Relegation battle?

[phil old leake]

Having been today and seen us fail to beat the worst team I've seen in a long time. I feel this could be a long hard slog and we may struggle to stay at this level.
Team selection first half, awful.
Setup, awful.
Game changed when May, Coppinger and Houghton came on. Marquis has lost his mojo and strikers need a rethink. Only one striker worthy of starting at the moment, Alfie May.
Players are obviously playing how Fergie is telling them to, I.e. Playing it across the back 3 consistently allowing the opposition to regroup. Making it difficult for us once we break out. Today we were awful, they were worse and as bad as we were their keeper saved them.

[GazLaz]

The last line contradicts the previous 30.

[donnievic]

Bit harsh on them 1st half as bad as we were they wanted it more and got sick in

[POD]

It's too soon to say we are in a relegation battle, but 6 points from 6 games is relegation form (46 points for the season).
The worrying thing for me is that we have failed to pick up points against sides who are struggling, like Northampton, Wimbledon and Gillingham. 
We have away games coming up against two further strugglers in Rochdale and Plymouth and we need to start winning these games as there are much tougher games ahead. 

[BigH]

Yep, an incredibly poor first half today where we seemed to think that they would/should roll over as a matter of course. That and the concession of such an early goal in the way we did was inept in the extreme.

Put simply, we should have drawn this game and drawn at Wimbledon as a minimum. We're not scoring at the moment and teams know to sit back against us and crowd us out in the final third. As a result, we're there for the taking; teams know they will get chances against us and be able to defend a lead.

That said, the second half was far more encouraging. Houghton has to have a starting berth at some point soon and when Baudry returns I can see us playing from the back far more quickly. In the meantime, I think that Blair needs to play more of an out and out winger's role and Rowe needs to try and play wider; pushing on against the opposition full backs and creating a bit of space in the middle.

I hate to say this but big John is off form and I'd give Williams a start ahead of him on Tuesday. There's no need to panic - we're still finding our feet at this level after all - but I think that one or two have to realise that this is a step up and that they need to take responsibility.