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Enjoyed game especially 2nd half.  1st half was lost with wrong team selection. Middleton should have been in with new lad up front. Day still not near good enough. Gooda looked  nervous.Another injured player going to give us selection problems because the back 4 is constantly changing. Thought our keeper possibly looked at fault with the 1st goal similar to recent games.

Lost the game with team selection both Day and Gooda didn't look up to it, Day I'm afraid isn't, had 4/5 dead rubbers end of last season to make/prove a point and didn't and hasn't seemed to improve for training full time, simon has a terrific way of damaging lads confidence, chucks in gooda and day at the deep end and then drags them both off at halftime (rightly so imo ) but that's gonna do them more damage than good, the lad on loan from scunny can't be feeling great, nearly a week training with us, day starts ahead of him and then is left in the bench over a lad who's only been with us a day or so.

Top Cat has got it spot on. Poor team selection from Simon lost us the game today. Absolutely frustrated after that.

Top Cat wrote:Lost the game with team selection both Day and Gooda didn't look up to it, Day I'm afraid isn't, had 4/5  dead rubbers end of last season to make/prove a point and didn't and hasn't seemed to improve for training full time,  simon has a  terrific way of damaging lads confidence, chucks in gooda and day at the deep end and then drags them both off at halftime (rightly so imo ) but that's gonna do them more damage than good, the lad on loan from scunny can't be feeling great, nearly a week training with us, day starts ahead of him and then is left in the bench over a lad who's only been with us a day or so.

The lad from Scunny has been training with us for over three weeks.

Townfan wrote:

Top Cat wrote:Lost the game with team selection both Day and Gooda didn't look up to it, Day I'm afraid isn't, had 4/5  dead rubbers end of last season to make/prove a point and didn't and hasn't seemed to improve for training full time,  simon has a  terrific way of damaging lads confidence, chucks in gooda and day at the deep end and then drags them both off at halftime (rightly so imo ) but that's gonna do them more damage than good, the lad on loan from scunny can't be feeling great, nearly a week training with us, day starts ahead of him and then is left in the bench over a lad who's only been with us a day or so.

The lad from Scunny has been training with us for over three weeks.

Feel for the lad, why on earth bring him in and not play him?

Looks like Scunny rate him...

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Who is Jake Wright? Is this the lad? [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Agree about the team selection, though we don't know what goes on behind closed doors, however, I believe an explanation is in order from the management.

Sadly I agree with above comments. Day + Gooda no way near ready at this level. Ben rightly so should of started imo. No disrespect to lower level opponents, but it just wasn't the Team (Salford) to throw the above mentioned two into as these are Title favourites. A great 2nd half performance and it looked like we were most likely to go on and win the game, but sadly a lapse in concentration cost us at a set piece/corner. I'm hoping and sure Simon + Co have spoken with the lads to say, it's only the 1st defeat and potentially if we go out in the right frame of mind tomorrow, we could bounce back to Top of the Leauge once more. Stay focused lads and don't change anything. Your a tight nit bunch who seem to work your socks for each other. Keep up the same ethos tomorrow and we won't go wrong.

A 'tight nit' bunch indeed, without SA (sorry for the pun on the typing Ozzi). I said it all in most post on the Brackley game: without SA, and with our Dominic more injury prone than a man in a trench on the Somme, we have nought up front, and blanks at Telford and Southport (fingers crossed) will begin to make my comments look prophetic. Day and the other lad will struggle against Pennistone Church in the FA Cup (even with the verger in goal). It is not a matter of Simon denting their egos, and many players could do with a dose of humility in my view, when there is little to warrant confidence in the first place. Loan players are NOT the solution, have rarely worked out for us. We needed a marquee signing if we were serious about promotion. So what do we get. Another bloody loanee from Sheffield United. I despair.

I find it difficult to agree with your assessment, mr apples, so here goes.....
We had an easy start fixture list and yes, got a dose of reality against Brackley and Salford as I feared. But even without SA we are a better side than last year, play the ball on the ground, unlike last year, have a more skilful bunch of players and play our socks off for the full 90. I think the team deserve to get a minimum of 2 points from their next 2 fixtures even without SA, but must say that this league is probably too strong for us to get automatic promotion, maybe even promotion with the team we have!

Well, Pheonix, that isn’t strictly true on the facts: we have played two top 7 sides (prior to Brackley) and in a fornight will have played all of the top 7 – Tamworth (courtesy of a hattrick from SA), and the Spartans (where he went off injured), which rather underscores our dependence upon him.
I agree they are a fine team (and the fact that they were far from that last season, owed much to the mentality and antics of some of the players, rather than anything Simon can fairly be blamed for) but without the right forwards, rather like a Mont Blanc without a cartridge: will it write a successful session.
But, Wright scored in the massacre of Telford, and Kennedy (who some genius on here suggested we play in a more forward role – buy the man a pint) and Thompson a brace (an attacking mid-fielder with goal scoring pedigree), so perhaps it is just a case of letting them bed in. I certainly hope so, with SA out for 3 months.
Let us be ambitious for once. We can’t let those Man U dilettantes, Scholes et al, win the title.

Mr Apples wrote:A 'tight nit' bunch indeed, without SA (sorry for the pun on the typing Ozzi). I said it all in most post on the Brackley game: without SA, and with our Dominic more injury prone than a man in a trench on the Somme, we have nought up front, and blanks at Telford and Southport (fingers crossed) will begin to make my comments look prophetic. Day and the other lad will struggle against Pennistone Church in the FA Cup (even with the verger in goal). It is not a matter of Simon denting their egos, and many players could do with a dose of humility in my view, when there is little to warrant confidence in the first place. Loan players are NOT the solution, have rarely worked out for us. We needed a marquee signing if we were serious about promotion. So what do we get. Another bloody loanee from Sheffield United. I despair.

5-1 !!
Bloody loaned scored and made one!!

And that was my point in the follow up post, which perhaps you didn't see. Let's hope it continues at Southport.

Fwiw - maybe I'm being a bit pedantic but - the easy start is very 'strictly true' ie at the start of the season our opening 7 fixtures were all against sides which were not in the top 9 in the betting (the betting odds are the only guide to what people judge as the best sides before season kickoff. Also, before we played Brackley, neither Blyth nor Tamworth were in the top 7 - their last 2 results have got them there.
Fantastic performance in the second half today against a broken defence but against a team which had done pretty well in its previous 5 games. Let's beat Southport now and even the bookies will put us as second favourites next Wednesday!

The bookies are already ahead of you, Phoenix, town are 2nd favourites tonight, never mind next Wednesday. Get in there !