Barney

This isn't a binary choice - it's entirely possible to miss non league football and watching ETFC whilst still caring about those affected by the pandemic. Taking your logic to its conclusion, we should never post on this forum, as there's always something more important happening in the world 😐

Hope you're all having a good Christmas, aren't too bored and most importantly are staying healthy. A year or so ago, I put together an ETFC XI based on the best team on paper had the players played for us at the peak of their powers (for example someone like Greg Heald wasn't the player he was when he moved to Peterborough when he re-joined Town, and likewise Mark Cousins was a decent young keeper for Town, but went on to much greater things). 1. Mark Cousins 2. Lee Protheroe 3. Al-James Hannigan 4. Bradley Quinton 5. Darren Purse 6. Greg Heald 7. Jonat

If we'd brought our shooting boots we would have been out of sight by 80 minutes in a game which we largely dominated. Just needed a bit more game management towards the end to see out what should have been a comfortable win. Credit to M&T, they kept at it for 90 minutes, but we were very much our own worst enemy tonight, despite playing pretty well in the most part.

We don't have either player on contract as far as I'm aware.

Although if we don't enter said arrangement, and hold on to the player for 7 days so they can't play, I suspect that the player would be much less likely to return because things aren't amicable. I think we're ultimately between a rock and a hard place, and that what we've done is probably the better of the two options as it might encourage one or both players to show some loyalty.

Regardless of who the manager is, we're going to run into this issue - if we don't have players on contract, then there's nothing stopping clubs higher up (or with more money) from approaching players, then it's ultimately up to the player whether they want to stay, or move on. There's still a chance that one or both of the players will have some loyalty to Town, and are approaching this as a temporary way to get game time and maintain fitness... but I'm not confident.

Agree with much of what's been said above - LS's suggestion of getting players to sign nominal contracts so that they command a fee should they move on higher sounds good to me, but as I've said before isn't something that I think we can just do unilaterally. If we do, then those promising young players that might have joined us would go up the road to another club in the division who aren't insisting on this, as it affords them a much greater chance of moving up the leagues if they do well. It would be great if all clubs at our step agreed to do this en-masse, so players didn't have the

I wasn't at the game, but very pleasing to see things unfold on Twitter, we have this sort of performance in us, just not the consistency. Let's hope for a similar performance on Tuesday, and then get some injured players fit in the enforced break (assuming we do resume the season at some point).

Also maybe worth saying, I was very impressed with Carshalton's coverage on their YouTube channel - the camera work was decent enough, and the commentator was engaging, and well briefed on both line ups. No idea if they're going to be reading this, but definitely a thumbs up from me 👍

Good summary Raingod - pretty dire watching in the second half, after we didn't look terrible first half (although I missed the first 20). We're going to lose games, that's a given, but when we do lose we really are awful. I've said it before: I don't totally object to a direct style of play, I can remember some very good Enfield sides in the early / mid 90s that were happy to go long - the difference being that they had the personnel to do it. If we're going to go long all the time, why not get some strikers who are comfortable holding the ball up? I accept that Okoje is injured, but surely w

Nice finish for their second - only one side deserves to be winning this from what I've seen

Gotta love Harry Ottaway though, makes it look easy

Agreed about the kit clash - very strange! Also impressed by the upgraded floodlights. Not a good game at all, and we probably deserved to be behind at halftime, but for some wayward finishing from Margate. Too may long balls lumped up for their No. 5 to win, and Billy working hard but not getting much for his efforts. Second half looked like more of the same, and then for once instead of kicking long, McDonald rolled the ball out to Urquhart, who traveled into midfield and seemed to cause Margate more issues than we had for the entire game up until that point. From then on, we actually p

Agreed - I'm not saying we should either. All I'm saying is that I think Okoje is a more natural centre forward, and foil for Bricknell, and we miss him as a result. Although I wasn't at the game on Saturday, based on what people have said, it sounds like we should have changed things sooner when they weren't working, and should generally be more adaptable in terms of formation.

I wasn't at the game on Saturday, but was on Tuesday - the biggest frustration for me is that we clearly can turn up and play very well at times, but we just can't seem to do it consistently enough. We need to put together the consistent run of performances and results that our squad is more than capable of - I think Andy deserves a lot of credit in putting an (in my view) excellent squad together, but the pressure is now on him to get us playing well (or at least grinding out results when things aren't clicking) game after game, not just from time to time. As a side point, as I know a lo