[ Tue 18th Nov ] v Cogenhoe Utd, KO 7:45pm UCLP AWAY

[paulg]

The conditions weren't ideal for good football but we didn't half make the game look difficult until going behind. We just didn't play with any authority and Cogenhoe won pretty much every second ball. However we picked it up when we needed to and a fantastic goal from ELJ. Not a good performance but there's not many teams who, 1-0 down away on a cold night against a team who are 4th (in fact they go 3rd if they win their game in hand) will come back to get something out of the game.

[fentiger79]

Would agree with that, we lost the battle for the first 50 minutes and we were quite poor. lacked any creativity in the middle and i thought Fazel was very poor in the final third. Please, please can we take fazel out of the team and try someone else. His contribution at the final ball is trully shocking. Can he be good enough - yes, is he good enough at the moment - most definately not. time to try lamd johnson and Gyasi on the wings for me.

[Pigman]

One of "those" nights wasn't it?

The final ball just wasn't there tonight and we lacked urgency in midfield, they looked sharp into the tackle and responded quicker to the second ball, overall probably a fair result - last year in the same situation I think we would have lost to be honest. Disappointed not to have won, but delighted to not have lost - it's all still in our hands !!

We sit top of the tree at the moment, there for others to do their best and remove us eh? There will be lots of twists and turns yet to come, and Holbeach, Yaxley, Cogenhoe, Huntingdon, Wisbech and Thurnby are all good enough to take points off each other.

It's going to be a close race this season.

With suspensions and players being Cup Tied it could do us a favour if the Vase game is postponed this weekend to be honest, mind you if it's just until the 29th it'll change nowt will it other than allow players like Confue to recover, thought he looked shattered tonight and way off his normal game.

[BartonRaz]

The pitch looked poor, the ref was poor, and the opposition were decent, frankly I don't think a draw is a bad result. A loss would have been though. I can't see many sides going to Compton Park this season and getting all three points.

For the second game running I was confused by the subs and particularly the timing of them. Dunkley and Koriya weren't really at it again but remained on for 90 minutes again. I agree with previous comments re: Koriya who was particularly wasteful. His form is following a similar pattern to last season, although in fairness he's being accommodated in a position he's said on camera he'd rather not be playing in.

Heard some people getting on ELJ's back in the second half, and I frequently hear the line "he's only in the team because of Paul Lamb'. I must be watching a different player because for me he's our best player in that position, scored a great goal tonight to add to his insane tally of assists, and was comfortably our biggest attacking threat until he came off.

[Formic]

<<snip>>
Heard some people getting on ELJ's back in the second half, and I frequently hear the line "he's only in the team because of Paul Lamb'. I must be watching a different player because for me he's our best player in that position, scored a great goal tonight to add to his insane tally of assists, and was comfortably our biggest attacking threat until he came off.

I quite agree. It was good for EL-J to shut them up with his excellent goal, where he took on and beat most of the Cooks team. Without his contribution we'd have lost that game, with so many players off their game.

[Olly]

The pitch looked poor, the ref was poor, and the opposition were decent, frankly I don't think a draw is a bad result. A loss would have been though. I can't see many sides going to Compton Park this season and getting all three points.

For the second game running I was confused by the subs and particularly the timing of them. Dunkley and Koriya weren't really at it again but remained on for 90 minutes again. I agree with previous comments re: Koriya who was particularly wasteful. His form is following a similar pattern to last season, although in fairness he's being accommodated in a position he's said on camera he'd rather not be playing in.

Heard some people getting on ELJ's back in the second half, and I frequently hear the line "he's only in the team because of Paul Lamb'. I must be watching a different player because for me he's our best player in that position, scored a great goal tonight to add to his insane tally of assists, and was comfortably our biggest attacking threat until he came off.

I'm quite frankly baffled by that, he's been arguably one of our best players this season and I think certainly deserves to be starting at least some games again now that he's back. Peaksy has got some tough decisions to be making now with ELJ back, which 2 out of Gearing, ELJ, Koriya and Gyasi does he start, I'm not too sure myself, though as I keep saying, I want to see Matty starting more games again.

[Mad Dog]

With suspensions and players being Cup Tied it could do us a favour if the Vase game is postponed this weekend to be honest, mind you if it's just until the 29th it'll change nowt will it other than allow players like Confue to recover, thought he looked shattered tonight and way off his normal game.

Only thing is the Hullbridge twitter feed is suggesting Tuesday night as a possible date if the game is called off:


This happened last season to Hullbridge against Sholing. Now they would need to come up to us if there was a replay on this Tuesday, but they've had two weeks to get players off work if needed:
http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/10951301.print/

[sussexdiamond]

If the match were to be postponed Hulbridge would be daft not to take advantage of our away support and re arrange the game on Sat 29th.How many of our fans can travel over 100 miles after work coupled with it being the busiest time of the day on the roads. ?

On the other hand it probably would be to their advantage to get our players to have to travel that far midweek.

All this is conjecture as the weather forecast is not too bad this week. Friday night being the only chance of some rain.

[AFCRD_Dan]

Very frustrating night, the referee was an absolutely clueless twit who seemed to swayed in his decisions by Cogenhoe's players!
What a moaning bunch they were, almost as bad as Huntingdon!! Was some blatant cheating from Cogenhoe, which went unpunished.

As for Faz, he can be incredibly frustrating to watch at times.
I lost count of the amount of times he was on the attack and should have passed to one of his team mates in a better position, but wasted another chance.

What a goal from ELJ though, can't think of many better goals than that, they just couldn't deal with him!

Bad sportsmanship from the lad who was sent off, who proceeded to walk the entire pitch very slowly, rather than go around the side.

[Brownie]

Can the Hullbridge posts be moved to the Hullbridge thread.
Re The Cogenhoe game, in general a bad day at the office, but sure other teams will go there, play better than we did and get beat, so I`ll take the result. Pitch didn`t help, unless many of the team whose distribution is normally good all lost the ability to pass on the same night, we are good enough to get by when 1 or 2 influential players have off days, but last night for whatever reason most/all of them did, so given that I thought they did well to battle out a draw, though given the possession we had in and around their area in the 2nd half given some slightly better decision making and shooting we could have won it.
I hope Connie is ok because god knows what master plan Peaksy has if we are missing him and Bunts, though I`m sure he will have one. 4-1-5 :?: