Folkestone Invicta v Enfield Town

[seemgee]

McDonald, Wilson-Braithwaite, Payne, Thomas, Knight, Richmond, Isaac, Youngs, Cass, Taaffe, Wyllie

Okotcha,  Wordsworth, Coker, Della-Verde, Dayton

[seemgee]

1 down after 12 mins

[seemgee]

2 down 70 mins

[seemgee]

3 down 88 mins

[The Crowing Cockerel]

6 conceded in 2 games. Impressive stuff. We're still flat-track bullies who can't seem to live with the top sides in the Isthmian Prem. We'd be like lambs to the slaughter in the National League South!

[seemgee]

FT 3-0 defeat

[Rebel without a clue]

Glad I didn’t attend tonight’s game, our poor form continues, at this rate we won’t make the playoffs 

[4wembleyfinals]

True "Rebel" !!   We now need the coaching staff to come up with a system  that ensures we take at least 3 points points from the games we still have in hand over the several teams around us. Even 2 draws ( 2pts )  would suffice to stop the rot !!  

It must be obvious that something has gone wrong with the defence which needs fixing. Otherwise we will fall away from any hope of a play-off place.

Sorry to see Coker left out of the starting line up again. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by 4wembleyfinals

[Steph]

Thought I would join in.

Last night I thought that the Folkestone goalkeeper was busier than ours. We hit the post and the result flattered Folkestone.

The second goal was caused by poor decision making in midfield. Our player sat on the ball wondering what to do with it and a Folkestone player robbed him of it. Since this was around the centre circle and we were on the attack the defence was left exposed.

Folkestone attack beat us for pace at the back every time.

What is more worrying is that in the last 4 games we have not scored a goal in open play. 2 penalties and a deflected free kick. Long balls to either Cass or Cunnington do not work and we do not use the space on the wings when attacking. Invariably the wide men try to cut inside whilst our opponents are busy organising themselves.

I agree with the Crowing Cockerel if by some chance we get promoted there would be more games like last night and we would have a season of struggle.

[Barney]

Very disappointing result, albeit a tough game on paper - I didn't attend, but the comments on Twitter and Steph's above suggest that the performance wasn't that bad, but agreed we need to find a way to stop this mini blip from turning into something worse. I've found that almost every time over the past few years that people (myself included) start to doubt / question the team, and their ability to win games and make the play offs, we put a little run together - hopefully we do the same here!

There's very little doubt in my mind that it would be a season of struggle if we did manage to get promoted, but I think that's par for the course - it was the same when we got promoted to the IPL, but that shouldn't stop us from trying to get a foothold in the league above and build from there. In my view it's probably (just about) harder to get promoted from this league that it is to avoid relegation from the league above, as there's usually one or two teams with bigger budgets which probably means we have to contend with the lottery of the play-offs at best.

On an unrelated point, I note that Scott managed to appeal his red successfully vs. Wingate, which is good news... I can't help but think that had he not been sent off incorrectly, we'd have 2 more points on the board.

On another unrelated point, does anyone have an update on Spencer? He'd been one of our form players up until he got injured, and adds an attacking dimension which I don't think the (admittedly defensively sound) Wilson-Braithwaite gives us.

Edited to add: welcome back to those of you that only post when we're in bad form - I wondered how long it would take after our last few results for the forum to become more popular 😁

Edited February 22, 2023 by Barney

[4wembleyfinals]

As I have said ad infinitum I have been unable to attend games for nearly a year now. Consequently I have formed my observations on what I have read on this forum and ETFC official reports.  Which may not be the best way of doing things

Like Barney, I too have waited news on how Spencer is getting on. Is there any news about him. As to when he is lightly to be back. If this is going to be a while then I hope we are seeking another defender as back up. This may mean increasing the budget in order to push us nearer to promotion. Which, if you get it, will be of great incentive for the club to go forward with it's future.

Unlike others I I see promotion as a challenge. It's like buying a house. Until you get one foot on the ladder you don't know what you can achieve 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by 4wembleyfinals

[lovely stuff]

We have had season upon season of inconsistency and ridiculously high turnover of players. Finally this season i thought we had finally turned a corner and we at last were able to put a run of wins together that could see us progress and maybe even the dream of promotion seemed realistic. I myself praised the management and team on this forum recently for the great run of games we put together in order climb to the top of the league and that a settled starting 11 and a solid looking defence was starting to look promising. I did warn at the time about slipping into the usual inconsistent yo-yoing of a good month followed by a poor month. So disappointed this seems to be happening yet again. Also disappointed we still can't as usual pick up many points against any of our top 5 rivals.. It's beginning to look a bit like groundhog day. One season seems to blend into another and another.

Edited February 24, 2023 by lovely stuff

[The Crowing Cockerel]

LS, I think its indicative of where we are as a club. We are making progress, but its just very slow progress. Thats part and parcel of our business model. We can't do what the likes of Bishops Stortford and Hornchurch are doing - attempting to buy their way into the National League. For example, BS have very recently signed Sam Deering who was plying his trade in the football league 18 months ago - I suspect he's being paid comparatively well. Meanwhile Hornchurch have recently shelled out a reported £40k on a striker Folkestone had (very sensibly) tied down to a 2-year contract.

I can only grumble so much about our current inconsistencies. I have no idea whether any other manager could do any better than AL with our budget. Our reality is that we have to hope that we can make the play-offs. And then we need to get very lucky, twice, in order to get promoted. Assuming we continue to make progress then it will probably happen at some point in the future. Its just tough when we've been up against teams who can draft in loan signings from football league teams (Worthing) who can be real game-changers and (while not paupers) we're financially ham-strung.

[lovely stuff]

On 24/02/2023 at 12:09, The Crowing Cockerel said:

LS, I think its indicative of where we are as a club. We are making progress, but its just very slow progress. Thats part and parcel of our business model. We can't do what the likes of Bishops Stortford and Hornchurch are doing - attempting to buy their way into the National League. For example, BS have very recently signed Sam Deering who was plying his trade in the football league 18 months ago - I suspect he's being paid comparatively well. Meanwhile Hornchurch have recently shelled out a reported £40k on a striker Folkestone had (very sensibly) tied down to a 2-year contract.

I can only grumble so much about our current inconsistencies. I have no idea whether any other manager could do any better than AL with our budget. Our reality is that we have to hope that we can make the play-offs. And then we need to get very lucky, twice, in order to get promoted. Assuming we continue to make progress then it will probably happen at some point in the future. Its just tough when we've been up against teams who can draft in loan signings from football league teams (Worthing) who can be real game-changers and (while not paupers) we're financially ham-strung.

I personally do not feel we have progressed much on the pitch in the last 3 seasons or so. I think we are pretty much where we were.. I realise that there will always be several other clubs (at any one time) in our league that have higher budgets. Probably about 4 to 5 teams on average. As i always point out we are about 6th-7th in the league for budget and attendances. We perfom pretty much on par with that, as we have been for quite a few seasons. We rarely bat above our average over each full  season. Or look like we will do so the following season. Probably the only thing that is consistent.

Yes safety and top half every season brings stability to the club. I just fear that stability can turn into stagnation. 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by lovely stuff

[The Crowing Cockerel]

48 minutes ago, lovely stuff said:

I personally do not feel we have progressed much on the pitch in the last 3 seasons or so. I think we are pretty much where we were.. I realise that there will always be several other clubs (at any one time) in our league that we have higher budgets. Probably about 4 to 5 teams on average. As i always point out we are about 6th-7th in the league for budget and attendances. We perfom pretty much on par with that, as we have been for quite a few seasons. We rarely bat above our average over each full  season. Or look like we will do the following season. Probably the only thing that is consistent.

Yes safety and top half every season brings stability to the club. I just fear that stability can turn into stagnation. 

Agreed, LS. Although I guess it could be worse - we could be under-achieving! I have to give the manager some credit for that. However he's not really pulling up any trees! My real hope is that the next manager is able to do more with the resources available - either coach players recruited within our budget to perform to a much higher level, or perhaps unearth a few hidden gems. A long FA Cup run might even push our player recruitment into a different financial bracket.

I appreciate that we very nearly lost senior non-league football in the borough, and we've come a long way from that roped-off pitch at Goldsdown Road, but some of us are anxious to relive the glory days of an Enfield side at the very top of the non-league pyramid - and in my life time! So lets hope for some real ambition rather than stability and stagnation.

[4wembleyfinals]

Have very much enjoyed the recent posts by LS and CC. Between them they have summarised exactly how I have felt over the past few years.

I completely concur with CC's last sentence whole heartedly and have expressed the same thoughts a number of times. Although I am proud of what the club have given to the local society I feel we should not be too side tract from acknowledging we are primarily a football club. If that goes down then so will the other cards fall.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by 4wembleyfinals

[Barney]

I agree that the senior mens team should be front and centre for the club, however you need sound infrastructure in order to compete at a higher level, and that takes time to put in place, especially without a financial backer. Whether that infrastructure is additional bar facilities to support larger crowds, ladies, youth and disability teams, outreach programmes, an academy - all of these things might not directly affect the mens 1st team in the short term, but can bring some pretty tangible benefits in terms of grants, and additional supporters as well as raising the profile of the club (not to mention the fact that it's the right thing to do).

As for the manager, I tend to agree that I'm not the biggest fan of the style of play, but it's largely been effective (and it's not like every side we play against is knocking it around and playing beautiful football, there are some sides at the top of the table who are as direct as we are, and Cheshunt went up doing the same last season). We made the playoffs last season (at which point it's a 1 in 4 lottery in my view) and even with the recent poor run, we sit in 4th place which is arguably slightly higher than we should be based on budget. Would someone different do better with the players available? Maybe. Could they end up coming in and doing worse? Also maybe.

[The Crowing Cockerel]

1 hour ago, Barney said:

Would someone different do better with the players available? Maybe. Could they end up coming in and doing worse? Also maybe.

We know from previous experience that if we changed the manager most - if not all - of the playing squad would also change. It would certainly be a gamble, but I'd like to think that we would now be quite an attractive job in the non-league pyramid.