Just back from the Whad

[Scotty Mac]

dear oh dear. if we had of won or drawn then it would have been harsh on cheltenham. kuipers kept us in game with some top saves, and we didnt really forece higgs into making one decent save

it was the usual story - no midfield of note, long balls launched forward which left forster and murray with no real service - although the latter didnt look like he could finish a book today. cheltenham never gave up, and got what they deserved out of it

whing seemed to be playing rugby today, every kick went into touch. richards had a torrid time at left back. thought cox played quite well but didnt see enough of the ball, and el abd was solid enough but is not a midfielder

big 5 games coming up, and if cheltenham are one of the poorer teams in the league then that is concerning on todays showing. do well in these five and play offs are realistic, struggle and we could end up looking over our shoulders

 

[Bozza]

Agree with all of that as per my post on the main match thread.

And to top it off, my bloody train is late and I'm rapidly getting bored at Cheltenham Spa station.

 

[Scotty Mac]

Agree with all of that as per my post on the main match thread.

And to top it off, my bloody train is late and I'm rapidly getting bored at Cheltenham Spa station.

theres a decent chinese takeaway opposite it

 

[swindonseagull]

To many long high balls down the middle. We won very few, they wanted to win more than us..

Many chances to seal it in the last 20 min.

Kuipers made a few good saves..

Not happy but thats life.....

The Cheltenham "massive" were very funny to watch..

 

[Al Bion]

I guess the day started in poor fashion when the pa announcer read out a dedication to Roy in our end who was celebrating his 70th birthday, everyone could see him down the front and politely clapped...as the announcer added 'with love from your partner Peter' as some chap next to him puffed out his chest with pride.

As others have said we didn't really deserve even a draw but the fact was we'd taken our chance and were leading 1-0 and had several more chances when we could have wrapped the game up.

Cheltenham did look threatening for most of the match but, like last week, our midfield was totally non-existent so we let them have far too much possession.

Am disappointed but not that worried with so many home games still to come.

My ratings:

Kuipers 9 - Man of the match. Several brilliant saves to keep us in the match
Whing 4 - Had a nightmare match, many misplaced passes, given the runaround most of the match
Elphick 6 - Thought he did ok
Butters 6 - Solid game
Richards 6 - Did ok but not great
Cox 5 - Out of the game for long periods, rarely threatened
Robinson 5 - Scored the goal but like Coxy was off the pace most of the game
El Abd 7 - I thought he did ok today
Thomson 6 - Did ok but can't be expected to be our only force in midfield
Murray 7 - Did ok, plenty of running, tired towards the end
Forster 8 - Thought he did well, several good chances, ran his heart out
Sub Fogden 6 - Did ok for the short time he was on

 

[Scotty Mac]

I guess the day started in poor fashion when the pa announcer read out a dedication to Roy in our end who was celebrating his 70th birthday, everyone could see him down the front and politely clapped...as the announcer added 'with love from your partner Peter' as some chap next to him puffed out his chest with pride.

missed that - superb

 

[federicoed-up]

Happy birthday Roy, if you're reading this

 

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Yep, quite a shocking performance not deserving of a point. Going into injury time ahead, you expect not to lose though.

Overall assessment, Kuipers did really well upto 90 mins when I thought he was exposed for at least their second. Defence was dicey in 1st half, not communicating. 2nd half defending was better.
Whing was abysmal. distribution was constantly skyward.

Midfield, Thompson did enough, played the simple passes often. Cox & Robbo were not involved. El abd was awesome Thought he really got stuck in.

Murray showed glimpses of promise, setting up himself (via Cox) and linking well with Cox. Fogden had chance which would have won game. Murray went missing for large part of 2nd half. Forster was pretty impressive.

Ball was bouncing around like a hot potato. Either their footballs were over-inflated or ground was too hard. Mid table will do me, we're not good enough to get promotion.

 

[Gully]

I was in shock at the final whistle, in fact I think that I still am, I can't remember having seen us snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in such a stunning fashion...not saying that we deserved to win though, because we didn't.

 

[NMH]

I'm finally convinced that we are mid-table now, and aren't going to make the playoffs at all this season. This team is not going to get points from the top clubs, and is going to share points with the middle and lower clubs - and that ain't promotion requirements.
The new lads should be making a difference, but Crewe were no great competition - and Cheltenham should have been one fixture for us to show dogged determination in getting points. Yes, they wanted to prove they weren't pushovers, and as I've said before - they were always going to be tougher for this one - but we must have gone there knowing that and been prepared.

It sounded like we let them off the hook in assuming the points were ours. Wankers.

 

[Gully]

That is a fair assessment. I was sat during yesterdays game thinking exactly the same thing, to their credit Chelts got the ball down on the deck and played it around confidently, never giving up on trying to play good football. The move for our goal was fast incisive and their defence were simply unable to counter it, unfortunately that was an all too rare moment of brilliance. Michel kept us in the game for a fair length of time, making one save from the very top drawer, we had a couple of really good chances to seal it in the last 15 minutes or so but couldn't convert them.

Despite my disappointment at the result yesterday I still think there are more positives than negatives about the team, at last we have two decent centre forwards with a nice contrast between their styles and abilities, the best we have had for some considerable time. I would certainly concur with the comments about midfield, Adam played his socks off yesterday and showed a level of commitment that cannot be doubted but on that evidence it is not his best position and the important thing is to work out where it is.

We have to be honest and admit that this is not a division packed with quality, we should have enough to compete with the better teams but at the moment this is not happening, there isn't much wrong with what we are doing but it certainly needs fine tuning. I know there is still some way to go until the end of the season but we really must use the run of home games to ensure that we don't get dragged into the dogfight at the bottom and secure a position in mid-table, dreams of a play-off place will remain precisely that...a dream.

 

[Midikilledmydog]

where did 4 added mins come from, I cannot recall any injuries and none of the substitutions wasted much time, the game must have been timed by the bloke who did the 1 mins silence at Wembley on wednesday

 

[Falmerite]

The game turned on 2 astounding tactical blunders by Wilkins. Firstly the replacement of Robinson (not injured) with Fogden who was like a rabbit in the headlights.
Secondly the tactics board appeared on the touchline in the 89th minute (approx) and we then seemed to switch from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3, moving El Abd out of the middle where both goals immediately came from.
Shame Wilkins was not big enough to admit to this cockup in the postmatch interview.

 

[Beer & Bitches (CTFC)]

where did 4 added mins come from, I cannot recall any injuries and none of the substitutions wasted much time, the game must have been timed by the bloke who did the 1 mins silence at Wembley on wednesday

30 seconds for each substitution. Happy days.

 

[Scotty Mac]

The game turned on 2 astounding tactical blunders by Wilkins. Firstly the replacement of Robinson (not injured) with Fogden who was like a rabbit in the headlights.
Secondly the tactics board appeared on the touchline in the 89th minute (approx) and we then seemed to switch from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3, moving El Abd out of the middle where both goals immediately came from.
Shame Wilkins was not big enough to admit to this cockup in the postmatch interview.

blimey - i had forgotten about that. wilkins, chapman and white standing there screaming at the players with that dopy board, and then four minutes later we have conceded two goals. great work

 

[gullshark]

30 secs per sub and 30 secs per goal, so thats 4 minutes.