Exeter City vs Luton Town matchday thread

Matt Russell said:

A hugely disappointing result, but let's not forget that for 30 minutes or so in the first half we tore them apart. There are comments elsewhere about a lack of playmaker, but we only missed the chances we did after creating them in the first place. As I say, a hugely disappointing result, but not all doom and gloom.

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With you all the way on this Matt. Not surprised by all the negative comments, we absolutely shocking in the second half and deserved what we got, but I thought the first half was brilliant. Luton are a very good team and still created chances for themselves in that first half, but we were battering them, not just for the opening ten minutes for the whole half, we just didn't take our chances like they did in the opening 10 minutes of the second.

Our defending however is another matter, what was James doing for their first, the scorer was on his own in the middle of the box without anyone seeming to notice for god knows how long. After that it looked like no one cared anyway. I was worried before the game that we didn't have our first choice CB pairing to face such a free scoring team. boy didn't that turn out to be true.

Grecian_Matt said:

WTF was Woodman doing for the first two goals?

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The first had more than a suspicion of handball about it -but should play to the whistle.
We also get to the by-line but rarely is our final ball delivered with such accuracy as that for their first (?? marking/awareness though)
Edwards needs more time on the pitch as he looks dangerous every time I've seen him play.
Despite Tisdale's praise our defence needs a bit of a rollicking after last night-although interestingly the impression I got is that their goalie was forced to make more saves than Pym-who looked justifiably rather irritated by the 3 that went in in that 10 minute blitz..

What more can be said best put last night to bed and move on to Saturday 3 points against Port Vale and we could be top of the league again!

The 360 view

[video=youtube;7rCrQXDkqPU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rCrQXDkqPU[/video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rCrQXDkqPU

The game was lost at half time.

First half we looked as good as them although on occasions it was evident that they could cut through our defence at will and only struggled when they tried to sit back. I thought there goalie looked iffy, did he ever take a cross?

Second half they came out all guns blazing and put us to the sword, we looked asleep, do they drink Horlicks at half time?

Anyway I'd like to see JMT back asap, Moxey's o.k but he's not a centre back.

The subs were just a gesture although I think McAlinden should get a chance with Stockley up front. Reid looks jaded, did he really miss a sitter in the first half? One thing we should acknowledge is that Matt Jay is never going to be a pro footballer.

It looked painfully obvious the way Luton lined up for the start of the 2nd half - all bar the goalie and that big defender with the beard - of the half way line that they were planning something different, and something different is exactly what we got. It was like a group of 'storm troopers' rushing across the battle field and the eventual result, some 90 seconds later was their goal number 2, we were 'shell shocked'! After that it was all downhill.

For the first goal Woodman got beaten when normally i would have expected him to clear the ball whilst dropping - ok that happens but was compounded by James standing in no man's land and leaving the onrushing Luton player a simple pass into the net.
Their second ,after a good punch from Pym from a corner , seemed as though our defenders were leaving it for each other to clear . No one took responsibility. I noticed Deano either pulled his opponent down or the Luton forward was looking for a penalty just before the shot.
The third was brought about by Taylor failing to cover the overlap and then James again attempting a Harley like tackle on Hylton (?) to no avail.
Their fourth again was caused by Holmes' failure to cover the overlap hence a neat cross and a flashing header.

At first i thought in the first half Tillson had an easy tap whilst almost on the goal line.After seeing the video it's clear the ball came across just behind him and gave him no time to hook his foot around.
I echo a previous post about TAH on the bench and playing a makeshift centre half in Deano. I can't see how his presence in defence would have negated the fast ,fluent and incisive thrust of their attack during those first ten minutes of the second half. To me the problem lay more in midfield where we failed to combat their movement and allowed them to build fast counter attacks exploiting our lack of mobility.(Taylor excepted).
Yet although losing 4-1 we could have been 3 up at half time so even allowing for their second half blitz we have only ourselves to blame for missing so many opportunities against a defence that when put under pressure looked none too secure.
Certainly our attacks throughout the match were too focused on pumping long balls to Stockley's head and ,whilst he won many headers and our goal came about as a result of his touch to Taylor, surely we need more variety in our attacking play than this.How about some of the slick passing movements we saw in some of the previous home matches.

ECFC Music said:

For the first goal Woodman got beaten when normally i would have expected him to clear the ball whilst dropping - ok that happens but was compounded by James standing in no man's land and leaving the onrushing Luton player a simple pass into the net.
Their second ,after a good punch from Pym from a corner , seemed as though our defenders were leaving it for each other to clear . No one took responsibility. I noticed Deano either pulled his opponent down or the Luton forward was looking for a penalty just before the shot.
The third was brought about by Taylor failing to cover the overlap and then James again attempting a Harley like tackle on Hylton (?) to no avail.
Their fourth again was caused by Holmes' failure to cover the overlap hence a neat cross and a flashing header.

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I'm really glad you posted this because I wanted to do it but quickly ran out of energy, because everyone seems very anxious to pin the blame on James, but Taylor on his covering and Holmes on his (third and fourth) for me were the biggest culprits on the goals. The ball being allowed to bounce on the first and second were the other basic defensive errors, and whether you believe James was to blame for his actions (he certainly made a bad situation worse on three of the goals) the earlier mistakes are all worse to me than what James did to compound an already bad situation.

Whatever was said at half time, the Luton manager clearly provided motivation which won them the game. After the way we had been on top our management and players should have expected Luton to up their game as a repeat of the first half should have seen us run out winners.

Coming out and being strong through the early stages is a basic thing, you can always make a mistake and concede but three in ten minutes is something else, plus the rest of that spell we were chasing shadows.

It's gone now, we will just have to see what Saturday brings.

That second goal Hylton was leaning back on Moxey and went down trying for a penalty, Moxey was more concerned with proving his own innocence and that made space for their full back to drill the ball home.