Great win. The team digged in on a difficult pitch. The kind of game we have lost last season. Coombes was a great outlet and linked up well with Brad but I hope we keep Philpot.
-- Edited by Chris on Saturday 10th of March 2018 05:19:14 PM
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh When the Wingssssss
Well done to the squad and management. What's good is the clean sheets we are managing of late. (Wealdstone could almost be included in that). Much much better defensively than earlier in the season. Adam Coombes scoring was the icing. Please god he gets close to the form he was in when he moved on last season.
Good to see another clean sheet although we gave lots of free kicks away during the final 15-20 mins. A more clinical side would take advantage (ref was poor today though). Coombes looked good and I thought Ryan Hall looked fitter/sharper and got back to help the defence out. Heavy pitch but to get three points is job done
Strange having a coachload of Bognor fans there due to their game off at Concord.
Very happy with that result at the weekend (the final score probably flattered them to be honest) Three successive away games and six points taken (although it should have been seven!) Now 10 games left to push on for the play offs - 5 at home and 5 away. The home ones predominantly against play off/title contenders and the away ones predominantly against teams at the bottom fighting for survival.
I thought the back four, both individually and collectively, played well on Saturday. The new centre half was quite reminiscent of AA and used his height and strength to get his head on most things. I have sometimes been critical of Parky on this forum but he had a good game as well. Kept it simple, didn't try to over play and when the ball needed clearing he cleared it! The midfield quartet worked hard throughout especially the two in the middle. Jebb will never have the pace to beat people but his delivery is good and he can supply more for the forwards. Hall also works hard on the other side but I am never quite sure what he is going to do next?! He hit a rocket of a free kick and other times he seem to try and run through gaps that simply weren't there. As the manager alluded to in his interview the wide players need to get in at the far post when the ball is on the opposite wing as we might have scored more than one on Saturday by doing that.
Great to see Coombes back in a Welling shirt and he is going to a huge asset for us in the next ten games (and hopefully beyond!) He seemed to be the one creating the chances on Saturday rather than getting on the end of them. Once he and Goldberg have had a few more training sessions and get to understand each other on the pitch that can prove to be a very fruitful partnership. At the same time I do hope we extend the loan of Philpot as he can be a real handful against tiring defences - going into the rest of the season with only two recognised strikers would be far from ideal although perhaps he and his teammates can do a little work on beating the offside trap in the next couple of training sessions...?! As on Monday night the concession of silly free kicks and offsides invited more pressure in the closing stages and that is always going to be a problem when the game is so tight.
One small gripe for me is the discipline issue. I believe there were 5 bookings on Saturday and at least 4 on Monday night?? We are operating with a small squad and the yellow cards are racking up. We had our skipper suspended on Saturday due to 10 yellows and there must be others not far away from that number now..?? We can ill afford to be missing players at all let alone maybe having more than one or two suspended for the same games during the run in. Whilst I appreciate that some yellows may be necessary in "taking one for the team" there were some silly tackles and a little bit too much backchat at times at the weekend. We are more than capable of cementing a place in the play offs but we must try and keep all our players available for the run in...
One small gripe for me is the discipline issue. I believe there were 5 bookings on Saturday and at least 4 on Monday night?? We are operating with a small squad and the yellow cards are racking up. We had our skipper suspended on Saturday due to 10 yellows and there must be others not far away from that number now..?? We can ill afford to be missing players at all let alone maybe having more than one or two suspended for the same games during the run in. Whilst I appreciate that some yellows may be necessary in "taking one for the team" there were some silly tackles and a little bit too much backchat at times at the weekend. We are more than capable of cementing a place in the play offs but we must try and keep all our players available for the run in...
Up the Wings!
I also made it 5 and 4. The one grain of comfort is that it appears that last weekend may have been the cut off date for ten bookings.
