Full time three two.

Feeling ambivalent leaving the ground. Just prior to our penalty I felt like "That's it. Game over for this season."

After the penalty the lads suddenly spring to life l. Where the hell was that energy in the other 85 minutes where the players seemed petrified of going into the final third.

Clearly the team still haven't gelled but there needs to be more communication. Harry Osbourne doing bursting runs down the wing into space but not even calling for the ball being one example.
Also needs to be more communication from the bench. Only noise I heard from Jody all game was him appealing for a penalty on a foul about two yards outside the box.

At least the last five minutes show the team has got potential.

Keep the faith.

WingsTillIDie wrote:

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Feeling ambivalent leaving the ground. Just prior to our penalty I felt like "That's it. Game over for this season."

After the penalty the lads suddenly spring to life l. Where the hell was that energy in the other 85 minutes where the players seemed petrified of going into the final third.

Clearly the team still haven't gelled but there needs to be more communication. Harry Osbourne doing bursting runs down the wing into space but not even calling for the ball being one example.
Also needs to be more communication from the bench. Only noise I heard from Jody all game was him appealing for a penalty on a foul about two yards outside the box.

At least the last five minutes show the team has got potential.

Keep the faith.

---

 I think that's sugar coating an awful performance. I'd prefer they were told their performance was completely unacceptable and we fire them up a bit for next time. Alfreton were poor and they sat off at 0-3 obviously. 

Kevin wrote:

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WingsTillIDie wrote:

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Feeling ambivalent leaving the ground. Just prior to our penalty I felt like "That's it. Game over for this season."

After the penalty the lads suddenly spring to life l. Where the hell was that energy in the other 85 minutes where the players seemed petrified of going into the final third.

Clearly the team still haven't gelled but there needs to be more communication. Harry Osbourne doing bursting runs down the wing into space but not even calling for the ball being one example.
Also needs to be more communication from the bench. Only noise I heard from Jody all game was him appealing for a penalty on a foul about two yards outside the box.

At least the last five minutes show the team has got potential.

Keep the faith.

---

 I think that's sugar coating an awful performance. I'd prefer they were told their performance was completely unacceptable and we fire them up a bit for next time. Alfreton were poor and they sat off at 0-3 obviously. 

---

Oh indeed, it was absolutely shocking and judging by the players reaction, or lack of, at full time I think some of the lads are going to be genuinely shocked as to how badly they played when they watch the replays.

The Alfreton players looked shattered just after their warm up yet still ran rings round us from the off. MOTM should go to the referee...

I'm baffled why Charlie Penny was taken off when he seemed to be one of the better players.

The I'm important fact to remember is that even if the teams below win their games in hand, we are still outside the relegation zone, it is still very much in our hands which is a good place to be.

Some reflections from the game today, overall, an under par performance albeit better than what I saw against Dover. From what I saw I think Vine and Vose once both completely match fit will be very good additions, plus Reece Harris looked lively. I am hoping Purse just a bad day today, wasn't particularly impressed, gave the penalty away and was completely at sea for the 3rd. I very much hope this was just an off day for him.

But it is important we get some points soon simply to keep confidence levels up. Also I think we as fans need to play our part, I hold my hands up and admit I did not sing or make much atmosphere myself, but I think we need to start creating a better atmosphere to help the boys on the pitch out, I know that the performance on the pitch wasn't that inspiring, but we need to help if we can.

Fingers crossed the performances start improving very soon and we get back picking up some points. COYW

Odin73 wrote:

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Well as we need to be cheered up how about Dover 6 Dartford 1 and Whitehawk 2 Eurostar 1

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 Think that should be Sutton as Whitehawk played Bromley

Kevin wrote:

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Maybe so but I do t think a bit of singing would have put today right

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 Bring back Mr Blobby! That'd get the atmosphere going.

 

http://youtu.be/fILALSqFpZ4

Scary how the attendance at that game looks like almost double what we had today, although in fairness that was on New Years Day.

-- Edited by WingsTillIDie on Saturday 17th of January 2015 07:13:23 PM

-- Edited by WingsTillIDie on Saturday 17th of January 2015 07:52:34 PM

Horrendous performance - especially the first half.  The exceptions for me were Charlie Penny for pure effort and a bit of skill, still learning but needs to time his runs better;  Dom Vose, a splendid performance with skill and effort for a bloke who joined on Friday;  Rowan Vine, has not kicked a ball in anger for 8 months but almost turned the game upon his introduction. Biggest disappointment, Jamal who had been superb this season - not a left back.  Got to sort this out pdq Jodie, otherwise we will run out of time and points - not helped, of course, by player targets signing for clubs who can pay half as much again as we can afford.

 

 

 

I see how the team is trying to play but by having just Penny up front they need to play a lot more balls through for him to run onto, when we done this in the first half it nearly came off apart from the linesmen against us. But Penny is never going to win the ball in the air, so if they are going to play this way we need to play two upfront with Vine playing that big man role with Penny playing off of him.

We passed the ball ok but there was no penetration, never looked like getting into any dangerous areas.

When Williams gets back I would move Osborne to left back and have Williams in right back. Vose looked to comfortable on the ball, but lacked pace so best suited to a central role.

The real problem with playing wing backs is there is no width up front when playing from quick from the back, so it forces us play controlled out from the back to allow the wing backs to push up. Playing only one up front in the first half we should have really controlled the midfield a lot more.

I think it will get better but our one strong point (Home Form) has now gone so we need to pick up points away.


Vose, Carmichael, Osborne, Vine looked good, I prefer Fyfield to Purse as I think Fyfield has done nothing wrong to loose the CB role. But you can see Purse is a leader on the pitch.

richie19rich77 wrote:

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I see how the team is trying to play but by having just Penny up front they need to play a lot more balls through for him to run onto, when we done this in the first half it nearly came off apart from the linesmen against us. But Penny is never going to win the ball in the air, so if they are going to play this way we need to play two upfront with Vine playing that big man role with Penny playing off of him.

We passed the ball ok but there was no penetration, never looked like getting into any dangerous areas.

When Williams gets back I would move Osborne to left back and have Williams in right back. Vose looked to comfortable on the ball, but lacked pace so best suited to a central role.

The real problem with playing wing backs is there is no width up front when playing from quick from the back, so it forces us play controlled out from the back to allow the wing backs to push up. Playing only one up front in the first half we should have really controlled the midfield a lot more.

I think it will get better but our one strong point (Home Form) has now gone so we need to pick up points away.


Vose, Carmichael, Osborne, Vine looked good, I prefer Fyfield to Purse as I think Fyfield has done nothing wrong to loose the CB role. But you can see Purse is a leader on the pitch.

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 Where has the phrase "wing-backs" come from? Is that how you thought we played today?

-- Edited by Kevin on Saturday 17th of January 2015 09:01:55 PM

We didn't have wing-backs, nor have we all season. We had fullbacks that pushed forward in the second half because Alfreton were sitting so deep having been afforded a two goal head start.

I'm not sure I understand much of the rest given the volume of mistakes in spelling, grammar and lack of punctuation.

And yes, the only one that matters is the manager, so shall we perhaps try to be positive, or say nothing, and let him do his job.

Awful game, the worst I can remember for years. Worried where Juanjoe was, disappointed to see Barney on the bench. Vose was excellent. Interesting to see such a style of play - very clearly Jody's way which is fine, just a little worried if we're not yet good or confident enough to play from the back in this way. Charlie needs support.

Saw Joe before the game. Said he has a groin strain but hoped to be fit for next week.

Some very unhelpful stuff on here. Didn't play well enough I would agree. Jamal had an off day which we are all entitled to but he has been superb at left back in other games so to say he isn't one is ridiculous. When he plays well his pace causes problems and of course we also have Ben Jefford when fit.

Dominic Vose had a promising debut but sometimes needed to move the ball on quicker.

My biggest criticism would be that we weren't brave enough on the ball most of the time. Too often went backwards and when we did go forward no one took responsibility to play the right ball into the box, so we ended up just passing a bit aimlessly.

That comes from a bit of lack of confidence.

Would agree that Charlie can't do it alone up front and that needs to change, but Rowan Vine is not match fit yet.

To call the performance a 'disgrace' is over the top and everyone needs to encourage and support rather than get on the backs of the new manager and the team

Oh and purse and vine arguing over a penalty at 3-0 down is of equal embarrassment.

Cannot believe the negativity I heard at the match yesterday, and on here.

With the starting 11 vastly different to the one that we had at the start of the season, it's effectively like we're starting the season all over again - and remember how long it took those players to gel at the actual start of the season, and how they then came good. Let's judge them over a much longer period than this.

There were a lot of comments yesterday to the effect of "worst home performance ever / for years." These people must have very short memories. No one will argue for yesterday being an acceptable performance, but I've certainly seen worse.

Also can't believe the comments questioning why Williams didn't start. He's just coming back from an ankle injury! I think a match fit Barney should always start, but let's not risk him getting injured for a longer period.

There were positives from yesterday. The new guys in midfield and attack look like good acquisitions. We had the vast majority of possession (and, yes, before anyone says, I know we should have done more with it). Hudson looked really lively when he came on - he's always a good option to have on the bench. Plus we kept going right until the end of the match; at three nil down we were still trying to get forward and get goals.

Getting on the backs of the players and management is never going to help them. Let's get behind them now and see how we're doing in a few weeks' time.

On reflection, I think I was a mite harsh on Jamal.  He has had a good season so far, as I admitted, and he has played well at left back in other games - yesterday, however, was the exception.  Thrilled to see Vose play the way he did on his first appearance - one contact which may well pay dividends for Jody.

I thought the pitch looked exceptionally heavy yesterday, not a criticism of Piggy who performs miracles to get it playable in recent condtions considering two teams use it. I wondered, however,  whether Jody's version of "total football" worked on that particular surface on what is a tight pitch although, of course, the team is still getting used to his tactics.  I think it will work better on bigger pitches - particularly the former football league ones.  It was noticeable that when Rowan came on we mixed it up a bit and it seemed to work.

It is An interesting toss up at the moment, potentially take several games to adapt to the philosophy Jody wants and get the points on the board from there, hoping the gap to the bottom doesn't close too much or slowly adapt the style, and try and pick up enough points on the way. The former obviously gives you a head start for next season, the latter may be the more pragmatic approach.

Whilst unfortunately yesterday was a significant loss the only way of telling we are on the right track is being 20th or better come the end of April. Even if we aren't, you can't assume we would have had a better result under Day.