tamworth - man by man

just a few thoughts on saturday's performances in what was a bluddy awful game . thought the tamworth no 11 was the man of the match by far - seemed to be playing us on his own at times in the 2nd half

McKEOWN usual story - 1 superb save in the first half, usual laughable time wasting in the 2nd half for which he got his usual booking. i sometimes wonder whether the ref books him for the actual timewasting or just because his attempts at it are so pathetic was thinking back to the awful ebbsfleet defeat a year ago and how much he has improved since then. think a mixture of improved confidence/experience plus better defenders have mad him into one of the best bsp keepers

WOOD usual story - some cracking tackles (was peter till a scared, beaten man before he even got on the pitch, knowing what was coming?), long throws were an advantage to us but usual god awful distribution ,particularly in the first half. having said that it must be something about the slope on that side coz the tamoworth right back ,who'd had a good first half ,was similarly poor in the second.

THOMAS - not as effective as when i saw him at hereford. i wonder if people have wised up to him and are restricting his ability to rampage up field?
solid job though as were the rest of the defence

MILLER - came in and did a good job. 1 mistake in the 1st half but recovered well. looked like a match saving tackle late in the 2nd half rather than a penalty. be interesting to see if he is now ahead of pearson in the pecking order

POND - once again my gtfc man of the match. handled cunnington pretty well (cunnington is a non league peter crouch and a serial diver/ moaner imho) very cool and calm, covers well and again just looks a class above this level

COLBECK - usual story - very hard working and i have to say he seems to improve the team as a whole rather than coulson, who although probably a better individual player, didn't seem to totally fit in. was pleased to see the managers switching him and marshall . hilariously and brutally taken out late in the 2nd half by a tamworth rugby tackle

DISLEY - thought he was only just behind pond as man of the match. hard working and some decent passing - never flashy but usually positive and accurate

NIVEN - boring i know but usual story - first half was wood like in how dreadfully he passed it but stepped it up in the 2nd half and played well. i know i'm critical of him, but after 200-300 games in league 1 & 2 i did expect him to be able to generally pass the ball to a team mate! having said that he's what we've been missing for about 10 years.

MARSHALL - Tall and skinny - very different player to neilson. nowhere near as effective or dangerous, but that would be asking too much i suspect. very very skilful - a pleasure to watch with flicks, step overs and all sorts of tricks. think bsp came as a little bit of a shock to him - he'll need to learn quickly that this league is about getting stuck in. not quite as quick as i hoped but maybe with a being such a tight game and small pitch it may not have been to his advantage. increasingly drew lots of fouls which helped break up play and to relieve any pressure that was building. an adequate temporary replacement for neilson but if you said we could have him in replacement for artus i'd bite your hand off - certainly gives us something different. think the lower findus or whatever its called this month will enjoy him bamboozling some cart horse full back

ELDING - see the various other threads. just 2 points - why oh why does he always look at the defender before going up for a header? it just begs the ref to blow for a foul for the defender . what did for him on saturday was when he shiite out of a 50/50 right in front of scott. we all immediately said that he wouldn't be on for much longer!

HANNAH - same old story - you don't see him for 89 minutes and then suddenly he gets a sniff and there's danger.

COOK - really pleased to say he came on and made an immediate impact - straight away he looked to be a bigger threat than elding - seemed to win far more headers in his 30 mins on the pitch than elding did in his 60 mins. think the win showed that money does count - no way that tamworth could afford someone of the quality of cook to come off the bench

southwell & artus only played a few minutes, although for the first time this season i did see artus make 2 accurate passes!! miracles will never cease......


i hate to say it but i'm growing increasingly confident that we can make the play offs this year.

and if ever there was a kiss of death - that previous sentence was it

Quoted from forza ivano

i hate to say it but i'm growing increasingly confident that we can make the play offs this year.

and if ever there was a kiss of death - that previous sentence was it

You're right there. We definitely won't make the play-offs this season now.

WE'RE GONNA WIN THIS F**KING LEAGUE INSTEAD.  

quite a few usual stories then? That's consitency for ya!

Quoted from DubaiMariner

quite a few usual stories then? That's consitency for ya!

yes - that's a good point. we also managed to beat one of our (50 odd   ) bogey sides and to win when not playing well. finally it may indicate well drilled unit that growing in confidence

Quoted from forza ivano

just a few thoughts on saturday's performances in what was a bluddy awful game . thought the tamworth no 11 was the man of the match by far - seemed to be playing us on his own at times in the 2nd half

McKEOWN usual story - 1 superb save in the first half, usual laughable time wasting in the 2nd half for which he got his usual booking. i sometimes wonder whether the ref books him for the actual timewasting or just because his attempts at it are so pathetic was thinking back to the awful ebbsfleet defeat a year ago and how much he has improved since then. think a mixture of improved confidence/experience plus better defenders have mad him into one of the best bsp keepers

WOOD usual story - some cracking tackles (was peter till a scared, beaten man before he even got on the pitch, knowing what was coming?), long throws were an advantage to us but usual god awful distribution ,particularly in the first half. having said that it must be something about the slope on that side coz the tamoworth right back ,who'd had a good first half ,was similarly poor in the second.

THOMAS - not as effective as when i saw him at hereford. i wonder if people have wised up to him and are restricting his ability to rampage up field?
solid job though as were the rest of the defence

MILLER - came in and did a good job. 1 mistake in the 1st half but recovered well. looked like a match saving tackle late in the 2nd half rather than a penalty. be interesting to see if he is now ahead of pearson in the pecking order

POND - once again my gtfc man of the match. handled cunnington pretty well (cunnington is a non league peter crouch and a serial diver/ moaner imho) very cool and calm, covers well and again just looks a class above this level

COLBECK - usual story - very hard working and i have to say he seems to improve the team as a whole rather than coulson, who although probably a better individual player, didn't seem to totally fit in. was pleased to see the managers switching him and marshall . hilariously and brutally taken out late in the 2nd half by a tamworth rugby tackle

DISLEY - thought he was only just behind pond as man of the match. hard working and some decent passing - never flashy but usually positive and accurate

NIVEN - boring i know but usual story - first half was wood like in how dreadfully he passed it but stepped it up in the 2nd half and played well. i know i'm critical of him, but after 200-300 games in league 1 & 2 i did expect him to be able to generally pass the ball to a team mate! having said that he's what we've been missing for about 10 years.

MARSHALL - Tall and skinny - very different player to neilson. nowhere near as effective or dangerous, but that would be asking too much i suspect. very very skilful - a pleasure to watch with flicks, step overs and all sorts of tricks. think bsp came as a little bit of a shock to him - he'll need to learn quickly that this league is about getting stuck in. not quite as quick as i hoped but maybe with a being such a tight game and small pitch it may not have been to his advantage. increasingly drew lots of fouls which helped break up play and to relieve any pressure that was building. an adequate temporary replacement for neilson but if you said we could have him in replacement for artus i'd bite your hand off - certainly gives us something different. think the lower findus or whatever its called this month will enjoy him bamboozling some cart horse full back

ELDING - see the various other threads. just 2 points - why oh why does he always look at the defender before going up for a header? it just begs the ref to blow for a foul for the defender . what did for him on saturday was when he shiite out of a 50/50 right in front of scott. we all immediately said that he wouldn't be on for much longer!

HANNAH - same old story - you don't see him for 89 minutes and then suddenly he gets a sniff and there's danger.

COOK - really pleased to say he came on and made an immediate impact - straight away he looked to be a bigger threat than elding - seemed to win far more headers in his 30 mins on the pitch than elding did in his 60 mins. think the win showed that money does count - no way that tamworth could afford someone of the quality of cook to come off the bench

southwell & artus only played a few minutes, although for the first time this season i did see artus make 2 accurate passes!! miracles will never cease......


i hate to say it but i'm growing increasingly confident that we can make the play offs this year.

and if ever there was a kiss of death - that previous sentence was it

Can't really disagree with any of that, good report on the game as I saw it.

Thought maybe the ref warranted a mention too. Not at the game so only going on the highlights but Miller insists it was a clean tackle by him, on the video the ball disappears behind him and Wright but it looks like a clear, cushioned intervention by Miller back to Macca (though possibly a back pass?). Alternatively of course it could have been a woeful touch from Tommy Wrong (not impossible!) but looks like as Miller described it. Straight away the Tamworth bench are running to the touch line and gesticulating, despite having the same view as the camera. Their guy then cuts Colbeck down horribly, but all they can do is point to our end, as if a shocking tackle like this is fair retribution for an incident that happened 100 yards away from all of them. Only the word of the worst player in football to go on (step forward Mr T Wrong), the ref did well here and could possibly have gone card happy with the treatment he received from Tamworth.

Quoted from RoboCod

Thought maybe the ref warranted a mention too. Not at the game so only going on the highlights but Miller insists it was a clean tackle by him, on the video the ball disappears behind him and Wright but it looks like a clear, cushioned intervention by Miller back to Macca (though possibly a back pass?). Alternatively of course it could have been a woeful touch from Tommy Wrong (not impossible!) but looks like as Miller described it. Straight away the Tamworth bench are running to the touch line and gesticulating, despite having the same view as the camera. Their guy then cuts Colbeck down horribly, but all they can do is point to our end, as if a shocking tackle like this is fair retribution for an incident that happened 100 yards away from all of them. Only the word of the worst player in football to go on (step forward Mr T Wrong), the ref did well here and could possibly have gone card happy with the treatment he received from Tamworth.

the ref was up to usual bsp standard , but for a change we seemed to get all the breaks, so his performance for us was just amusingly inept. he booked marshall for an innocuous challenge in the first half but was generally pro town - particularly ignoring the repeated attempts by cunnington to win penalties and free kicks. as to the sending off: oji who's bit of a unit when steaming into marshall with a foot raised and studs showing. i think i'm right in saying that in those circumstances the ref has no option but to send a player off.
oji certainly didn't agree with the decision and for a minute or 2 thought he was going to deck the ref. was one of the few high points of the 90 minutes

oh forgot to mention a very important point - tamworth catering has to rank up there with the worst in this league

oh and the robert peel was probably the best thing about the day (apart from the 3 points)

I think agree with that, marshall was shocking before him and colbeck swapped sides, the pitch was terrible and bobbly that's why we had to play longball