Our league next year

[Mark44]

Just looking at who is likely to be in our league next year....

 

With ST neots coming up and Didcot coming down and also we still have Rugby and Biggleswade here and Aylesbury i think it will be another tough league.

 

What do people think on our chances of getting the title or going for it next season?

[Ian]

Not saying it will be easy but I think it's an easier division than the last two years we've been in Midlands/Central. We should also (hopefully) have learned from the last two years that we don't need to be brilliant all the time. Just doing simple stuff well gets you a long way at this level.

[Cookham Rebel]

Just looking at who is likely to be in our league next year....

 

With ST neots coming up and Didcot coming down and also we still have Rugby and Biggleswade here and Aylesbury i think it will be another tough league.

 

What do people think on our chances of getting the title or going for it next season?

 

I think we will definetely make the play offs again the very least but we won't win the league unless we stop leaking silly goals and defend better as a team, if we can do both of those things we have a very good chance of winning the league as long as we keep the majority of the current squad and add a GK (Richard Hayward hopefully), a Centre Back (Will Dunlop and\or Nathan Bowden-Haase), a defensive Central Midfielder (No idea who!?!?!?, maybe Adam Martin could be the man but I think he is too similar to Paul Coyne) and a big strong centre forward (Ryan Bird maybe or someone similar)... Also, a quality utility player to replace Chris Seeby...

[staines_rebel_Jr]

The main thing we need to learn is to tighten up the defense, do what arlesey did at times - take the lead by 2 or 3 goals then shut up shop completely

[WalkerSTFC]

if we tighten up our defense we could really be in with a good shot of winning the league

[readingrebel]

I think most people will agree that we need to tighten up at the back and to stop leaking soft goals.

 

A top quality goalkeeper is an absolute must but looking individually at our backline this season of Sweeney, Woozley, Seeby/Perkins and Murphy most supporters would say we had 4 or 5 good quality players, so why did we end up with such a poor defensive record? It couldn't have all been down to the keeper.

 

IMO we let far too many goals in where the opposition punted a simple long ball into our area, either down the middle or put a cross in to either far post.

 

We were also not good enough when we were in defensive positions at stopping the ball being crossed into our area when we were attacked out wide.

 

So, maybe good ball players individually but are they good enough defensively to get us out of this division? Bearing in mind the teams that have been promoted from our division over the last two season had some pretty un-compromising defenders.

[Ian]

Individually good players don't necessarily make a good defensive unit and I'd also argue that defending is done as a team, not just by four players.

[readingrebel]

Individually good players don't necessarily make a good defensive unit and I'd also argue that defending is done as a team, not just by four players.

 

 

Agree, defending is quite often done as a team but I'm really talking about the times when it has been one on one and a defender has failed to stop the attacker from getting past him or has failed to stop a cross coming into our area or that our midfield has been by-passed by a hopeful long ball into our area that hasn't been dealt with properly quite often leading to a goal.

 

OK, there are always times when this will happen but I think this happened far too often this season and was a definate weakness in our defending.