FAO :- ANDY FORD

[Alan W (GNFC)]

Those slating us because we lost 4-0 - did they see the comments from Mark Wright, the Chester Manager, to Chas Webster, that appeared in the NLP??

 

It says "I dont think they deserved to get beaten like that. They've had a real go at us today. I felt sorry for them and I dont think the crowd were right to have a go at the manager".

 

It goes on "We thoroughly dserved it, but I dont think the scoreline is fair to Gravesend. They had a lot of possession and worked their socks off. We had chances and we took them. Give them credit, they've got to keep going, got to keep fighting, and I dont think they deserved a spanking as big as they got".

 

(Sorry for lifting that, Chas, but thought it appropriate to use it here)

 

We matched them for 30 minutes, then conceded 2 soft goals, and it was always going to be difficult from there.

 

Its alright to blame O'Reilly for the first goal (and this does seem to be a weakness of his game, if we look at the first goal at Woking as well)but should a simple header through the middle have put him in that position? Undoubtedly not, but had Pennock been playing Centre Back/ sweeper, I doubt it would have happened.

 

For the second goal, I thought the blame lay with Matt Lee, as much as Rob Haworth. If you have to pull a forward back to do a defenders job, errors will occur - after all, how many forwards can truly defend well? But Matt's dreadful clearance 2 minutes earlier which saw the ball returtned deep and O'Reilly concede the corner was the real problem in my opinion (and he otherwise had a decent game, considering he again had to fill in at Centre Half)

 

It was also easy to criticise some of the balls played into the centre, but several were actually decent balls, which surely would have been in the back of the net had we got a true centre forward.Mind you, we do need to sort out the free kicks properly as all were wasted on the day (and Ford admitted this in the NLP as well)

 

We must stand behind the team if we are to survive - not turn tail and run, or worse, turn up and turn against the players and management.

 

Look at Kettering last year - their fans stood 4 square behind them, until it was mathematically impossible for them to survive. Lets do the same for the Fleet this year (and hopefully, it wont be with the same end result as Kettering)

 

And, in the case of Ade Pennock, I cannot believe that Andy does not use his experience in providing input to the team and its performance - I know I would be using that experience if I were Andy, and I'm sure that Andy isnt so stupid that he ignores this option as well.