Herne Bay in good form with some dangerous forwards. Hope we play better than Saturday. Wonder how we would get on playing 4 4 2 with Daniel playing closer to Ben and with Jerald and Sam Beale playing wide in midfield? Thought Ryan got. caught in possession too often on Saturday. As others have said miss Adam. Both Sevenoaks goals came a distance with players having too much time on the ball.
Probably a fair result, Herne Bay useful side, one of the best seen this season.Both sides had good chances but could not put away. I see Louis was man of the match , but strange as it may seem, not sure that I would give it to anyone.
Yet another tough match against in-form opponents who made us work hard for a point.
I felt we were considerably better than on Saturday and, in the second half, threatened with a decent number of half chances. However it says something about the game that Louis was again righty given the MOTM award.
Our front three are just not quite firing at the moment and there seems a lot of pressure on Jack to provide the 'killer pass' these days because it's not coming from anywhere else.
I guess we should be grateful that Whitehawk didn't hugely improve their goal difference this evening as their opponents, Whyteleafe, played most of the second half with nine men and finished with eight !
Hopefully we'll be back to winning ways on Saturday and there will be another 700+ crowd. Even so, 500+ on a bloomin' cold January evening is a great turnout.
What it with the refs ffs he doesn't give a blatant penalty then the linesman flags for a foul then the ref gives a penalty then gose over to the linesman and gives a free kick wft is going on and not giving another penalty when the defender plays it with there arm its becoming a joke now
Lucky to come away with a point, HB were a very tough team. But what of our new signing from Cray Valley, scored 14 goals for them, although only 4 since the begining of November, strangely his last three were all scored in the 25 minute of the three games !
We deserved the point tonight and with some better finishing we'd have had all 3.
I'm getting a little frustrated along with other supporters around me at our negative play across the backs and midfield and which put us deep trouble a couple of times. It would be great if it achieved something but invariably ends up with a hoof upfield! Lets be more positive and look to go forward with the pass more often than not.
We seem to be playing with 2 very wide wingers with Ben pretty isolated down the middle and no one able to benefit from any headers he wins as they are too far away.
Central midfield still looking light, but Sam did well across the 90 mins.
We ve got 6 point lead, but we can lose that in a couple of the big games in Feb.
Hopefully saturday will bring a morale boosting win and we can push on again.
At times agreed with the Herne Bay chants of "Boring, boring Hastings." As well as achieving nothing, our sideways passing in our area did manage to create at least 3 good chances for Herne Bay. We are at our best when we move the ball quickly around the pitch and set a fast tempo of play. Cannot understand why we slow the game down so much and rely on breakaways. Think we are better than that.
Agree with Tim. I thought jack D was playing very high up the pitch, with no one of his calibre dropping back to pick the ball up from the back four. The tactic seemed to take one of our most creative players out of the game for long periods. (Picking up A yellow card born of frustration perhaps)
No mention yet of their keeper, an absolute giant of a man with a voice that makes Sean Dyche sound like a choirboy. Three decent saves in short succession in the first half, followed in the second by carrying an injured team-mate from the field, cradling him in his arms like a small child being rescued from a burning building. Having taken him down the tunnel and into the dressing room, he returned to applause from most of the ground, except, of course, the mob behind the goal who preferred bellowing "DROP DEAD, YOU C***" and similar "banter" at him instead.
It certainly was good to have a proper game last night. So many games this season have been like training matches with Hastings being so much better than the opposition. But last night was close and a draw was probably a fair result with both teams having periods of the game that they dominated. We seam to have gone backwards a bit though and rather than using speed and mobility have gone more patient even tedious and then go for a long ball up front which against more organised opponents is dealt with. An entertaining 0 -0 though although elements of the support last night were embarrassing, as Mr IG says the 'banter' was expletive after expletive, will hardly encourage families to attend and create a community atmosphere. At times I wanted to cover my sons ears!
We seam to have gone backwards a bit though and rather than using speed and mobility have gone more patient even tedious and then go for a long ball up front which against more organised opponents is dealt with.
Given that we've gone for quality over quantity in the squad, there was always likely to be a sticky bit when injuries and tired legs took their toll. This is that bit, evidently. We miss Adam Lovatt particularly; much of our ability to play through midfield comes from his dominance of that area. But I think there's cause for encouragement too: we've had to really dig in during this patch of games and have done so, with a reasonable return in terms of points. If we can continue to do that, to scrap for everything, then we'll hopefully be able to stay the course.
CliffD wrote:
the 'banter' was expletive after expletive, will hardly encourage families to attend and create a community atmosphere. At times I wanted to cover my sons ears!
I can live with the swearing, to be honest. Sometimes tempers fray; fair enough. Sometimes it's funny; fair enough. But I think it ought to be possible to support your own team without spitting bile at every opponent. I hate the attitude which says that paying the price of admission gives you the right to scream abuse at someone a few yards away. Apart from some fairly mild time-wasting, of the type that nobody complains about when it's their own team, I missed the bit where that keeper did anything to deserve the torrent of furious c-words which were aimed in his direction. Fair play to him for still coming over to shake a couple of people's hands at the end; a bigger man (quite literally!) than any of his abusers.
On the issue on abusing opponents if it’s because of something they have clearly done either in the game or in the past then though not ideal it is understandable as football can be a passionate game on and off the pitch. However, abusing players just because they are the opponent isn’t and perhaps the club needs additional stewards to try and stop any future needless abuse.
Iv got to admit it there is to many c words flying about at the moment I for o e hate the word.. Maybe things need to be said again as it is going over the top.. But they you go to any football ground up and down the country it will never be stopped no matter what happens.
To be fair, the atmosphere has been really good this season. The songs are, by and large, positive, proud and occasionally funny, and everyone involved deserves a lot of credit for that. But a bit of respect for opponents really wouldn't go amiss. Apart from anything else, it might actually be more fun to have a bit of a laugh with the opposition keeper rather than just incessantly screaming the c-word at him.
Have to say I feel there is absolutely no justification for the disgraceful, foul mouthed abuse that some opponents' keepers are subjected to. I don't normally stand close enough to the goal to hear this but I did at Sevenoaks on Saturday......and it was not pretty.
I agree it's a game of high emotion and hearing bad language is inevitable...but just pouring abuse onto an opponent is totally unacceptable....you wouldn't do it outside a football ground so why do it inside ?
I admit I am not averse to having a few words with an opposing keeper and the Sevenoaks keeper got plenty for his outrageous time wasting. However it was all good natured banter and certainly no bad language was used.
I thought this was something that had already been spoken about this season and the problem had been tackled. Clearly more needs to be done.
What doesn't help to is the play acting by players.. Of course it gets on everyone nerves and I for me i have sworn as its cheating.. And also the refs for the past 4 games have been poor. So people just get so frustrated because crucial decisions could cost us the game or league..
