MFC vs Maidstone United

[seasidesteve]

saddo eh? .well you may be right but at least i still pay my money and go ,unlike 400 others who used to be regular supporters but saw the light.in my 48 years of following gate i have seen many highs and lows especially in the thanet united days but this team is one of the worst i have ever seen.we will see at the end of the season if i am right or not.

[margateshot]

I don't think it was a boring game and it was pretty even, but I thought it looked like 11 players who had never played together before. I can remember at least two times that the ball fell between two playes and they both left it. How many misplaced passes were there today? I'm not convinced with the keeper either. He seems to come when he shouldn't and doesn't come when he should. Absolutely typical to lose the game which such a soft goal. And what was he thinking of when he let the ball go out of play for a corner? Even if it had come off a Stones player, why let it go for a goal kick when you can catch it and release it to a player or hoof it up the park. Apart from hitting the post did their keeper have to make a save? How many poor strikes were there today, not one shot on target, worth talking about. Why do we try and walk the ball into the box all the time. Why not just cross it in there so someone can get on the end of it. Very dissapointing performance. I have seen a few matches lately and thought we played excellent football and outplayed the opposition, but conceded stupid goals. Not today I'm afraid, very poor, I can't knock the effort by the players, but just not good enough against an equally poor Maidstone team. I came away from the Cray match a few weeks ago, where we lost, and felt we were massively improved, but I thought this was another step backwards. Perhaps its just that I've made another 150 mile round trip tro see another inept home performance, and it will be alright in the morning!!

[Cookie]

Some good points there Steve. Ball control & passing the ball one or two yards were the worst. Trying to do too much in confined spaces also & very noticable from where I was standing was that we sat back & invited them onto us. Keep those midfielders in midfield & not as addition back line players. Maybe then we would break down attacks more & earlier & give us an "edge" going forward.Sometimes it looked like we had 7 or 8 across the back line with all the room in the world between our front men & back line for them to build attacks..They just need to brush up on a few things in training.Basic things!

[Coffin Ender]

Neither team deserved to win this. Mistake by our keeper and that was it.

[StuyRandall]

I thought it was a pretty decent game. And I also thought we were the better side. Admittedly for five or so minutes leading up to their goal they were on top, but I felt that the rest of the game was either us attacking or us giving the ball away just so that we could win it back and give it away again.

 

Credit where it's due, after their sending off we were pressing and pressing our man advantage down their necks... Generally I felt that we looked good going forward, but we just kept, but the problem seemed to be that they couldn't pick out the right passes or play the ball into the right positions. As Dave rightly said, Lacy was open time and again on the right, but they persisted in going left. Clarke played well, but he can't do it all on his own, and everyone seemed to be depending on him alone to get the ball forward. Wilson played far better today then I have seen him play so far this season, Healy on the other hand had a weaker performance and was often getting caught on the ball because he was holding onto it for longer than he needed to. AJ had another good game.

 

The defense could have played better. They were too deep when Maidstone had the ball. When they cleared the ball out of the box they were too slow clearing themselves out of the box, particularly in the passage of play leading up to the goal. But in saying that, they weren't half as bad as some of the defenive combinations we've used at times this season.

 

And they didn't fall asleep in the final ten minutes, which was a massive relief...

[Chris1]

Boring? I didn't think so. At least, not the second half. Could have gone either way, and 1-1 would have been about right IMO.

 

Why the ref failed to give that blatant pen we can never know, but he was making strange decisions all game. Add to that Blackman's miss when he had beaten the keeper, plus the shot off the post, each of which could have gone our way on another day.

 

Have to disagree with the earlier comment about Mr Healy, who I generally rate quite highly but today seemed completely off the pace, and apart from a couple of good moments towards the end was far too lightweight. Unlike SR above, I was not so happy with Wilson: too keen to get rid of the ball and needs to get himself in the box more when the team are attacking. Some good setpieces though.

 

Don't like the system. Perhaps the gaffer thinks our midfielders aren't strong enough for 4-4-2.

 

Clarke was superb today I thought. Is anybody going to do a MOM poll?

[Cookie]

I.M.O. Wilson wasn't very good today in all areas of his play & generally I'm a supporter of his.Stubbsy would have been a better alternative at half-time I feel.

[dannyriding]

I think the game was probably not one of the best we have witnessed at Hartsdown Park but I also think some of the criticism from the few will and should be ignored (SSS especially). Not a pretty game and definately not the best to be seen in this league but we are in the Ryman Premier lge and gone r the days we could/should expect a flowing game with flair and tempo. True supporters and I do mean TRUE supporters get behind their team regardless of their league status/position cos thats what supporters do - they SUPPORT their team. Positives today were No 11 (motm IMO) and the fact that even Jay Saunders thinks our midfeild is lacking .

Sods law that an Ex Margate player comes back to haunt us, but up until that point our boys kept DH out of the game. Onward and upwards fellas get behind the guys with your voices as well as your opinions and lets be the "thirteenth player".

[I am Spartacus]

Speaking to a certain player after the game I asked him why he was booked (I was distracted at the time by some idiot yelling TIME) and, his reply was 'Well it was Pinnock and you just had to show him who was the boss'.

 

 

Luke I think you grew up today and showed you can play left back (watch out Curtis).

 

 

 

[StuyRandall]

Unlike SR above,

 

 

Please, call me Stu...

 

[GEEBEE]

i thought danny hocton had lost a lot of weight,and yes our number 11 ben clarke was the motm for me to.

[margateshot]

The really annoying thing about the result yesterday, was not only should we have had the game dead and buried 10 minutes into the second half, with three good chances, but have you seen where that puts Maidstone in the league, up to 7th!! It shows how close this league is, and although I had gave some harsh critisism last night, I still believe we can make the play offs.

[Cookie]

The really annoying thing about the result yesterday, was not only should we have had the game dead and buried 10 minutes into the second half, with three good chances, but have you seen where that puts Maidstone in the league, up to 7th!! It shows how close this league is, and although I had gave some harsh critisism last night, I still believe we can make the play offs.

Like I said Steve it really flatters them. We are equal if not better than they but on the day we failed to beat them & results like yesterday's need to start going in our favour.

Only by getting at teams more rather than hoping something will just happen first will see positive results. Yesterday was a day (like many others) when you could just sense it was going to be us going behind before knuckling down. It was mentioned by many at the time & before they got lucky & so it turned out that way... yet again.

[Brickie]

Thought their no.5 was the main reason we struggled to break them down, in the right place every time with the important headers or interceptions showing us exactly what we're missing at the back, an experienced centre-back.

Agree with the statement earlier concerning Stubbs, was his sort of game yesterday and his harrying and hardwork was what was lacking in our midfield.

Wilson as usual imo was a waste of space, poor hurried passing without even a look to see where or who it was going to, giving the ball away god knows how many times, very poor support of his team-mates and non-existant or gutless tackling, lost count of the number of challenges he bottled, as somebody else mentioned above in the words of Jay Saunders "I'd like to play against him every week"!!!

 

Oh Danny, whose the twelveth?

[Cookie]

Just adding something extra.. those floodlights again. Yes I know its been mentioned before yes I know the club were going to sort it but did they ? It was very very gloomy again from the Coffin end. Was this fixed at all & if so are the lamps not all shining onto the field of play?. When they first were erected the light was brilliant but now they don't seem to be so.

[Jab_n17]

i thought danny hocton had lost a lot of weight,and yes our number 11 ben clarke was the motm for me to.

[Jab_n17]

yes defo totally agree a great performance by Ben Clarke ran his socks off yesterday. Now need the team to play and 'gel' together get a few games under thier belts with few changes (if possible).

[michael]

Personally i would like to see some changes-Robinson and young both fit and back in the team-and unlikely though it seems to be now- quality in the form of a new target man and central defender.

[blueblood]

Regarding the Goal. I did not agree with "Joseba "(tongue in cheek ) at the time that, our keeper was fouled. But, he definitely impeded by the crowd of Margate players surrounding him.

We still need a striker and a Midfielder who can hold his head up, look around. The basics taught in junior football is look around, see where your team mates are, don't worry about the ball, that , will come automatically. Some of our Midfield, also main striker , need to get back to those basics. Overall (surprise, surprise) I cannot agree with SSS that, the game was boring. Once again for the neutral it was exciting, for us frustrating.

Overall we are making progress, but we need to make further advances. If we want to see changes, If we want the club to bring in new players in the present financial climate and we want to see the team climb out of the position we can help. Join the lottery, turn out for fundraising events, sponsor a remaining shirt. even buy an extra 50/50 each week.

The clubs wage bill is not as big as it was, we can make a difference these days.

[Cookie]

Regarding the Goal. I did not agree with "Joseba "(tongue in cheek ) at the time that, our keeper was fouled. But, he definitely impeded by the crowd of Margate players surrounding him.

I was close by too Graeme & I can't agree that the keeper was impeded by anyone. It was a straightforward catch that simply slipped out of his fingers & fell nicely for Hockton 5 yds out. No-one was impeding him. Yes,he saved us last week with his penalty save & he was congratulated on that & some might say things are now even & that everyone has a bad day occasionally & to be fair to him that was his only error of the match. He looked fine & virtually untroubled apart from that one error but it was to prove costly.

It's consistency we are looking for from every player & the team as a whole. Silly lapses of concentration like that must not be repeated but we seem to keep on saying this don't we?. It's time lessons were learnt & that players concentration levels are spot on for the full duration of the game.