Enfield Town v Kingstonian

[seemgee]

McDonald, Spencer, Payne, Thomas, Wordworth, Wilson-Braithwaite, Dayton, Isaac, Youngs, Wyllie, Cunnington

Taaffe, Della-Verde, Coker, Okotcha, Connolly

[seemgee]

Town 1 down after 25 mins

[4wembleyfinals]

When, Oh when is Coker going to come on????  It seems that no one has told AL that he is still one of our top scorers!!!!

[seemgee]

FT lost 1-0

att 429

[Rebel without a clue]

One of our worst displays this season Chesham and Lewes were bad but at least we were playing decent opposition the first half we didn’t test there keeper at all cunnington was isolated upfront with no support and everything was so flat, in the second half we improved slightly the bar was hit twice and the post once but Nathan at the other end kept us in the game with some great saves and in my opinion should have been MOTM it’s a pity we couldn’t keep josh hill in defence he’s now gone to Hemel with Brad Quinton, the conditions were awful today and they matched our performance kingstonian can best be described as workmanlike and this was there first win away from home this season 

[4wembleyfinals]

That makes interesting reading 'REB'.  Unfortunately, I have not seen one game this season. For the same reason as last year. However I look forward to reading reports on this forum. 

One thing which occurs to me is the way they the team can go from high achievers to very poor in an instant.  On analysis it seems it usually follows when several players go missing. This time it was been because of suspensions and are then brought straight back in. Invariably after a run of good play by those who have to replace them.

To day is an example of this. For example, with Cass away why was our other highest scorer Coker not given a chance and Wordsworth played in his stead.  Perhaps AL will explain his thinking on his next screen appearance. We obviously missed Hill but that was bound to happen.

Ok it may be a one off but we can't afford too many of them. Our games in hand could well be frittered away. I look forward to reading more posts.

 

[Rebel without a clue]

Wordworth played as a makeshift central defender due to suspensions he went off injured in the first half

[Barney]

As Rebel mentioned, Wordsworth started at CB on Saturday, although was replaced fairly early on by Okotcha after what appeared to be a muscle injury - same applies to Dayton, who was also subbed in the first half. I don't think it's unreasonable to stick with largely the same 11 following on from a decent performance at Harringay, and the only change was the enforced one at CB as Hill's loan had ended. Would be good to know when our two regular centre halves will be available, as we looked quite light in that area on Saturday (although Wordsworth and Okotcha filled in admirably). With Wordsworth back after being sent off in the same game, I was assuming that Richmond and Knight would both be available too, but I'll freely admit that there's a lot I don't know about the FA disciplinary rules.

Pretty dreadful first half, and neither side looked great, not helped by a heavy pitch and strong crosswind - we were very flat, and not nearly as incisive as we had been earlier in the week. I don't think any of the 13 players used come out of the first half with much credit, and we were crying out for a little more physical presence at the back to deal with their tall forwards. The free kick for the goal looked quite softly awarded to me, and then McDonald may have done better, having got across to the ball, but it bounced just in front of him and just eluded his dive (to be fair, it definitely wasn't a routine save and I'm maybe only being critical as he sets such high standards).

More of the same at the start of the second half, but in the last 30 we actually showed a lot more urgency as Kingstonian seemed to tire, and had we played for 90 minutes with that intensity it's likely we would have won comfortably. Spencer had a very strong second half going forwards, and almost scored a wonder goal with his wrong foot which cannoned off the bar, and Taaffe and Wyllie both hit the woodwork - on another day it could have been 3-1 to us. That said, I'm not sure we deserved to win overall after such a poor first 60 minutes, and a draw might have fairer given that Kingstonian had their share of chances, albeit some of which were due to the game becoming stretched and us committing players forward to look for an equaliser.

I'm not going to criticise the management for substitutions - two of them were enforced in the first half, whilst Lyle was brought on with enough time to affect the game, and with Thomas going off, we ended up with a very attacking looking 11 on the pitch. I'd like to put this one down to a bad day at the office - pretty much every other team around us in the league dropped points (all the more frustrating, but at least the damage was limited), and it's now a question of whether we can respond well to this setback. Frustrating that we didn't get more out of a game that looked winnable on paper, but that's football unfortunately - also somewhat noticeable that some people only comment on here when we don't win 🤔

[Benjrider10]

Spot on summary, Barney. Dreadful first half performance but we deserved to get a point by the end. The woodwork did us no favours.

I saw 3 games on this trip, Potters Bar home, Haringey away and Kingstonian home. I thought we were terrific against Potters Bar (playing some really good football), so after we got the win at Haringey I thought we would have a comfortable win against Kingstonian. Not to be.

I couldn’t understand why Della Verde didn’t start in any of the 3 but having listened to Andy Leese’s post match interview, it turns out that he (Della Verde) has been carrying a knock. A couple of the others are too.

Overall impressions - I thought Juevan Spencer was our stand out performer across all 3 games. Very solid right back, good in the air, tough tackler, fast (coped very well with Haringey’s pacy wingers) and not afraid to get forward given the chance. Good that Cass is back this week because I thought we looked light up front. Cunnington gave everything in all the games he played but he can’t run himself into the ground game after game. He needs support. Need to get Coker fit again too. Wyllie looked short on confidence to me. I like the look of Chez Isaac, he made things tick against Potters Bar and Haringey but didn’t have such a good game against Kingstonian. Linked up well with Scott Thomas - solid looking midfield duo there. Shame I didn’t get to see the goal machine Lewis Knight, hopefully next time.

If we can keep winning 2 out of 3, we should make the playoffs …..

[4wembleyfinals]

Thanks to Barney and BJ for such thorough appraisals of Saturday's game. Hopefully this was just a blip and a wakeup call to get back to winning ways.

I agree that an average of 2pts from the remaining games should see us well placed in the top five at the end of the season.  This being the yard stick for success at the beginning of any season.

Edited January 10, 2023 by 4wembleyfinals