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Time For Reflection

Heysham Mike

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Nov 22, 2015
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Having had to time to reflect on last night's FA Cup tie at Liverpool. I do feel that the starting line up for Exeter City was indeed a strange / wrong one. It needed a team of pace and endeavour, with a mixture of experience, (like in the game at St. James' Park), to match what was, in the main a youthful Liverpool, and we had none of that.

We looked very laboured and lacked sparkle and zip, especially in attack, which was non existent in the first half. Probably not surprising in view of the team selection. The Liverpool keeper could easily have read a book in that opening half, as he had nothing else to do.

The changes in the second half improved matters, but such was the difference in the players, movement off the ball, and skill levels, that Liverpool were very much on top. A bit of a disappointment really, because Exeter can and have played much better than that, as proved in the first game against Liverpool.

However, financially, it was a huge boost to Exeter, and with the cup-tied Jayden Stockley back in the team for this Saturday, let's hope we can pick up where we left off at Leyton Orient, with another win against Accrington Stanley.

My man of the match against Liverpool, was Troy Brown, who had a great game in defence.
 

flakey pasty

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Keeping the faith.
Yes, a disappointing match from a footballing point of view. We just didn't perform to our potential, despite all the effort. As regards selection, I think it was a line up to give stability in the first half - to make sure we didn't get a tonking and were still in the game when the second 45 minutes came along. To a degree this worked, as we were only one down at the break. I think Tis always intended to be more attacking in the second half (look at the line up on the bench).
 

CREDYGRECIAN

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Loving the free flowing entertaining football at S
Lucikly Flakey - if it wasn't for Bobby and poor finishing it could of been 4 or 5 at HT and that would of shown Tisdale's tactics up even more.
 

elginCity

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We couldn't live with the Klopp high-intensity gegenpressing, very effective, and the 3 pre-match training sessions at Melwood with the youth certainly paid off for them. Far better teams than ours have struggled v Dortmund, and now Liverpool.

We sorely missed Noble, the galvaniser, as we did in the first leg after he went off.
 

Pete Martin (CTID)

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......As regards selection, I think it was a line up to give stability in the first half - to make sure we didn't get a tonking and were still in the game when the second 45 minutes came along. To a degree this worked, as we were only one down at the break. I think Tis always intended to be more attacking in the second half (look at the line up on the bench)
So why the totally different approach in the first match,where we took the game to them in the whole of the 90+ minutes? Further, we generally perform better away from home.
 

oxford don

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Sep 13, 2014
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Well I’ve had a short sleep and time to reflect. Not disappointed with the performance of the players at all, or the occasion, which was fantastic. It was nice to go back to Afield again after 20 years. I worked in the city for a few years and went regularly in the 90’s.

The hospitality of the Liverpudlians was wonderful and to hear the Kop in full cry again was a fantastic experience. The turnout of Exeter supporters was simply amazing… it’s a shame that they don’t bolster the ranks on a Saturday at SJP proportionally to the same extent.

It’s a bigger shame that they were let down badly by Sid Stales ridiculous tactics on the night. Tilson, Nicholls and Grant should have started, possibly Wheeler as well. Ive no need to tell you who should have been on the bench.

Our midfield was absolutely pedestrian and virtually non existent, Morrison static and totally ineffective, I can’t remember him actually passing a ball to an Exeter Player but correct me if Im wrong.

Liverpool were spraying balls to the flanks with gay abandon and Ribs, JMT & Brown, as well as they played were never going to maintain the level of work rate required to compensate for our total ineptitude upfront and in midfield. All three kept going admirably but visibly tired on the 60 minute mark. In some respects it’s a good job Benteke is suffering a crisis of confidence at the moment, if we had played this game 12 months ago he would have had at least 4 and thats possibly rather a conservative estimate!

Im afraid Sid isn’t as clever as perhaps he thinks he is and his team selection was baffling and bewildering and only served to totally demoralise those excluded and many of us in the crowd. I felt deflated even before kickoff when I ran down the team line-up.

I was hoping perhaps we might pull off a shock victory, Tis hailed as the tactical genius behind it and be subsequently snapped up by Bristol City, sadly now were are encumbered with him for several more mediocre seasons.

I Hope they use the money wisely, but wouldn’t be surprised if the board were not already thumbing through the new Mercedes catalogue and Sid the Paul Smith spring collection.

Per Ardua Ad Astra
 

crocks

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From the BBC website....Tis's comments:

I'm disappointed with our first 20 minutes, we were engulfed by not so much the tactics, more we got ourselves stuck in our half and we looked slow to come to pace with the game.


Could it be that there were a bunch of geriatrics in midfield? For a so called intelligent manager, Tisdale can be particularly dim at times.
 

Jason H

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And yet aside from Butterfield, who I thought was poor especially in comparison with his excellent performance on Saturday, who really "let the side down" on that score? I thought Oakley played well, Davies was industrious as ever.

One of the major key differences was that we lost our heartbeat in Noble while they added one in Allen, who was immense. Oakley, for all that he did fine, is not Noble (nowadays anyway).

I will agree re: the team selection in terms of our options - I'd had Morrison down to start but alongside Nichols. Without an outlet for his flicks the ball kept coming back when it needn't have done.

As I said at half time I'd rather we lost 3-0 showing a bit of attacking intent than lose 1-0 playing on the edge of our own box. At least we did that.

Liverpool were simply miles better than they were in the first game, which in all honesty was our chance.
 

Stelios

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Liverpool were simply miles better than they were in the first game, which in all honesty was our chance.
Yep. We'll never have a better chance to beat Liverpool. Yes, the replay was nice to get but I would have taken the glory of a victory at SJP any day. (Although we were hanging on desperately for the last 10 minutes at SJP so could understand the relief).

It's been mentioned a lot already but I must give credit to Ribs, JMT and Brown who had to defend for 90 minutes under constant pressure. They did well to limit it to 1-0 for so long.
 

Jason H

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And Woodman, but of course he's a target so he doesn't appear to get credit for a good performance!
 
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