Slough v Aylesbury

[Cookham Rebel]

I suppose the first game of the season mantra is do not lose and build on the performance!!!

 

I thought Aylesbury looked a good, young, fit side and they will do well this season...

 

A massive plus was the clean sheet and we looked strong defensively, never thought I'd hear myself say this but we have a lot to work with when attacking... The 3-5-2 formation is going to take the players time to adjust too!!!

[Ian]

Difficult to know whether the 3-5-2 formation is just because of Sweeney being out or a conscious change. I suspect it's the former. Positives of it were that we looked solid at the back and have three quality centre-backs in Wooz, NBH and Brown. Negative is that when we don't have the ball both Murphy and Sincs got pushed very deep so negated our attacking threat a bit.

 

Really good not to concede a goal and a solid start against a decent team.

[Nathan]

A poor game fought by two poor teams.

 

Apart from a couple of glaring chances, we never put Aylesbury under any period of sustained pressure. Aylesbury on the other hand looked young and inexpwerienced, but still managed to carve open our defence on two occassions in the second-half and if they had a striker with their shooting boots on, could easily have had at least 2 goals.

 

Despite this, I felt neither side really deserved to win. Worryingly, we looked quite short of match fitness and sharpness and were very sloppy on occassion, whilst never looking like conceeding (apart from the aforementioned chances).

[Cookham Rebel]

41 games to go Nathan... I thought the game had a very pre-season feel to it!!!

 

Just think Mpi should have been on earlier!!!

[The Lawrence Years]

A poor game fought by two poor teams.

 

we looked quite short of match fitness and sharpness

 

 

Well that should guarantee you your name in the Observer next week with a personal invite to meet SB ! lol

[readingrebel]

Difficult to know whether the 3-5-2 formation is just because of Sweeney being out or a conscious change. I suspect it's the former. Positives of it were that we looked solid at the back and have three quality centre-backs in Wooz, NBH and Brown. Negative is that when we don't have the ball both Murphy and Sincs got pushed very deep so negated our attacking threat a bit.

 

Really good not to concede a goal and a solid start against a decent team.

 

 

Agree, we certainly looked solid at the back especially in the middle with IMO Dave Woozley was sublime and easily MoM.

 

Unfortunately it was to the detriment of us being an attacking force especially in the first half where Sincs was doing more defending than attacking and we hardly had a shot on goal.

 

I also thought we looked very dis-jointed in the first half, especially in midfield and we looked far away from being a solid unit.

 

Second half we faired better and had a couple of decent chances to score.

 

I also agree that Charlie MPI should have been used earlier than he was. I thought that in the time he was on the pitch his pace and movement was looking promising.

 

The problem is how does Bates shuffle the pack to include MPI?

[Mr Rebel]

of course we would have hoped to have won the first game but its not the end of the world

 

Aylesbury looked capable and will be top half i would imagine by the end of the season

 

we started really bright but after about 10 minutes we just rushed everything in midfield and for large spells we barely had a kick in the middle of the park

 

playing the ball over the top into wide areas is far enough but its got to be executed properly and far too often it wasnt

 

over complicated passes are really not needed so consistently either. sure if it pays of it may look good but doing the simple stuff will surely come off more often than outside of the boot chips and flicks

 

good that we start with a clean sheet. letting in silly goals is a bad habit for us. Woozley was ridiculously good. we are so fortunate to have him. Brown and Bowden Hasse plus soon Perkins hopefully gives us awesome defensive options. Sweeney as well of course can play center back

 

Smith made a few good saves from free kicks one in particular deflected and he was solid

 

Murphys strike would have been a goal 9 times outta 10 their keeper made a superb save

 

we had 2 good chance hit straight at keeper also from close range

 

1st half particularly we were offside a ridiculous amount of times. are we just awful at staying onside or are the linesman terrible im not sure

 

ref didnt help flow of game. lots of stop starting and lecturing keeping focus on him and delaying the match countless times

 

nobody should be guaranteed a start and therefore what has to be done has to be done to get Mpi in the team from the start on Tuesday. unfortunately neither Sonner or Burnell really got going like they can during the game today

Edited August 13, 2011 by Mr Rebel

[Cookham Rebel]

There are plenty of options RR so we'll have to see what happens... Do agree about Sinclair though, he is our main danger going forward and shouldn't be defending, maybe shuffle the pack and play Marsala right wingback and move Sinclair into a free role behind the front 2... Logie, Byrne and Coyne are good players with different attribute but aren't really goal scoring midfielders, more creative/destructive players, maybe 2 of them with Sinclair would work in this system!!! Regarding Mpi it's a tough one, I was surprised Sonner was taken off as I thought he looked more of a threat than Burnell, personally Mpi with Sonner or Burnell would be a good pairing, it's just making the decision who to put on the bench!!!

[HEAVY TRUCKER]

we were definately better second half than in the first,but still we insist on playing the long ball and over complicated shorter passes to players that are in general going to be or are offside,we should be playing kiss football (no not in that way perverts) keep it simple stupid as often the simple works much better than being fancy, also i think our midfield are playing far to deep and should maybe a further 10yards nearer our forward line, and over the last few seasons i have noticed that sincs is much more effectiveplaying from outer midfield going forward than having to play wide defender so why play him at the backfar to far for him to travel to be effective, still for the first match we alllike to win but sometimes that is not possible but i'm happy with a draw and in general the teams performance but we are going to have to improve our game if we want to reach our goals this year.

[3spirit]

Both sides looked rusty yesterday but I still thought Slough should have won the game.Unfortunately our urgency to take our offensive game to Aylesbury seemed to come in the last 5 to 10 minutes.Had we been upbeat from the start of the 2nd half,I think we could have achieved a win instead of a draw.

I agree with Reading Rebel, in that Dave Woozley was outstanding,in fact the defence as a whole looked good.My only concern was that I thought we may concede a goal when we had a corner in the Aylesbury half,as all the three centre backs went up and leaving hardly anyone in defence.One time we left Shaun Byrne on his own at the back and had Aylesbury come out quick with the ball,I'm sure they would have scored given the speed of Shaun Byrne,which would have been unfair on him .Surely it would be better to just let two centre halves go up rather than all three.

 

I,too,thought our central midfield three just didn't seem to have much industry and effort although Paul Coyne looked good in patches.For once,I agreed with all of Steve Batemans substitutions.I just wish he had made them 20 minutes earlier,as I thought Stuart Swift,Charlie Mpi and Dom Marsala could have had a much more positive effect on the game had they been given a bit more time.We certainly needed more creativity in the middle of the pitch and Stuart Swift helped with this.

 

Wasn't the grass long yesterday? it certainly hindered our progress especially down the flanks.I'm not so sure Steve Sinclair has the energy to play the wing back role,given his age.I think we shouldn't expect him to play defensive.I would just use him to play in the oppostion's half. I also think he would be ideal playing in the 'hole' behind the front two,as Cookham Rebel suggested with a license to go anywhere,he would be a constant threat to the opposition,if we surprised a few teams by using this method occasionally. Dom Marsala is far more suited to the wing back role,given his age and fitness.

 

Anyway,least we got a point and kept a clean sheet and got lucky on a couple of occasions when the Aylesbury strikers fluffed their shots.Luckily for us,Simon Martin had his banjo and barn door boots on,when really he should have scored! lol!

On ward and upwards against Uxbridge.