[ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

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sussexdiamond
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by sussexdiamond »

Dolman was injured and Harris's wife gave birth today.

Very disappointing result. Lost game in the first half and despite a spirited second half never really looked like getting back into the game.
Not sure why the comment about Finners. Did you hold him responsible for 2nd goal?.

Still plenty to play for and that 5th spot is still a reality, but not sure we could get past the semi final as it now looks like Witton will be runners up.
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TheIncognitoKid
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by TheIncognitoKid »

Phil-the-Diamond wrote:Oh dear tonight! Where were Dolman and Harris?

We apparently signed Appleton & Purse in case they were needed in the run in. Thought Quigley & Brown did OK but at this vital time in the season we need players in their natural positions.

I couldn't see what the point was in bringing on Orosz for Ford then moving Lorraine to Centre-back, why not just leave the defence as it was and take Lorraine off?

An improved second-half but classic away performance from Stocksbridge - get a couple of goals then shut up shop.
Dolman had a calf injury and Brad's partner had just given birth. Not sure about appleton, but purse wasn't available tonight and will be suspended afrer getting sent off at the weekend. Centre half has been a real problem first us this season.
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by Three Nips »

Regardless of the fact that Stocksbridge are clearly at least a half decent team on a blinding run of form, we were totally out-played across the park.

So often this season we've seen teams that are better organised, better prepared and ultimately end up with the better result. I don't buy into the fact that people claim that every time we lose is because it's the other side's 'cup final' at all, the reality is that most teams I've seen us play against this season have seemed to want it more and gained the desired result because of it.

We rarely win any second balls, have any time on the ball in midfield or defence and are basically an easy team to play against, which has been the case for the majority of this season, and could even be levied about the back-end of last season from February onwards as well. Stocksbridge turned up tonight knowing exactly what they were going to do and executed it perfectly, hounded us for the ball constantly and made the midfield a non-entity, leaving Nabil with a hopeless task of feeding on scraps from long balls, and defended the hoofs forward with ease.

Basically, they were much better organised than we were and whilst the loss of a player with the quality of Dolman would affect most teams, I don't think the fact that we had no centre halves in the matchday squad was a massive factor in the grand scheme of things. The fact that we've let the situation arise is a particularly sorry state of affairs though, but let's leave that for another day! (Emergency?! What emergency?!)

In truth, it was a game of few chances and Stocksbridge took theirs but if we only have two shots of note on target a game, we really don't deserve to win that many. A scenario we've seen all too regularly at home for a team with playoff aspirations.

Didn't have the greatest view of the second goal from where I was standing, but it looked as though Finlay was at fault for either just palming it into the net or not setting the wall up correctly as it didn't seem that there was that much movement on the ball and the first goal was just a lapse in concentration to let a man free.

Overall, another two hours of my life I'm not going to get back and a dismal display at home that, unfortunately, we've all become far too accustomed to for our own liking.

Rant over and we'll be back there Saturday with faint hopes that something miraculous occurs in the next few days.

PS I thought Trek's driving on the way to the ground was the worst display I'd see tonight but turns out I was wrong on that front!
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by Oundle Diamond #2 »

ParcelFace wrote: We should forget about play-offs because we're clearly not good enough and if we did get there, there's no chance we can beat any of the other teams that we could play.
This is the ultimate "load of bollocks" tonight.

If we scrape into the play offs, which is still a real possibility, who knows what can happen over 2 games of 90 minutes, as we showed last season. If it comes to it, I couldn't care less if we've recruited badly and played dreadfully this season - if we make the play-offs that will all be forgotten as 600 of us make our way up north for a cup final.

3 points over the last two games is a half decent return - we're still very much in this. Time to drop the negativity.
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by Curly »

Oundle Diamond #2 wrote:
ParcelFace wrote: We should forget about play-offs because we're clearly not good enough and if we did get there, there's no chance we can beat any of the other teams that we could play.
This is the ultimate "load of bollocks" tonight.

If we scrape into the play offs, which is still a real possibility, who knows what can happen over 2 games of 90 minutes, as we showed last season. If it comes to it, I couldn't care less if we've recruited badly and played dreadfully this season - if we make the play-offs that will all be forgotten as 600 of us make our way up north for a cup final.

3 points over the last two games is a half decent return - we're still very much in this. Time to drop the negativity.
I don't hold it as a load if bollocks at all, in fact I quite agree. Whilst anything could happen in the playoffs we are clearly not good enough to be there in the first place.

The centre back situation is however a complete joke, we've known for 6 months that it's needed sorting and it hasn't been, bully has has to carry the team through most of this season and he has been carrying an injury himself for quite a while. Not only does the lack of cb's affect the defence but having to move players like Sam and quigs out of their natural positions doesn't help. Now budget wise we might not have a lot of options but surely we could jettison a player to get another in.

We got done tonight by a team with a plan which is something that we've struggled against all season at home and we never adjusted or really ever gave them much to really think about. It seems to me that people are turning up at home games now almost accepting that we're going to be poor and that in itself is unacceptable. Next season when we move to Hayden road we get our "novelty" factor back and could really attract some decent crowds but they won't keep coming if we keep performing badly. On the face of it and quite honestly we've been poor for over a year now apart from a few notable performances, yes results have given us a decent position but anybody who's been to the majority of matches from February last year will tell you something isn't right
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by Wewillneverdie »

Imo that is the final straw im sick of turning up to home games expecting a draw or a lose.i think most share the same opinion. Yeah we have low budget but we should be achieving much better. I think the management team are too blame it has gone to stale. I do also think the players should he ashamed except a few like farrell and nabs who run there socks off. All in all a poor performance and its the last straw peaksy does not take us forward.
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by paulg »

Thought the lads put plenty of effort in but ultimately we were second best all over the park, all night. Don't have a problem with much of why we fell short (formation, tactics, subs etc) as many of these things can only be seen in hindsight, but the issue I do find frustrating is the lack of organising centre-back cover. We've known this is an obvious problem for weeks/months and haven't made suitable arrangements. The 'signings' on the eve of the transfer deadline weren't even signings as they couldn't be available when we had fixtures to play. Going into a series of big games with a play-off place on the line with 1 or 0 established centre-backs is asking for the kind of punishing results we've had against teams who've prepared themselves thoroughly (Witton, Spalding, Stocksbridge).
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by BartonRaz »

I think I'm right in saying that unless we win both of our remaining games this will be the lowest number of home wins in a league season since the original club formed in 1992.

9 - 03/04 League One relegation season.
8 - 04/05 Billy Sharp season.
8 - 05/06 League Two relegation season.
7 - 06/07 First season back in the Conference.
6 - 16/17 This season so far with 2 games remaining.

It may even be our lowest accumulation of points at home although I can't be bothered to work that one out! In those other seasons we did have 46 fixtures instead of 42, but I'm fairly certain we didn't have the resources we have now in comparison to the other teams in each league.

The fact we're even in with a chance of the play-offs is incredible. What's even more incredible is that attendances have held up so well. I think we all deserve a pat on the back for putting up with this since Feb 2016 and not once venting our frustrations during matches. 9 home league wins in the last 28 attempts. That's worse than 1 in 3.

I'm sure somebody will follow this post up with some stats regarding our away form and I've no doubt it's probably the total opposite, but unfortunately away results don't tempt people to come to home matches consistently and therefore don't pay the bills.
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AFCRD_Dan
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by AFCRD_Dan »

Three Nips wrote:Regardless of the fact that Stocksbridge are clearly at least a half decent team on a blinding run of form, we were totally out-played across the park.

So often this season we've seen teams that are better organised, better prepared and ultimately end up with the better result. I don't buy into the fact that people claim that every time we lose is because it's the other side's 'cup final' at all, the reality is that most teams I've seen us play against this season have seemed to want it more and gained the desired result because of it.

We rarely win any second balls, have any time on the ball in midfield or defence and are basically an easy team to play against, which has been the case for the majority of this season, and could even be levied about the back-end of last season from February onwards as well. Stocksbridge turned up tonight knowing exactly what they were going to do and executed it perfectly, hounded us for the ball constantly and made the midfield a non-entity, leaving Nabil with a hopeless task of feeding on scraps from long balls, and defended the hoofs forward with ease.

Basically, they were much better organised than we were and whilst the loss of a player with the quality of Dolman would affect most teams, I don't think the fact that we had no centre halves in the matchday squad was a massive factor in the grand scheme of things. The fact that we've let the situation arise is a particularly sorry state of affairs though, but let's leave that for another day! (Emergency?! What emergency?!)

In truth, it was a game of few chances and Stocksbridge took theirs but if we only have two shots of note on target a game, we really don't deserve to win that many. A scenario we've seen all too regularly at home for a team with playoff aspirations.

Didn't have the greatest view of the second goal from where I was standing, but it looked as though Finlay was at fault for either just palming it into the net or not setting the wall up correctly as it didn't seem that there was that much movement on the ball and the first goal was just a lapse in concentration to let a man free.

Overall, another two hours of my life I'm not going to get back and a dismal display at home that, unfortunately, we've all become far too accustomed to for our own liking.

Rant over and we'll be back there Saturday with faint hopes that something miraculous occurs in the next few days.

PS I thought Trek's driving on the way to the ground was the worst display I'd see tonight but turns out I was wrong on that front!
The "other teams cup final" was certainly the case during our stint in the UCL, and it could be argued that some sides over the last two seasons see beating us as their "cup final"

But for the most part, particularly this season teams are better than us, pure and simple.

As you say, Stocksbridge were well organised they wanted it more, and clearly did their homework on us.

Personally I don't think it will be the end of the world if we miss out on a play-off place, another year in this league or the Southern central, wherever TPTB decide to place us, might be good in the long run.
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StaceyH
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Re: [ Tue 11th Apr ] v Stocksbrdge Park Steels, KO 7:45pm NPL1S HOME

Post by StaceyH »

It's a funny old game isn't it? A good win on Saturday against a decent Leek side and this forum was as quiet as a library, a loss last night against a decent Stocksbridge side and everyone's up in arms.
I totally agree with the comments on here about the centre back situation, I totally agree with the comments on here about our home form. I don't necessarily agree that we're not good enough for the play offs - we've in or around the play off places for most of the season and over 2 games with the right mental attitude and loud support we can achieve whatever we set our minds to.
What I do know is this - standing in the stands criticising the manager, moaning at the players and then venting on here will get us nowhere and achieve nothing. Being grumpy for a day afterwards is pointless (makes me feel better but it achieves nothing). Our job is to be the 12th man, get behind the team, be loud and proud like we were at Royston last season; what a night that was! We need to pull together and support the lads on the pitch.

In 2 and a half weeks time there'll be no more football to look to - our Saturdays will be filled with other, less interesting, less enjoyable, less frustrating stuff. Whether we reach the play offs or not, that's a really depressing thought, so let's all come together with one common aim and enjoy the last 3 (or 5) games. Our Diamonds family doing what it does best, see you all on Saturday.
R.I.P Dale....always and forever in our hearts
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