Enfield Town vs Bishop's Stortford

[andyetfc]

Steph. The higher up the leagues you go, the stronger the players. Out muscled = lacking in strength. The game showed what needs to happen at ETFC if we are going to do battle with the bigger boys. All right, not boys but men.

[Barney]

Quite refreshing to read this thread, as it's full of realism and sensible comments in the most part, as far as I'm concerned. This was the first game of the season that I've been able to get to, and I wasn't too disappointed with how it panned out - OK, a 1-4 scoreline is never good, but I thought that we competed technically and retained the ball as well as they did, if not better. We have two full backs who are comfortable on the ball and show for it to give the midfielders options, and I like the look of O'Brien in the middle who was composed throughout, and Ewang, who I rate.

 

Where we didn't compete was in terms of physicality and discipline, BS's back four were excellent, won all their headers (negating the Kirby set piece threat), and clearly had a system based around playing quite direct to their big centre forward, and being dangerous at set pieces. We didn't have enough big players to deal with them well enough at corners, and even if Kirby was marking the guy that scored two, what's to say that their massive centre back wouldn't have popped up to score instead? There's not a lot we can do about this, other than holding the ball better up front, maintaining possession and denying them corners / attacking possession.

 

As someone else mentioned, I do think that to an extent they let us play and keep the ball in our half where we weren't that threatening, but despite that, we had two periods at the start of each half where I thought we were the better side, we got behind them a couple of times and they looked a bit rattled. That’s no mean feat when playing a side a division above us. Tyler looks like an excellent player, and I'm sure will make things happen most games at our level when he gets on the ball.

 

Taking the broader view, as I say, my take on it is that we need a bit of realism - we've gone up a level from a league where we were one of the big fish, to a league where I've read that we're working to one of the lowest budgets. Unless you're going to start throwing a load of cash around, we can't expect to be challenging the sides at the top of the league. The bulk of the squad I feel are good enough to maintain us at this level, and it should be a gradual process of adding good new players (that want to play for the club/shirt, rather than a quick £) as and when they become available. In the long term, this policy should slowly move us in to a position where we're well established at this level and can think about competing at the top of the table. We spent 6 seasons in the Ryman North / Southern League, and saw what a hard league it is to get out of, so we should expect this division to be even more competitive.

 

12 years ago, we didn't exist, and we need to keep reminding ourselves of that - we've come from a ground share in the ESL via two promotions and our own ground to a level that's not a million miles away from when I started watching the old club in the 90's. For me that's a massive achievement, considering we're self funding with no quick fix money man. I'm happy with where we are, I'm happy with how the club is run, and Steve and his management team get my full backing. Let's get behind the side throughout the season - yes there are going to be some bad results, and some poor runs, but as fans, we really can make a difference by encouraging the players.

 

Anyway, apologies for the long rambling post, I’ve not had a chance to post so far this season, so had a lot to get off my chest ;-)

[Scoreline]

Yes. That. What he said.

[Jim Cunneen]

yep!

[Southport - TOWNER]

I thought we were fantastic, unlucky to lose the ball, the game. I'm sure the weather was against us

 

How dare I be critical, if I was then I get abuse from all quarters

 

Not sure who else has been told to keep theri opinons to themselves

 

so WELL DONE TOWN; I wouldn't want to upset the little people

[Mr Happy]

Some excellent points from Barney