Hornchurch (home) 1-2.

[Tally Ho]

Sub : Hutchinson on for Parcell. (87)

8 mins of stoppage time now.

1-2.

[Tally Ho]

Whittaker for Youngs. (90+4)

[Tally Ho]

2-1 defeat.

[Frothy Coffee]

The great escape is coming.

[Flobalob]

I see the word “clueless” is finally being mentioned… surprised it has taken this long… ten man defence inviting pressure with no escape ball out…. another striker deemed useless to go with the previous six or seven… A manager so cautious it must be a nightmare playing for him…. please go Gavin and thanks for the memories…..

[No bull Towner]

1 hour ago, WHY DO I BOTHER said:

Woken up… the ridiculous negativity has gone…

Careful you might sound positive and that will never do

[No bull Towner]

7 minutes ago, WHY DO I BOTHER said:

I see the word “clueless” is finally being mentioned… surprised it has taken this long… ten man defence inviting pressure with no escape ball out…. another striker deemed useless to go with the previous six or seven… A manager so cautious it must be a nightmare playing for him…. please go Gavin and thanks for the memories…..

What memories are those then? Oh yeh, when he got us promoted in his first season. Oh what a hero he was then. But because we aren't good enough for this league he's the devil incarnate. Joker!

[Towningaround]

13 minutes ago, WHY DO I BOTHER said:

I see the word “clueless” is finally being mentioned… surprised it has taken this long… ten man defence inviting pressure with no escape ball out…. another striker deemed useless to go with the previous six or seven… A manager so cautious it must be a nightmare playing for him…. please go Gavin and thanks for the memories…..

Yep I’m going to have to agree.

Imagine playing up front in this team? 
 

Defenders at Wing back, wingers up front.

I haven’t actually seen a striker miss a chance for weeks. Actually miss a chance….

[andyetfc]

1 hour ago, Towningaround said:

Shakpoke has to be the least effective forward we’ve had all season but at least he was a forward. Having had no CF all season we got Hutchinson and Ottaway and they looked like forming a partnership. Ottaway is allowed to leave but Hutchinson gets off the mark and scores his first goal. 

We sign Shakpoke presumably to continue to play two up front but no we play a winger up there and then tonight we take off the only forward playing and put a winger up front at 2-1 down so we now have two wingers up front.

Clueless.

Have to agree that Shakpoke was very ineffective. Didn’t challenge, didn’t tackle back and appeared to be out of his depth.

Edited November 26 by andyetfc

[Flobalob]

12 minutes ago, No bull Towner said:

What memories are those then? Oh yeh, when he got us promoted in his first season. Oh what a hero he was then. But because we aren't good enough for this league he's the devil incarnate. Joker!

Yeah coz no manager has ever been dismissed when bottom after promotion… do you follow football ? 

you have accepted failure ever since you joined this forum … you carry on doing so … If you can’t see this managers failings then you don’t even understand the game… setting up with ten men behind the ball hoofing it up to a lone striker for the first twenty minutes  has absolutely nothing  to do with the quality of the players … it’s the managers set up nobody else’s… Gavin  is clueless and totally out of his depth in the NLS and has to go NOW…..

[TULACH ARD]

Robbed of a draw by an appallingly inept referee! 🤬🤬🤬

[ETFC2001]

Agree with all Shakpoke comments. Didn’t bother coming over at the end or clap the fans, thinks his better then the club cos he had one nice touch that lead to f**k all.

Here we go though, I didn’t hear a single word from two of the people being negative when we left Dorking with a great point on Saturday. It’s getting boring lads I’ll be honest. You can say Gavin is this and that but what’s the point if you only come on here when things are going wrong? 

Anywho - except from when we literally couldn’t get our half for the first 25 minutes, I don’t think we played extremely awful. Obviously seen better performances but it wasn’t awful. We still have a shooting problem, we are still so scared to shoot for some reason, until Youngs started having a pop.

Once again, we should of had another penalty, where he takes out Payne in the box right in-front of the referee and he ignores it for a throw in. Feel bad for Scott getting taken off, I don’t know if that was an injury or Gavin felt like he wasn’t doing enough in the middle of the park. Probably Tuck’s worst performance in an Enfield shirt this season which is okay, he’s a young player and he’s just had international break also.

People clearly have faint memory - Hornchurch won the league by 22 points last season! Their budget to ours is ridiculous and I’m not shocked we lost today. I always thought we was going to lose this fixture home and away.

[ETFC2001]

4 minutes ago, TULACH ARD said:

Robbed of a draw by an appallingly inept referee! 🤬🤬🤬

I think if we get that penalty and score, the game completely changes and we go on to win 3-2. Officials f**king us over are becoming a slow theme this season.

[Towningaround]

20 minutes ago, ETFC2001 said:

Here we go though, I didn’t hear a single word from two of the people being negative when we left Dorking with a great point on Saturday. It’s getting boring lads I’ll be honest. You can say Gavin is this and that but what’s the point if you only come on here when things are going wrong? 

Saturday was as atrocious but I really can’t be bothered with being the outlier when the majority of people will come away from Dorking celebrating a fantastic point.

To take a point in any manner there is brilliant but come on let’s not have anyone kidding anyone that it was due to anything other than Dorking being woefully poor in the final third. It should’ve been 4-0 after 30 mins!!!

The goal was from a super cross from a player who’d been, and did again tonight, playing up front when he’s clearly a left winger!! The finish had an element of luck about it but we’ll take it. 

But overall it was as sh!t as you could hope for and Dorking fans were right in saying we were the worst team they’d seen (until Monday v HH!! 🤣). 

This group of players are not suited to 3 at the back and Gavin needs to grow enough balls to leave one of them out.

We don’t have wing backs so stop playing them. Play defenders in defense and play wingers on the wing. We have three decent energetic Centre midfield players so play them all and we have one half decent forward so play him every week until he’s fit and in form!

It’s really not hard. 

Happy now 🤣😉

Edited November 26 by Towningaround

[ETFC2001]

16 minutes ago, Towningaround said:

Saturday was as atrocious but I really can’t be bothered with being the outlier when the majority of people will come away from Dorking celebrating a fantastic point.

I hope everyone would of came away from Dorking with a 4-0 loss let alone a point. 

 

16 minutes ago, Towningaround said:

overall it was as sh!t as you could hope for and Dorking fans were right in saying we were the worst team they’d seen (until Monday v HH!! 🤣). 

Was it sh*t because we didn’t have 60% possession? Because we didn’t have enough of the ball? Because on Saturday I think the tactics were great, we set out just how we wanted to.

 

16 minutes ago, Towningaround said:

This group of players are not suited to 3 at the back and Gavin needs to grow enough balls to leave one of them out.

We don’t have wing backs so stop playing them. Play defenders in defense and play wingers on the wing. We have three decent energetic Centre midfield players so play them all and we have one half decent forward so play him every week until he’s fit and in form!

I can agree with this though, yes I agree maybe a 3 back isn’t the way forward but I think Gavin’s sick of chopping and changing and it has been working for the last month or so in my opinion. But I can see where you are coming from.

My final point: I don’t think Gavin is a saint who can’t do anything wrong but WE are up against it as a club. Everyone is allowed to be upset if you don’t think the quality on the pitch is good enough to keep paying for it every week, and that’s perfectly fine but I’ll keep reiterating, we need to stay behind these players and manager and hope we have a great escape because it isn’t changing anytime soon it looks like.

Onto Torquay.

Edit: Whittaker/RBR/Hutchinson should start upfront against Torquay. Completely disgusting performance from Shakpoke then not to come to the fans after, he should be benched. We don’t need those sort of players at the moment.

Edited November 26 by ETFC2001

[Flobalob]

29 minutes ago, ETFC2001 said:

 

My final point: I don’t think Gavin is a saint who can’t do anything wrong but WE are up against it as a club. Everyone is allowed to be upset if you don’t think the quality on the pitch is good enough to keep paying for it every week, and that’s perfectly fine but I’ll keep reiterating, we need to stay behind these players and manager and hope we have a great escape because it isn’t changing anytime soon it looks like.

I seem to be the only one on here who believes the players are good enough if allowed to show it… After that point Saturday a win today was a must so how did our manager respond… by having a ten man defence and waiting till we were 2-0 down before pushing forward… ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK was being shouted after 15 minutes…I heard the mutterings and the comments from the miserable older supporters and our approach to this game was unacceptable…..

[Barney]

After saying I wasn't going to get to the game, I managed to sneak in for the last 20 or so on my way home. Having not been to a game since Farnborough, what struck me most was how much of an upgrade Cox and Thompson are on what we've had previously... assured on the ball (to the point where I was wondering what the hell we were doing trying to play our way out of increasingly tight situations), decent in the air and sound defensively from what I saw. I do feel that 3 at the back is largely dictated by the fact that arguably our 3 best players are centre backs, think it'd be harsh to leave any one of them out from what's been said on here, and what I've seen. Tend to agree with the observation about square pegs in round holes at wing back though.

Whilst we huffed and puffed, we didn't really get behind them enough to threaten an equaliser, although a bit more quality when we did work a 1 on 1 and a bit of luck from the corner we had and we could be talking about a battling point gained.

That said, Hornchurch got behind us a few times and if it wasn't for a really good save from Rhys, it could have been 1-3. They managed the game pretty well, limiting us to optimistic and often overhit long balls. Whilst it was refreshing to see us keep the ball in defence and midfield and recycle it, as well as play out from the back, we looked a bit lost when in possession further forward, and didn't either keep the ball or do anything threatening with it (lack of forward options, runners or a focal point?).

I'll happily hear arguments for being more positive in how we set up, but Gavin largely set up to be hard to break down last season, so it's no shock that we're doing the same in a much harder league. If we go out all guns blazing, we might get some favourable results, but then we might be on the end of conceding 7 like Hemel last night. What I will say is that if we are going to set up like this, then we cannot give sides a 2 goal lead, as we're really not going to get many chances to score.

All in all, I can't help but think we might have left ourselves too much to do to get out of this predicament. We're clearly on an upward trajectory and have added quality in some positions, and had we started the season with this team I'm sure we'd be better off points-wise, with a bit more nous to see out those tight games that we lost late on by an odd goal. Seems that (quality) forwards are the hardest position to recruit, and we've certainly cycled through a few, hopefully we can secure the right player sooner rather than later.

Lastly, I can only echo ETFC2001's comments, we need to get behind the team, whether we agree with the formation and tactics or not. We're bang up against it, and need something of a miracle to get out of this, so a siege mentality and 100% commitment from players and supporters alike is the order of the day.

Edited November 27 by Barney
typos

[ETFC2001]

32 minutes ago, WHY DO I BOTHER said:

I seem to be the only one on here who believes the players are good enough if allowed to show it… After that point Saturday a win today was a must so how did our manager respond… by having a ten man defence and waiting till we were 2-0 down before pushing forward… ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK was being shouted after 15 minutes…I heard the mutterings and the comments from the miserable older supporters and our approach to this game was unacceptable…..

I agree with you here WDIB, the way the game started was atrocious and I feel after Scott came off it was much better, not to just dig him out. Fans chanting ‘we got the ball, we lost the ball’ etc are just lads having fun because they aren’t happy with what was going on. They are also the same lads that sing their heart out when we’re playing positively.

I also agree there is talent in this squad. Peake, Thompson, Tuck, Cox etc are all quality INDIVIDUALS. Gelling is also important but we massively need quality upfront. That is one point I will stand on. 

I wouldn’t say today was a must win, but we do need to get three points at some stage. I can’t see that being against Torquay, so I would say we could get something against Tonbridge. Super-mare, not expecting much but we’ll cross that path when we get to it.

Also, can we stop ignoring that we have been massively hard done by in important situations by officials this season? Chesham and tonight spring to mind. It was the most stonewall decision I’ve seen in years. We leave that game with a point or even more if that penalty is given 

Edited November 27 by ETFC2001

[No bull Towner]

1 hour ago, WHY DO I BOTHER said:

Yeah coz no manager has ever been dismissed when bottom after promotion… do you follow football ? 

you have accepted failure ever since you joined this forum … you carry on doing so … If you can’t see this managers failings then you don’t even understand the game… setting up with ten men behind the ball hoofing it up to a lone striker for the first twenty minutes  has absolutely nothing  to do with the quality of the players … it’s the managers set up nobody else’s… Gavin  is clueless and totally out of his depth in the NLS and has to go NOW…..

Oh no I'm so offended (not) by a miserable old git whinging and carrying on again, so much so that I too wonder why you bother. I see failings, I just don't harp on repeatedly about them and try to 'support' the team instead of ripping them to shreds and demanding sackings at every opportunity...you do you and I'll do me! 

[Benjrider10]

I feel for the manager, he has had to tackle one dilemma after another this season.

I can understand the defensive set up (we have conceded too many goals) but feel we have improved both the defense and the midfield to the point where we can play 2 up front at home. But we simply don't have the "2 up front". Hopefully Gavin can bring somebody in. Contrast our attacking choice (Shakpoke, Hutchinson, RBR, Whittaker) with Hornchurch (Akinwande, Nash, Hearn, Yusuff) - there is no comparison. Shakpoke was disappointing last night - a shame because he looked much stronger in the previous two games I have seen him play. I wonder if he was fully fit? We're not making enough goalscoring chances and that's why I think we are crying out for Ollie Knight at left wing, in front of Cox (who had a good game last night) plus a CF who works hard off the ball.

The first 15 minutes Hornchurch played us off the park. We simply couldn't get the ball. Manny Harvest got their first - don't know if it took a deflection or simply beat Rhys for pace, but it was a fine shot. I don't put that down to poor defending, it was just a well taken goal. The second goal really wound me up and I'm not surprised that Scott was hauled off shortly after. He gifted the ball away just outside our own box (having lost the ball in a similar area a couple of times before) and Nash rightly punished us with a straightforward header from a good cross. Now will be a good character test for him (Scott). I've been impressed with him in other games but he needs to learn when to keep it simple.

With Billy Leonard on, we got back into the game and, as has been the case recently, played some decent build-up football without really threatening. It's difficult to play the killer through ball with only 1 up front, after all. But the goal we did score was beautifully made - I'm looking forward to seeing the highlights for that alone.

We tried hard in the second half but again chances were few and far between. I was at the side so saw the penalty shout from there - have to say it didn't look like a penalty to me, I thought the Hornchurch defender got to the ball fractionally before Payne, but I stand to be corrected.

Can't make the Torquay game but hope we can get something from it.

We might be bottom but let's keep some perspective - it's not the end of the world, it's just a game 🙂