WHAT THE F### WAS THAT

[WHY DO I BOTHER]

Come on towners let’s not mince our words that was an absolute shocker… How we got away with the draw god only knows…. Gav has always prided himself with his organisation but what the hell was that… Taffe playing right back with Parcell playing as another number 4 next to Thomas 😟…. Micky i’m afraid is well below his normal standard and please someone tell me what Thomas brings… He isn’t a ball winner he can’t head he hasn’t got the legs to support the back 4 and his passing is shocking…. We played a back 6 …. Long hoofs forward hoping for a bit of luck … All we could do was go backwards in possession because there wasn’t anybody in front of the ball…. We have spent all season with a negative line up but at least we had some shape this was a mess from the  start until the substitutions…..

[WXEn8]

You forgot the continuous crossing/passing the ball behind the forwards!

What's that all about??? 

[OldTowner]

With Billericay going down 2-1 tonight and with their next game being away to Chatham - tonight was a massive missed opportunity for Town to climb the table.

Such a poor display by Town

Need a total shift by all of the team on Saturday or we will slide down the table. Repeat of tonight and Wingate will have an easy win.

[The Crowing Cockerel]

12 hours ago, OldTowner said:

Repeat of tonight and Wingate will have an easy win.

Wingate have some very good attacking players in Carvalho, Long and Chukwu. It really is time for Gavin to show us what he can do as a manager.

[djwilf]

Hate to say it but really does feel that either the players don't listen or whatever they're working on in training isn't working.   Either way seems that our "default" setting is to play it long which really isn't our best tactic when most of our players are best with the ball on the floor.    I think if we were playing the right way and giving the fans something positive to watch then we wouldn't be having this conversation but as has been said we really shouldn't be struggling so badly against teams in the relegation places and please don't tell me every team in this league is tough as the better teams tend to get the desired results.

However much Gavin says he needs to make changes, he rarely does and it reminds me of the teacher who threatens a punishment and then lets the kids off.   I'd really be happy to see many of the subs start as it can't be worse than the current form that is being demonstrated.

What would you do if you were in charge against Wingate?

With regard to other teams around us, I couldn't care less what they are doing, I'm only interested on us putting in a shift and playing with some passion and quality.   Is it that complicated?

[OldTowner]

Just read the Club match report

So Gavin was not happy - neither were we the paying supporters. Gavin and his Management Team are there to make changes if required.

That did not happen and there did not appear to be much “direction” from the bench.

Team selection and set up along with the long high ball is just not working - changes required 

The comment about K’s back line is no different to the previous home matches where each team have a field day heading everything.

[lovely stuff]

When Gavin was installed as manager, i looked up his interviews after some Met Police games the season before. What interested me after the games they lost was how similar the interviews were to Andy Leese's... Ie. How disappointed and frustrated he was that the players did not listen to instructions. The need to respond positively after a disappointing display  .etc

My mind was put to rest in the first half of the season with an upturn in performance and entertainment over Andy's last season. The last 6 weeks though we seem to have slipped back to how we were last season. 

Edited February 22 by lovely stuff

[WHY DO I BOTHER]

Gavin prides himself on shape and structure.. unfortunately that shape revolves around the wingers doubling up as full backs and reece defending deep… I haven’t checked the stats but as far as goals and assists from Olly… Dylan and Reece i should  imagine its very poor…. why ? .., because they spend the majority of the game in our half… I’d love to see Obi start and told to stay up front wide and just concentrate on attacking and leave Reece and Marcus forward but i’m not sure that fits our managers strategy… Shame but there is no hope of a game Saturday to redeem ourselves….

[Barney]

It's an interesting point - I've said before that I'd love us to play expansive, possession-based football, and be a lot more attacking (who wouldn't want this?), but I appreciate that with the resources and players we have, that might not be realistic. I think the worry is that if we don't play the current system, where we set up to be defensively compact (wingers having well defined defensive duties), then we could end up shipping a lot of goals. Start off being hard to beat/break down, then build from there - you're right that it limits our attacking play, but when we were winning games regularly, people generally seemed happy with how this was playing out. Clearly since Christmas, it's not been working nearly as well - how much of that is down to teams playing well against us, players not listening to instructions and doing their jobs or even just a bit of bad luck / low confidence / fatigue isn't clear to me. This is very much a results business and I think had we nicked a couple of the tight games this year, got a slightly luckier bounce at times, or produced a bit of attacking quality, and had more points on the board, then people would be more accepting of our playing style.

It's clear that the starting point is to not concede (many), then rely on the likes of Marcus/Sam to pull a bit of magic out the hat - on Tuesday especially, I think that it was the goalscoring touch that was missing as much as anything. Scoring first can completely change a game, and make the opposition take more risks, which leaves more space for the likes of Marcus to exploit. I'd be interested to know whether Gavin would set up differently if he had different players, and this is just him recognising that given the squad we have this is our best chance. In spite of the current form, I think most of us would have taken 5th in the table at this stage in the season, so I still don't think he's doing a bad job.

It's a good point about Obi as well - as an attacking option, he's one of the few we have who has genuine ability and pace to beat a man, and seems to cause problems and excite every time I've seen him come on. I'd also like to see him getting a start, although he still needs to play as part of the overall system, and that includes defensive duties. Will be interesting to see what (if anything) changes to get us out of this slump, unfortunately I can't make the game on Saturday, but (nervously) look forward to updates, and people's views on here.

[andyetfc]

I was watching the game from behind the dugouts on Tuesday. From the Kingstonian bench - encouragement, praise, etc. From our bench…………….

[Steph]

I thought that the game and performance on Tuesday was better than the game on Saturday. It demonstrated to me that Kingstonian were far better than their position in the table suggests. It must be remembered that they beat Bognor on Saturday no mean achievement.

In October we beat them 3-2 at their place. I recall, and I may be wrong and stand to be corrected, that we were 3-0 ahead then in the dying minutes they pulled 2 goals back and we were grateful for the result in the end.

looking at the programme and K's notes it is recorded that Sam German (Defender) joined this month, Joshua Dawodu (Defender) arrived at Kingstonian earlier this month, Florian Kastrati (Midfielder) arrived at the end of January. Luke Stokoe (midfielder) joined Kingstonian In December. Eraid Desa (Forward) joined the K's last month (January).

I would suggest that K's have improved their side since we met in October whilst we have hardly dabblled in the movement stakes since the start of the season and that is based on the relative financial situation of both clubs.

If we want a better side we have to contribute more that is clear.

I have to say that we did not defend well at corners in that we did not leave a forward out for most of the game until Onyeagwara came on. So the ball just came back at every corner. From my position I thought that we hit the crossbar in the second half but the ball may have bounced of the top of the net.

 

[WHY DO I BOTHER]

Good points in last two posts… Kingstonian were meant to have 8 changes recently and are much improved so that has to be considered… Also Barney sees it exactly as i see it… defensive approach and hope something falls for us up front…. 

[The Crowing Cockerel]

2 hours ago, WHY DO I BOTHER said:

Also Barney sees it exactly as i see it… defensive approach and hope something falls for us up front…. 

As has been said, that worked early in the season - for example Halesowen. For some reason Gavin doesn't seem able to rediscover that resilience and organisation. I keep hoping that this is a blip, but I now think there is a real problem in central midfield which Gavin hasn't been able to solve.

[andyetfc]

5 hours ago, Steph said:

I thought that the game and performance on Tuesday was better than the game on Saturday. It demonstrated to me that Kingstonian were far better than their position in the table suggests. It must be remembered that they beat Bognor on Saturday no mean achievement.

In October we beat them 3-2 at their place. I recall, and I may be wrong and stand to be corrected, that we were 3-0 ahead then in the dying minutes they pulled 2 goals back and we were grateful for the result in the end.

looking at the programme and K's notes it is recorded that Sam German (Defender) joined this month, Joshua Dawodu (Defender) arrived at Kingstonian earlier this month, Florian Kastrati (Midfielder) arrived at the end of January. Luke Stokoe (midfielder) joined Kingstonian In December. Eraid Desa (Forward) joined the K's last month (January).

I would suggest that K's have improved their side since we met in October whilst we have hardly dabblled in the movement stakes since the start of the season and that is based on the relative financial situation of both clubs.

If we want a better side we have to contribute more that is clear.

I have to say that we did not defend well at corners in that we did not leave a forward out for most of the game until Onyeagwara came on. So the ball just came back at every corner. From my position I thought that we hit the crossbar in the second half but the ball may have bounced of the top of the net.

 

How are supporters expected to contribute more in these times? Surely it’s down to the players to take on board what the manager wants of them. If they are not up to the task, then the manager needs to make difficult decisions.

[Out_Of_Towner]

On 20/02/2024 at 23:25, OldTowner said:

With Billericay going down 2-1 tonight and with their next game being away to Chatham - tonight was a massive missed opportunity for Town to climb the table.

Such a poor display by Town

Need a total shift by all of the team on Saturday or we will slide down the table. Repeat of tonight and Wingate will have an easy win.

Yes a big opportunity lost to make some ground up . Sometimes we just go to sleep and turn up with the wrong attitude expecting an easy win , How we got a point out of it  heaven knows .