I think this will be a '' pay back '' match against a side who just is in a flow of winning games. The derby yesterday against Worthing gave the home side a easy 4-1 victory. They won their last 4 games including a cup game against Lewes.
And Hastings ? It will be a very tough game and hopefully the team will regroup themselves after the heavy defeat against Ramsgate. Trevor McCreadie told on twitter :
We will put things right Saturday
Let's hope he will have a talk with the rest of the team and staff so they know it too !
-- Edited by BertNEC on Friday 27th of December 2013 12:01:06 PM
Would be bery surprised if the game is on tomorrow despite everyones best efforts in forking the pitch and putting the pilot field back together after the storm, but with more heavy rain and another storm reported on its way i think mother nature will beat the volunteerrs souls on this occasion which is a shame as it would be interesting to see if the players will make up for yesterday
1 Josh Pelling
2 Tom Gilbert
3 Andy Henson
4 Tim Olorunda
5 Ben Judge
6 Sean Kelly
7 Ronnie Dolan
8 Sam Adams
9 Trevor McCreadie
10 Kenny Pogue
11 Tom Vickers
12 Matt Darby
14 Danny Ellis
15 Bailo Camara
16 Bruno Pacheco
17 Justin Lee
Not sure how many "get out of jail free" cards we have left, but that was about the tenth we've used this season. Poor throughout we somehow managed to grab a last minute winner thanks to Danny, Ellis who came off the bench with great effect. Vickers and McCreadie apart, too many players had off days once again. Kenny looked totally disinterested, which is something you can not usually throw at him. Sam and Timmy were very quiet and Dolan completely ineffective once again. And as for the 2 full backs... well i'm sick and tired of bringing it up so someone else can have their say. But despite all this the lads showed great heart in somehow dragging a win out of what looked like a certain loss. Some of of this was down to some pretty poor finishing from Burgess Hill but the lads have to take some real credit after the defeat on Boxing Day. 2 nil down and boos ringing out from some of the home faithful, they never gave up, and pulled off an unlikely win.
Has this once again just papered over the cracks? almost certainly in my opinion and something is certainly missing at the moment but 10/10 for the comeback and heart shown today. 4/10 for the performance.
What an amazing late Christmas present the football Gods have given us!
I have never seen so fortunate a three points result. For much of the game we looked pedestrian; BH looked good value for their 2 goal lead; no-one would have given us a prayer of getting a win. Even after Trevor scored a good goal we still looked poor. Danny Ellis coming on for (injured) Tim helped (though Tim had had a good game). BH had a double gilt edged chance which they somehow squandered and then the pantomime season really got underway with Tom's equaliser from a kick out by the BH keeper which came back off his admirable persistent challenge. Even then a win looked along way off until Danny got a screamer in the last minute (was there a small deflection?)
A great result, but really on 999 times out of a thousand this would have gone the other way and all the familiar questions about the adequacy of the team remain.
Pretty good all round entertainment again today....and I've forgotten about Boxing Day already.
Thought we were pretty unfortunate to be two down as they had really only had a couple of goal attempts at that point and I felt even at 2-0 we had generally looked better than in some games this year.
Great character shown in the last half hour or so and credit to team for that......after Ramsgate some might have been tempted to hide but they didn't. Super goal by Trevor, very lucky goal from Tom but he deserved it for his sheer energy today....and then another screamer by Danny to win it. Fabulous !
Full credit to Burgess Hill who at 2-2 were still trying to snatch a win themselves......and ironically it was only in that last 30 minutes that they actually caused us problems.
Thought both full backs did OK today but I'm still not convinced by Dolan...give me Danny in midfield any day.
Also a very quiet day for KP who made no impact at all today.
Overall I feel we certainly deserved the win but have some sympathy for our visitors who must have thought they would come away with something.
A very lucky win thought BH deserved a point. it was like a hangover to Boxing Day first half. thought BH deserved there 2 goal lead and if I was a BH fan id feel gutted but although performance not great credit to our players for never giving up despite the boos from the old boys. As JohnW says tho it just papers over cracks.
I have to agree with JohnW & others who thought our get out of jail card was used to great affect today. Thought we were awful for long periods with too many players looking tired & jaded. One thing we don't lack though is guts & determination which was shown in abundance by Tom, who may be somewhat of a loose cannon at times but if he shows the will & commitment he did today that'll do for me. First view of Trevor Mc today & was impressed with his workrate & endevour. His finish was outstanding, with hopefully many more to follow. As has been said on numerous occasions before there are areas we need to reinforce with full backs the obvious positions but i don't think they could be blamed more than anyone else today. I can't quite understand why Danny Ellis was on the bench. He is our most skilful midfielder who even when things aren't going well is always likely to make something happen. For me he has to start. Personally I would also have Matt Darby in the team. In the games i've seen he's generally been one of the better players. Obviously Maggsy has a different opinion & it's his that counts.
Think some people here were watching a different game to the one I saw. Hastings were not dominant, not at their best and certainly made a few silly mistakes (somebody really ought to point out which colour shirts we are playing in, even short passes seem to be at random at times), but we never should have been two down, although to two very well taken goals.
Burgess went one up against the run of play due to poor marking at the corner, but we had several good chances after and were the better side. Burgess were better drilled and played deep, regularly having ten players behind the ball, and seemed to be trying to run the clock down by the middle of the first half. Credit to them, they did it very well and kept us away from their goal, but we were certainly dangerous.
Second half was mostly Hastings from the off, they looked 100% better and 500% more committed than the Boxing Day fiasco, and certainly deserved to be on even terms beforeBurgess got a second goal, again against the run of play, but a beautifully taken break from defence.
Yes, at that point I expected Hastings to fold, but they fought back, fantastic goal to bring us back into the game, a cheeky (in more ways than one) equaliser, pure luck but a result of 100% effort and forcing Burgess to make mistakes, and a quality finish to win it, well deserved in my opinion, a one-goal margin of victory was about right against a well-drilled side who are the in-form team of the moment.
Full backs? A couple of errors, especially in marking players, but also some very good tackles and some great covering play. Agree we need quality in the full-back positions, but today they were not the weak link that they have been before (if we had a weak link it was team co-ordination; too often players seemed to be doing their own thing and ignoring what was going on round them). A truly creative midfielder or speedy winger would have made much more of an impact than different backs.
Overall, not a great performance, but fantastic effort and committment, and played a full 90 minutes without letting their heads drop, and put us back in the playoff frame, abig well done from me.
Quote for the match from little Sasha "Look dad, their keeper is as fat as the Ramsgate one!" (said in a loud stage whisper directly behind said keeper's back).
