Down to Earth with a bang

I agree, Junior. As is clear from my comments of the past, I'm not Stearn's biggest fan but as you say, he did really well in our last home game before the weekend and was named man of the match. There's no doubt he lifts the crowd and surely deserved to retain his place. I know our performances against Maidenhead and 1st half last night would suggest it was the correct selection, but it can't be encouraging for the bloke to do so well then immediately lose his place.

Just to add to the poor result was the poor attendance of 403. Not much atmosphere generated. I guess 2 home games a week stretches budgets especially with England v Scotland on terrestrial TV for 'free'. I have to say it's looking like a club drifting away at the moment though.
I have my views about what should or might happen to the club but it's out of my hands and it's a bit like waiting for a jury's verdict at the moment.

I thought the second half against Maidenhead on Saturday and the first half against Gosport last night were two of the best 45 minutes we have played for a long time.

I think the turning point last night was undoubtedly when Dave Pratt's shot hit the post - at that stage Gosport were clearly rattled and had just had a couple of players booked so if that had gone in to make it 2-0 it would have been a totally different game. You could sense Gosport raise their game after that and once the equaliser came the end result did have a degree of inevitability about it.

The referee must have been the only person in the ground who didn't think that Watkins had been fouled in the 1st half - the Gosport keeper certainly did because as others have said he clearly picked the ball up outside the area!

As for the attendance, I don't think a crowd of just over 400 on a Tuesday in November is that surprising, especially as there was football on tv - I recall a few seasons back when we played Forest Green here in the F A Cup the crowd was in the region of 2000 but we only had just over 400 for a league game on the following Tuesday.

Hopefully we can take the good parts of the Maidenhead and Gosport performances into the game at Chelmsford on Saturday.

yuffie wrote:

Marc Monitor wrote:That is a good point. We still do resort to long ball too much when we panic which is something the management need to address. You only have to look at how well we do when we keep it on the ground. We only have to look at the Swansea U21 team that have come the last couple of pre-seasons. We always go ahead with them but they never panic nor change their passing game and always end up on top. Obviously, there are many differences, not least that they have always been trained in that way of playing but it is still a good model.

I think you have to remember we are a Conference South side. It is a regular comment on other club forums that when their team isn't playing well they result to hoof ball. I don't imagine for one second the management tell the players to do this but at our level it is not that surprisingly that it happens. Also, the third goal last night came from Jason trying to play the ball out rather than just aimlessly hitting it forward toward their two big centre-backs.

Your first is a good point, yuffie, but it still doesn't mean that we can't make it a target especially when it would prove effective (certainly more effective than playing high balls to such a short side even when Chas' height brings up the average).

I wasn't really putting much on the third goal. It was a stupid 'chasing the game' goal and not representative of anything really.

The other thing that no one has mentioned is that Mellor got knocked out in the first half. He certainly seemed reluctant to come for the ball in the second half and given his kicking and throwing it appeared his judgement was slightly off.

He was brave to carry on but that is the result of having no back up.

One day our chickens are really going to come home to roost on that one. I wonder if Mellor would have come off on Tuesday had there been back up on the bench.

I think the only manager who would regularly name a back-up keeper was Gary Owers.

Is it a cost thing, or is there simply nobody else around that would be more use than an outfield player should the nightmare situation arise again? If we have five outfield players on the bench that could make a difference then fair enough, but with all due respect, I'm sure Jim is only there to make up the numbers? I can remember we had a game last season when one of our centre-backs was injured (maybe Preece) but there seemed a reluctance to bring Jim on.

Why we didn't do it in the FA Cup, when we have 7 subs spots available, irritated me a bit. It could have cost us thousands. I'm guessing we simply couldn't find anyone who would be able to step in if anything happened to Jason.

Well I've asked the question about Barrington before. Do we not have 1st call on him? Did his other club play on Tuesday? If not, why wasn't he on the bench? It's no good expecting an outfield player to cover for what would have been well over half the game on Tuesday.

I have been wondering if we haven't named sub keepers since Adelsbury did well in goal after Mellor was sent off against Chelmsford. Having said that, Adelsbury wasn't in the squad on Tuesday either.

I hope that's not the rationale. Adelsbury got away with it but you wouldn't want to rely on him again.

I doubt it but it does make you think. There aren't many other rationales that make sense

I could probably count on one hand the number of clubs that name a sub keeper on the bench against us in a season. I think Chelmsford and Ebbsfleet have to date this year.

comrade powell wrote:Well I've asked the question about Barrington before. Do we not have 1st call on him? Did his other club play on Tuesday? If not, why wasn't he on the bench? It's no good expecting an outfield player to cover for what would have been well over half the game on Tuesday.

Barrington played for Bishop Sutton against Shepton Mallet on Tuesday.

So we do we have 1st call on him? I wonder if he would be called up for Saturday if Mellor was unfit, or would it be a frantic phone call around various clubs to see who they could lend us.

Re Junior's observation, I can't understand whŷ clubs take this risk. I wonder how many fail to include defensive cover on their bench...

In the Chronic today, Britton alluded to financial issues causing our lack of cover for Mellor

Apart from the problem of him failing to complete a game, a lack of competition means he is an automatic choice for every game. Even the world's best should face competition for their place in the side.

comrade powell wrote:Apart from the problem of him failing to complete a game, a lack of competition means he is an automatic choice for every game. Even the world's best should face competition for their place in the side.

I think it is the lack of competition that is the bigger issue - and the one that Adie's comment alludes to.

I still think that Mellor is as good a keeper at this level as we are likely to get and the best since the god-like Paul Evans. Yes, he makes mistakes but what keeper doesn't at this level. Even his kicking has become more consistent this season (though far from perfect). I guess given how good he was when he joined us the only disappointment is that he hasn't really improved, but he commented himself that our lack of a goalkeeping coach was not ideal. And had he progressed as well as he could have he probably wouldn't still be here.

as I'd suspected, not Mellor's own goal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voS1bdWMD5s

I was so incensed by the officials & our inability to close out a game that was there for the taking, that I couldn't bear to watch the video back but it seems Yuffie was right, the keeper does look to handle the ball outside the area. I missed my half time cup of tea due to the referee's assessor asking to see the whole incident back. A more blatant, professional foul you won't see go unpunished like this one and the player not only stays on the pitch but goes on to score/make two goals. Fair play to Gosport for making the most out of the situation.

all in full view of a stunningly inept ref

At the time I couldn't see how it wasn't a foul. The ref seemed like he didn't want to send anyone off and he would have had to.

2weirdtown wrote:all in full view of a stunningly inept ref

The assessor didn't comment but wanted to see where the ref was so I assume he felt the same.