BladeInThatcham
Member
A few views from yesterday:
This side is completely unrecognisable from what we saw back in May. Danny Wilson has us playing a certain way that is lovely to watch, it's pass pass pass, and yesterday without a shadow of a doubt we were the better team. Charlton are supposedly the best team in this division and we went and outplayed them in their own back yard. The game swung on one piece of quality from Jonnie Jackson. I've seen it on TV and it was top corner, no way Simmo was getting near to it. Was it a foul in the first place? I thought not and have not had chance to see it again. And the disallowed goal?!!! What the hell? We need consistency from officials here - how was Udders goal allowed to stand and ours wasn't? Soft shit decision from the ref.
It's weird to write a report saying we were the better team (and we were by far) yet had no clear cut chances as such. That's what is so frustrating - we didn't test their keeper enough and given the dodgyness of the disallowed goal we should have been testing him a lot more. The decision making in the final 3rd was very poor, we had numerous chances to deliver a good ball but it didn't materialise - McDonald twice in as many minutes had time to deliver a good cross yet wasted it. Harry had a wayward effort from 35 yards when Lowton was completely free on the right to attack. If we had someone with the quality to deliver a good ball we would have won hands down, I have no doubt about that. But we have to remember that we are in league 1 so that kind of quality doesn't tend to exist as readily as we would like.
So what does this tell us? We are a good side, let's make no mistake about that. It is nice to watch and despite the loss I came away happy with what I saw and if we continue to play in the same way then we give ourselves a very good chance of promotion.....BUT..... the massive worry is that final 3rd. If we can find someone to fix this then I'd be exceptionally optimistic of getting out of this shithole of a league. If we don't we could well fall short and moments of quality from opposition players could be the difference - You look at Jackson, Rhodes, Marshall (if he goes back there) and you see we don't have that kind of player though some would argue Ched would be on a par. Though he was reletively poor yesterday, which leads me to think that he does struggle against well organised defences.
McCabe - we need to take that risk now. Give Danny a bit of cash, it doesn't have to be the kind of cash that will break the bank but enough to go and sign a couple of players that will have given us 3 points yesterday. Billy Clarke surely has to be on our radar after a successful spell earlier in the season he offered the team something different. I'm still undecided on Beattie - he let us all down yesterday but we still haven't seen him play anything close to 90 minutes to show one way or the other. I'd take Clarke over Beattie if it was a straight decision now.
Other quick points:
1. Fans were excellent yesterday. Except for the muppet I met in the chip shop after the game demanding Wilson to be sacked cos of his Wednesday past.
2. The service at half time was shit. When will clubs start to sort out this problem?
3. Good to meet a few new faces in the George washed down with good ale.
4. On embarking on my journey back home I fell asleep on the train and ended up in Hungerford. Shit. Cost me £43 in a taxi to get back. See end of point 3 for a possible reason for this.
This side is completely unrecognisable from what we saw back in May. Danny Wilson has us playing a certain way that is lovely to watch, it's pass pass pass, and yesterday without a shadow of a doubt we were the better team. Charlton are supposedly the best team in this division and we went and outplayed them in their own back yard. The game swung on one piece of quality from Jonnie Jackson. I've seen it on TV and it was top corner, no way Simmo was getting near to it. Was it a foul in the first place? I thought not and have not had chance to see it again. And the disallowed goal?!!! What the hell? We need consistency from officials here - how was Udders goal allowed to stand and ours wasn't? Soft shit decision from the ref.
It's weird to write a report saying we were the better team (and we were by far) yet had no clear cut chances as such. That's what is so frustrating - we didn't test their keeper enough and given the dodgyness of the disallowed goal we should have been testing him a lot more. The decision making in the final 3rd was very poor, we had numerous chances to deliver a good ball but it didn't materialise - McDonald twice in as many minutes had time to deliver a good cross yet wasted it. Harry had a wayward effort from 35 yards when Lowton was completely free on the right to attack. If we had someone with the quality to deliver a good ball we would have won hands down, I have no doubt about that. But we have to remember that we are in league 1 so that kind of quality doesn't tend to exist as readily as we would like.
So what does this tell us? We are a good side, let's make no mistake about that. It is nice to watch and despite the loss I came away happy with what I saw and if we continue to play in the same way then we give ourselves a very good chance of promotion.....BUT..... the massive worry is that final 3rd. If we can find someone to fix this then I'd be exceptionally optimistic of getting out of this shithole of a league. If we don't we could well fall short and moments of quality from opposition players could be the difference - You look at Jackson, Rhodes, Marshall (if he goes back there) and you see we don't have that kind of player though some would argue Ched would be on a par. Though he was reletively poor yesterday, which leads me to think that he does struggle against well organised defences.
McCabe - we need to take that risk now. Give Danny a bit of cash, it doesn't have to be the kind of cash that will break the bank but enough to go and sign a couple of players that will have given us 3 points yesterday. Billy Clarke surely has to be on our radar after a successful spell earlier in the season he offered the team something different. I'm still undecided on Beattie - he let us all down yesterday but we still haven't seen him play anything close to 90 minutes to show one way or the other. I'd take Clarke over Beattie if it was a straight decision now.
Other quick points:
1. Fans were excellent yesterday. Except for the muppet I met in the chip shop after the game demanding Wilson to be sacked cos of his Wednesday past.
2. The service at half time was shit. When will clubs start to sort out this problem?
3. Good to meet a few new faces in the George washed down with good ale.
4. On embarking on my journey back home I fell asleep on the train and ended up in Hungerford. Shit. Cost me £43 in a taxi to get back. See end of point 3 for a possible reason for this.
