Despite the terrible pitch which made any kind of flowing performance difficult, without Porter upfront there seemed to be a big lack of urgency and work rate. Thought that really was telling in our performance.
On a good pitch and a better performance from us we should turn them over on Tuesday!
Job half done. Under Bentley and Little, Grays may enjoy playing on a comparatively better surface. Take nothing for granted, this is the Cup and we have players cup-tied, injured and unavailable. Also, as par for the course, supporters make less noise at home.
-- Edited by OMERTA elb on Sunday 25th of October 2015 05:19:41 PM
I dont doubt Grays will play better football on a better surface. I just think on a better pitch (I am hoping) the different quality of players will start to show through some more than it did today!
To be honest the pitch at mill field is a leveller but bare in mind out best performances so far this season have been away from home. Even without the pitch today I honestly believe we outplayed you guys and wanted it more. It's a tough ask on Tuesday but only time will tell. Best of luck to both teams. COYB
-- Edited by Graysboy on Sunday 25th of October 2015 06:34:27 PM
I dont doubt Grays will play better football on a better surface. I just think on a better pitch (I am hoping) the different quality of players will start to show through some more than it did today!
So it follows if your players are better quality you should have coped better than us today.Anyway looking forward to the game and at least we are both in the hat!!
I can't disagree with that, you guys should have beaten us today and were unlucky not to, fingers crossed its just a better game of football to watch than today!
Look forward to Tuesday hopefully with the motivation of a good draw tomorrow!
Obviously having watched the game today we came away very luckily with the draw
I have to question the fact that we are the fittest we have ever been
For me a few players looked knackered after 20-25 minutes hopefully come Tuesday we are more on our game
I dont doubt Grays will play better football on a better surface. I just think on a better pitch (I am hoping) the different quality of players will start to show through some more than it did today!
So it follows if your players are better quality you should have coped better than us today.Anyway looking forward to the game and at least we are both in the hat!!
The crucial difference is that the home team is used to playing on that surface every other week. I think we need to talk to Leatherhead about Grays!
Nothing to do with the pitch or anything else like that...They f##k in wanted it more...Their number 9 is class and caused our defence more problems than I've seen any striker at our level do, and the number 5 had the easiest game of his life dealing with a long ball to the 5ft nothing kabba...Positives, well we showed a bit of fight again though was the same 3 players showing it, bakare looks decent (as in better than what we have) I'd start him Tuesday night...where's this keeper we signed??? Maybe he should play Tuesday.
There was certainly more desire and urgency from Grays, credit to them. Our excuses about injuries and unavailable players do not excuse the team on the pitch appearing to be taking it all far too casually, certainly until we concede. The pressure is on our management team to identify the best system for the players available for Tuesday and then motivate them. Like the old school reports used to say - "could do better".
What a game to get across and see....it was brutal. The players lacked desire and ideas, even my sister who came with me to watch figured it was pointless lobbing it up every time for their centre halves to mop up EVERY time... Grays wanted it more and deserved the win.
-- Edited by ulsterwings on Monday 26th of October 2015 07:57:51 AM
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IT'S TIME TO STAND UP TO THE PLATE, IT'S TIME TO BECOME LEGENDS
Nothing to do with the pitch or anything else like that...They f##k in wanted it more...Their number 9 is class and caused our defence more problems than I've seen any striker at our level do, and the number 5 had the easiest game of his life dealing with a long ball to the 5ft nothing kabba...Positives, well we showed a bit of fight again though was the same 3 players showing it, bakare looks decent (as in better than what we have) I'd start him Tuesday night...where's this keeper we signed??? Maybe he should play Tuesday.
Our 9 DD Dumaka will be trialling with Bournemouth soon,West Ham and Ipswich also intrested.
Let's leave the pitch out of it - it was poor for both sides and we should have been able to tell that from the warm up and adapted accordingly.
First things first how on earth did we let ourselves go into arguably the biggest game of the season with such a threadbare squad?!?! Loan deals should have been arranged to finish before the date of this game and players getting cup tied is plain stupid and it's not exactly the first time it has happened. I can sort of understand that Millwall would not want King to play as one injury and he could be on their bench but are we seriously to believe that Lee and Semedo will feature for Orient in the FA Cup this season?! When we sign these loanees this has to be one of the first things we sort out.
I think Grays passed it back to their keeper twice in the whole game where as we did it countless times. Mcentegart can't kick straight on a bowling green so the poor bloke has no chance on a surface like that. What we needed to do was play it down the channels and over their back four rather than lump it straight at them to a five foot nothing striker and another forward who was knackered, injured or couldn't be bothered (or perhaps all three) and should have been hooked after twenty minutes. You could have got two big blokes out of the crowd yesterday who could have played centre half for Grays. Contrast that to their striker who worked our defence all game, held the ball up, drew some fouls and was a real handful throughout. If he had been wearing red then we would have won the game.
Trying to play through the midfield on that surface was a non starter. Wellard, aside for his assist for the goal, contributed absolutely nothing at all. When we played 4-4-2 in the first half he didn't track back at all and help Barney out but preferred to stay upfield and wait for the ball to be cleared. Vidal and Corne were getting swamped in the middle and Harris seems devoid of confidence to take his man on and couldn't wait to get rid of the ball. Set pieces are a big factor at this level and even more so on a pitch like that and ours were, not for the first time, atrocious. Nice to see Fagan back on the pitch (let's hope he stays fit) and Bakare at least looked like he was interested. The usual suspects gave it their all - Corne could have hidden after missing that sitter but continued plugging away and got his reward with a great finish. Barney had his first 90 minutes for some time and the other lads at the back and Harris at least put a shift in. We are getting nothing out of Vidal shunting him from pillar to post - he needs to play off the striker but it seems the captain is now bulletproof and has that position tied up come what may....
Last but certainly not least who is actually picking the team on a Saturday/Sunday. I am heartily fed up with the "management team" jargon that we keep getting fed. Someone has to stick their head over the parapet and take the responsibility for being in charge of the tactics, substitutions etc...etc...three heads are better than one is nonsense and the players looked confused as to what they are supposed to be doing. Quite frankly, in my humble opinion, it feels like we have three blokes playing Football Manager with Welling United FC at this present moment in time.
Make no mistake this tie is far from over. We are very lucky to get a second bite of the cherry and a repeat of yesterday's "performance" and we can forget about the next round.
Well said Wingnut. I couldn't go yesterday but at the last home game v Lincoln Vidal seemed to have no idea where he was meant to be playing, not his fault as the players were moved around constantly during that game. He seemed to somehow end up as a single deep lying midfielder despite it being obvious from previous games that his best position is playing off the Centre Forward.
I am not convinced by Wellard, he is not what was needed, we needed a direct replacement for Jake and I would have kept Joe Healy even if he never trained once as he was canny and a proven player for Welling at this level.
We seem to have acquired a squad of players that the management team are still deciding on how to mould into a starting team.
Porter is a good player and is sorely missed, but what is the plan B if he is missing as we still don't seem to have figured that one out!!
Anyway, Best of Luck to the Team for the replay and hopefully our management team will come up with the right line up and play players in the correct positions.
I'd love to know what we work on in training three times a week, it can't be attacking corners otherwise we'd know who can't get the ball past the first defender unless it goes so far it bounces just inside the far side of the box, and it certainly isn't fitness. Yesterday we had a striker out on his feet after 20 minutes having put in what I can only describe as "a KSA style shift", and a midfielder who can only seem to run when it's toward the opponent's goal. At one point midway through the first half we were defending the edge of our area, yet we had three men on the halfway line, one of them wandering slowly back and another with his hands on his knees!
