City vs Stortford

Why the heck can't we see games out? ?

Yes I can't quite believe it. Struggling to hold on for a draw. Bowman misses a sitter then Pratt scores what should have been the winner. Gals gave the ball away and we stay in deep trouble. As the games reduce we will get more desperate I fear.

Still just have our head above the water but sinking!

I still believe 2 wins and 2 draws will be enough. Just can't see where a win will come from

Or maybe more likely 8 draws!

At least we scored more than one goal. That is progress of sorts although points are becoming hard to come by. It is sqeaky bum time.

For large parts of the game it looked like a mid table end of season match to me.

I think we need three wins and one of them was up for grabs today against a pretty dreadful team. Yet again we couldn't push on when well on top in a one sided first half and yet again we paid the price.

This was a vital game for us but for me the summary is pretty simple. We were very poor, so were Stortford and so was the ref. Dreadful error by Gallinagh leading to the injury time equiliser.
We are running out of games to get the wins we need.

was that right that the ref was one time city player Sam Allison???

Yes. And he gave out more cards than at Christmas

Really poor Bath City. The players let everyone down today. We deserve to go down if this is all we can do. Rescuing a point is one thing but two wins today and against Oxford should have seen us in relative safety. With St Albans finding form the Easter Monday game may be purely academic. Still I will be at the next two games cheering every player on.

Ashley wrote:Yes. And he gave out more cards than at Christmas

as an ex footballer he was bloody rubbish.

There us everything to play for. We are not in the relegation places and 4 positive results will do it from 8. Let's stay behind the players. Can't face going back to the southern league.

A win or 2 draws at the weekend will see us staying in the fight.

Hemmings has looked a big improvement over Owers games. I heard a number of people shocked today when he was subbed. In the past we would have been cheering.

McCootie looked trouble for his short appearance.

Two wins and we'll be off and running!

Quite right, Pete. However, I hope today's result provides a wake up call for some. Ever since the appointment of the new manager, I have sensed a feeling that everything is going to be all right despite our failure to register wins apart from the solitary one against lowly St Albans. We are still conceding sloppy goals and failing to score when dominating opponents, while I am concerned that the youngsters our team is now half full of may not be up for the battles which lie ahead. We really do need some experienced heads who can rally the troops - Sascha can't do it all!

Steve Whites Missus wrote:McCootie looked trouble for his short appearance.

Yes, with hindsight I expect the manager wishes he had brought him on earlier for the ineffective Harvey. We need much more of that from McCootie and hopefully he will deliver on Friday.

I share Comrades concerns that there seems to have been a feeling amongst many that everything was going to be ok following the appointment of Gary Owers. I am not his biggest fan and although I have seem some improvements since his arrival we have some way to go yet.
His policy seems to be one of bringing in young players on loan from league clubs and Kelly has looked good to me on several occasions. We could, however, do with one or two experienced heads but with the financial situation as it is I don't really see that happening.
I think everyone is behind the team and I shall be there until the end, but today was bitterly disappointing. McCootie obviously rattled them when he came on but overall we must do better than this or else it is back to the Southern League.

There is not two ways that the confidence in the team is better. Under the previous management, we would have given up the ghost after their equaliser but we went for a winner which we got even after Dan's unfortunate miss.

The players' stamina seems better and Owers is making good decisions - resting Pratt for whole games, resting McCooty, having Phillips as manager. At the end of the day, it isn't Owers' team, it is a team that he has inherited that has taken a batter. We have lost 2 games since he came - one against a top 4 team and, last week, a bad result. We have started scoring and we are still playing good football.

Well of course it's all about opinions and we see different things in games. I maintain that the big plus under the new manager is that we are no longer a soft touch, but I fail to recognise this good football you mention. We have played some pretty ordinary teams of late and some of the games, particularly today's, had Southern League written all over them.

Off the top of my head, the move that led to Bowman's miss was excellent and it wasn't just because of McCootie's endeavour. Similarly, last week was good up until we started doing our usual thing of panicking and knocking it long. To be fair, we had it up in the air today a bit as well but Hemmings was uncharacteristically commanding aerially today.

Despite the disappointment of the late goal I thought there were positives to take from today's game.

Batten took up where he left off with a solid performance and the first real save Phillips had to make was the stoppage time one that went straight back to their striker, suggesting that the resilience is still there. The penalty looked a bit like the one Ebbsfleet conceded against us last week - a challenge that just wasn't needed. However, unlike at Truro we didn't fold after this (though we did look like we might for a while) so that is also a step forward.

I thought Harvey did okay in the first half but it was clear as the second half went on that he wasn't linking up with Pratty so I agree that he probably should have been replaced by McCootie 10-15 minutes earlier. When he did arrive there were those signs of why I still think he could be a very good player for us. Even if he can repeat that as a sub a few times between now and the end of the season it could be the difference.

Pratty scoring again is also a big plus. It's the first time he's scored in back to back games this season so if he can get five or six more goals this season, again it could make all the difference.

A few hours down the line I think a draw was probably the right results, especially if Pratt was offside as seems to be the widely held view. Of course, I realise that draws aren't good enough and a win at Maidenhead or (especially) against Weston is desperately needed.

The loss of two important points was a direct result of trying to run down the clock by messing about. We were awarded a corner kick but instead of playing the ball into their goal area giving our forwards a chance to score we ended up losing possession by taking a short corner trying to waste time allowing them to counter attack and score. I could see it coming, not because I'm gifted in some way but because I've seen that sort of thing before. Basically we got our just desserts by wasting time and not playing football.
Very disappointing.

I thought we did okay in the first half, but should have capitalised on a poor Bishop's Stortford team.

They obviously had words at half time and the introduction of the two subs saw them put us on the back foot for a while, and the equaliser was inevitable.

It was good to see the 'old' Nick McCootie - his run to set up Dan Bowman's miss was reminiscent of his early performances - and he definitely made a difference.

Dave Pratt certainly looked a long way offside, but it seemed like perhaps we were going to have something go in our favour for once.
Not sure what Andy Gallinagh was thinking, but once he lost the ball we were a man short at the back and paid the price.

With St Albans, Hayes and Havant winning it was definitely two points dropped, but at least we made a point on Weston. I see that Hayes are playing Havant on Friday when Weston are playing Ebbsfleet, so it would be good to get something at Maidenhead.

miker wrote:The loss of two important points was a direct result of trying to run down the clock by messing about.  We were awarded a corner kick but instead of playing the ball into their goal area giving our forwards a chance to score we ended up losing possession by taking a short corner trying to waste time allowing them to counter attack and score. I could see it coming, not because I'm gifted in some way but because I've seen that sort of thing before. Basically we got our just desserts by wasting time and not playing football.
Very disappointing.

Except the goal came directly from Gallinagh racing out of defence with the ball then losing possession, rather than just hoofing it down the pitch to run the clock down a bit more. Had he done the latter he wouldn't have been out of position when they next attacked us.

You are of course correct Yuffie, in the situation that he found himself Gallinagh should have kicked the ball as far towards Bristol as possible. I was describing what happened just prior to that in answer to the original post made by Luton Roman expressing my opinion that we should have continued to play football rather than waste time.
At the end of the day no matter how we view these things one has to be philosophical; s**t happens. Onwards to the next game.