Pre-Match View From Colchester

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Two Chesterfield fans at work said Colchester played very well last Saturday and created chances.
 
This is one that there are no excuses for not winning, they are a poor poor side. We NEED to win this game.
 
This is one that there are no excuses for not winning, they are a poor poor side. We NEED to win this game.

Do we?

We could very much do with bouncing back after defeat on Saturday, and Colchester are a poor side that we SHOULD beat at home, but it's hardly a must-win. It's barely mid-September!

Looking forward to the season's first Tuesday league game and hopefully a repeat of last year's scoreline.
 
Despite the improvements under NA, seems that most of our opponents are still relishing a trip to the Lane, like most seemed to do last season. Still need to inject that fear factor. Lets get into these teams from the off, instead of all the tippy tappy square ball slow build up stuff. CHARGE.............................
 
Do we?

We could very much do with bouncing back after defeat on Saturday, and Colchester are a poor side that we SHOULD beat at home, but it's hardly a must-win. It's barely mid-September!

Looking forward to the season's first Tuesday league game and hopefully a repeat of last year's scoreline.
Sorry but if you want to get promoted Colchester at home is a must win. There's no two ways about it.
 
After the Gillingham horror show the team have rallied and barely looked back until Saturday (I don't count the Fulham match as we had made 10 changes and quite frankly I couldn't give a toss about the cups this year)

Let's hope we rally again, after all its not like we played badly, just not sparkling plus Bury did a job on us and that wet fart of a referee.

Still averaging 2 points a game and still have good players to come back in. Well be reyt.
 
Very confident we will get back to winning ways. Hopefully the Bury result is another kick up the backside the players need to remind them this league won't be a walk in the park.
 
I'm not going to say we deserve to win, obviously we have earn that right on the pitch, but I will predict a 3-0 win to the blades.
 
Sorry but if you want to get promoted Colchester at home is a must win. There's no two ways about it.

Think me and you have very different definitions of 'must-win', fella. We should be burying sides such as Colchester at home and I fully expect us to but if we were to lose (God forbid) it's hardly 'game over' in terms of our aim of promotion. It's not like if we were to lose this one we'd be completely fucked. Again, it's only mid-September.
 



Think me and you have very different definitions of 'must-win', fella. We should be burying sides such as Colchester at home and I fully expect us to but if we were to lose (God forbid) it's hardly 'game over' in terms of our aim of promotion. It's not like if we were to lose this one we'd be completely fucked. Again, it's only mid-September.

Again, why is this 3 points less important than 3 points later in the season?
 
Think me and you have very different definitions of 'must-win', fella. We should be burying sides such as Colchester at home and I fully expect us to but if we were to lose (God forbid) it's hardly 'game over' in terms of our aim of promotion. It's not like if we were to lose this one we'd be completely fucked. Again, it's only mid-September.

Hmmn A defeat to ColU on Tuesday would mean 4 wins and three defeats from 7 games, so 12 points out of a possible 21 - that extrapolates to 78 points over a 46 game season, which might be enough to scrape the last play off place, but nothing more. It would have got 5th last season - where we finished.

Not a "must win" fixture? I beg to differ. Like Rev says, is a win Tuesday worth fewer points than one at the end of the season?
Sure, there's more time to make up any deficit but the point is that no team that gets automatic promotion will be losing any more than 7-8 games a season.
All of the teams promoted last season lost fewer than 10 games. MK Dons lost the most at 9 but they scored over 100 goals
 
I reckon the top two will be lucky to finish on 90 points.

Will be similar to the season Donny went up where the top two finished on around 84 points. Each losing over 10 games.
 
I reckon the top two will be lucky to finish on 90 points.

Will be similar to the season Donny went up where the top two finished on around 84 points. Each losing over 10 games.

Crystal ball?
Dream catcher?
Strange feeling in your waters?

Just because the teams who are winning now are not your recognised "big boys" doesn't mean that one or two wont run away with it.
If we remain as complacent as previous seasons or carry on with the same powder puff defending and midfield displays then we will not be troubling that stat, that's for sure.
 
Don't get me wrong we need work doing, but I don't reckon anyone in this league has it in them to wreck shit up.

We'll see though.
 
Hmmn A defeat to ColU on Tuesday would mean 4 wins and three defeats from 7 games, so 12 points out of a possible 21 - that extrapolates to 78 points over a 46 game season, which might be enough to scrape the last play off place, but nothing more. It would have got 5th last season - where we finished.

Not a "must win" fixture? I beg to differ. Like Rev says, is a win Tuesday worth fewer points than one at the end of the season?
Sure, there's more time to make up any deficit but the point is that no team that gets automatic promotion will be losing any more than 7-8 games a season.
All of the teams promoted last season lost fewer than 10 games. MK Dons lost the most at 9 but they scored over 100 goals

So if we fail to win this "must-win" game what should the consequences be?
 
Just hope there's a more dynamic up-&-at-em start from us tomorrow. It's been very sluggish to start with in both the last two games.

Don't want to be disrespectful (because Colchester are a decent footballing side), but this is as near to a home banker as it gets in this division (along with, maybe, Crewe). Sick to death of these sides (like Crewe did last year) winning at the Lane for the first time in a lifetime. Almost expecting Colchester to do it as well now.
 
So if we fail to win this "must-win" game what should the consequences be?

WHF - the clear fact is that if you want out of this league by automatic promotion then you cannot afford to lose more than 6 games in a season. If we lose on Tuesday evening then that's half of those defeats already after only 7 games of the season (16% of the fixtures fulfilled and you've already had 50% of the allowable defeats). The odds are that by losing 3 games in so few fixtures you wouldn't expect that team to get into the automatic promotion positions.
Now I'm not panicking or shouting "woe is me" I'm just presenting the likely outcome as it relates to previous seasons and previous teams being successfully promoted out of this division without having to resort to the play-offs.
The fact is that you cannot be a soft touch in hte third division - you cannot afford to throw away points and expect to achieve the objective. The same fundamental issues persist - weak central defensive capability and powder puff midfield. We are not physical enough to deal with the mainstay of this division and it will cost us - it already has. At the sharp end of the pitch we are not clever enough to break down teams that come and soak up pressure with the plan of catching us on the break once we run out of steam. We need to be since that will be the pattern for the vast majority of the home games we play.

Walsall managed to win their most recent game late on without conceding and Gillingham overcame their opposition to prevail with a late Dack strike - these are the benchmarks we have to look at. Whoever is at the top we need to match or better their results to win the prize (we need to better them at the moment because our game in hand is not enough to overtake their points tally. It's that simple and it all adds up now, just as much as it will, come May. Three points now is just as valuable as three points in April and May - throwing away points now is just as detrimental as it will be in 6 months time. The consequence is not achieving the goal - something we have done for the last 5 seasons in a row, miserably.

If we reach a stage before the half way point where we have lost 7-8 games out of 23 then I am absolutely certain that we will be in this league again next season.
Like I have stated twice before, on this forum, If McEveley plays more than 25 games this season we will fail to get promoted. His game is too prone to costly errors.
That's not scape-goating, that's not being a doom and gloom merchant, it's merely facing reality based on reason and common sense (and looking to take the blind faith out of it)

I'm certain that Adkins knows this and is doing everything he can to address it - the facts remain, the maths is accurate, the logic irrefutable. The consequence is failure - again!
 
Think me and you have very different definitions of 'must-win', fella. We should be burying sides such as Colchester at home and I fully expect us to but if we were to lose (God forbid) it's hardly 'game over' in terms of our aim of promotion. It's not like if we were to lose this one we'd be completely fucked. Again, it's only mid-September.
Nobody has said it's game over. A must win is very much the case though, how many points did the top 6 collect at home against Colchester? They are in the bottom 4 fella, it's certainly very much a must win. Unless of course we want all of the momentum we've built to drain away.
 
WHF - the clear fact is that if you want out of this league by automatic promotion then you cannot afford to lose more than 6 games in a season. If we lose on Tuesday.

So, even by these standards - which I could take issue with (work in progress and all that) - it's a probably must-not-lose game, rather than a definitely must-win game ;).
 
I think they were decent at Chesterfield... Going forward anyway,seems their problem is shipping goals...67% possession,24 shots at goal and hit the woodwork 3 times.I know they were down to 10 men but that is decent,and away from home plus Chesterfield are decent themselves in possession...the winger Harriott on loan from Charlton has 6 assists in 2 games.
 
There are going to be bumps and bruises along the way but I look at all games in this league as 'must win'...Im sure Adkins and the lads think the same...it's not arrogance but do the right things, work hard, get the rub of the green maybe and all games are very winnable.
 



So, even by these standards - which I could take issue with (work in progress and all that) - it's a probably must-not-lose game, rather than a definitely must-win game ;).

If you are going to go up then you have to beat teams like this one - expected to struggle in the lower half of the league.
Too many draws will cost us too so I don't agree with this "must not lose mentality" since that was Clough's philosophy and see where that got us.

There is so little margin for error IF you want to get automatic - that's all I'm saying.
BUT the imperative is that you have to equal or better the results of the teams you are looking to overtake - i.e. those occupying the top two slots in the table and that's something we are not doing consistently enough - even at this early stage - and that's why it's imperative to get a maximum points haul from the fixture we have in hand - That would lift us to third in the table, above Burton but still short of Walsall and Gillingham and their GD is far superior to ours even at this early stage.
 

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