Jimmie wrote:

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We have played 13 games so far, and after another 10 games will have reached the half way stage of 23 matches. We are 5 points adrift after an uneven fixture start of 8 top half teams and 5 lower half teams, and this imbalance matters, as we have done well against the 5 lower half teams, 2 wins and a draw. But we have also shown promise with 3 draws against top 7 teams.

After our next 10 fixtures we will have had a balanced mix of games, 11 top half teams, and 12 lower half teams. The 11 matches of the first quarter of the season was gelling and working out the striking situation, but we still won enough points to keep in touch with the team above. So now we are in the second quarter of the season, the team gelled, the striker situation clearer, I am confident we will start to climb, as our next 10 games to the half way stage and current positions is a lot to look forward to, so really looking forward to the Chippenham game, as it will carry on the good work of the Maidstone game in the second quarter of the season, which ends with the Bath game in December.

Chippenham 17th
Weymouth 18th
Dover 22nd
Slough 21st
Braintree 13th
Hampton 9th
Yeovil 1st
Weston 15th
Eastbourne 19th
Bath 2nd

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Team news - Javarn Pitterson remains in goal, Tanga and Muwonge both start with Bramble and White on the bench.

Papadopoulos on for Muwonge

Kamara on for Odusanya

We should have won that. So many chances.

Two or three wins back to back will see us fly up the table. I believe the goals will come back but we have to get the basics right and have a game plan to score. We could probably do with playing a strong team on Monday and scoring a few.

2 points lost. Chippenham the worst side seen at PVR so far this season. They were awful. Saying that we need to score.

Cannot disagree with the above. I am not one to wax lyrical about formations but I was a little confused about how we played, certainly in the first half. Unless he is carrying an injury, I cannot for the life of me see why Paps is on the bench. For two matches now our goalkeeper has had little (or nothing) to do. At the other end, on Tuesday we were perhaps unlucky, today we were abysmal in front of goal. Early season I know, but we have to start putting teams like Chippingham away otherwise we are going to have usual struggle to maintain a place in this league. The manager appears eternally upbeat, that is great, but I should also like to see the ball hit the back of the net, which should mean more points on the board.

Ahead of this match I watched highlights of previous Chippenham games for an idea of how the opposition are, and was so unimpressed by them, they are a very slow team, playing at 80% of the pace we can play at, so I knew if we played at the pace of our matches against Boreham Wood and Maidstone we would blow Chippenham away, as they dont have the speed to keep up and match our quick play. But we got dragged down to Chippenham's level, blimey, we were so slow in passing the ball around, so didnt take advantage of our speed advantage, I even got so frustrated at watching us waste this great opportunity by not playing to our strengths I shouted "Speed up" to the players.

Luck counts a lot in the short term in football, in our last 4 games against Boreham Wood we hit the post, which if gone in would have led to a 1 - 1 draw, and there was nothing about Boreham Wood to suggest we wouldn't have won a replay. We hit the post in our 0 -0 draw with Maidstone, which we would have won 1 - 0 if it had gone in, and in the next match against Chippenham same story, hit the crossbar in a 0 - 0 draw, that we would have won 1 - 0 if it had gone in.

But the standout problem against Chippenham was which part of the goal we shot at. The most effective strikers know that one needs to shoot low and into corners as these are hard areas for keepers to reach. Keepers with good positioning sense know that the best area to stand in is the middle of the goal, as then you cover the middle of the goal, but are equally close to either side of the goal, so are not too stranded if a shot is made to either side. So this means when shooting one should aim for the corners of goals, as that will be out of the reach of the keeper. Yet nearly all our shots on target yesterday were directly at the keeper standing in the middle of the goal, we had lots of chances, but hardly any placed in the corners. The team urgently needs to do shooting practice, shooting low into the corners, so that when these opportunities arise in matches they have already learned where to place the ball. If you look at Harry Kane's goals, they are often the same goal over and over again, shooting low across the keeper to the opposite corner. We create tons of shooting chances, so are half way there, we now just need to learn how to put them away, by more careful placement of the ball, away from the keeper.

Several times we had players getting the ball around the halfway line, going on a run, but then rather fizzling out, with passes to players in worse positions, rather than carrying on the run to have a shot. Hopefully the players will be encouraged to carry on the runs and end it with a shot.

We have played with two strikers only for the last few minutes of matches when we are looking for a goal. But we have been so creative with a second striker on it is a real mistake not to play with two up front against the lower teams. Chippenham are a crap team, so why only play defensively with one striker against such a team, who offer so little in attack? If we had been bolder and started with 2 up front they couldn't have handled the pace and power of David and Tristan. Our next 3 games are against bottom 7 teams, so hopefully we will see how much more of a threat we are when we play 2 up front, and be more attacking in our team selection. The switch to one holding midfielder has worked perfectly, and that has freed up a player, who has been placed in midfield, but far better to place the freed up player in attack against the lower placed teams.