Slough Town 1-3 Marlow

[Chris]

Scoreline does not reflect the game as we probably on another day would have won 7-3. Had no luck whatsoever hitting woodwork three times, having a pen saved with their keeper Michael Watkins had a blinder. Sadly for Jacko he did not have his best night, nor did the defence. It was one of those nights.

 

In posession we actually played OK and probably had 60/70% of the ball (but hate to bang on about this) but were just not clinical enough in front of goal up front. The lads up front were unlucky tonight, but for me i'm not convinced they are the type of strikers who will get us goals when were struggling in a game, whereas when you had a goalscorer like Elliot in the side you were. The strikers we have are good players,, but their strengths are not goalscoring. A striker, maybe two is a must.

 

For me Ricky Perks has to be given the number one shirt now as Jacko made a couple of mistakes tonight and in other games in my opinion. If not Ricky then why not use Dave Anderson's contacts to bring in someone like Andy Little who is a good solid goalkeeper he worked with at AFC Wimbledon. Might be someone we could get with all what's sadly happening at Croydon Athletic?

 

In particular I did not get one thing tonight. They have two fast lads up front that caused us all kinds of bother. Harps and Seeby are not the quickest, so why not move either one of them to right-back (which they are both capable of playing) and bring Simon Sweeney into central decence to put some pace up against their strikers? That way we would have not been caught out so many times. Baffling one for me that...

Edited September 14, 2010 by Chris

[Tom]

A keeper on form and poor defending is what cost Slough.

 

Slough hit the post twice, missed a penalty (which I could see happening) and forced the keeper into 3 or 4 fantastic saves. Sadly for Jacko he was at fault for 2 of the goals, not that he was helped by his defence mind.

 

I know it's still early in the season but when you have Hitchin consistently grinding a result out in the 90th minute and keeping a better defensive record, I don't foresee Slough challenging for 1st place again. Although with a couple of additions this could change.

[Matt]

Bit of a strange game tonight I think. Two things struck me - firstly we're going to struggle to score goals when it counts as we don't have predators up front. Second, the defence was all at sea at times in the first half, and Marlow were cutting through like a hot knife through butter thanks to the movement and pace of their forwards and the craft of Leigh Mason and Adam Dickens.

 

Yes we were unlucky not to score a few more goals, yes Watkins played a blinder, and yes Marlow may well be a surprise package - but we must do better in front of goal and improve concentration at the back. I'd also get Perks in goal as Jacko seems to be struggling lately. No matter what Bates says, we DO need to recruit another striker and this is becoming more and more evident.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Matt

[A Rebel and a Saint]

I'm not quite sure what to make of that game. Their keeper played a blinder and we had no luck whatsoever, but that is no excuse for the poor marking and defending that led to all 3 Marlow goals.

I must say that after Saturday I was pleased with the efforts of Simon Martin, but as has been said I do not think he is a goalscoring striker. He used the ball well tonight up front but did not have any real chances to score. Our attacking play was much better than Saturday, but the defending left a lot to be desired. But on another day we could have scored more goals.

Hopefully we will be able to tighten up at the back for Saturday and bag a few goals...it's a long way to Atherstone so hopefully we will see a good performance.

 

 

[Ted]

The Marlow keeper made some very good saves, but some of his saves were from shots that should have been more clinical. Our defence was all over the place, even before Marlow scored their previous attack saw 2 of their forwards completely unmarked in front of goal.

 

Yet again our goal didn't come from a forward. We arn't good enough to keep a clean sheet, and our forwards can't score. Not a good position to be in if you want to win the league. Its all rather frustrating really as the side clearly has talent, it just isn't coming together, and without someone to lead the forward line, I don't think it will. I'm not confident that we will make the play offs any more.

[Nathan]

Yet again we play a side from the top of the table (a fellow title contender), and YET AGAIN we come up short.

 

Tonight exposed some very serious shortcomings from this supposedly title-challenging squad.

 

We are getting the ball into the final 1/3 time and time again, but with no-one good enough (or tall enough) to put it in the back of the net. Our defence tonight was a shambles, and yet again we were punished for goalkeeping errors.

[Mr Rebel]

nobody thinks Marlow are title contenders Nathan but nor are we. no team will win the league when completely unable to keep a bloody clean sheet!!!! so many chances we had and it was mindbogglingly how little luck we got in the last 1/3. yes we should have scored more but it was one of those baffling games where everything just crept wide or onto post

 

the defensive part of our game was nothing short of disgraceful. Jacko 3 or 4 times was scrambling on his hands and knees to stop their striker rounding him and scoring.

 

our play is still far too cute and pretty. why cant we just play the simple ball once in a while teams against us exploit those tactics with ease against our defence. also the effort in shutting down is nowhere near the level of most teams we face

 

what the hell is with these terrible corners by Coyne?? someone else needs to take them as his are borderline useless

 

so confused right now its pathetic. must do way better. how many more home games must we trail by 1, 2 or 3 within the first 30 minutes?? its happened at least 5 or 6 times in the last 2 seasons and we still we dont learn a thing. strikers are on a hinding to nothing when the team is behind before they have even got into the game all the time!!

[Mark44]

I was not there last night but in my opinion we need yads and seeby to be our cb. Harper is a great player but yads and seebs were forimng a solid rock in defence.

 

Also once again our strikers are useless clapped out old men who USED to be good 5 years ago. Thank god sonner is back for daventry. We need a goalscorer fast. What about mendy? Surely he was available last night?

 

I think its time dave anderson got on the phone to one of his contacts to bring some goals to the squad

[Mark44]

Hi all

 

Not sure if any of the team read this but I would actually like to apologise for my wording in the post above. A bit harsh of me to say that our strikers are clapped out old men. They are good players but they are not goalscorers.

 

We need a goalscorer like elliot or else we won't win many games after going behind.

[chris sliski]

Difficult game to sum up ! To be honest Marlow were a very under estimated side IMO ..they worked hard and the 2 front runners were miles faster than our back 4 ...they ran rings around our defence and Slough could have been

4 down before we got going...To Slough's credit our players did not give up , they worked hard to make chances and as most people have said we could have with a bit of luck scored a few more ourselves !

 

Our life line of a Penalty would have woked wonders , how ever it was not going to go our way ! That was quite clear ....

 

I also Think by the way the Slough Supporters stayed behind to clap off the Marlow Keeper , was a credit to our supporters ...disapointed yes but also appreciating that the Marlow Keeper had a brilliant game tonight..

 

Come on Slough ...lets not be too negative ...we need to get that striker, for sure... (maybe Ricky Perks could be our answer ? ) he has known to play forward in the past....who knows what might happen...LOL

 

chris sliski

Edited September 15, 2010 by chris sliski

[Rebel Yeller]

Another less than wonderful display. My thoughts are :-

 

1 - Jacko didn't have the best of games and maybe Perks should have a go but when you think back to some of Ricky's errors last year which got us shouting for Jacko I'm not sure that there is much between them.

 

2 - Marlow have seen enough of Sinclair lately and know that if you mark him closely his response is not to pass the ball about earlier but to try and beat yet more people. His threat is therefore nullified. He hardly had a sniff last night.

 

3 - Swift has now had two very poor games in a row. Coyne is not exactly setting the world alight either. He looks the part but his distribution is a bit wayward.

 

4 - The forward position has been self evident to all except SB since pre-season. Maybe if less time had been spent back then concerned with Adam Martin and NBH we could have dedicated time to finding some strikers. Finding one now will be tricky, unless we can get a professional club reserve on loan.

 

5 - Where is Sippetts ? He did mutter stuff in the summer about retiring. Has he done so without telling us ?

 

6 - Did Mendy miss the coach again ?! Is he interested ? This could be his big chance.

 

7 - Seeby and Yeboah looked a good central defensive partnership so why is Yeboah now dropped and Harper now in ? What happened to Perkins ? Can he only play once a week - he wasn't even on the bench.

 

It all just seems to be a bit disorganised.

[Tom]

Mark your obsessed with Dave Anderson's contacts

 

Bateman was obviously looking to bring in a striker as he attempted to bring in Danny Burnell before he moved to Wealdstone. I don't blame him for thinking he didn't need a striker after the side went and scored 15 odd goals in 3 or 4 games, at the time everyone on here was singing their praises. Even Coyne was in the paper saying they didn't need one.

 

Strikers are very hard to get, with all the best ones undoubtedly taken by clubs now. I think over the last 2 games it has shown how much Sonner and his work rate has been missed, as the I believe the current formation which seems to more of a 3 in midfield with Sinclair pushed more forward, relies on Sonner's pressure on the defenders. The other 3 don't apply that.

 

I think the biggest area of improvement that is needed, that doesn't seem to have been rectified since last season is the defensive side of the game. A club challenging for the play-offs or title should be keeping clean sheets. Marlow scored from their only main attack in the 2nd half and were gifted 2 goals, Bedfont scored from 1 attempt, Erith and Biggleswade were also given goals from mistakes.

 

I have to agree with Rebel Yeller in that their does seem to be a little bit of disorganisation from the outside. The 2 FA Cup games have been a player or 2 short on the bench (if you count the need for Lawford filling a space), Sippett's seems to have vanished, along with Terry O'Connor. There was no attacking threat on the bench last night or at least someone you could turn to and think "xyz could get a goal".

 

Early days still, this is going to be a tight league by the looks of it. All that is needed is a bit of organisation and one or two tweaks to improve things.

[Martin]

We could have scored 7 is probably an accurate reflection of our chances we did score one, missed a penalty, hit the woodwork three times and forced the keeper into at least two terrific saves. But we quite easily could have been 5-0 down in half an hour.

 

I stayed down the Slough defensive end in the first half which is very rare and the problem was not so much their pacy front two but a lack of communication and understanding amongst our defenders. The strikers would spin of their man and cross. This dragged our centre backs out of position and created acres of space in the middle of the park.

 

The second problem was that the gap between the defence and the midfield was too large. Our strength in recent weaks has now become our weakness. We were singing the praises of the flexible fast moving attacking midfield in games we were dominating but yesterday there seemed to be confusion and they seemed to attack and defend as a four. Also with the formation and the position of the players continually changing I don't think we help ourselves. Sometimes it is 4-4-2 and sometimes it is 4-3-3 with Sinclair joining the attack. But if we are playing a four accross the middle it seems that Sincs, Swift and Coyne are on rotation with each of them popping up in different positions. It confuses me and I am just watching so it can't be easy for the players either.

 

At least now I am only depressed because I know we are better than that.

 

Come on Rebels, sort yourselves out for Saturday and let's get back to winning ways.

 

 

[Mr Rebel]

i think striker wise just finding one who has some pace whilst on the ball (i.e what every team seems to have had but us for a good few years) would be a start.

 

Rebel Yeller your absolutely right about Sinclair wanting to beat men rather than pass when marked tightly

 

as i said earlier the attacking side of our game is struggling particularly at home due to our ridiculous inability to keep a clean sheet or at least not concede so early. almost every home game we find ourselves behind before we even get going. every mistake near enough is being punished at the back but thats mostly because they are such major mistakes that deserve to be punished

 

anyone know if Herron has left?? he isn't listed on official site anymore

[Tom]

http://www.sloughtownfc.net/article/2/245/herron-takes-flight

[A Rebel and a Saint]

It is amazing how you can take out one player in Sonner (who doesn't really score goals but has an amazing workrate) and it changes the whole dynamic of the team instantly. In the games so far this season the rotating midfield 3 of Sincs, Coyne and Swift has produced some of the best football I have ever seen Slough play, but losing Sonner to the suspension seemed to have changed the team, with such little movement especially in and around the box for the midfielders to link up with and pass to. The problem then spreads to the defence who were pretty solid (for the most part) up until last night.

While Martin seems to play well as a sort of attacking midfielder rather than a striker, and O'Connor seems to have a problem with frustration and struggles to win the ball with his head but is a very tough striker, we need another striker who has goalscoring ability in a range of situations. Come on SB the last 2 games should be enough of a clue that something isn't working!

[Reading Rebel]

I was not there last night but in my opinion we need yads and seeby to be our cb. Harper is a great player but yads and seebs were forimng a solid rock in defence.

 

Also once again our strikers are useless clapped out old men who USED to be good 5 years ago. Thank god sonner is back for daventry. We need a goalscorer fast. What about mendy? Surely he was available last night?

 

I think its time dave anderson got on the phone to one of his contacts to bring some goals to the squad

 

 

Must quickly say that Dean Harper is not 'a great player'.

 

He is a solid 100% player whose main strength his his heading ability but no way can he be described a great player.

[Mr Rebel]

Also with the formation and the position of the players continually changing I don't think we help ourselves. Sometimes it is 4-4-2 and sometimes it is 4-3-3 with Sinclair joining the attack. But if we are playing a four accross the middle it seems that Sincs, Swift and Coyne are on rotation with each of them popping up in different positions. It confuses me and I am just watching so it can't be easy for the players either.

 

the seemingly free roles of Sinclair Swift (and Coyne at times) is ridiculous when it comes to defending. time and time again we have 2 midfielders moving wide right for example and 1 if we are lucky in the middle allowing opponents to coast through towards our goal. exactly what happened for the first goal and pretty much with 2nd goal. 3rd goal was a hopeful ball that Harper should have cleared all day long but got nowhere near it

 

http://www.sloughtow...on-takes-flight

 

cheers hadn't seen that

[grandad]

In my humble opinion we got what we deserved - nothing! OK we missed a penalty, but it was a debateable one anyway. Too often we were shooting at stupid angles, or taking on too many opposition, rather than playing a simple pass. Half our shots fell into that category. Looked a lack of pride and effort to me, you will prob disagree but that's the way i saw it. Marlow were clearly up for a local derby, and their response at the end was telling. If we can not get up for derbies then we are in a mess, or a radical thought, how about getting more local players who give a damn!

[Matt]

I'd agree with you on the point about Marlow being more up for it. Quite often they were first to the ball, and were quick to close down and deny us space. They defended for their lives even at 3-0 up and I feared we weren't even going to pull a goal back. It meant a lot to them at the final whistle. As we are regarded as one of the favourites in this league along with Hitchin (there's no getting away from it), then teams are going to come to Holloways Park, get in our faces and play like that, and we are going to get found out.