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Harrogate v Exeter City Matchday Thread (7pm kick off)

Benjisheps14

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I think it is more likely that Sparkes will get a runout. Looked good today. JR or JK need to watch out.
Nicky Law has to be used far more. The two previous seasons he has been one of our best players. Unless he has some underlying injury I can't understand why MT waits till the 80th minute all the time before bringing him on.

I understand he can't play Saturday, Tuesday all the time, but he certainly can/should be used more, especially as our youngsters have hit a bit of a dip in form.
 

manc grecian

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Do you rate them? Really not sure I do, but I think you go with one of them and give them more game time off the bench at this point if we're not bringing anyone else in. Seymour for me looks the best of the three but really not sure about any of them.
No I don't. Fisher must have a cracking agent to have got a 2 year deal. Ajose should be playing more but for reasons unknown isn't and Seymour is miles off this level at the moment and should be on loan. A waste of 3 wages.

Williams may lack assists but he gets us up the pitch and usually occupies 2 defenders but players get injured it's up to the manager to find a way round it.
 

CWH-NYC_

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Matt Taylor thought we created plenty of chances tonight and he also thought Maxted barely had a save to make.
I like Matt’s post game assessments but last couple have not been quite as I have seen it. Maxted made the saves to keep us in it tonight.
 

Ex-ciderrr

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Disappointed yet again, awful game of football from both sides. If there was any little positives to take, maxted pulled off a couple of smart stops but as Taylor said was barely worked at all over the 90, and Page who I thought had a steady game and got a good 80 mins of game time which I think will do him the world of good In addition to what he’s had already upon return.

Frustrating we couldn’t do find a way to push, pressurise the 10 men of Harrogate for the last 20 mins almost like we were happy with a point.

Bowman twice and Key tonight missing great chances 1/2 of them go in it’s a different story. Huge difference between strikers and goal scorers and we’ve just got strikers no regular goal scorers currently. You know a goalscorer when you’ve got one. in the past Stockley, Cureton, Alexander, Rowbotham to name a few, may not do a lot in 90 mins some days but on night like tonight the ball would just fall to a natural goalscorer we win the game and are coming down the M1 with a 1-0 Win.

seymour waste of space again offers nothing did he even have more than 3 touches? But only forward on the bench to bring on, struggling to see how Caprice ”betters or adds to the group” as Taylor famously says when talking about new signings. and did hartridge even complete a forward pass when he came on?

as you can guess I’m quite hacked off with watching another inept performance so going to hit the hay!

stevenage at home Saturday as we look to get back to winning ways... come on city!
 

IndoMike

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We don't have a better combination than Williams and Key on the right. The former may not have a lot of assists but he keeps the opponents thinking and is our most dangerous player. It seems to.me that Randall plays better when Williams is in the side. We probably missed Jake Taylor in midfield, too.
IMO we were better having Martin, Woodman and Moxey around if they were willing to sign a one-year contract. I don't see how McA, Page and Caprice are an improvement.
We are left with no striking options : Ajose and Fisher have contributed little and have also turned out to be uninspiring signings. Considering the money we have earned over the last couple of years we haven't made good use of it in terms of player recruitment.
But, regarding today's match, it can't be easy for the players to set off on a long trek not knowing if the match is on or off.
Matt Taylor did say at the start of the season that this would be a transitional year and he'd be breaking in the young players, so from that perspective he has been honest about things.
To be honest, we're just not good enough this season to say "we should be beating those teams". When we're good we are very good but we are inconsistent.
I would stick with Matt next season but would hope that player recruitment improves : if we sign players they must be injury-free and good enough to make a regular contribution and not be signed as bench warmers. Maybe Matt needs an older, wiser assistant to give him a hand.
Hope the players and staff stay covid- safe.
Up the City!
 

Arthur Davey

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Whilst I don’t think he has had a great season we miss Williams going forward because he’s a genuine winger who pulls wide - Josh Key for me despite his youth credentials is a right back. The Caprice/Key link up just isn’t as good. Too similar in style.

Bowmans finishing when he bothered to play in a largely anonymous performance was again woeful. Hat tricks in the thrashings, loads of missed chances in the games where we need that one goal to swing it for us.

Randall has also gone totally off the boil. Why is Law getting so little game time? The bloke is class and makes passes no one else in our team would.

The omission of Ajose and Fisher is getting silly now. Why reduce your options, there has to be a reason behind this. It was crying out for someone with nous, all this time and Ajose gets 16 starts ffs.

I like Matt Taylor a lot, my main criticism is he can’t seem to shift games in the other direction when it’s not happening for us.
Yep, totally agree with all the above, sums up my thoughts.
 

The Proper Chap

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IMO we were better having Martin, Woodman and Moxey around if they were willing to sign a one-year contract. I don't see how McA, Page and Caprice are an improvement.
Caprice and Page are decent signings, both players are rarely at fault defensively. Caprice hardly ever gets done for pace etc. Moxey was done like a kipper on a regular basis. Woodman was way too slow as well. The full back options this season are the least of our worries.
 

ChardGrecian

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Very poor performance yet again and seems loss of Williams is having much bigger affect than many thought. Both Key and Randall are struggling and shadows of where they were before Christmas - Key seems much better at the back and Randall does not seem to be involved or have the energy and confidence he had previously. Giving a player of Law’s class 15 minutes to change game does notseem to work. Would have preferred him to see him play from start instead of Atangana.
Page looks ok but a lot of the players bought in the last couple of years has been poor - Ajose, Fisher, Atangana, McArdle, Caprice - and have not improved the team. Matt has to shoulder a lot of the responsibility for these but the official site say we have a head of player recruitment Marcus Pritchard and maybe he and his scouting network need to take a hard look at themselves. We need players that complement the development of the youth and set the right example. Take Sweeney not our best defender and basically told he was surplus to requirements at start of the season but instead oF sulking has set his mind to improving and fighting for his place and IMHO has earned it.
 

tonykellowfan

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Definitely a game we should have won, but I am quite surprised about the negativity. In general I thought that was a good performance considering it was in such dire conditions. They had one chance which Maxted saved very well. We had several good chances on another day that would have been 2-0 and everyone would have been happy. We looked much better than Harrogate and to say we are a mid table side is to ignore the rest of the season so far. I haven't seen any team that looks like they will dominate this league.
 

Martin Lawrence

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Definitely a game we should have won, but I am quite surprised about the negativity. In general I thought that was a good performance considering it was in such dire conditions. They had one chance which Maxted saved very well. We had several good chances on another day that would have been 2-0 and everyone would have been happy. We looked much better than Harrogate and to say we are a mid table side is to ignore the rest of the season so far. I haven't seen any team that looks like they will dominate this league.
I have some sympathy with this view. We were not bad, we were just very wasteful in terms of chances and possession. It seems that the lack of Williams and of games in general, is playing a part. Confidence seems low at the minute. Fingers crossed we can turn the corner with a couple of decent home wins now.
 
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