First of all congratulations to Dylan winning £156.50 on the 50/50. Ticket 38609. As for the game thought we had better of first half,but they improved after half time and don’t think we could have any complaints.
What can I say,,,? 53 years watching us,,,,, you'd think I'd be use to losing games like that,,,, it still bloody hurts everytime,,,, Ashford deserved that though ,,,, in fact they deserved to score in the first half.,,, no, sorry.,,We were beaten by the better team tonight,,, a wake up call maybe?
No complaints here, Phil.
Other than the last twenty minutes of the first half I thought we were very disappointing today and the better side won. I can barely remember us winning a header in their half and, seriously lacked any cutting edge tonight.
Another remarkable attendance was probably the most pleasing aspect of the evening…. but the team need to produce better entertainment than that to keep ‘em coming back.
I think the league is stronger than it was two years ago and we’ll have our work cut out to be sure of making the playoffs.
Impressive crowd and a deserved 1-0 lead at half time. What a great cross from Sam Hasler to set up Lanre for a good finish. Ashford upped their game and seemed to dominate the second half. And they were without Tommy Fagg who looked a top player in our first match. Going to be a real battle for that one certain promotion spot.
To put it into perspective Ashford dominated us as much in that 2nd half as Maidenhead did. Rather worrying as we just don’t create and dominate teams, like Ashford did to us in that 2nd half. Perhaps the Ashford 2nd goal should tell us about our game plans we have 1 long throw into box. They sold us a dummy we were expecting a long throw but it didn’t happen. Perhaps we should try variations. A lot of questions need to be answered before we play Haywards Heath as defeat there will mean play offs will be the best we can hope for.
Haven't been to any away games but from the home games I've seen we don't look as composed on the ball like previous seasons and resort to longer balls more often that Ashford dealt with comprehensively last night. Certainly missed Pope last night for sure. Thought the first half was pretty even but despite being over run second half we didn't change our game plan effectively.
Haywards Heath, Cray and Ashford all look like contenders but really can't see them being consistent over the season and even a defeat to any of them won't rule us out of winning the league but we definitely need to be better than last night and for £12 that was pretty poor value for money.
Need to add Herne Bay to the list of contenders for promotion. We are a strange side at times. Reverted to quite a bit of negative and pointless passing around our defenders which, I think, suited Ashford more than us. That must be 4 or 5 times in a row they have got a league or play off win against us- and with a trip to that horrible surface at Homelands to come.
I have had a look over the last 2 and a half years at our home league record since 29th April 2019 when we lost that Play off semi-final 2-3 at home to Ashford, we lost to them at home again on 8th Feb 2020 0-3, and of course 1-3 last night. As for the game itself I thought we were as bad last night in the 2nd half as we were in the 1st half last week at Hythe (apart from the penalty) where we created absolutely nothing and didn't look like scoring. By the way where was Ben Pope?
Adrian,
Agree with much of what you say you here. Where was Ben ? Surely he merited a place on the bench even if we did decided to start with the Hythe forward line ? He wasn't injured on Saturday was he ?
Ignoring the Maidenhead game, our recent record has been excellent.....but I can't help wondering if we have been rather flattered by some of the more recent results and things aren't quite as rosy as those results may indicate.
A 3-0 win at Hythe certainly did not tell the whole story of an awful first half where we could have gone in two down. Not sure we were that effective against an average Phoenix Sports either and relied on some scrambled goals to get the points. I don't think we know what our most effective line up is yet and there have been rather too many performances where we have only performed in patches.
Yes, it's great to win when you don't play that well....but ultimately this will catch up with you and points will start being squandered against all the good and even half decent sides.
I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking we haven't often performed any way near our full potential this season given some of the quality players we have.
I really do want to start seeing good overall performances that represent our full potential, not just a scrambled win.
Am I being too harsh ?
Regarding Ben Pope. Apparently the rumours going round last night, was that his Mrs is expecting. So he was probably pacing up and down a maternity ward.
-- Edited by Vernon on Wednesday 27th of October 2021 04:39:02 PM
-- Edited by Vernon on Wednesday 27th of October 2021 04:39:35 PM
Heard some criticism last night that we are an ageing team ,with apparently 6 players over 32. Although they have the experience they run out of steam . Fair comments? Also heard that Bens wife expecting.
At the first home game Ben missed through suspension I was chatting to him. He told me the birth of his first child was imminent. Could well explain his absence
