A terrible game of football, very forgettable and had 0-0 all over it I thought. Then we only managed to go and turn it into a defeat.
I knew the day was going to be a poor one, when a group of about 20 of Wycombe's "Mob" had to have a police escort on their trudge from the Hour glass. Glaring menacingly at a couple of taxis that had Col U fans in
shocking attendance as well seeing as we haven't played them in 6 years or so. I guess that comes down to bank holiday, terrible football and the fact some are too young to remember the old rivalry.
Don't know too much about Andrew Howard but would say GA has until end of September to improve things.
If that is true about Harriman then that is a poor decision by someone who has not covered himself in glory this season. Maybe a quiet word from the senior pro's is required.
As for the abuse at the end from the fans towards the players I don't get it. They were poor but the manager was by far the worst offender.
Unlike the likes of @trevor, who simply complain after EVERY defeat, I'm a bit more measured in my comments on the manager. He's achieved a lot for us but only a fool would suggest there isn't a problem after today.
A witless performance, I left bored beyond belief. Sadly I think we may be witnessing the end game as Gaz clearly doesn't accept that entertainment plays any part in the football he presents. A real shame, as we used to play a good mix of pragmatism and flair. I hope he can turn it round but it's not looking good.
@WestLondonWanderer said:
I don't know what paper you are looking at if you think a team with bean, wood, Thompson and akinfenwa in looks awesome?
Get PCH, Weston, O'Nien and Hayes back and then GA should be judged
Those are some of the players GA has assembled this campaign.
The squad looks good, it's how we are playing, which GA conducts, which is the problem.
I wonder how close Paris, Weston and O Nien are to properly being back?
If it's not very close, then I fear massively for us.
At one point we had 4 strikers on, both fullbacks playing as wingers, and we still didn't look like we were going to create.
Not in the slightest bothered about Harriman's supposed comments. When a sea of goons are shouting abuse at you, I probably wouldn't think they were worth it either.
Why, as a supposedly fan owned club, are we never given some idea as to the extent of a players injury and likely time out? I assume our manager prohibits such information being given to the supporters who pay his wages.
I didn't agree with the line-up from the start today. With J.J. out injured I'd have stuck Sam Wood at left-back, Jombati at right-back and played Freeman and Harriman wide in midfield. Garry Thompson would have been on the bench for me.
People talk about the return of Luke O'Nien, Paris Cowan-Hall and Myles Weston which can't be over-emphasised but the neanderthal style of football we are playing is getting me seriously fed up. The performance at Crawley should have set alarm bells ringing. Nothing has improved since the last 4 months of last season.
Personally I like Gareth Ainsworth and wouldn't like a change but he does seem to be going down a cul-de-sac at present. Maybe more than additional players we need to bring in an experienced coach to set up a proper style of football and two separate game-plans for playing home and away.
We had our first shot on target in the 92nd minute which is scandalous but it merely reflects what's been happening most of the season. It pains me to say it but we were beaten by the better side today. They had a game plan, rode their luck a bit in the first-half and came out deserved winners.
I still regret letting Ryan Sellers go. He could deliver a lovely ball and his long throw added another dimension which maybe Akinfenwa could have profited from. I watch quite a bit of other football locally and have not seen anything as lacking in entertainment or excitement as today. We need to start by making sure our attempts on goal tally outnumbers our bookings. The players were obviously getting very frustrated today which is also not a good sign. From the fans reaction it's a bit of a watershed for Gareth Ainsworth.
Hardly a 'sea of goons' taking umbridge with Harriman's 'they're not worth it' comments. His face said it all. He'd knew he'd committed a howler and Hayes rightly pulled him away. These players are not beyond criticism but sadly the manager we'd all thought had turned it around is the main culprit.
Maybe i'm getting old, but I get more and more sick of some of our "fans", who seem to use their admittedly good away support as being an alibi to some twattish behaviour.
The fans strutting in from the Hour glass, tanked up and needing a police escort were embarrasing enough. Bravely abusing 2-3 Col U fans in taxis, safe in their 20man throng, and police escort.
Then I watched a whole bunch get into an argument with a single fan, presumably one asking them not to be so negative so often.
'They're not worth it' a non story? We're not talking about a few games, we've been gash for ages and no sign of change. I think we deserve more than that as a response. Perhaps Harriman is a poor scapegoat as he's one of our better players but that is poor behaviour on his part.
The way we ended last season this was a massive summer for Ainsworth. I fear it will turn out to be his downfall. There was no footballing justification whatsoever for giving Bloomfield and Wood new contracts. And history may judge the signing of Akinfenwa as the stupidest of all time, regardless of Twitter engagement figures, an expression I'd never heard of, but one which I can see coming back to haunt them as the season wears in. It incapsulates everything that was wrong with that signing very neatly indeed.
At this level players are not the complete package, we all understand that otherwise they wouldn't be playing in league two. Sometimes you sacrifice a bit of quality for a bit of pace, sometimes you might get a player with raw strength and pace whose touch might let him down, etc etc. We had a side out there today with neither pace, power nor quality on the ball. Where others are getting this "the side looked good on paper" opinion from is beyond me. We really really don't. That side that started today, I could not come up with one system that would make me confident of winning. Nowhere near enough quality on the ball to play a possession based passing game, zero pace anywhere to be able to hit the ball over the top or counter attack, no striker anywhere near capable of playing the target man role to allow us to play a long ball route one style of play.
We are in for a season of struggle, and if Aaron Pierre goes in the next few days I am genuinely fearful of how it might end.
Excepting your assessment of Akinfenwa, I totally agree with the points outlined in your post Eric.
Akinfenwa has shown despite his limited mobility, ability to hold the ball up and lay it off but because of the lack of any quality in midfield and wide his assets are wasted. Also in my view Akinfenwa should be used on the bench as Wimbledon did and then he has more chance of changing a game in the second half.
I have supported Ainsworth in the past but this faith is rapidly ebbing away. His obstinacy in automatically selecting the likes of Wood and Thompson and persisting with ugly football tactics will i fear be his downfall.
I was absolutely against the Akinfenwa signing, but in the couple of games I've seen he's showed more of a footballing brain than I thought he had, and brings others into the game nicely.
The jury is very much out on GA's signings overall though.
Not so he stands there the defender bounces off him and the ref gives a free kick against him. Surprising to me he's not doing a bad job. Where today was our creative midfield to supply our strikers. Get the ball on the deck and play FOOTBALL.
We can't afford our top earner to be an impact sub, even if they were an effective one
I actually thought Thompson was our best player in the first half, in the face of not too much competition. But then came his dive to try to get a penalty, which was embarrassing, and then the 2nd half, in which they were all abysmal
Comments
So apart from all that, all is well? ;-)
A terrible game of football, very forgettable and had 0-0 all over it I thought. Then we only managed to go and turn it into a defeat.
I knew the day was going to be a poor one, when a group of about 20 of Wycombe's "Mob" had to have a police escort on their trudge from the Hour glass. Glaring menacingly at a couple of taxis that had Col U fans in
What happened with Harriman at the end? He's coming in for a lot of stick by the Facebook yoof.
From what I can gleam from the FB group, Hayes and Bayo went over to speak with fans and Harriman tried pull them away saying "they aren't worth it".
shocking attendance as well seeing as we haven't played them in 6 years or so. I guess that comes down to bank holiday, terrible football and the fact some are too young to remember the old rivalry.
Don't know too much about Andrew Howard but would say GA has until end of September to improve things.
If that is true about Harriman then that is a poor decision by someone who has not covered himself in glory this season. Maybe a quiet word from the senior pro's is required.
As for the abuse at the end from the fans towards the players I don't get it. They were poor but the manager was by far the worst offender.
@Gerry47 he said he didn't like one of their moody Stone Island jackets ;-)
rocknrollfootball
Unlike the likes of @trevor, who simply complain after EVERY defeat, I'm a bit more measured in my comments on the manager. He's achieved a lot for us but only a fool would suggest there isn't a problem after today.
A witless performance, I left bored beyond belief. Sadly I think we may be witnessing the end game as Gaz clearly doesn't accept that entertainment plays any part in the football he presents. A real shame, as we used to play a good mix of pragmatism and flair. I hope he can turn it round but it's not looking good.
Those are some of the players GA has assembled this campaign.
The squad looks good, it's how we are playing, which GA conducts, which is the problem.
Early days, time for a response.
Luton next week should be fun anyway...
If it helps with the analysis, I was just very bored.
The clubs Twitter feed is very quiet tonight. In fact there's nothing.
I wonder how close Paris, Weston and O Nien are to properly being back?
If it's not very close, then I fear massively for us.
At one point we had 4 strikers on, both fullbacks playing as wingers, and we still didn't look like we were going to create.
Not in the slightest bothered about Harriman's supposed comments. When a sea of goons are shouting abuse at you, I probably wouldn't think they were worth it either.
@Gerry47 . Nothing on a couple of player's feeds either. Wonder if we've been told to keep it quiet tonight.
I agree with that @Malone. Popped into the terrace to see what the fuss was about - a right set of idiots involved.
Why, as a supposedly fan owned club, are we never given some idea as to the extent of a players injury and likely time out? I assume our manager prohibits such information being given to the supporters who pay his wages.
@Malone Danny Rowe has just tweeted.
I didn't agree with the line-up from the start today. With J.J. out injured I'd have stuck Sam Wood at left-back, Jombati at right-back and played Freeman and Harriman wide in midfield. Garry Thompson would have been on the bench for me.
People talk about the return of Luke O'Nien, Paris Cowan-Hall and Myles Weston which can't be over-emphasised but the neanderthal style of football we are playing is getting me seriously fed up. The performance at Crawley should have set alarm bells ringing. Nothing has improved since the last 4 months of last season.
Personally I like Gareth Ainsworth and wouldn't like a change but he does seem to be going down a cul-de-sac at present. Maybe more than additional players we need to bring in an experienced coach to set up a proper style of football and two separate game-plans for playing home and away.
We had our first shot on target in the 92nd minute which is scandalous but it merely reflects what's been happening most of the season. It pains me to say it but we were beaten by the better side today. They had a game plan, rode their luck a bit in the first-half and came out deserved winners.
I still regret letting Ryan Sellers go. He could deliver a lovely ball and his long throw added another dimension which maybe Akinfenwa could have profited from. I watch quite a bit of other football locally and have not seen anything as lacking in entertainment or excitement as today. We need to start by making sure our attempts on goal tally outnumbers our bookings. The players were obviously getting very frustrated today which is also not a good sign. From the fans reaction it's a bit of a watershed for Gareth Ainsworth.
Hardly a 'sea of goons' taking umbridge with Harriman's 'they're not worth it' comments. His face said it all. He'd knew he'd committed a howler and Hayes rightly pulled him away. These players are not beyond criticism but sadly the manager we'd all thought had turned it around is the main culprit.
Maybe i'm getting old, but I get more and more sick of some of our "fans", who seem to use their admittedly good away support as being an alibi to some twattish behaviour.
The fans strutting in from the Hour glass, tanked up and needing a police escort were embarrasing enough. Bravely abusing 2-3 Col U fans in taxis, safe in their 20man throng, and police escort.
Then I watched a whole bunch get into an argument with a single fan, presumably one asking them not to be so negative so often.
Then this Harriman non story.
'They're not worth it' a non story? We're not talking about a few games, we've been gash for ages and no sign of change. I think we deserve more than that as a response. Perhaps Harriman is a poor scapegoat as he's one of our better players but that is poor behaviour on his part.
I'm never one to call for a manager's head but I'm hoping that senior players having to go and speak to the fans can be a wake up call.
The way we ended last season this was a massive summer for Ainsworth. I fear it will turn out to be his downfall. There was no footballing justification whatsoever for giving Bloomfield and Wood new contracts. And history may judge the signing of Akinfenwa as the stupidest of all time, regardless of Twitter engagement figures, an expression I'd never heard of, but one which I can see coming back to haunt them as the season wears in. It incapsulates everything that was wrong with that signing very neatly indeed.
At this level players are not the complete package, we all understand that otherwise they wouldn't be playing in league two. Sometimes you sacrifice a bit of quality for a bit of pace, sometimes you might get a player with raw strength and pace whose touch might let him down, etc etc. We had a side out there today with neither pace, power nor quality on the ball. Where others are getting this "the side looked good on paper" opinion from is beyond me. We really really don't. That side that started today, I could not come up with one system that would make me confident of winning. Nowhere near enough quality on the ball to play a possession based passing game, zero pace anywhere to be able to hit the ball over the top or counter attack, no striker anywhere near capable of playing the target man role to allow us to play a long ball route one style of play.
We are in for a season of struggle, and if Aaron Pierre goes in the next few days I am genuinely fearful of how it might end.
@eric_plant I haven't seen him play yet, but I understood Akinfenwa was doing a decent job in the 'holding up' role. He has at least scored a goal!
You need at least a bit of mobility to be able to play as a target man. He has none.
He also gives away free kick after free kick after free kick
Excepting your assessment of Akinfenwa, I totally agree with the points outlined in your post Eric.
Akinfenwa has shown despite his limited mobility, ability to hold the ball up and lay it off but because of the lack of any quality in midfield and wide his assets are wasted. Also in my view Akinfenwa should be used on the bench as Wimbledon did and then he has more chance of changing a game in the second half.
I have supported Ainsworth in the past but this faith is rapidly ebbing away. His obstinacy in automatically selecting the likes of Wood and Thompson and persisting with ugly football tactics will i fear be his downfall.
I was absolutely against the Akinfenwa signing, but in the couple of games I've seen he's showed more of a footballing brain than I thought he had, and brings others into the game nicely.
The jury is very much out on GA's signings overall though.
Not so he stands there the defender bounces off him and the ref gives a free kick against him. Surprising to me he's not doing a bad job. Where today was our creative midfield to supply our strikers. Get the ball on the deck and play FOOTBALL.
We can't afford our top earner to be an impact sub, even if they were an effective one
I actually thought Thompson was our best player in the first half, in the face of not too much competition. But then came his dive to try to get a penalty, which was embarrassing, and then the 2nd half, in which they were all abysmal