Boston v County: Match Thread (07/01/2017)

As loathe to quoting myself as I am...

"It's a Marathon not a Sprint" - Bill Shankly

Jim's building a team of long distance runners!

That's an understatement! He played Centre-back, full-back, Midfield, Attacking-mid and emergency Striker during his time with us - I think the only position he didn't play was Goalkeeper!



Shows just how good Jim is at building and galvanising a team!

Cheers for posting, H!

Seems to want to be an incoming?!

We can't lose Lloyd. If we do, I imagine that would spell the end of our playoff aspirations.

I understand about not standing in the way of a career changing move for a player, however the situation is that he is contracted for the next 6 months. I would imagine any fee we recieve for him would be underwhelming, so the best course of action would be to sit him down and say you're not going anywhere until the summer.

If he wants to leave in the summer, then good luck to the lad. Equally, we should say if you want to sign an 18 month contract now it's on the table.

I would absolutely hate for him to go to a club like Salford.

If we let him go for nothing now and miss out on the playoffs it would be so galling. It would make a mockery of all the fans' efforts to raise funds for the playing budget. What's the point in pumping thousands into the club every season to see our best players given away on a free. I'm sick of this league, and missing out on a 10, 20, 30k fee whatever is totally worth it if it means we can have a good go at the playoffs.

totally agree gts. if he goes, we won't make the playoffs. it will be hard enough if he stays. that said, will it be to a salford? he left another club with strong promotion aspirations -and previous form in this division- at least partly because he didn't want to go full time, although unlike with hinchliffe, i think it was also about being on the bench a lot last season.

perhaps it's a possibility that it could be interest from a higher level. i just think that if we have any genuine intentions of fulfilling our five year plan, or at least having got out of this division and being reasonably strong in the conference, then we should be saying to him 'you're under contract until summer. we'll look at it then and if you want to go, you'll be able to with no fee and potentially a better signing on deal. if we're successful, then you might want to stay with an upwardly mobile county.'

we can't just drop our knickers every time some suitor shows up with a handful of fivers. it's not very dignified for a club that is getting it together, and it won't give us any real benefits because we won't be able to replace him adequately.

but after that negativity, this afternoon, i was BACK!

in the very wonky seats behind the goal, the subs seemed to be using us as target practice before the game, leaving several mucky ball prints on the wall immediately behind us as we dodged and ducked like 'rope-a-dope' ali.

solid looking first eleven. nothing much happened for quite a while, but county were the team calling the shots without creating much. their 'keeper made a strange save after a corner at which big kay managed two falls and a submission on one of their players - couldn't believe the ref didn't blow. sam minihan put a shot into orbit, and we weren't getting through or behind them. and then we did...we took the lead with a ball out to lloyd on the left. i thought his touch had taken him too far and narrowed the angle too much. he fizzed off a shot though, which took a nick off one of their defenders (i think it was probably going just wide originally), hit the inside of the near post, and made its way into the far corner of the net. just a typically good lloyd strike.

boston had pretty much nothing first half, didn't put us under any pressure at all. we thought they'd come out better second half and they sort of did - a lot of ball in our half without creating very much at all. hinchliffe easily plucked a couple of set pieces out of the air, although they did smash a shot just wide in the middle of the half. the main threat looked to be their number 7 hurling himself to the ground every time he was near a challenge in the box. the ref didn't buy it against duxbury and then shook the claims away in a challenge with hinchliffe in which the player was already halfway down by the time hinchliffe reached him. did make me question though why hinchliffe was going into a challenge fifteen yards from his goal on the goal-line - it was going nowhere. generally though, they would have an ominous amount of play in our half, looking like they were building up to something, but then didn't.

it was pretty straightforward, although we weren't creating a lot ourselves. late on kane felix replaced jimmy ball who was looking pretty lightweight and ineffective. their fans seemed to think that the ref was against them, but it was -as it sometimes is for us at EP- mostly an outlet for their frustration because of their team's performance. late on, county were slowing everything down, and when they were angrily trying to speed up a set piece in their half (the 'keeper had raced forty yards out of his goal to moan at the ref - i struggle to see how that was speeding the game up), one of theirs who had already been booked said too much and got his marching orders, which was a welcome gift.

of course, 1-0 is precarious (as exemplified by monday's late disaster) so it was very welcome when in injury time, kane felix got put away on the right. it was a decent chance for him, but he unselfishly squared as the 'keeper moved towards him, leaving lloyd with his easiest goal of the season. job done.

there was just time for one of them to launch lloyd, presumably for being a pain in the arse, leaving him down for a while and then hobbling badly. he seemed to have recovered though when a delighted looking group of players came over to the county fans, and -bless- mark ross was singing along with the 'danny lloyd, danny lloyd, danny danny lloyd' song.

not an exciting game, no stellar individual performances, but pretty satisfying and a great result. don't spoil it for us for the sake of twenty grand county.