Enfield Town vs Corinthian Casuals

[Barney]

Surprised there's not a thread, I guess the Friday evening game might have confused things - or maybe the persistent and at times heavy rain all evening has saturated people's mobile devices.

First game I've attended all season, and another welcome 3 points in the bag, which were deserved. Casuals didn't look like a side down the bottom of the table based on the balance of play (although that could be us not looking like a side at the top of the table, I guess). It was a game that we should have won comfortably on paper, but had the penalty decisions in the second half gone the other way, might well have been a different outcome.

My first observation is that we're very direct - I accept that if we have the personnel to be direct, there's no issue in playing that way, but the few times we did get Dayton, Youngs and Thomas on the ball in midfield, rather than hitting Cunnington early, we looked like we might work some good chances. Cunnington deserves a lot of credit, he put in an absolute shift for the whole 90 minutes, working hard, winning most of his headers and linking the play well. He seems fitter / more mobile than last season and would have been in the mix for MoM in my eyes. Having Hercules and Coker as wide forwards also plays well to this - they have pace to burn, and the ability to get behind and cause problems. They're also super direct, and at times might look to retain the ball and find a teammate instead of going for goal, but then I was bemoaning Hercules taking on a shot when the pass seemed like a better option just as said shot dipped and flew into the top corner to make it 1-0. Kudos to Coker for his running all game - he deserved to win and convert the penalty for all his efforts.

Other thoughts on the game were that both our full backs looked very good, Spencer got MoM and was excellent - he's mobile, defensively pretty sound, comfortable on the ball and looks to find a team mate and join in attacks rather than just clearing the lines. Same with Payne, who I rated previously - he seems to have bulked out a bit and look sound defensively and worked hard down the left all game (the long throw is an added bonus of course). Wylie looked sharp when he came on, and almost scored a wonder goal that was just wide of the target.

Certainly a lot more positives than negatives, and we managed the game pretty well throughout without having loads of quality possession - with the likes of Cass and LDV not in the starting lineup who in my mind probably make us stronger, we're not in bad shape. I do worry that we might get found out against the better sides being as direct as we are, but as I've said before, a lot of successful sides at this level do play this way, so I'm not against it if it's done effectively.

Anyway - looking forward to hearing other people's views on the game, and looking forward to the next time I can get along to watch.

[dwhe]

The website was down Friday, I couldn't get on to it all evening

[djwilf]

Thanks for the well informed write up Barney.   I was hoping to see updates Friday evening but yes couldn't get on the website so guess hence there were no comments.

Wasn't there Friday but do agree we can mix it up quite well.   I think Scott Thomas is at the base of alot of the good we do.   He wins the ball back well and keeps it simple in possession.   Noted that in the game this year we have played 4 3 3....and against Potters Bar it was 3 5 2 so our formations do change quite a bit.  

As stated above, I'd much rather we kept the ball on the floor...but Adam is quite effective at what he does so makes sense for the forwards and midfielders to feed off him.   We have played a couple more games than teams around us so will be interesting to see what happens when things settle down.   We've played our 10 games in the league now so have a reasonable idea of where we are, even though weve only played PBT and Horsham near the top so will be interesting to see how we get on against the other teams near the top.

[Barney]

2 hours ago, djwilf said:

We've played our 10 games in the league now so have a reasonable idea of where we are, even though weve only played PBT and Horsham near the top so will be interesting to see how we get on against the other teams near the top.

Hornchurch too... I don't think we're in bad shape, but I think realistically we're looking at targeting a play-off place again, and then seeing where we go from there... plenty of twists and turns to come though, I'm sure

[behind-the-goal]

We certainly were more direct on Friday, but I think we had to be: the weather more-or-lesss insisted on it. On Tuesday, during one period, we played football that was, at this level at least, close to perfection. That could never happen in Friday's conditions. Instead, we had a lightning bolt from Hercules and a perfect penalty from Coker. What's not to like on a dreadful weather night?

[behind-the-goal]

Meant to add that Adam has been sensational in both games.