0-1

Donkor on for Johnson

Long on for Kennedy

Cornish on for Grant

Shocking refereeing yet again.

Heres my analysis
First half, three sets of players, defenders, midfielders/defenders and two attackers/midfielders.
No form of integration/movement at all.
Second half, pretty much the same until Long comes on, integrates and we suddenly look threatening.

That chance we had early in the first when the big wingate lad got outmuscled off the ball was embarrassing poor.
Put your arms/body out, your 6.5 foot, no one should be allowed to get anywhere near you.

We started this season so resolutely, now we look so readable.

We need to turn defence to attack using ball to feet football.
We are simply hoping long balls give us something, that in itself shows our hand.
It is apparent we lack the ability to string passes, or so it currently appears

Both wings show nothing, so to point the fingers at our forwards alone is harsh.

When you think you would like the sort of player Adigan was last season, yet cant get a starting role for Tonbridge, gives you an idea of what it needs at this llevel

I think Rod is working Miracles with what he has got, because quite frankly, it is not a lot.

Regarding set pieces, does anyone ever envisage a positive from them?

A terrible first 40ish minutes. After the performance on Tuesday night when the team looked organised, cohesive and energetic I arrived today with optimism but instead we regressed to the level of performance we put in against against Chatham and Chesham. They livened up for the last few minutes of the first half but up to that point it just wasn't good enough.
The second half was a definite improvement and they showed a bit of heart and fight that was missing in the first half. But yet again we have got a set of officials who don't have the ability to make simple decisions. I felt we had two good shouts for a penalty with one looking absolutely nailed on. There was also an offside right in front of me which didn't get flagged and it wasn't even close. I know we can't simply blame the officials but when you're down there scrapping for points, which unfortunately we are at the minute, these decisions (or lack of decisions) are killing us. And the change of dugouts didn't bring us any luck with getting better decisions!!
On a positive note I thought our defence dealt really well with the aerial bombardment and the players managed to keep their heads despite the terrible referee decisions and the alarming amount of time wasting by the away side. How can they be allowed to take nearly a minute to take a throw in!! A player walking 3/4 the length of the pitch, then taking an age to clean the ball, the walk out his run up like a fast bowler, then consider his options before eventually just launching it long again!! Woeful! Our next two games are now massive, so let's see how the team (both on the pitch and in the dugout) react when they know we really need the points.

I remember Wallop pissed me off when he said I was sugarcoating about Warren, so I said exactly what I thought of Warren, as I had finally lost patience with that fraud bankrupting us in his delusional pursuit of a career as a football manager, that will never work as he alienates players, fans, officials and is too arrogant to ever acknowledge these failings, or learn from mistakes, so makes them in every club misguided enough to employ him (every mistake he made at Welling he then made at Glentoran). And I had a similar post last season after we played Cheltenham, when I watched us lose aimlessly with Danny Bloor YET AGAIN, and it hit me I had been seeing the same old crap football from Danny for MONTHS, and had been blinded by what a nice guy he was ("UP the Wings" and all that) but actually, he didnt have a clue.

This post is a similarly WOAH now just hold on a minute here post.

OK, to put this in context, I've had a couple of cans on the way home, so this may be longer than my Jimmy inspired new short posting style of chatty post, where these days I just say my headline 3 or 4 points, whereas in my Johnny Hartley days I said everything I thought, so nice on Jimmy on making me realise stick to the biggest points.

But... here we go, biggest points, and lesser ones, but just as important. OK, I was talking with a Welling player about the Boreham game, and he mentioned how Boreham were so calm on the ball, had so much more time and space on the ball than us. Now I have never been a player, so I love it when I get player insights, as I watch it from a fan perspective, but that perspective may not be realistic. Like, fans will so simple solution "go out and get a proven NLS level striker", but we may not have the budget to get that, and there may not be proven NLS strikers available, as let's be honest, any decent strikers will already be signed up, so the only ones one can get are unproven gambles at NLS, or NLS failures one will take a gamble one can make work out. Which may be no better than wot we already got.

I LOVED that insight from the player, since then I have noticed we just kick the ball wildly, instead of precisely passing it to one of our own players, most of the time we then lose the ball, so then we are chasing the game instead of having the ball and controlling the game. We were at home today, I doubt we even had 40% possession at home. And how can we score if we hardly have the ball, and when we have it we quickly give it away again with sloppy passes. And they can score, as they have so much more of the ball than us, as we keep bloody stupidly giving it to them!

Our crap passing means we are always chasing games.

And we dont block crosses or block oncoming opponents, and give sloppy free kicks and penalties away. So no wonder we are in relegation trouble. It is the same uncorrected mistakes, game after game in the last month.

I was thinking coming home Rod and Kevin really need to take a hard look at themselves, and think they are better than this crap we have been producing for the last month, and improve it by just reminding the players YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS, DON'T PANIC, pass the ball calmly and accurately, KEEP POSSESSION. We had 22% possession first half against Boreham Wood, we'll never get anywhere if we keep passing sloppily and lose the ball and give the other side the initiative.

First half against Worthing was the best football we have played this season, as good as any last season. Yet once we concede we panic, rush everything and it all falls apart.

Yes, I dont mind saying once again, Martell is a dead end for us in attack, god knows what Rod sees in him and obstinately keeps playing him instead of exploring better options, I don't, when there are miles better proven alternatives like Elliot, and Gene, yet Elliot is used as a midfield sub and Rod plays joint top scorer Gene as a holding midfielder. We have NO creative supply to the strikers, as our only two creative midfielders (Elliot and Gene) are either not playing most of the time (Elliot), or played out of position in a defensive role (Gene). We've all seen the players by now, just imagine, what would we be like with Elliot and Anointed in attack, and Gene just behind them, in an attacking midfield role. We are 11 games into the season, take away Martell's wonder goal, and what has he brought to the team? I'd say cut your losses withim, and play someone else up front, in the same way for whatever Reece Grant didnt work out, so we looked at other options. No disrespect to Martell, he will work out well elsewhere, but for us, now, he is not the answer.

We've got 2 of the bottom teams coming up now, St Albans, Enfield, ffs, if we panic against them instead of playing our strength of quick ACCURATE passing that we played early in the season, when we were 9th, well positioned for a play off run, then we are screwed. Last season I was rock solid sure we would stay up, even 9 points adrift, as I could see our players had a winners mentality. This year blimey, we give the ball away cheaply, give the other side the initiative, so we chase games, instead of controlling. So this season I watched our match today, and even before looking at the table at half time thought we look like a relegation team, because of all the faults I have mentioned in this post. Yes, we conceded a daft goal today, and it was the only goal of the game, so one could cobble together a story we were unlucky, but how many shots on target did we have today? How many shots on target do we have most matches? Why did we have no creativity in midfield or striker having shots? We have the answers in the squad, but are not using them correctly. And sadly, that is clearly not going to change, Elliot will carry on being used as a bit player, which is a sad waste, I loved him defending around our corner flag today, he puts so much into the game, his effort and contribution compared to Martell's is miles apart, but the people picking the team dont see that. Gene will end up thinking this is a waste of time at Welling, and go off to a team that plays him in an attacking role, which clearly he loves playing and motivates him more than holding midfield. Rod, Kevin and the players are miles better than scrappy Welling, but that is what they are dishing out to us right now, and need to get their self respect back, and make sure we deliver better. Football is a game of opinions, but I note none f the issues above have been commented on by the coaching squad, maybe they don't see the problems I see, but the magic about Welling is how honest a club it is, so I am just saying how I see it.

A very frustrating afternoon yesterday.

First half we were very poor and lucky to only be one down. Didn't win a first or second ball all half and every player seemed to be on their heels throughout. Of course people can have bad days and bad halves but there was a distinct lack of effort from a few of them in my opinion.

Second half was better and we huffed and puffed but when your centre half looks like the best source of a goal that has to be a worry. I would sit down with Long and Chukwu and find out how they got 40 goals between them last season and try and replicate that. Yes they have stepped up a level but you don't suddenly lose the ability to score goals overnight...

Also I am baffled by the changes in formation from week to week and a few times during the game yesterday. We don't have much time to work with the players and keeping things as simple as possible would surely make life easier for them...??

We need to stop blaming officials for everything as well. We have had two players dismissed for diving this season and, rightly or wrongly, that earns you a reputation. Eastbourne knew the "dark arts" very well and the referee let them get away with it. For a full time side I expected better but they will say that the ends justified the means and they would be right. I would love to see a Welling team using the dark arts if necessary but we have to get in front first!

I wrote more than usual yesterday, and again now, as I was shocked to look at the table at half time, Enfield were leading, so we were 4th from bottom. They went on to lose, but seeing that half time table was a wake up call. The players seem a bit complacent, ignoring Rods spot on demands to do the basics, close down, no silly free kicks, blocking crosses and we are in a mess because of that player complacency. It is not rubbish from Rod, he is right what he tells them game after game, and them still getting those things wrong is a big part of why we are in the relegation zone. The bottom 4 teams are not complacent and are waking up and getting improved results, from the last 4 games Enfield have won twice, St Albans got a win and 2 draws, and Weymouth have a win and a draw, while us and Aveley have lost our last 4 games. So our players need to wake up to all the improvement others are making, and do the same.

I remember with Danny our attack was odd, we created usually 9 shots or more per game, but our accuracy was really poor, so were wide or saved. I chatted with one of our coaches of that team, telling him a big problem we had in attack was we didnt get enough players forward, as we had a lone striker, and then a massive gap behind him until the next Welling player. The coach agreed and said they had been encouraging players to get in the box more. Some relevance to us this season too, if were playing now, how many different players would we expect to score, or even have an assist?

This season we seem to have many fewer shots, and few on target, quite a few games where we get none or only one or two shots on target. I looked at the highlights of our 3 league wins (Aveley, Farnborough, Torquay) , to remind myself what we did right in those games, what success looks like. Gene looked good in attacking positions. Very little Reece Grant or Martell activity in the winning highlights, Anointed missed Aveley but not coincidentally on for the other two wins.

I dont mind going into specifics about my reservations about Martell, as that is constructive. Judging by amount of time played Rod isnt convinced by Elliot, which is a shame, and a loss for us, as he offers a lot more than many of our players with his tackling, unlike Martell who doesnt seem to see closing down as part of his job in attack, and Elliot offers tons more in his attacking link up play. Against Eastbourne our striking pair Anointed and Martell were mostly unconnected, no real striking partnership, usually one much further up the pitch than the other, and usually far away from each other on opposite sides of the pitch, so none of the quick passing link up play from playing close to each other at times we need from our strikers in attack or that have been behind our goals. Players always have the chance to prove doubters wrong, hopefully Martell improves those areas, for us, or if not with us, in future elsewhere.

Fifteen paragraphs over two messages of which one, maybe two, bear any resemblance to the title of this thread...

Serves me right for reading them all I suppose....

Look forward to a chat with Alan at a match to find who his 7-8 potential changes are, seems too high to me. Ive questions about Cameron, TJ Bramble and Martell, not seen enough of Dave Carthy to have a firm view on him, but rate all others, as long as they fix their mistakes of sloppy play, so curious over wholl go. Rod's doing a sound job, I was struck, his interviews get twice the views of our match highlights! On publicly calling out players, interesting to see George Alexander say in a post match interview, Sometimes you need to say were not good enough, because people get better from that. I agree, if the players respond the right way, hes right.

The team is sloppy with passing and distribution. Boreham in the first half gave us a fantastic lesson in keeping possession, 78% them, 22% us, and they went in 3 0 ahead because of that. So much we should learn from that.

I agree with Alan, no problem with our keeper and defence (weve only let in 2 goals in our last 2 games) we know about striking issues, but it's also a midfield problem - of not tracking and blocking their attacks, and not looking to score or make assists. Antony Grant does a great job in midfield, breaking up play, getting the ball forward, but weve needed a second player also doing that in midfield.

I read this article about England after our Greece match, lots is similar to problems with Welling just now, "What was striking about Englands performance against Greece was not simply the incoherence but the lack of vigour and commitment. Pulling out of tackles. Allowing Greek players to dribble into dangerous areas with impunity. A lack of pressure on the man in possession. Take a longer view and the Greece game was simply part of a wider pattern of staid, inchoate, borderline-illegible England performances in the past 12 months. Something feels rotten at the core of this squad. You can see it in the insipid and erratic pressing, the unmodulated effort, the idea that tracking and covering is somebody elses job. You can see it in the body language, which turns negative suspiciously quickly." That bit, "the idea that tracking and covering is somebody elses job" is particularly so us at the moment too, that repeat situation of us not stopping crosses going in, to a guy who has made a run none of us are marking or blocking. Once I've looked in the dictionary to see what "inchoate" means I possibly may agree with that too! We could have a new song, to puzzle opposition fans (and me!) "We're inchoate, we're inchoate, you're not, you're not". Massive games against St Albans and Enfield next.

-- Edited by Jimmie on Tuesday 15th of October 2024 08:49:21 AM