Braintree at home - Saturday 26th March

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

11 minutes ago, SloughFlyer said:

Whilst I agree CR I want to try and be a bit pragmatic as in fairness to all concerned we are talking about volunteers that are giving up free time to the club etc, so I can't be too critical of anyone involved. 

My point above about the signing announcement as an example would have taken no-one any more time than they put in anyway and MIGHT have had an improved engagement.

I’m not singling people out SF, I get that there are volunteers involved but ask for additional help/ideas. Just by putting a post on here for NLD and asking supporters to brainstorm could potentially double yesterdays takings, even hold a forum for ideas. 

[Irishadrian]

I may have missed it elsewhere can someone confirm yesterday's attendance? Thank You.

[Reading Rebel]

What to make of yesterday's disappointing performance.

With a starting line up consisting of 2 strikers it looked like we were going for goals which ultimately turned out to be the exact opposite. 

For the first 15/20 minutes we dominated possession and I think most supporters would have been forgiven for thinking it was going to be our day to put a few goals past Braintree.

Unfortunately, apart from one good effort on target, most of our possession went out like a damp squib when it came to the final third of the pitch. 

The second half continued in the same fashion and despite ending up with 3 strikers on the pitch I can't remember the Braintree keeper having a shot to save.

In the end if it had been a 3 or 4 nil defeat I don't think we could have complained.

 

[Reading Rebel]

16 hours ago, CookhamRebel said:

Unfortunately, with so many youngsters in the starting 11 (and squad!) we will be inconsistent. The play offs have always been a wishful target for me, the fact we are still pushing for it at this stage of the season is a massive credit to our managers and players… There is a bigger picture at play in my opinion!

Agree, there is a bigger picture at play.

[Shredding Green]

5 hours ago, SloughFlyer said:

A few thoughts on yesterday from me -

- I thought George Hunt was 100% deserving of his MoM and had 1 of his best games for us.

- I think Jonathon North in goal was the only other player that deserves any credit at all as although I would question his positioning for the 1st goal, without the saves he makes we lose that 5-0 so credit where its due.

- All the talk about the 1st 20 minutes, but the goalie hss 1 proper save to make in that spell (and a scutler long shot). So whilst we were better in the 1st 20, compared to the final 70, that wasn't too hard to do.

- After 15-20 minutes the Braintree bench sent on a piece of paper to change the instructions and formation, clearly from Neil's interview we realised that. Now, im not saying we should be reactive to every change teams make against us, but after 10 minutes of them changing and us seeing we were struggling against their new shape, why did we not try something different? I'm sure Kurtis could have gone wide left, Kayani wide right and push on George Hunt and try a 4-2-3-1 for 15 minutes. Couldn't have been any worse than sticking with what we had and might have changed some things. No plan B today and we got what we deserved.

- I was surprised again in Neil's interview that whilst all the players (apart from George Hunt) were kind of called out, Scott Davies was mentioned by name and yet again Lee Togwell "got away with it". For the first goal, Togwell still doesn't know where the Braintree #7 went. Surely as a coach, he would know to try and stay on your feet as opposed to diving in? For the 2nd goal, he played a lazy ball into Midfield (did that quite a few times yesterday) 3/4 passes later the ball was in our net!!!!!!! Very, very poor.

All in all a rubbish performance yesterday apart from Hunt and North and hopefully now, regardless of points differences and "if we go on a  good run for 8 games we could make the play offs" guys on here can now see why it was clear 2 weeks ago that we as a club aren't ready to challenge for promotion via any means and need to start looking for next season and which of the players we have are good enough to stay around and be part of the squad for next season.

To me a good indicator of the above was the "Slough sign 5" situation -

Joe Dandy - played like the rest of the team yesterday (not called North or Hunt) so not a great debut.

The Oxford midfielder - signed a Goodrham is injured - gets injured in training.

Beauchamp - is staying at Binfield for the rest of the season and got taken off in the first few minutes of the game with a "serious" injury.

The 2 U23/U19's - 1 not in the squad and 1 played for the U19's 18 hours prior to kick off yesterday.

So in the PR, Slough sign 5, which factually is correct, BUT, 2 are part of our academy, 1 stays at Binfield, 1 is a loan who is training with Oxford. So in actual terms, Slough sign 1 loan 1, duel reg 1 and promote 2 (not the most punchy headline granted) but to dress it up like we have made a load of additions is a bit of a stretch.

For me a better way to announce those signings is - 

Slough make additionS - is your headline on the first post to everywhere (FB, twitter, the website etc). Then do 3 posts (don't see much point talking about Beauchamp for now) scheduled 1 hour apart from 5pm. At 5pm, everyone is checking the website etc to see ADDITIONS - then you release the Dandy signing, and end off with - ....... more to come, check back at 6pm. Then you do a piece on the pro-club loan and end off ........ more to come at 7pm. Then you make a big thing of the promotion from within and Xth number of signings from the academy set up and how proud we are as a club of all the academy players that have been promoted this season (which encourages more player to those set ups and perhaps gives some potential supporters a hook as a young up and coming side that promotes youth). 

By doing the above, you drive website and social media traffic as everyone is trying to see the "additions", you add a proper good non-league day offer for fans to each post and perhaps increase the attendance (ignore the performance of yesterday for a minute).

Simple and effective marketing above. Pretty much divide the 1 PR into 4 and flesh out a little with a simple goal of driving social and website traffic and maybe putting some more bums on seats (trackable from the individual offers on each PR bit), and, something a club looking to drive to playoffs and beyond would do (see Dorking who put a PR out last week announcing Jason Prior was back from injury earlier than expected!!!!!) and in their "looking ahead" which is an interview with Marc White, they mention with the home set up or the supporters coach every week.

  i) Josh Jackman had been playing very well and made some driving runs down the right wing. Unfortunately he went off injured after 34 minutes but no one else has mentioned what he contributed to the match during those 34 minutes.

 ii) All the Tottenham Hotspur supporters on this forum are familiar with an excellent performance one week and a terrible performance the next in the Premier League. Saturday 19th February Manchester City 2 Tottenham Hotspur 3; Wednesday 23rd February Burnley 1 Tottenham Hotspur 0.

iii) A chap came in the gents after the match and said, "we'll probably be brilliant at Dorking Wanderers next Saturday". We probably will having already taken 9 points out of 9 against the outstading top two clubs. Home to Chippenham Town, Dulwich Hamlet and Braintree Town have been a totally different story.

iv) Ryan Maxwell was appointed manager of Braintree Town on 18th November 2020. He is currently 38. Management seems to be very suited to him having played for some 33 clubs during a playing career of some 21 years.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Shredding Green

[GarySTFC]

1 hour ago, Irishadrian said:

I may have missed it elsewhere can someone confirm yesterday's attendance? Thank You.

670 yesterday IrishAdrian. Not great, but hardly an enticing fixture and limited away support. 

[Irishadrian]

It's in the right direction  better than our average so far.

[3spirit]

Now the dust has settled, I'll add my two pennies worth.

I thought Braintree was excellent yesterday, and from my point of view they played better than the Maidstone team that had visited us a few weeks ago ! However Slough have been weakened by players injuries, and squad players missing/and good squad players leaving the club. I think it is harsh to criticize the Slough team too much in yesterday's defeat, in the fact that our team had started so well and that we had lots of players playing who weren't 100% fit. There's no way Bakes and Unders would take off Aaron Kuhl in that match if he was properly fit. He has a hernia problem and they need to go careful with him. To me that was the right call. The Josh Jackman injury to me was the catalyst for the wheels to fall off our play. Him leaving the field of play so untimely,and being replaced by the young Joe Dandy was never going to be an easy transition. Tyler Goodrham was a big miss, too.

I thought Braintree's defence had an easy afternoon with Alfonso Tenconi and Imran Kayani but the fans forget they are both still young and learning the game. With Slough having no centre midfield inspiration/creative dynamo it played into Braintree's hands.

I was surprised our managers took off Kurtis Cumberbatch. He didn't look injured but he might be not be 100% either. I didn't think we got the best out of him but I'm not in the George Hunt fan club this week, as I thought he did plenty of running but was weak at times and flattered to deceive. I was flabberghasted he got Man Of The Match but finding anyone for that honour was like looking for a 4 leafed clover!

Slough's game plan went to pot after the initial bright start and I couldn't wait for the half time whistle to come soon enough. Even I wondered what miracle Bakes and Unders could achieve with such a depleted squad, and what they would/could say in their half time team talk.

  I would have taken off Imran Kayani in the second half,and used the coming back from injury [7 weeks out] Matt Lench up front latterly in the game,using his creative instincts but not getting him to do too much running, behind the front two of Ben Harris and Alfonso Tenconi. Ben Harris made a difference when he came on but the service to our strikers was woeful.

I saw potential in young Joe Dandy but his debut was a nightmare for him,as he had a torrid afternoon and found it hard to do anything right. He's going to need a lot of moulding but I'm not criticizing what he's about. We missed Sean Fraser yesterday.

Braintree deserved to win and I thought their goal scorer [Number 7] was their main man yesterday, he gave our centre of defence the run around. He was my Man Of The Match !

                 

Edited March 27, 2022 by 3spirit

[GlenSTFC]

1 hour ago, Irishadrian said:

It's in the right direction  better than our average so far.

Slightly above average but yesterday’s performance and result probably won’t entice any newbies back. I was disappointed with yesterday’s crowd (was hoping 750+) especially being NLD and the importance of the game from our perspective.

[Reading Rebel]

Above average turn out not helped by the pitiful turn out from Braintree.

Probably the lowest away support to visit us this and any other season.

[Reading Rebel]

1 hour ago, 3spirit said:

Now the dust has settled, I'll add my two pennies worth.

I thought Braintree was excellent yesterday, and from my point of view they played better than the Maidstone team that had visited us a few weeks ago ! However Slough have been weakened by players injuries, and squad players missing/and good squad players leaving the club. I think it is harsh to criticize the Slough team too much in yesterday's defeat, in the fact that our team had started so well and that we had lots of players playing who weren't 100% fit. There's no way Bakes and Unders would take off Aaron Kuhl in that match if he was properly fit. He has a hernia problem and they need to go careful with him. To me that was the right call. The Josh Jackman injury to me was the catalyst for the wheels to fall off our play. Him leaving the field of play so untimely,and being replaced by the young Joe Dandy was never going to be an easy transition. Tyler Goodrham was a big miss, too.

I thought Braintree's defence had an easy afternoon with Alfonso Tenconi and Imran Kayani but the fans forget they are both still young and learning the game. With Slough having no centre midfield inspiration/creative dynamo it played into Braintree's hands.

I was surprised our managers took off Kurtis Cumberbatch. He didn't look injured but he might be not be 100% either. I didn't think we got the best out of him but I'm not in the George Hunt fan club this week, as I thought he did plenty of running but was weak at times and flattered to deceive. I was flabberghasted he got Man Of The Match but finding anyone for that honour was like looking for a 4 leafed clover!

Slough's game plan went to pot after the initial bright start and I couldn't wait for the half time whistle to come soon enough. Even I wondered what miracle Bakes and Unders could achieve with such a depleted squad, and what they would/could say in their half time team talk.

  I would have taken off Imran Kayani in the second half,and used the coming back from injury [7 weeks out] Matt Lench up front latterly in the game,using his creative instincts but not getting him to do too much running, behind the front two of Ben Harris and Alfonso Tenconi. Ben Harris made a difference when he came on but the service to our strikers was woeful.

I saw potential in young Joe Dandy but his debut was a nightmare for him,as he had a torrid afternoon and found it hard to do anything right. He's going to need a lot of moulding but I'm not criticizing what he's about. We missed Sean Fraser yesterday.

Braintree deserved to win and I thought their goal scorer [Number 7] was their main man yesterday, he gave our centre of defence the run around. He was my Man Of The Match !

                 

Difficult to find a motm yesterday but if I had to pick one it would of been between Jon North and George Hunt with Northy making a couple of cruicial saves to keep the score down getting the nod. 

 

 

[3spirit]

6 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

Difficult to find a motm yesterday but if I had to pick one it would of been between Jon North and George Hunt with Northy making a couple of cruicial saves to keep the score down getting the nod. 

 

 

Jon North for me. Says it all really.

[Irishadrian]

40 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

Above average turn out not helped by the pitiful turn out from Braintree.

Probably the lowest away support to visit us this and any other season.

They also have the lowest average home support so far this season just 364

Edited March 27, 2022 by Irishadrian

[3spirit]

7 hours ago, CookhamRebel said:

Unfortunately the clubs marketing strategy is non existent, embarrassing the lack of it for non league day to be honest!

Do something different, speculate to accumulate!

Think you and Slough Flyer are being harsh. Not unreasonable.

I don't agree with Slough Flyer on drawing out 5 youthful signings on Twitter. To me we have enough media bull*hit now. Next season when we sign better,experienced players I think the hourly announcements work but leading fans up the garden path, in them thinking falsely that Slough have signed wonderful players is wrong, and will discourage the public from attending matches,if they think they have been duped and lied to. Better for Slough Town Football Club to live by the club's badge motto, than become a misleading dodgy bunch ! 

Bakes and Unders,too, would go down in my estimations if they were to resort to such things. To me they thrive on their trust worthiness with the fans. If they were to jeopardise that they would be fools.    

[SloughFlyer]

3 hours ago, 3spirit said:

Think you and Slough Flyer are being harsh. Not unreasonable.

I don't agree with Slough Flyer on drawing out 5 youthful signings on Twitter. To me we have enough media bull*hit now. Next season when we sign better,experienced players I think the hourly announcements work but leading fans up the garden path, in them thinking falsely that Slough have signed wonderful players is wrong, and will discourage the public from attending matches,if they think they have been duped and lied to. Better for Slough Town Football Club to live by the club's badge motto, than become a misleading dodgy bunch ! 

Bakes and Unders,too, would go down in my estimations if they were to resort to such things. To me they thrive on their trust worthiness with the fans. If they were to jeopardise that they would be fools.    

Ah 3spirit, not that I'm a young guy in any terms, but I think you'll find today's generation (and by default the best generation of Rebels fans) are totally lead by social media. It's how the Slough Jets did things 10-15 years ago and its even worse now. The club has to move with the times and use the tools available to us today.

In addition, if you go back and read my post, I wasn't suggesting making out we had signed Messi and Ronaldo, but headlines drive social traffic, which in turn drive physical traffic to the games. I'm not saying by any stretch that what I laid out would have worked, but clearly the 1 post covering everything had little to no effect to the attendance yesterday, so why not try something different?

Clearly, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is madness, so why not have a ago?

[Reading Rebel]

5 hours ago, 3spirit said:

Now the dust has settled, I'll add my two pennies worth.

I thought Braintree was excellent yesterday, and from my point of view they played better than the Maidstone team that had visited us a few weeks ago ! However Slough have been weakened by players injuries, and squad players missing/and good squad players leaving the club. I think it is harsh to criticize the Slough team too much in yesterday's defeat, in the fact that our team had started so well and that we had lots of players playing who weren't 100% fit. There's no way Bakes and Unders would take off Aaron Kuhl in that match if he was properly fit. He has a hernia problem and they need to go careful with him. To me that was the right call. The Josh Jackman injury to me was the catalyst for the wheels to fall off our play. Him leaving the field of play so untimely,and being replaced by the young Joe Dandy was never going to be an easy transition. Tyler Goodrham was a big miss, too.

I thought Braintree's defence had an easy afternoon with Alfonso Tenconi and Imran Kayani but the fans forget they are both still young and learning the game. With Slough having no centre midfield inspiration/creative dynamo it played into Braintree's hands.

I was surprised our managers took off Kurtis Cumberbatch. He didn't look injured but he might be not be 100% either. I didn't think we got the best out of him but I'm not in the George Hunt fan club this week, as I thought he did plenty of running but was weak at times and flattered to deceive. I was flabberghasted he got Man Of The Match but finding anyone for that honour was like looking for a 4 leafed clover!

Slough's game plan went to pot after the initial bright start and I couldn't wait for the half time whistle to come soon enough. Even I wondered what miracle Bakes and Unders could achieve with such a depleted squad, and what they would/could say in their half time team talk.

  I would have taken off Imran Kayani in the second half,and used the coming back from injury [7 weeks out] Matt Lench up front latterly in the game,using his creative instincts but not getting him to do too much running, behind the front two of Ben Harris and Alfonso Tenconi. Ben Harris made a difference when he came on but the service to our strikers was woeful.

I saw potential in young Joe Dandy but his debut was a nightmare for him,as he had a torrid afternoon and found it hard to do anything right. He's going to need a lot of moulding but I'm not criticizing what he's about. We missed Sean Fraser yesterday.

Braintree deserved to win and I thought their goal scorer [Number 7] was their main man yesterday, he gave our centre of defence the run around. He was my Man Of The Match !

                 

I don't think it's a case of fans forgetting that Alfonso and Imran Kayani are young and still learning.

For me it's more the fact that we are having to rely upon them far too heavily.

In an ideal world Ben Harris would be our number one striker with Alfonso and Imran playing a smaller part whilst they continue to learn and find their way at this level.

Unfortunately, and I don't think it's going to change, Ben continues to pick up injuries which means he continues to play second fiddle to the youngsters.

It's obviously too late to change things now but I think this needs to be seriously looked at during the close season ready for the challenges that next season will bring. 

  

 

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

With attendances dwindling it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that unless we starting getting dynamic and creative next seasons budget will reduce meaning we’ll have a lot of youngsters in the squad next season… It won’t get worse but inconsistency will stay until the club find other revenue streams, to do that you need to think outside the box and be proactive!

[Footyfan007]

51 minutes ago, Reading Rebel said:

I don't think it's a case of fans forgetting that Alfonso and Imran Kayani are young and still learning.

For me it's more the fact that we are having to rely upon them far too heavily.

In an ideal world Ben Harris would be our number one striker with Alfonso and Imran playing a smaller part whilst they continue to learn and find their way at this level.

Unfortunately, and I don't think it's going to change, Ben continues to pick up injuries which means he continues to play second fiddle to the youngsters.

It's obviously too late to change things now but I think this needs to be seriously looked at during the close season ready for the challenges that next season will bring. 

  

 

Age is debatable if you're good enough you play IMHO, the younger players would have had a serious amount of coaching hours over their football education, practical, classroom, development and competitive matches of which some would have been taught by seasoned ex pros.  At some stage if you're good enough you have to make that jump whether is starting every game at senior level or coming on from the bench! but every minute you get you should be the best version of you.

Will the young players be inconsistent during a season - probably, confidence up and down - probably, do they make mistakes on purpose - no as does no one.  

I believe Neil and Jon are sending out the right message to younger players at Slough and that should bed well with recruiting younger quality players due to opportunities that Slough could provide, put this in place with a blend of senior players and it might just map out well as this season has, we have all been kept exited by the pushing for the play offs with a mix of youth and experienced players whilst Jon and Neil have had to manage senior players being injured and or moving on probably with one of the lower budgets in the league, that's a job well done in my book.

Yesterday I believe we had Alfonso 19, Eden 19, George 20, Imran 19, Joe 20 take the the keeper out of the equation and that's 50% of your outfield team 20 or under, the experience they will be gaining is Slough's gain for next season and further ahead.

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Footyfan007

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

21 minutes ago, Footyfan007 said:

Age is debatable if you're good enough you play IMHO, the younger players would have had a serious amount of coaching hours over their football education, practical, classroom, development and competitive matches of which some would have been taught by seasoned ex pros.  At some stage if you're good enough you have to make that jump whether is starting every game at senior level or coming on from the bench! but every minute you get you should be the best version of you.

Will the young players be inconsistent during a season - probably, confidence up and down - probably, do they make mistakes on purpose - no as does no one.  

I believe Neil and Jon are sending out the right message to younger players at Slough and that should bed well with recruiting younger quality players due to opportunities that Slough could provide, put this in place with a blend of senior players and it might just map out well as this season has, we have all been kept exited by the pushing for the play offs with a mix of youth and experienced players whilst Jon and Neil have had to manage senior players being injured and or moving on probably with one of the lower budgets in the league, that's a job well done in my book.

Yesterday I believe we had Alfonso 19, Eden 19, George 20, Imran 19, Joe 20 take the the keeper out of the equation and that's 50% of your outfield team 20 or under, the experience they will be gaining is Slough's gain for next season and further ahead.

 

BUT you have to have the right experience with them and it’s very rare to have so many inexperienced young players all coming into the team in one season… Yes I agree if you are good enough you are old enough but you could not send out a starting team of 11 19/20 year olds in the NLS week in week out and expect to be in anything other than a relegation battle

Edited March 27, 2022 by CookhamRebel

[Footyfan007]

17 minutes ago, CookhamRebel said:

BUT you have to have the right experience with them and it’s very rare to have so many inexperienced young players all coming into the team in one season… Yes I agree if you are good enough you are old enough but you could not send out a starting team of 11 19/20 year olds in the NLS week in week out and expect to be in anything other than a relegation battle

CR totally agree and I mention that.