v Chelmsford City

[Reading Rebel]

Right, back to the serious stuff and we need to break the norm.

Countless times we've produced a fantastic performance only to follow it with an 'after the Lord Mayors show' stuttering performance in our next game.

We are coming down from the euphoria of a great performance but we really need to get back down to earth and focus on the league.

We have slipped into a relegation spot albeit with a game in hand and Chelmsford are riding high one point out of a play off position. 

We have 3 league games before our big FA Cup game, Chelmsford (h) St Albans (a) Eastbourne Borough (a).

I think we need a minimum of 5 points from these games, ideally 6 to 9 points to give ourselves a chance of getting out of the bottom 4.  

[Curtis]

Last season both Chelmsford & Eastbourne won home & away against us, & we lost at home to St Albans & had a surprise away win against them.

So, last season we only managed 3 points from these upcoming three fixtures.

We are in good form though, and confidence should be high, in contrast to Chelmsford, who can’t be happy about a 10 hour round trip to Whitby on Tuesday night & a 3-1 FA Cup defeat to a mid table team from a level down.

I would hope that we can continue our unbeaten run & pick up 5 points with a win & two draws…… anything better than that & we will probably have fans talking about play-off prospects!!!

[rebelbrewer]

I'll take continuing our form and continued progress. I'd take 3 good performances with 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss against those 3 teams. The unbeaten run is all well and good but if we drew all our games to the end of the season it probably wouldn't keep us up. 

Just now, rebelbrewer said:

I'll take continuing our form and continued progress. I'd take 3 good performances with 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss against those 3 teams. The unbeaten run is all well and good but if we drew all our games to the end of the season it probably wouldn't keep us up. 

not that I want us to lose mind

[Curtis]

Can a statto amongst you tell me when we last had back to back 0-0 draws in the league.

[Reading Rebel]

Forgettable first half with us having 2 shots on target and 1 for Chelmsford.

Second half was a lot better with the majority of good chances coming our way without being able to convert any. 

It does seem as if we've tightened up considerably at the back with 6 clean sheets from our last 8 games but at the same time the goals have dried up from our strikers with no goals scored in our last 6 games.

Agree with David Ogbonna being given MOTM showing some unbelievable skills.

What I will add though is that for all his skill and ability his end product, whether that's shooting or creating, could do with a lot of improvement.

Although we shared the points against a side just outside the play-offs I would say on chances created and missed it was 2 points dropped.

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Reading Rebel

[Nathan]

Defensively, we've certainly come a long way in a short time. Bayliss & Dyche in particular have come on leaps and bounds since August/early September. But our lack of firepower in the final third is beginning to cost us what could be precious points. Ogbonna was excellent yesterday, consistently beating players and getting in good crosses. If only there was somebody to get on the end of them! What we're crying out for is a poacher who has a knack of being in the right place at the right time (like Tony Boot or Dan Burnell).

It was a little concerning that we seemed to run out of legs for the last 20 minutes after Chelmsford's sending off, which seemed to spur them on. We lost our shape, and our distribution became very sloppy. To cap it all off, Eweka lost his head and was also sent off in injury time. I think he's now banned for next week at Eastbourne?

I'm not sure how the referee managed to book 8/9 players and send two off, as I don't recall a single nasty tackle (accidental or deliberate) throughout the entire game?

It's now 10 unbeaten, with 7 clean sheets in that time. But as Reading Rebels rightly says, it's been 6 games (nearly a month) since a striker last scored, which is a real concern. Still, keep a clean sheet in the league and you're guaranteed at least a point, and this was the sort of game we'd have lost last season or at the start of this.

[Reading Rebel]

2 hours ago, Nathan said:

Defensively, we've certainly come a long way in a short time. Bayliss & Dyche in particular have come on leaps and bounds since August/early September. But our lack of firepower in the final third is beginning to cost us what could be precious points. Ogbonna was excellent yesterday, consistently beating players and getting in good crosses. If only there was somebody to get on the end of them! What we're crying out for is a poacher who has a knack of being in the right place at the right time (like Tony Boot or Dan Burnell).

It was a little concerning that we seemed to run out of legs for the last 20 minutes after Chelmsford's sending off, which seemed to spur them on. We lost our shape, and our distribution became very sloppy. To cap it all off, Eweka lost his head and was also sent off in injury time. I think he's now banned for next week at Eastbourne?

I'm not sure how the referee managed to book 8/9 players and send two off, as I don't recall a single nasty tackle (accidental or deliberate) throughout the entire game?

It's now 10 unbeaten, with 7 clean sheets in that time. But as Reading Rebels rightly says, it's been 6 games (nearly a month) since a striker last scored, which is a real concern. Still, keep a clean sheet in the league and you're guaranteed at least a point, and this was the sort of game we'd have lost last season or at the start of this.

Not sure about Oggy putting in good crosses, talented player but end product needs to improve considerably.

As for the ref I was told he was being assessed which could explain why he was well over the top with his decision to dish out so many unecessary yellow cards.

Can someone explain to me the point of notifying a ref that he's being assessed, surely defeats the whole object of knowing how competent or incompetent he is.

[Irishadrian]

The problem is this A ref told he's being assessed is more likely to apply the new rules introduced at the start of this season about which we had a discussion on this forum For example a group of players surrounding a ref can all be carded as can extreme celebrations of a goal etc lots of things rarely penalised are now penalised by some refs but not by others imo

[DonnyNo6]

20 hours ago, Reading Rebel said:

Not sure about Oggy putting in good crosses, talented player but end product needs to improve considerably.

As for the ref I was told he was being assessed which could explain why he was well over the top with his decision to dish out so many unecessary yellow cards.

Can someone explain to me the point of notifying a ref that he's being assessed, surely defeats the whole object of knowing how competent or incompetent he is.

He was being, I saw the assessor in the main stand.

Sort of explains the very early yellow card, doubt it would have been a yellow if he wasn't there, so soft but letter of the law I guess.

[Reading Rebel]

37 minutes ago, DonnyNo6 said:

He was being, I saw the assessor in the main stand.

Sort of explains the very early yellow card, doubt it would have been a yellow if he wasn't there, so soft but letter of the law I guess.

The ref probably got top marks for showing no common sense and applying the letter of the law which as we know is an ass at the best of times. 

[DonnyNo6]

On 23/10/2023 at 12:44, Reading Rebel said:

The ref probably got top marks for showing no common sense and applying the letter of the law which as we know is an ass at the best of times. 

You know that.