game v maidstone

Playing Coupe or making him or Phillips captain is just re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

If we were in even an average run a defeat at home to the second placed team on a day of dreadful weather conditions, you would say "Bad day at the office". Indeed, yes, it could be said that we played OK yesterday, really. However, in the really quite amazingly appalling run, it is just another nail in the coffin of our season and, possibly, the management's time here. Not only their's but others around them such as, was was mentioned last week, Rollo and some of the players. Even in a average season, you could say to the team, forget about yesterday, let's start again next week. In this run with this management, even if they could raise the team, they can't now.

We can suggest lots of reasons for this - tactics, falling out with players, not playing certain players, bad interviews with the press, bad choices in signings - but, whatever the reason, the management have lost it. Even if they turn around the season from here, they will possibly keep us up having racked up an enormous amount of points at the start of the season. Of course, people can say "Well, it was the management that got us those wins" and, yes, if you are going to give them responsibility for the defeats, I suppose you have to give them credit for the wins. I don't think it is as black and white. I have said that I think that Phillips had a huge amount to so with the wins and the lack of effective communication, confidence and trust between him and the defence have contributed to the defeats. However, let's say that the management are wholly responsible for both wins and losses. Who would prefer to end up in mid-table - our best possible position - winning at home with perhaps the odd loss or draw and losing away with the odd draw or win rather than a run at the start that flattered to deceive and this really quite disastrous run?

Just one thing that sums it up for me. Dave Pratt is just a natural goalscorer. At this stage in the last two seasons, he scored 9 and 7. This season it's 4. Of course, strikers go off form but it is up to a manager to try different things, speak to the player, encourage him, give him different sorts of training, suggest alternative methods of training, warming up, playing etc. This is the difference between managers and coaches. Obviously, they can't do that at all for him.

TO be fair, Watkins has scored one more goal than he had this time last season but seeing as he had only scored 1, that hasn't helped much. Of course, we did have another goal scorer <cough>Stearn<cough> for those two seasons.

Anyway, they are a bust flush, I am afraid. They have to look at themselves and work out what is wrong with their management and attempt to rectify this. However, I feel that it is too late for this and they aren't the types to do it.

There is good news, however. We have stopped a four match run of conceding 3 goals at home by only conceding 2 yesterday.

The management will be going nowhere unless and until they decide to themselves. That is the bottom line.

One home win in 11 matches (all competitions) matches our start to the 2011/12 season. We were relegated.
It's one away from one in 12 (all comps) between March and November 2006. We were promoted.
We also won one from 13 (all comps) between December 1966 and April 1967. We were relegated.

I don't think either end result will take place.

About a month ago, I would have agreed with you and I think said much the same on here. Now, I am afraid that there is no way that I can see that they can re-invigorate this team.

The middle stat doesn't really count in the same way. Having such a run over two seasons is very different from this one and the others you mentioned.

The previous season (end of 2005/06) run took in four games with the next seven at the start of 2006/07.

It's the first time we've lost five consecutive home matches in all competitions since February-March 2012.

We haven't lost more than five in a row at home, in all competitions, since September 1925-January 1926 when we lost 11 consecutively, conceding 41 goals.

stillmanjunior wrote:One home win in 11 matches (all competitions) matches our start to the 2011/12 season. We were relegated.
It's one away from one in 12 (all comps) between March and November 2006. We were promoted.
We also won one from 13 (all comps) between December 1966 and April 1967. We were relegated.

I don't think either end result will take place.

I hope you're right. But what is your justification? I suppose if we just got back to being middling it would see us out. But we aren't middling, we are far weaker than that.

This form has been consistently terrible for 21 games now in all comps. Palmer's magic spreadsheet has conjured the following, which is the final table if just the form over the past 8 matches continues for all teams...
                          GD PTS
1 Ebbsfleet United 35 91
2 Sutton United 59 86
3 Dartford 25 81
4 Truro City 21 78
5 Gosport Borough 11 77
6 Maidstone United 12 73
7 Hemel Hempstead Town 30 67
8 Weston-super-Mare -7 60
9 Margate -8 60
10 Oxford City 10 54
11 Whitehawk 8 54
12 Concord Rangers 3 53
13 Hayes & Yeading United -25 51
14 Bishop's Stortford -13 50
15 Wealdstone 2 49
16 Maidenhead United -15 44
17 St Albans City -27 42
18 Basingstoke Town -28 42
19 Havant & Waterlooville -29 42
20 Eastbourne Borough -6 40
21 Bath City -28 39
22 Chelmsford City -10 38

We don't look like scoring and can't defend, apart from that....

The Concord, Eastbourne and slightly further off St Albans games will be massive, lose them and we'll be in deep trouble.

How many wins do we need before we can start talking about the play offs?

I think I would start with one win and see where we go from there.

Ashley wrote:The Concord, Eastbourne and slightly further off St Albans games will be massive, lose them and we'll be in deep trouble.

We keep referring to those opening 6 wins - the problem with early season games is that you don't know how strong or weak opponents are until the season settles down. With half of it now completed, it's interesting to note that 4 of those clubs we beat in August are below us, with St Albans, Havant and Basingstoke currently in the relegation zone.

The good news is that over half of our remaining games are against teams below us. The average number of points over the past 5 seasons needed to avoid relegation is 44. We need 15 points from our remaining 20 games to reach that - 5 wins and a few draws should be more than enough to reach safety and herald a much needed clear out in the summer!

Good article posted in the Chron (if you can brave ads) re the match from Henry Burridge.

Adblocker is the enemy of the dreadful Chronicle website - I strongly recommend it!

comrade powell wrote:The good news is that over half of our remaining games are against teams below us. The average number of points over the past 5 seasons needed to avoid relegation is 44. We need 15 points from our remaining 20 games to reach that - 5 wins and a few draws should be more than enough to reach safety and herald a much needed clear out in the summer!

I didn't even realise we had as many as 29 points. Not sure how that compares to past seasons, I'm too tired to look.

Watched Bodmin defeat Welton Rovers in the Vase tonight by two goals to nil. Bizarre to think against the former is one of only three wins we've recorded since the end of August. Bodmin played far better in the cup game as well, then again the playing surface wasn't quite as heavy.

Excellent Chronicle read on the Maidstone game, some real insight and constructive criticism.

comrade powell wrote:Adblocker is the enemy of the dreadful Chronicle website - I strongly recommend it!

Yes, works well. Recommended. Very quick to download.

The Chronicle wrote:One of Eliot Richards' first acts when he came on was to pluck a ball out of the air with a relatively difficult first touch, move himself into space and aim for goal.

Not only that, but he looked a touch sharper than anybody else to that point in doing so, despite making his first competitive appearance since March.

An accurate but damning comment on the state of the current squad

hello all, me again. just thought i'd say a few words about last saturdays match. i won't comment on the score as such, but would say that i was a little surprised about your teams performance. you seem to have some very good players, as witnessed at our place earlier on, where i thought you were one of the best footballing sides i've seen all season. just seems like they're not quite clicking at the moment. anyway, moving on, i'd just like to say, football aside, that your place is in the running for the best awayday of the season, great bar with terrific staff and a fantastic stadium and some great fans too. definitely looking forward to our next trip to twerton park, though it'd be nice to get a bit of cover behind the goals, we got soaked in the second half.

Thanks for all the compliments Fanstone.

We are trying very hard to keep our stadium - we just need a serious influx of money!