Exeter

Thought they played well.

Some nice football at times.

 

Thought they were knackered early in the second half. Pretty much one way traffic from us, with shocking finishing. The game showed Duff that our defence is shakey. Every game we look like conceding and today is luckily the first time since Wycombe that a team took their chances.

 

Would have been hard for the lad to miss their second. He had enough time to get on all fours and head it in. I almost wish he had.

 

I think we all got a dose of what the Wendys got last month. Well done Exeter, we were poor and they exposed us time and time again, we were lucky to get NIL - we could still be playing at Christmas waiting for a goal.

Surely this performance can't just be down to Thomas's injury? We definitely missed his pressing and pace but come on, somebody has to step up and do that job or the manager has to change the formation to suit the players available. Today, neither of these happened.

 

Even so, the amount of simple passes or decisions what went wrong is criminal. If a professional player on thousands a week cant make a simple 8 yard pass, I dont think that's down to management. It was embarrassing at times today mate.

 

Aye, can't argue with that. I wasn't really blaming Duff.
Basically today, we never really got stuck in, there was little movement up front and the passing was very poor. Even Mads missed a few tackles - one leading to the second goal. Kitching was one of the few players who appeared to give a toss today.

One other thing, Exeter had the rub of the green, I lost count of the times when we looked to get a corner or a throw in and the ball bounced back onto our player before crossing the line.

 

I said the same thing to my dad, by no means is it an excuse or the reason we lost, Exeter were by far the better team, they played some excellent football in the first half and early in the second, and defended well later on. But when you're down, you're really down, I counted atleast 3/4 times where we tried to play the ball for a corner and it ended up deflecting of our player

 

He could have dribbled it in with his willy.

 

I think it's definitely the worst goal we've conceded from a defending aspect this season & last. Just the amount of space, time and just generally how it happened was criminal. Literally had time to stop the ball, turn his body and just tap it in.

 

All started with Kitching pretending he was linesman.

 

He had enough time he could have had a cuppa before he put it in.

 

They realised they'd already won, that's all.

 

All started for me with Kane launching an overhead kick to no one in particular when he could’ve just played a simple ball the way he was facing.

 

Imho Exeter played well and fully deserved their win. They were slick and fluid and went from front to back with crisp passing that exposed us time and again....we on the other hand were too deep and our passing was slow, sticky and not effective.
Second half despite all the changes we were no better...and Exeter just managed the game out. It probably should have been more tbh. Bad day at the office...Wycome came got in our face a few weeks ago and deserved their win...Exeter "footballed" us and deserved their win.
Its how we react now thats important...personally I do think Martin has to come in for Thomas...he's the only one in our squad who can take the ball to the opposition. Kane and Benson were poor also and maybe Connell should be a better bet for one of them.
I did think Edward's was a big upgrade on Williams too, when he came on.

 

We were simply beaten by the better team. In fact we were outclassed. Exeter were fluid, cohesive and threatening. The quality of their football was way beyond anything we attempted. No hoof ball, just a team that totally knew what they were up to and kept the ball on the deck. I'm not going to be totally critical of Barnsley. We had a poor day and will improve.