oh well. at least i've got a sun-reddened face to show for my afternoon at the lamb.
the M1 was quite a bit easier than the M6 by the sounds of it, and i joined the crawling queue for the car park at about half two. enjoyed a hot dog with cheese as well as onions. could tell it was cheap and crunched some cartilage of thankfully unknown provenance at one point, but it was, in the tradition of a 'good' 3am kebab, nice for all that it was terrible. looked pretty busy under the covered bit, so we stood out in the sunshine...was pretty hot. coincidentally, the only other time we've lost at tamworth it was also red hot and had us all scurrying for cold drinks.
we were shooting towards the other end first half. very early, and without too much fuss, sam minihan was suddenly in their box with just the goalkeeper to beat, which he duly did. looked to be terrible defending from them, but then our entire defence proceeded to be easily taken out by one simple ball on a number of occasions afterwards. with the hot dog and the goal, all the good bits of the experience had come early.
tamworth had already got in one on one and cocked it up, before doing so again. their player, styche, who has played and scored against us for forest green, went round hinchliffe to score, although i thought smalley might clear it off the line. as the half progressed, we had the better of the possession, and they the better of the chances. we got to see, earlier than we would have liked, how we look without oswell or a decent oswell replacement in the side. stephenson was garbage. given that jim has been saying he's not fit, and he looks to be struggling for touch and confidence, playing up top today hung him out to dry. in retrospect, i'd rather have seen someone like ball up there to compete in the air and hold it up, and stephenson playing off him. i appreciate that then requires some changes elsewhere in the team, but we lost by two goals, so it probably wouldn't have been much worse.
stephenson mostly looked half a second slower off the mark than their defenders. when he did get going, it was too early and he was caught offside. he looked at times like he was trying to give the impression of chasing and tackling without actually doing much of it. at the moment, he's looking like a commitment-phobe. on one occasion, he did appear to have got away from their defender in the left hand side of the box. for some reason, in holding their defender off, he fouled him, and the whistle -while annoying and another demonstration of his poor play this afternoon- at least meant his pathetically tame attempt at a finish didn't count, and we can strike it from our collective memory. he's got a track record. he's coming back from an injury hit season, and today might have been more pressure than he could handle not fully fit...but it's got to get better than this. quickly.
we had a lot of corners during the game, and with three exceptions, they were either too flat and snuffed out at the near post, or boomed long enough to land in the neighbouring snow dome. unfortunately none of our attackers had thought to get the ski lift. the first half saw two of the exceptions - one that forced their 'keeper into an excellent catch under pressure, and one that chris smalley went close from, with scott duxbury worrying the skiers with his wild follow up. not a great half after the promising start.
second half proved worse. michael clarke should have done better with his header from the third of our trilogy of decent corners, putting a very respectable chance well over the bar. they took the lead with a deflected effort that gave hinchliffe no chance, although he did make a couple of very good saves today. we huffed and puffed a bit, but mostly didn't look like kicking tamworth's back doors in. late on, following a bit of after you claude failure to pull the trigger on the edge of their area (mostly from new walker, who had come on as sub), tamworth broke and won a penalty. with a couple of minutes plus injury time left, i headed for the car park as soon as the penalty went in.
didn't notice that much good stuff to be honest. minihan was busy, and scored. hampson had a few good runs forward, but his set pieces were very variable in quality. none of the forwards covered themselves in glory, the defence seemed to get opened up by simple passes too frequently, and although jimmy ball was mostly decent, he still misplaces a couple of simple short passes every game, and also fannied about with the ball on the edge of our box alarmingly on two occasions. it was too hot to be standing in the sun for two hours, so it must have been difficult playing in it. however tamworth managed to be the boys of summer regardless, and were worth the win in a crap game. right. i'm going to moisturise, otherwise i'll be lying there in the small hours asking myself 'how can i sleep when my face is burning...'