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Wingate & Finchley v Enfield Town

seemgee

By seemgee
in Not the ETFC Forum

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old towner Rookie

old towner

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, The Crowing Cockerel said:

.....and we've had a penalty saved!

Liam Hope didn't used to miss those...

 

Nor Rudi ‘

4-1  down yep we love conceding 4 

1 minute ago, The Crowing Cockerel said:

Wingate 4 - 1 ETFC

Game over on 79 mins

Sounds like a very bad day at the office.

We will get turned over on Saturday we got Leatherhead 

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Benjrider10 Enthusiast

Benjrider10

Posted
Posted

Where to start? 2-word summary: “trip hazard”. 1-word summary: nah, this a respectable forum.This match confirms what I’ve long known - I would be a useless football manager.

Got to the ground in plenty of time, looked at the team sheet and immediately thought this is good, we’re going for it. Bilal Sayoud picked from the start against (one of) his old teams so a front 3 of Faal, Cass and Sayoud. Bit uneasy about Della-Verde on the bench but if you start Sayoud, where do you fit Della-Verde in? Anyway, got a tea, had a brief wander around the ground (more on that later) and watched the warm up. Very impressive warm up, thought everybody looked well up for the game. Town supporters everywhere, must have outnumbered home supporters 3 to 1. All was well! Then we kicked off.

Right from the start the formation didn’t look right. Tried to pass it around and keep the ball. Kept losing possession. 5 minutes in, a routine shot on goal that Nathan was comfortably behind but Bray (I think) panicked, stuck out a needless foot, OG. 15 minutes in, another careless loss of possession on our RHS outside the area, Wingate worked the ball through our gaping defence and the diminutive no. 7 tapped home. 2 down - cue deep intake of breath. 

Cass and Faal ran hard but were feeding on scraps. Bayoud just didn’t fit in. Unlike the other 2 up front who have clear roles and playing styles (Mo’s rangy running, speed and deceptive skill, Cass more of a traditional target man), Sayoud seems to be more of a technician who can exploit space. It just didn’t work. Needs some proper thought and clarity on what his role is, if picked.

The only shot of note I can recall from what was a dismal first half for us was at 0-2 when Cass raced clear after a long ball over the top, had time to set himself and promptly smashed it straight at the keeper. He’ll be kicking himself. That should have made it 1-2 and if we had got to half time just 1-2 down, we’d have still been in the game (on the basis that we couldn’t be that dire in the second half as well). Alas no. Out of nowhere the Wingate no. 7 hit an absolute worldie from at least 30 yards. I was standing at the side right behind it and watched in disbelief as it soared through the night sky, swerving left to right and flew into the roof of the net Ronaldo-esque. Cue another deep intake of breath, followed by a floodlight failure right on half time.

Prayers for divine intervention failed, the floodlights on the side of the ground where I was standing remained resolutely on and after a painful 20 minutes or so watching the 8 failed floodlight bulbs slowly flicker back to life (1 every few minutes), the second half began. We started like we meant business. Sayoud got hooked at half time and on came Della Verde. The formation immediately looked better. Kept the ball, slope was in our favour (helps the mindset) and pulled a goal back after 5 minutes. Could the comeback be on? 10 minutes or so later after another good spell, we won a penalty. This would make it 2-3 with half an hour to go - comeback defo on. Not to be. Keeper saved the penalty and the follow-up rolled agonisingly wide. That was the turning point. Penalty scored, crowd roaring the players on, I think we might have scraped a draw. Not to be and we got hit on the break shortly thereafter. 1-4 and game over. Credit to W&F, they took full advantage of our woeful defending and were good value for the win. 

Friendly bunch in the tea hut and good natured banter from the home supporters (c/w whiffs of wacky-baccy from a small group who spent most of the second half taking the pi** out of Percy). But I have to say that the ground itself is awful. Pitch was excellent so no complaints there but 3 sides of the ground were so narrow, you couldn’t call it terracing. It was just 3 narrow and uneven steps all the way round. So narrow behind 1 of the goals that it was blocked off. Add to that the irritation of the 5 a side training pitches squeezed in on the far side, followed by inevitable “ball on main pitch having flown over fence”, the highlight of the second half was seeing both Enfield and Wingate players launch said balls in the vague direction of Barnet. I know clubs at our level need to maximise income but please, don’t book the 5 a side pitches during home matches. Donkey Lane was White Hart Lane in comparison. I’m not familiar with the ground grading req’ts for our league but don’t know how Summers Lane ticks all the boxes. One big trip hazard and boy, did we trip ?


 

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Pokitren Newbie

Pokitren

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Benjrider10 said:

Where to start? 2-word summary: “trip hazard”. 1-word summary: nah, this a respectable forum.This match confirms what I’ve long known - I would be a useless football manager.

Got to the ground in plenty of time, looked at the team sheet and immediately thought this is good, we’re going for it. Bilal Sayoud picked from the start against (one of) his old teams so a front 3 of Faal, Cass and Sayoud. Bit uneasy about Della-Verde on the bench but if you start Sayoud, where do you fit Della-Verde in? Anyway, got a tea, had a brief wander around the ground (more on that later) and watched the warm up. Very impressive warm up, thought everybody looked well up for the game. Town supporters everywhere, must have outnumbered home supporters 3 to 1. All was well! Then we kicked off.

Right from the start the formation didn’t look right. Tried to pass it around and keep the ball. Kept losing possession. 5 minutes in, a routine shot on goal that Nathan was comfortably behind but Bray (I think) panicked, stuck out a needless foot, OG. 15 minutes in, another careless loss of possession on our RHS outside the area, Wingate worked the ball through our gaping defence and the diminutive no. 7 tapped home. 2 down - cue deep intake of breath. 

Cass and Faal ran hard but were feeding on scraps. Bayoud just didn’t fit in. Unlike the other 2 up front who have clear roles and playing styles (Mo’s rangy running, speed and deceptive skill, Cass more of a traditional target man), Sayoud seems to be more of a technician who can exploit space. It just didn’t work. Needs some proper thought and clarity on what his role is, if picked.

The only shot of note I can recall from what was a dismal first half for us was at 0-2 when Cass raced clear after a long ball over the top, had time to set himself and promptly smashed it straight at the keeper. He’ll be kicking himself. That should have made it 1-2 and if we had got to half time just 1-2 down, we’d have still been in the game (on the basis that we couldn’t be that dire in the second half as well). Alas no. Out of nowhere the Wingate no. 7 hit an absolute worldie from at least 30 yards. I was standing at the side right behind it and watched in disbelief as it soared through the night sky, swerving left to right and flew into the roof of the net Ronaldo-esque. Cue another deep intake of breath, followed by a floodlight failure right on half time.

Prayers for divine intervention failed, the floodlights on the side of the ground where I was standing remained resolutely on and after a painful 20 minutes or so watching the 8 failed floodlight bulbs slowly flicker back to life (1 every few minutes), the second half began. We started like we meant business. Sayoud got hooked at half time and on came Della Verde. The formation immediately looked better. Kept the ball, slope was in our favour (helps the mindset) and pulled a goal back after 5 minutes. Could the comeback be on? 10 minutes or so later after another good spell, we won a penalty. This would make it 2-3 with half an hour to go - comeback defo on. Not to be. Keeper saved the penalty and the follow-up rolled agonisingly wide. That was the turning point. Penalty scored, crowd roaring the players on, I think we might have scraped a draw. Not to be and we got hit on the break shortly thereafter. 1-4 and game over. Credit to W&F, they took full advantage of our woeful defending and were good value for the win. 

Friendly bunch in the tea hut and good natured banter from the home supporters (c/w whiffs of wacky-baccy from a small group who spent most of the second half taking the pi** out of Percy). But I have to say that the ground itself is awful. Pitch was excellent so no complaints there but 3 sides of the ground were so narrow, you couldn’t call it terracing. It was just 3 narrow and uneven steps all the way round. So narrow behind 1 of the goals that it was blocked off. Add to that the irritation of the 5 a side training pitches squeezed in on the far side, followed by inevitable “ball on main pitch having flown over fence”, the highlight of the second half was seeing both Enfield and Wingate players launch said balls in the vague direction of Barnet. I know clubs at our level need to maximise income but please, don’t book the 5 a side pitches during home matches. Donkey Lane was White Hart Lane in comparison. I’m not familiar with the ground grading req’ts for our league but don’t know how Summers Lane ticks all the boxes. One big trip hazard and boy, did we trip ?


 

The opponent takes advantage of weaknesses - that's how it should be, it's a game.

P.S. You have a good style, try writing a book :)

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Barney Collaborator

Barney

Posted
Posted (edited)

Appreciate the report Ben, fully accept that we're not going to win every game, but it sounds like the nature of the defeat was particularly bad last night (albeit, it might have been different had we scored the penalty). Unlike so many people on here, I don't buy into the full doom and gloom when we lose a couple of games, but we really do need to bounce back against Leatherhead. We've been in this position before with a poor run of form up to and over Christmas, and in spite of the numerous negative predictions, turned it round in impressive style in January, so there's at least some hope.

In my view, the team are 3rd in the table on merit - you can't really argue with that 2/3rd of the way through the season. I think almost everyone on here would have taken that in August, especially after the pre-season we had. Whilst I'm not necessarily that enthusiastic about the style we play under Leese, I do think that it plays to the strengths of the squad we have - I'd love to have 11 ball players across the pitch, but we don't, and the system we play is probably best suited to the personnel. If we make the playoffs, then we've hit the target most of us would have been happy with at the start of the season, if we don't, then that's the time to start discussing whether the management team are the right people to take us forwards. Whilst the wheels could well come off from here, we might also turn things around again and whilst we're still in the mix, it's disappointing how much knee jerk negativity there is on here.

Edited by Barney
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Barney Collaborator

Barney

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, Pokitren said:

The opponent takes advantage of weaknesses - that's how it should be, it's a game.

Exactly, and I think too many people forget this - there are two teams in a game, and no team in this league are going to roll over and just let us play - other sides do their homework. We need to be 100% on the ball in terms of tactics, motivation and execution (and maybe get a bit of luck) to get anything out of a game.

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Bottoms Up Rookie

Bottoms Up

Posted
Posted

Splendid summary from Ben and Barney, both spot on.

as we can all see and very predictable too, the doom gloomers are out with multiple postings cos we lost. Who needs enemies?

We've blipped before and now have a 2 match blip. Need to dust ourselves down and get going to reignite the play off target once more with another run of positive results

My glass is still half+full and looking forward to Saturday as should every fan, player, official  and board member 

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