Hard fought victory.
Eastbourne came for the draw. I counted one corner and one effort on target.
Really happy for Kiernan. We will need him more as the season continues.
He was on fire at the start of the season, and think his confidence has slowly declined as the season has worn on.
Hope today's run that won the penalty, and his coolly finished goal inspire him.
Thought the new forward from Barnet looked good.
Needs a few games to gel with the rest of the team, but his off the ball movement shows that he can have a game.
Think the whole stadium was given a lift when Mills came on.
Like I mention, hard fraught, but well deserved victory.
Hearing Dartford let a goal lead slip to defeat with 5 mins to go, made for a all round enjoyable afternoon.
The first person to get hold of the video of Kiernans yellow card for diving, when it was a stonebonk penalty, should send it to Youve Been Framed. £250 is yours
Certainly looked a penalty to me, but no movement from the linesma, who wasnt consulted anyway.
i thought we were in charge for most of the match but despite all the pressure and possession we didnt convert enough into goal chances. Certainly brining Mills on made a difference, perhaps he should have started rather than Goldberg?
I agree the new forward moved around well, lots of effort but he needs better supply.
What an anonymous 90 minutes that was. From early on a mistake or a penalty looked about the only way the result was going to go one way or the other.
My only surprise is it wasn't a mistake, although you could argue the challenge that led to the penalty was that. Having attended the reverse fixture, despite the fact we handed out a battering in losing, both sides did what they did well. What happened to both of those sides?
I can understand you give the ball away more often against far superior sides (if you get it in the first place) but, on yesterday's evidence, these were equally matched sides. There seemed to be an unwritten rule you had to pass to the opposition at least once a minute. I don't believe it was to do we each play in the others change strips!
That was as anonymous and technically lacking display I have seen by two sides on the same pitch in a long while. However one piece of creativity swung it our way, which I will obviously take, as there was precious little else to stir the soul on offer. Assuming Brendan isn't ruled out for a while, hopefully we can move on to a better team performance next week.
A good result after a difficult week although the game itself was rather uninspiring.
I think we deserved the three points although that was as much down to a very poor Eastbourne side who offered next to nothing. I am not quite sure why we started with small and smaller up front as it was crying out for some physical presence and someone who could hold the ball up and/or win headers for the other striker. When we did get that combination things instantly looked better. Good to see Kiernan score again as he has looked a bit flat in recent weeks - I thought it was a penalty in the first half although the referee clearly thought different?! One poor aspect from Saturday was the set piece delivery. Yes we were spoilt earlier in the season in that regard but it is such a source of goals at all levels of football that we simply have to produce better than we did on Saturday. With the likes of Hill, Audel and Mills we have good targets to hit and should be looking for more goals and chances from set plays.
It is obviously going to be tough having reduced the squad to sustain a play off place but, if we have better luck on the injury front than we have had so far this season, then we have a team that can still compete near the top of this division. I am not sure if McNamara is included in this revised budget but I hope we can keep him as he has probably been our stand out player in the last few weeks and forms part of a good defensive unit. Clearly if we can get L'Ghoul back sooner rather than later (and keep him beyond the end of this month...) then that gives us a better attacking threat as well.
Looking forward to crossing swords with Wheeler and Co next weekend and hoping that Coombes and Lafayette show pity on their former employers for one afternoon!
