Slough 4-3 Northwood

[Mr Rebel]

when we were playing near 100% we were all over them but like normal we made it hard for ourselves gifting at least 2 of the 3 goals

 

Burnell grabbed a hattrick and could have had 2 or 3 more

 

wins the most important thing and it sounds like a few scores may have gone for us

 

chucked a 2-0 lead away before going 4-2 up and they brought it back to 4-3 90th minute

 

rugby lost to arlesey after going 3-0 down in 10 minutes

Edited April 9, 2011 by Mr Rebel

[Chris]

Important win, but made much harder work of it than we should have. Northwood looked to be a new side, struggling a little having signed several players earlier this month and suddenly it's 2-2 and you are wondering how? Today's defending today was like the sloppy old days of earlier in the season which I thought we'd seen the end of. Good going forward, sloppy at the back. Must improve our defending.

 

Good news is that with today's win means a win and a draw in our remaining five games all-but secures a play-off place with our goal difference as Rugby need to win all their remaining games to get 74 points and we have 70 already. Sooner we can get there the better, hopefully starting Tuesday.

Edited April 9, 2011 by Chris

[Rebel Yeller]

Mr Bateman was lucky today, damn lucky.

 

He commented in the programme about people criticising his lack of a Plan B and pointed to the Daventry win and how he had plenty of options. All well and good, but when we went from 2-0 to 2-2 courtesy of park defending we had no substitution to change the game. We may have lots of options but they weren't used, so why have them. We had no sign of anything to turn the game round and our management team should give a whopping bonus to Danny Burnell for a superb hat-trick and frankly getting them out of big trouble.

 

The play-offs look very likely now and it looks like we will have to win two away games to go up, which is good, because if we were at home we'd stand no chance.

 

With luck like this we have a good chance of going up. Bring on Maidenhead !

[Staines-upon-Thames Rebel]

Rebel Yeller - we do have a plan A and B - plan A was how we played against Daventry and plan B was today!

[Tom]

A win and 3 points closer to securing the final play off position.

 

All that matters.

[A Rebel and a Saint]

I agree with Tom, yes at times it wasn't great, but the important thing is that we got the win. With Rugby and Bedfont losing, it's a step closer to getting into the playoffs. We are in a much better position than last year, so let's just stay positive and keep getting behind the team. Great to see Danny get another hat trick too.

Going to need to up the game again against Arlesey though!

[Nathan]

I think we should be thankful we have players of individual quality like Danny Burnell, as there was little sign of a plan B emanating from the bench today (despite what Bateman said in the match programme). Remember the days of Derek Sweetman? No plan B and with few players of individual quality = teams sussed our play = we lost games.

 

I often wonder if our style of play really isn't suited to a pitch such as Beaconsfield's, as we haven't really got going at all at home this season whereas we have done so away from home.

 

Northwood weren't that good. That's why they're 2nd from bottom. But as usual we gift them a goal, they have there heads up, there workrate rises above ours and for large parts of the second half they outplayed us. But thank god for Danny Burnell! 2 more goals from him, and the management's blushes are spared.

 

And we still try our level best to throw that game away! But if a sign of a good team is to consistently win ugly, then we are a good team.

[Mr Rebel]

think we took our foot off the gas a bit at 2-0 and underestimated Northwood. in fairness they were quite poor but you cannot afford to do that. lost a bit of professionalism.

 

2-2 kicked us into life but it shouldnt have had to take that for us to put the game away by scoring more

 

win is most important thing. as stated we only need 5 more points to guarantee playoffs if Rugby win their last 3 games. winning is whats going to take us into and win the playoffs and if thats at the expense of attractive performance i dont care

[Don Juan DeMarcus]

Teams that can win ugly do well!! My main concern from today was Steve Sinclair if he is out for the rest of the season we lose our best wide option. Burnell and sonner were brill today IMHO.

[readingrebel]

Teams that can win ugly do well!! My main concern from today was Steve Sinclair if he is out for the rest of the season we lose our best wide option. Burnell and sonner were brill today IMHO.

 

 

Heard that Sincs is probably out for 2 weeks.

[Adil Berdai]

I went today and was great seeing Slough win, right in the play-offs now and we should finish there.

a bit scary seeing us give away sloppy goals, but we was lucky enough to be attacking like a higher league team, we dominated the game and had soo many chances, missed a one on one and hit the post and 2 great saves but football hey, great win, keep it uo and we'll get promoted boys

[readingrebel]

I went today and was great seeing Slough win, right in the play-offs now and we should finish there.

a bit scary seeing us give away sloppy goals, but we was lucky enough to be attacking like a higher league team, we dominated the game and had soo many chances, missed a one on one and hit the post and 2 great saves but football hey, great win, keep it uo and we'll get promoted boys

 

 

Two of the most glaring misses, Danny Burnell clean through and Sean Sonner with just the goalkeeper to beat was down to the ball bobbling on that god-forsaken pitch.

[Mark44]

I agree also with Tom and others. It doesnt matter how well we play at this stage. Its the 3 points.

 

We are now looking at being in the playoffs with gamesspare and so we can rest before the playoffs rather than already be worn out going into them

 

 

[Ian]

I agree. Points are what counts at this stage but I'm glad if we make the playoffs we're likely to be away.

 

 

[readingrebel]

I would like to know if the pitch has been watered at all during this dry spell because it doesn't look like it!

[Tom]

Doubt it, apparently the sprinkler system is only for use in the summer.

 

I guess that's also under the precondition someone doesn't forget to turn it on when people go away like last summer.

[staines_rebel_Jr]

A win is what counts and atm our goal difference doesn't matter isf we can get 5 points from 5 games so I personally dont care if i whatch the most boring and ugly game of football as long as the team gets those 5 points.

 

We could have scored so many today. As stated above we missed two great opportunities due to bobbles, Burnell missed one which hit the post and came out (although if it had been a centimeter inside the post then it would have gone in. Also quite a few shots going across goal and narrowly missing, but having said that we did still score 4 goals which should normally win you the game easily but as we have done before we gave away silly goals. If we make the play offs then we cannot afford to give away goals.

 

Hopefully Sinclair will be back before the play offs as we may miss him alot. This will now give Ben Porter a chance to show Bateman what he can do.

I would disagree to a point that Sinclair is our best winger as i believe that Herron is just as good, though we will definetely miss Sincy.

 

If we can get a point from Arelesy on tuesday then that would be great, though a loss wouldn't be the end of the world.

[richierebel]

I agree also with Tom and others. It doesnt matter how well we play at this stage. Its the 3 points.

 

We are now looking at being in the playoffs with gamesspare and so we can rest before the playoffs rather than already be worn out going into them

 

 

 

Mark there are two ways of looking at it, yes it would be good to get to the play offs as soon as possible, but would you rest players? or would you rather them continue the winning mentality and go into the play offs full of confidence. What do others think?

[readingrebel]

I agree also with Tom and others. It doesnt matter how well we play at this stage. Its the 3 points.

 

We are now looking at being in the playoffs with gamesspare and so we can rest before the playoffs rather than already be worn out going into them

 

 

 

Mark there are two ways of looking at it, yes it would be good to get to the play offs as soon as possible, but would you rest players? or would you rather them continue the winning mentality and go into the play offs full of confidence. What do others think?

 

 

Looking at yesterday's game where Sincs got injured and Northwood had 3 players hobbling at the end I would say trying to keep the players as fresh as possible and injury free would be the top priority before the play-offs.

 

Hopefully we'll be in a position to rest some players for the 2 games on the Saturday and Monday over the easter weekend.

[Chris]

What's all this about 'plan b' again? The management team can't account for individual errors which is pretty much what happened yesterday. That was the only concern and we've not seen that in a while. We scored four goals yesterday and could have easily got seven.

 

Four defeats in the last 24 in the league, with only a handful of draws in that period, if we win Tuesday we'll have the joint best away record in the league. Had we had a half-decent late September/October/early November we'd be talking about winning the league now.

 

If we really want to talk about 'plan b' how about the fact we narrowed the midfield against Daventry Tuesday which worked and stopped their unbeaten 17 match winning run, or the fact thaty Bateman threw Porter on in a 4-3-3 formation when it would have been far easier to put on Simon Martin and push Sonner to a wide position - with Porter producing an awesome cross for Burnell's header to make it 3-2.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Chris