After the 1-1 against Ramsgate it is now against the number 1 in the League
Tooting are leaders with 89 points out of 38 games. Scored 112 and conceded 50 goals.
Top scorers are Billy Dunn with 25 and Michael Dixon with 20 goals.
Can you remember our away game against The Terrors? http://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/isthonesouth/match/22609
And we? Of course we have our own top scorer Francis Collin with 24 goals and it will be interesting to see after the run of Tooting with 12 League wins in a row ( They lost only a cup game against Knaphill) how we manage to stop that run.
Tooting want to be Champions and we want to be in the play offs so with the current situations a win for teams would be ideal.
Hope you have a great afternoon at TPF and support the team 100%.
A hard defeat to take!! That could dash our hopes of a play off this season - I just hope I'm wrong, because it's now 4 games without a win!! Casuals away next week which doesn't fill me with confidence.
Really disappointing once again today against a super T&M side who totally deserved their win and I hope they go on and win the whole thing. In front of a super crowd today, we just didn't turn up offensively and like Ramsgate away we didn't have a shot on target until we hit the bar twice in those crazy last few minutes. Defensively we looked okay all day and Pidge looked superb but we were just totally outclassed in midfield and the two central defenders, particularly their no 5 were outstanding.
First half was pretty cagey with Tooting having more of the possession and Hastings reverting to the ugly long ball game once again which just didn't work. I can understand if the new lad was up top but why keeping hoofing to Frannie when he is up top on his own. Bods had one shot across the face of the goal and looked the only player capable of producing anything.
Then the sending off. Couldn't see from where I was but you can always judge from the player reaction and there was very little so I am guessing it was very harsh.
Second half was expecting the Alamo but it didn't happen. We learnt nothing from the first half and continued hitting long aimless balls to Frannie. Darren pulled a master stroke by bringing on the utterly hopeless Harris and then Jerome, who looked good all day looked to have picked up an injury and we seemed to go 3 at the back. Tooting looked really comfortable and looked to have settled for the point when their no 16 ran from his own half unchallenged and curled a glorious shot into the top corner, what a magnificent goal!!
Hastings huffed and puffed for the last 20mins without creating anything and some of the time wasting tactics by their keeper were not good to see. Then injury time and a magnificent volley from Johnno, I think, crashed against he bar and from the following cross fell to Frannie who hit the bar again with an open goal.
I am not sure an equaliser was deserved and Tooting completely deserved their win.
So 4 games without a win, playing poorly again and barely a shot on target in 2 games. We already look like we are missing Watty and have no idea what the new guy is bringing apart from a very average signing and a return to long ball rubbish. Crutts deserved MOM but still playing left back. Not sure we deserve to go up now and we are light years away from the likes of Tooting and Dorking.
Could see tooting scoring , and to be honest they deserved it and celebrated like a team that are capable of coming back after going down to 10 men
Bradley Stevenson for me finally showed me the doubts I had , shame about his league ambitions at Gillingham but he has done nothing here and looked poor today
New striker looked like a hapless giraffe in a team that made no push to sort this game after the red card
Simon Johnson was brilliant for me, good hard tackles and would be my man of the match . Lenny again brilliant
Big fair shout to tooting , they are strong and together and deserved it
This display will at least scare off the fair weather fans , but good turn out today
Absolute rubbish game and one that hurts as we just don't look good enough for promotion and all my fingers are now uncrossed and ambitions dampened ... think I might of had a tear in my hot chocolate ..!
-- Edited by ChrisVanRock on Saturday 11th of March 2017 05:41:15 PM
Awful game and I think a draw would've been a fair result. It all seemed to hinge on who would make the other pay for yet again giving the ball away in a second half full of errors from both sides. Lost count of the times the ball was delivered with pin point accuracy to the wrong foot - both sides equally bad in what was a turgid game. And sure enough - losing the ball on the edge of their area saw a quick break upfield, no Sobers by then, and yes, a decent goal that won it for Tooting. The numbers don't lie - they deserve to go up as champions. But both sides were pretty nondescript this afternoon - they cancelled each other out - and it seems as if we used up all our good form in the Carshalton game because apart from a reasonable display at Hythe, we have gone right off the boil in recent weeks. What a shame too - in front of a decent attendance.
Looking ahead - the play off lottery is obviously all we have to play for. If we find ourselves in this division next season I just hope we can start again with the same players and build on what has been achieved.
-- Edited by SS on Saturday 11th of March 2017 06:20:04 PM
Tooting already look like a good Premier if not Conference South side, The difference in approach was obvious from the start. They closed down every ball pressed and harried. We endlessly got caught in possession, failed to show strength in a challenge, hit poor long balls and utterly failed to exploit our 11 to 10 advantage. We deserved and got nothing despite the late flurry.
Totally agree that Bradley Stephenson was disappointing - he's had a couple of reasonable games but looked uninterested today. But his was not the only poor performance. I thought Stannard and Bodkin were ineffective by their standards and that Frannie Collin failed to shine. Crutts was trying to hit the killer long ball and more often than not he failed. Only Simon Johnson (and Pidge in goal) in my view shone. As for the new loan striker - Chris Van R's 'hapless giraffe' might be a little harsh but the simple truth is that he was much less effective than Jack Harris carrying an injury.
So now it's a desperate scramble to see if we can get the last play-off spot.
Most disappointing aspect today was how we went about building attacks against such a well organised and powerful side. There was just far too much route one nonsense that they just mopped up. Did we actually get a shot on target all game ? I don't think we did. OK..we could have easily nicked an equaliser near the end but I really can't deny that Tooting were the better side overall and deserved the points. Certainly agree that a few players who have looked good against lesser sides really struggled to show anything today....and that includes Frannie, Matt, Harry and Bradley who all lost their 'individual battles'. Simon was my MotM for Hastings and, although this was given to Crutts, I REALLY don't want to see him play full back any more. He is such a gifted passer but 90% of his long balls AGAIN resulted in lost possession today. PLEASE let's get him into the midfield where his body strength was missing today and where he can thread 10 and 20 yard killer passes through ON THE GROUND to our clever forwards who got NOTHING to work with today. His wasted talent at the moment is doing my head in. If he leaves at the end of the season simply because he wants to play midfield and ends up at Hythe, Horsham or Hollington it will be the biggest missed opportunity for a long time.
Wasn't at Tooting but we must have played really well to beat them 4-0. Could easily have had a draw today with Simon's great shot and Frannie's header. Some plusses today, Ollie and Jerome were good and I thought Jack and Simon did well in midfield. Sam was solid at left back but our other outfield players were not at their best. Need to get the mentality that the season starts here and get a good run going until the end of the season.
I seem to be in a minority of one but stick with my view that today's game was a poor display from both sides. Yes, our long balls were gobbled up but look at the number of times Tooting coughed up possession especially in the 2nd half. It boiled down to waiting to see which side made the other pay for giving the ball away. We paid in a game of minimal goal mouth activity.
John Akoto is still with us but dual registered to Bexhill. Barry Cogan has been released to recover from his injury, but we still hold his registration.
I agree with all the above comments - and also think that we may have to settle for another season in this awful League!!
Your quite right Madster, but we are part of this "awful League", and that makes us as awful as the the other awful teams in it, if we cannot get out, this is the level we are at, and it might be quite a while before we do get out of it.
At a total loss to understand why Akoto is not featuring. He's young and raw and learning but defensively speaking has done a fine job and gone a long way towards solving the troublesome left back problem. And Crutts plays there this last two games. Doesn't do badly but surely should be up in a midfield slot. Weird.
At a total loss to understand why Akoto is not featuring. He's young and raw and learning but defensively speaking has done a fine job and gone a long way towards solving the troublesome left back problem. And Crutts plays there this last two games. Doesn't do badly but surely should be up in a midfield slot. Weird.
Absolutely Simon ... its very odd to me .Akoto has proved that he can play both left and right back . Yes he'll mistakes , he's young, but he seemed to be a fast learner and a great prospect for the future. I hope to see back in the team very soon
Interesting that he has barely been seen since the Chatham game when the first goal came from his mistake and possibly the second as well. Equally interesting that we have never looked the same since Darren rested Jerome for that game. He must really regret that decision now.
Just guessing but Jerome seems to be a bit injury prone and may be being nursed through to the end of the season. Think we missed a third high energy midfielder to go with Jack and Simon against a hard working Tooting side. Don't agree that the Ryman South is a rubbish league-have seen a lot of good football this season and South Park showed their quality in the Trophy. East Grinstead, under the managership of our new coach,out-footballed us at East Grinstead and passed the ball out from virtually every goal kick.
and it will be interesting to see after the run of Tooting with 12 League wins in a row ( They lost only a cup game against Knaphill) how we manage to stop that run.
