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Post by ceefer on Jan 17, 2020 19:34:22 GMT
Stiff opposition but with the uncertainty of the takeover out of the way I would expect a reaction from the squad after the capitulation to Dorking. It will be interesting to see which of the loanees start- I expect all 3 to play a part. Would be happy with a win or a draw and a large crowd to welcome in Mr Stott's tenure.
You know what to do......
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Post by hermannsays on Jan 17, 2020 20:32:59 GMT
Getting better at scoring. Over the past 8 league games, both sides have quite dramatically improved in terms of average goals scored per game, but it's Sutton that's also managed to improve on average concessions per game while we've got worse.
A tight opening? Sutton have been trailing at HT away just 3 times in the league and we've led just 5 times at HT at home.
Up for it! Hopefully EP will be 'up for it' and stay with the players, especially if it plays out to be difficult as 'stats' suggest.
Three's not a crowd It's a performance enhancer! How will the new boys do and will it raise the core group of lads' performance to reach their heights? Who will fight for a FT contract here (if we do indeed change in the close season)?
Good luck to JG and the boys. Believe in yourselves and each other.
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Jan 17, 2020 21:10:50 GMT
Cheers for getting the thread under way, Ceefs! Was on my to-do list, but been a bit of a week...
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Post by ceefer on Jan 17, 2020 22:35:43 GMT
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Post by ceefer on Jan 18, 2020 9:12:42 GMT
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Post by dudleyhatter on Jan 18, 2020 11:42:43 GMT
And there was me considering if a county player subscription might be worth investing in...
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Post by ceefer on Jan 18, 2020 11:57:26 GMT
And there was me considering if a county player subscription might be worth investing in... It will be from their perspective and bias if you can put up with that. You have to sign up. Otherwise it has to be County player.
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Post by hermannsays on Jan 18, 2020 19:02:15 GMT
Well, today we've got a point out of a game bereft of quality which, without any shadow of doubt, Sutton should have won. Our star performers were Cowan and Turnbull by some distance... while everyone put in a shift, they had the most effective games in their own roles.
As for the new boys, one game and one training session to prepare means it's far to early to know what impact they'll have but...
Archer looked to have some pace and physicality. As Bell and Mulhern before him have often experienced, fighting for pretty naff long balls when no-one is in support is neither fun nor leading us to get up the pitch. However, he worked extremely hard all game off the ball. While it should never be the case anyway, he never once appeared to think he was 'too good' (like some older ad higher division players might do) to graft. If that's his usual ethic, it wouldn't be hard to see why JG's brought him in.
McAlinden played much of the game in the left position of the 3 behind Archer, although he later moved into the #10. Like Archer, McAlinden has pace. He immediately struck me as someone who would probably do well in a front 2 (say in a 3-4-1-2). His off the ball workrate was impressive, much higher than Tom Walker's and I think that would have pleased JG. A couple of times he helped stopped counter-attacks by running 30/40 yards to chase the man out of play. It wasn't a game to know what he can do going forwards - I think most will appreciate it takes training and games to gain relationships with the FB, #10 and #9 especially.
The 'surprise' package was Clarke at LB. Given the physicality of the league, I didn't expect to be thinking "Is he 16 or 21?" such was the slight frame and size of him. That said, their LB was pretty much the same so it was quite bizarre in that respect. Anyway, for the first 20 minutes Clarke played like a 16-year-old who had been thrown in at the last minute. So much so, in fact, that he would surely have been hooked if he wasn't on his debut.
However, in the second half of the first half he did really good defensively when they broke from our corner, staying with his man (he was one of the two left back on halfway) and sensibly staying at CB until it was safe to return to LB. He then got a bit of confidence and, whether it was the Main Stand shouting 'Take him on' or Turnbull doing it, he had a couple of progressive runs and he began to look like a footballer - a young one, of course, but a footballer. By the end of the game, he had shown some nice touches, runs and passes. It was however clear that it was often only his pace getting him out of the poor decisions he had made - a trait I'm sure JG will help with, along with better physicality.
Overall then, a point we fought really hard for. We'll take it and thank Sutton for missing their chances!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2020 21:26:26 GMT
I actually enjoyed that. I thought the game had a decent ebb and flow about it. We looked as though we were going to be overwhelmed in the first 20 minutes but we got back into it without ever really threatening to score. Having said that it's probably a good job Sutton couldn't shoot straight otherwise we'd have come a distant second but I suspect that the remainder of this season is going to be an exercise in identifying those to whom JG wants to offer a full-time contract for next season and those he wants to offload.
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Post by gazz on Jan 18, 2020 23:15:55 GMT
Cheers for posting your thoughts, H/Yorks.
@ H: I'm probably getting boring now, but your match summaries really do make for excellent, informative reading.
Keep it up, mate!
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Post by another_ruined_saturday on Jan 18, 2020 23:46:06 GMT
surprised you enjoyed it NYE - it just felt like it was something that happened that i survived. we started the game incredibly slowly and they didn't. we were fortunate that we were still level when we started to get to grips with the game after fifteen or twenty minutes. at this point, clarke was looking like a child who's had a growth spurt and been chucked into adult football. he was all over the place in his passing and particularly his positioning, and looked like they'd exploit him for a win. fortunately, he got acclimitised to it, and while he still looked like full back most likely to cost us (cowan was dead solid), that initial period of panic wore off, like he'd had a wireless upgrade...
so palmer cleared off the line at the far post and they had a header they should have done better with. then osbourne had our first effort of note, mcalinden brought a comfortable save out of their 'keeper from a free kick, and turnbull, on my exhortation 'SHOOT...' dragged a very tame and very off target shot very wide indeed. we reached half time having asserted ourselves enough to be seeing more possession, but they'd had the better chances.
struggling to remember much in an attacking sense from us second half. i'm not sure there's a 'right' man, but the ball definitely dropped to the wrong one near the end when festus screwed a shot over the bar. hinchliffe was called into action a couple of times, but no worldies were required of him. refereeing seemed quite inconsistent throughout.
there was a point last season where milner, henderson and wijnaldum were being referred to disparagingly as liverpool's 'brexit' midfield. while i don't entirely get the reference, it seemed to refer to the fact that they worked hard but didn't create. on today's performance, i think kean and turnbull might be our version. while turnbull still played pretty well, kean to me just looked like a centre half in midfield today, barrelling around with the ball bouncing off him, poor in possession and too easily run off when out of possession.
it was quite difficult to get a sense of what archer is like as a player, because he had mission impossible today - the ball fired up to him with two or three defenders around him and his nearest colleagues in shaw heath. it's really important that mcalinden works hard going back towards our goal, but i mostly wanted to see what he could do the other way, and we didn't get to. we know how meticulous jim is, but this was one of those games where the players played like there wasn't a plan. pretty tedious, county doing nothing with possession.
good to see a few more on the gate following the news from this week, although there looked to be quite a lot of freebies in the pop side which was certainly some of that number. lots of people talking about aspects of the takeover and sounding positive. shame that as always on occasions where there's a big crowd or other positivity, the on-field product was lacking. at least we didn't carry on as we started, otherwise we might have had another home spanking.
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Post by gazz on Jan 19, 2020 0:25:52 GMT
it was quite difficult to get a sense of what archer is like as a player, because he had mission impossible today - the ball fired up to him with two or three defenders around him and his nearest colleagues in shaw heath. Another brilliant match report, mate, especially that ^^^
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Post by hermannsays on Jan 19, 2020 0:31:02 GMT
I think it was on MB that 400 tickets were given for the kids and families in the Pop today. Hopefully all the work (well done to them) going in to get the schools and groups in keeps creating the odd (in number), at least, County fan.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2020 8:54:59 GMT
surprised you enjoyed it NYE I suppose I enjoyed it because I don't have any expectations for the rest of this season. If I hoped we'd maintain a push for promotion then I'd have been disappointed but I don't. On the contrary, I think the best we can do is identify those from the existing squad JG wants to offer full-time contracts to and then over the next few months recruit a full-time team that will be good enough to compete in League 2. When all is said and done, all we've lost recently is Walker and Rodney since the rest of the loanees have only had bit parts or, in the case of Hamill, no part at all, so the suggestion has to be that the core of the current squad is quite strong. To go back to yesterday's game I thought that we started very slowly and nobody seemed sure of the new loanees, particularly Clarke who had a very shaky start but I enjoyed watching us get back into it and how the control of midfield shaped up with first one team then the other gaining the upper hand. I was impressed with Archer's work-rate but as I've suggested earlier on this season playing as a lone striker is a specialist and thankless task at the best of times but especially so when one of the support players (McAlinden) is also making his debut. Since the takeover has clearly been a protracted one I'm sure that JG will have had his eyes on a number of potential targets so hopefully with the levels of financial support that we're told are now in place we'll see the additions to the squad sooner rather than later.
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Post by ceefer on Jan 19, 2020 12:02:39 GMT
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