s positioning as the kick was taken could have been better. Thankfully, and it did feel like a relief, we were not behind for long. Pelly knocked a decent ball out to Vassell on the left-hand side and the born again Vassell who now is aware of team mates on the pitch, sent a lovely weighted cross for Olly Lee to smack beautifully into the corner of the net from the right-hand side of the area. Nice to hear the crowd singing a praising song for Olly with a slight rearrangement of the Colchester verse from last March in that laydown and die defeat.Then a few minutes later a lovely move involving Pelly and Shinnie who knocked a lovely ball through to Collins to powerfully race forward and slot the ball past the Yeovil keeper: what a beautifully worked goal. Five minutes later it was three to the Hatters with McCormack connecting with a headed clear corner to volley a superb and unstoppable shot past the keeper. Heavens this was great stuff to watch not just in seeing us come back so well having fallen behind but in the overall way we were playing. Hang on though, more was to come in this astonishing first half with Vassell scoring two in quick succession. Vassell’s first was simply down to his pace and power as he latched onto a through ball and shrugged off the accompanying attention of two Yeovil defenders to race on and score. The second was a beautiful finish from Vassell as he latched on to an intelligent ball from Collins; there is quite a lot to James Collins game, and our Isaac raced away to sweetly finish the move slotting the ball past the keeper. Yeovil then had an opportunity to pull one back from the penalty spot after McCormack over enthusiastically went in for the ball. Nothing to fear as Stech made a decent save from a fairly poorly taken penalty. So, there we were reaching half time with a rampant and unflattering score line of 5-1; when did that happen last? In fact, it could so easily have been 6-1 at half time when a well hit Olly Lee shot smacked against the post and came out: simply great stuff. The second half seemed to want to continue in a similar fashion as the first albeit at a slightly less relentless pace. After 58 minutes it was goal number six for the Hatters with Collins smacking the ball into the roof of the net as he ran in on the left side of the penalty area quickly followed by the completion of Collins hat-trick that came about with a shot from some distance on the right-hand side. Our Mr Collins is certainly a lot more than a “Plan B” option. Yeovil then pulled one back as our defence showed the weaker side of our game in not getting near Zoko as he physically went in for a header despite the close attention of two defenders. Still, not to worry, maybe we can happily live with that touch of aerial allergy if we manage to score more than the opposition. With a lot of injury time added mainly due to an injury to Stech when he needed extensive treatment, you could have forgiven the Town for simply riding the last few minutes out but why do that when you are leading by 7-2. In comes a beautifully weighted cross from brother Olly to brother Elliot and he heads the ball comfortably into the net: 8-2 and time for the final whistle. I enjoyed that: it’s good to be back at the Kenny! Overall impression: Probably the best all round team performance for the Hatters since that majestic 5-0 away win at Alfreton back in December 2013: it was truly a top notch total team performance without a single weak link in the team. We seem to have a spine welding the team together and that spine runs from Stech, Cuthbert, McCormack and Collins: just what we needed. It was also good in the first half to see how Pelly and McCormack were so ably covering for each other and both ready to knock the ball out to either Olly of Shinnie. So on first viewing, it looks like Nathan has had a really good early summer shopping spree being well backed by the board of 2020 and Gary Sweet. My appetite is restored and the indigestion suffered post-Blackpool banished; roll on Barnet next Saturday. A few thoughts on individual performances: I suppose I could simply cut out this bit and say that everybody had a really good game because without exception they did in the all round team performance. Stech: had a decent game and made a couple of very good saves including saving a penalty. I reckon he got his positioning a little wrong for the free kick in that opening goal but that apart, he looks a good keeper. Stacey: a sound and solid game; he looks another very good acquisition by the Jones/Hartford partnership. Potts: defensively Potts was real quality both on the ground and in the air. I keep getting the feeling that with his heading ability he would make a really decent centre back if needed in that role. Sheehan: he looked calm and in control plus ever willing to bring the ball away constructively with that cultured left clog as he moved out of defence and upfield. Cuthbert: good determined game looking very comfortable and in control all match. McCormack: he had a great first league for the Hatters and looked every part the organising midfielder we have craved for the past couple of seasons. I feel sure he will have a big influence on the other more creative types in midfield allowing them to flourish. Shinnie: a very impressive game with some excellent passing and constantly looking for the ball; it would be nice to convert him to a permanent Luton player. Pelly: had a very good game and looked a much more fired up player than in recent seasons. Maybe the influence of McCormack was having a positive effect on Pelly’s play and long may that continue. Incidentally, Pelly’s performance tailed off quite markedly once McCormack left the field just after the hour mark. Olly Lee: what a totally different player Olly can be once released from that most unnatural defensive holding role. His passing and shooting, the strong parts of Olly’s game, were excellent. As well as scoring, Olly hit a post with a decent shot and almost got onto the end of another loose ball just plucked away by the keeper. Vassell: just about every time the ball came through to him his natural pace and physique left the Yeovil defender standing. He took both of his goals very well and I certainly hope that the club is successful in tying down the “animal” with an extended contract. Collins: in this game, he looked to be so much more than an old fashioned target man. When not in possession he was moving around making space for himself and seeking the ball: with the ball he was ever willing to take a shot at goal. The Subs: Rea: came on to give a break to McCormack: no criticism meant of Rea but we did drop a gear, Pelly included, once McCormack was taken off. Lee: on for that hat-trick man Collins weighed in with a nicely taken goal for goal number 8 for the Hatters. Mullins: on for Shinnie; looked calm and in control. Luton Line Up: Stech, Stacey, Sheehan, Cuthbert, Potts, McCormack (Lee. E), Pelly, Lee. O, Shinnie (Rea), Collins (Mullins), Vassell. Subs (not used): Shea, Cook, Senior, Gambin. |
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December 2017
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