These two games against Stevenage should be a learning experience for Matt as limited as Evans is he knows how to win football games with a small playing budget.
The comment from Drysdale about Vokes is extraordinary and surely this must be something the PGMOL should look into. The guy has form and not just with us. He seems to be one of those ref's where HE wants to be the star. JJ is about as measured and calm a person as you could get on comms but even he was getting exasperated with his performance. And this is not about us not getting the fair rub of the green this is about consistent application of the rules and failing to apply the rules - which is generally referred to as competence. So you have a seemingly arrogant man, with a poor understanding of the rules (or choosing to apply HIS rules), who also makes stuff up as he goes along. To me that is not really qualities of an official. The red flags were there with the Alan Judge incident and maybe it is his career as a sergeant that makes him think differently. Regardless I don't think he should be involved as an official again.
As JJ rightly pointed out about the early part of the season laws being enforced and now not bothering. Their playing punching the ball away into the crowd, their player walking off the long side of the pitch instead of the shorter distance, petty very petty but Joe Low was booked for running behind the goal when he scored back in the summer as that was the new shiny rule to eliminate time wasting. Now we are not bothering? I am not blaming the ref for our defeat we probably didn't deserve much but if officials want more respect they need to educate fans, players, managers which rules they are playing to and which they aren't. You can't just wing rules that is not what rules are.
I will start off by saying that after the super poor game against Reading, this is only my 2nd game of the season - family,work and location really limits my attendance.
So i accept that my views only reflect a tiny part of our season.
However - the 2 games I've seen this year really dont give me even a 1% tbought in my mind that I'm missing out.
We were 11 individuals yesterday running around without any game plan.
Its plainly obvious that Taffazolli is a big part of the problem - whilst i do appreciate his heading ability and aerial height and threat along with his desire to look cool and try to walk his way through the game trying not to break out into a sweat - when he meets a header, he is stationary, meaning there is no distance with his headed clearances as was shown up many times yesterday, where his clearing headers just plopped back to the edge of the box for Stevenage to snap up the loose ball which is exactly what happened for their goal. If he were running and meets these headers then the loose ball would be much further out. Taffers sloppiness showed up for the sending off - poor judgement, poor awareness followed by a lack of speed.
Joe Low looked a world apart when he came on. Vokes looks like he could get a bag full if he had the supply.
When Stevenage we had 8 outfield players in the box. And yet the goalscorer had acres of room to score. The words "schoolboy football" sprung to mind. On the goal, no awareness at all, our number 10 runs towards the high ball which our defense already has covered as opposed to marking the goalscorer to restrict his acre of room he has.
Not impressed with our strikers yesterday at all, the first 10 minutes they carried a "bungling" threat, after that absolutely nothing. I saw nothing in any of the front line that gave me hope - however it's early days so off course time needs to be given.
The sending off - on tv is a really poor decision - a yellow at the most - however at full speed in attendance it looked a red, so i see why the ref gave it. Overall i thought the ref was very very average at best - the Vokes pen i thought was a 50 50 so could have gone either way.
VAR would possibly have overturned both decisions that went against us but neither were clear cut. Stevenage weren't happy with the ref either - so i think he called it how he saw it - so that implies he isn't very good as opposed to gas an agenda against us.
Our support in numbers was very impressive bearing in mind our leahue form, however, as i said after the Reading game, the majority made no effort whatsoever to give the team any vocal support.
As a man now in his 50s who was stood in the back row with a man in his 70's, who both used to sing ourselves hoarse in our earlier days, we were still more vocal than 99% of our fanbase at the game.
Too many people looking at their phones throughout the game was one issue.
An ageing fanbase could be another issue.
The tripe that was being served up was certainly a factor.
Even at the end of the game when it actually dawned on our players that even with a man's advantage, Stevenage are no better than us so "let's try to play and score" our vocal support was only coming from about 30% of who was there. I appreciate not everyone wants to sing and yell like I do, but to not even join in with a chorus of "come on you blues" will not help inspire the team.
Sadly, as with the Reading game, i left thinking "thank goodness i dont have to watch that every week" but also left me feeling sad that even at an away ground with 800 fans "the atmosphere is nothing like it used to be". It's just such a dull dull watch, with no fun and banter in the crowd. I'm desperate to be leaving the ground with a different perception.
Difficult to draw too many judgements on yesterday. Stevenage are a notoriously difficult side to play against and with 8 changes including a couple of full debuts we were always going to look disjointed. We were actually pretty impressive in the first 20mins or so and could easily have had a goal or 2. Once they scored it was set for a tough afternoon, even more so with the sending off. It was a shame it took to the final 10mins or so for us to really have ago at them and Stevenage were certainly hanging on for the 3 points.
I thought the it was the right call to make the changes to the starting line up. Of course resting players didn't really work out due to the KVY injury and the red card early in the 2nd half. We'll have Potts and McCleary coming back Tuesday and hopefully Grimmer and Taylor and at least a few others will have been partially rested at least.
Don't recall hearing from you before @Frenchfry but 100% agree with your analysis, especially Taff, he ‘flatters to deceive’ just too slow of thought and action which he masks as calm cool collected.
Still I’ll be there on a cold wet Tuesday night in February, let’s hope the team turn up as well. A Cheltenham mate tells me they have been better of late and we have played 180 more minutes of football than them over the past ten days so it’ will be a real test of a cliched six pointer.
If you had told me when I was a child that one day I would own a small black hand-held object that allowed me access to every TV show, movie and book ever made plus the ability to communicate with anybody on the planet and talk about anything, whilst at the same time being able to take photos and videos more powerful than any camera in existance I would have assumed you were describing some sort of magic wand.
So now that we all have these wands it's hardly a surprise that 22 men hoofing a ball about on a cold winter afternoon isn't enough to stop many of us from staring at them. It is what it is. Ban phones? That would probably see quite a few not coming to the game. Make the football so brilliant that people can't take their eyes off it? He's trying. He just needs more time.
The fan's lack of excitement is largely due to the team's lack of excitement. The football, with the exception of a couple of games, has been lacking in fire. We have some really exciting players in the squad but rarely do we get wow moments out of them. Under Ainsworth we had a team of warriors, you would cheer them as they were giving everything until the last second of injury time to win or draw a game. Usually central to this band of warriors was a midfielder who would put his body on the line time and time again for the cause. Yesterday we were second best to Stevenage in passing, shooting, possession and dare I say commitment.
This season has for the most part been forgettable. Both in terms of performances and results. A transition season ? Maybe. I'm missing a few games now and where as once I would have changed the dates of weddings to ensure I could see the team I'm not really that fussed.
I will continue until my end support the team but I think if the quality of the football continues at this level we will find it really hard to recruit and retain new fans. It's an entertainment business after all, and not a cheap one.
Didn’t see anyone complaining about phone use when we were biting our nails holding onto an aggregate lead against MK Dons.
It’s one thing that the ball is barely in play for 45 minutes of a 90 minute Wycombe game, but it’s another when we’ve got pretty much nothing to play for in the League beyond pride.
I do agree with the earlier poster that a lot of wit appears to have been lost in the support behind the goal. The balance between wit and nonsense blabbering has been shifted in favour of blabber.
Cost of living has disproportionately affected the support too, as yesterday’s attendance was much more family-driven with many more adults with children than usual in my opinion. People in my age bracket generally cannot afford to regularly support. This also affects the atmosphere.
The on-pitch product has to improve before the atmosphere significantly improves, although there would be quick wins in the drumming department.
I would argue that none of the League 1 clubs regularly have a fierce atmosphere. Most of the stadium acoustics at this level are very poor, including the Lamex’s yesterday.
At the end of the day, we’re a middle class town in Buckinghamshire. I’d rather we continued to be a decent family club, rather than push to be something we’re not. We need to generate more supporters - not bemoan the traits of the existing loyal crop.
Interesting reading the post about the referee yesterday. I have always thought over a season the decisions level out. Yes it could have been a yellow instead of a red card. Max didn’t complain !! My main concern is as I stated in an earlier post 1 shot on target and away at Bradford 2 shots on target. Yes we are going to Wembley but 3 shots on target in over 3 hours of football WHAT THE F Is GOING ON
We had had a period earlier in the season where it looker like we'd turned the corner but were just losing out by the odd goal then the form dropped massively. Hopefully this isn't like that and we're onto something now.
Bradford and Stevenage were always going to be tough. While it’s disappointing not to get many shots on target it’s probably worth remembering we have just had 6 excellent prior performances.
Although I didn’t see the Stevenage game, due to work, I’m guessing the Bradford game had left its mark. 8 changes suggests that.
I’m confident we will return to the previous performances if fielding our strongest 11 available on Tuesday.
If we don't create chances tomorrow, that would be more of a concern. Saturday was a tough one. We had a couple of very decent chances first half (one off the bar and the keeper made a good save from the other) along with several other opening that we should have made more of. Second half down to 10 men with Stevenage having a 1 goal lead to protect, was never going to see us producing free flowing football. I'm convinced Vokes would have put away the chance Sadlier created near the end had he not been fouled. Having watched it again, it was a clear penalty.
Pressure is on tomorrow though, we can't afford to lose and ideally we could do with a win to put some breathing space between us and the bottom 4. Cheltenham are going very well at present though, so I think it'll be a difficult one.
Creating 2 chances in a game is hardly a sign of creativity overload. We are going back to the days of no shots for 2 or 3 games, and I am not sure why.
We played isolated lone striker in the form of Taylor D and Taylor L and that was terrible. Kone was very isolated similarly on Saturday and it seems that it is a simple tweak of getting a player just a bit closer to the lone striker. When Taylor played a little higher up we seemed far more effective. After the 5-2 I thought we were going to really push on with some attacking swagger. Saturday and Wednesday were very much step backs in attacking terms.
I agree to a certain extent, but Wednesday was a poor performance on a pitch we never got to grips with, although we did dig in and get the win. Saturday there were some very promising signs early on and we got in behind the Stevenage defence on a number of occasions, but either failed to create from these positions and when we did, the chances weren't taken. After they scored and even more so after the sending off it became the slog it so often is against them.
Tomorrow we'll be back on a good pitch and we'll have the likes of McCleary and Potts at least returning to the starting XI. If we're not creating chances, then I'll be more concerned. For now, I'm happy to write off 2 the previous games and celebrate the fact that we still somehow managed to won one of them and earn ourselves a trip to Wembley!
Comments
I didn't take it that way at all, as later Phil got a text from someone saying last man is 1 game and they swiftly stopped the 3 match chat.
However, fair enough if I wasn't concentrating enough and missed a bit of context.
We'll see what comes out about violent conduct in due course.
If so the ref should be utterly banished for a week or 2.
These two games against Stevenage should be a learning experience for Matt as limited as Evans is he knows how to win football games with a small playing budget.
He should have learned everything Evans does by watching Ainsworth.
After those two ugly, damaging encounters with Stevenrage this season I hope never to see another match against them in my lifetime.
The difficulty with that is I also hope we don’t have to witness the abomination of them sneaking into the Championship.
Not seeing Darren Drysdale again would be a welcome bonus.
Same old post defeat interview from MB .
The comment from Drysdale about Vokes is extraordinary and surely this must be something the PGMOL should look into. The guy has form and not just with us. He seems to be one of those ref's where HE wants to be the star. JJ is about as measured and calm a person as you could get on comms but even he was getting exasperated with his performance. And this is not about us not getting the fair rub of the green this is about consistent application of the rules and failing to apply the rules - which is generally referred to as competence. So you have a seemingly arrogant man, with a poor understanding of the rules (or choosing to apply HIS rules), who also makes stuff up as he goes along. To me that is not really qualities of an official. The red flags were there with the Alan Judge incident and maybe it is his career as a sergeant that makes him think differently. Regardless I don't think he should be involved as an official again.
Hang on, what have I missed? What did he say about Vokes?
Matt was told it wasn’t a penalty because “Vokes is big enough to handle himself”. Quite an extraordinary response from a referee.
I bet JJ regrets singing Drysdale’s praises early on in comms. Absolute love bombing.
As JJ rightly pointed out about the early part of the season laws being enforced and now not bothering. Their playing punching the ball away into the crowd, their player walking off the long side of the pitch instead of the shorter distance, petty very petty but Joe Low was booked for running behind the goal when he scored back in the summer as that was the new shiny rule to eliminate time wasting. Now we are not bothering? I am not blaming the ref for our defeat we probably didn't deserve much but if officials want more respect they need to educate fans, players, managers which rules they are playing to and which they aren't. You can't just wing rules that is not what rules are.
Was going to say no-one had mentioned that. But was cautious in case I'd misunderstood the conversation.
That is ridiculous. So he applies rules differently according to how tough a player is in his opinion?
We know refs constantly did this to Bayo but it's quite something for a ref to admit it.
I will start off by saying that after the super poor game against Reading, this is only my 2nd game of the season - family,work and location really limits my attendance.
So i accept that my views only reflect a tiny part of our season.
However - the 2 games I've seen this year really dont give me even a 1% tbought in my mind that I'm missing out.
We were 11 individuals yesterday running around without any game plan.
Its plainly obvious that Taffazolli is a big part of the problem - whilst i do appreciate his heading ability and aerial height and threat along with his desire to look cool and try to walk his way through the game trying not to break out into a sweat - when he meets a header, he is stationary, meaning there is no distance with his headed clearances as was shown up many times yesterday, where his clearing headers just plopped back to the edge of the box for Stevenage to snap up the loose ball which is exactly what happened for their goal. If he were running and meets these headers then the loose ball would be much further out. Taffers sloppiness showed up for the sending off - poor judgement, poor awareness followed by a lack of speed.
Joe Low looked a world apart when he came on. Vokes looks like he could get a bag full if he had the supply.
When Stevenage we had 8 outfield players in the box. And yet the goalscorer had acres of room to score. The words "schoolboy football" sprung to mind. On the goal, no awareness at all, our number 10 runs towards the high ball which our defense already has covered as opposed to marking the goalscorer to restrict his acre of room he has.
Not impressed with our strikers yesterday at all, the first 10 minutes they carried a "bungling" threat, after that absolutely nothing. I saw nothing in any of the front line that gave me hope - however it's early days so off course time needs to be given.
The sending off - on tv is a really poor decision - a yellow at the most - however at full speed in attendance it looked a red, so i see why the ref gave it. Overall i thought the ref was very very average at best - the Vokes pen i thought was a 50 50 so could have gone either way.
VAR would possibly have overturned both decisions that went against us but neither were clear cut. Stevenage weren't happy with the ref either - so i think he called it how he saw it - so that implies he isn't very good as opposed to gas an agenda against us.
Our support in numbers was very impressive bearing in mind our leahue form, however, as i said after the Reading game, the majority made no effort whatsoever to give the team any vocal support.
As a man now in his 50s who was stood in the back row with a man in his 70's, who both used to sing ourselves hoarse in our earlier days, we were still more vocal than 99% of our fanbase at the game.
Too many people looking at their phones throughout the game was one issue.
An ageing fanbase could be another issue.
The tripe that was being served up was certainly a factor.
Even at the end of the game when it actually dawned on our players that even with a man's advantage, Stevenage are no better than us so "let's try to play and score" our vocal support was only coming from about 30% of who was there. I appreciate not everyone wants to sing and yell like I do, but to not even join in with a chorus of "come on you blues" will not help inspire the team.
Sadly, as with the Reading game, i left thinking "thank goodness i dont have to watch that every week" but also left me feeling sad that even at an away ground with 800 fans "the atmosphere is nothing like it used to be". It's just such a dull dull watch, with no fun and banter in the crowd. I'm desperate to be leaving the ground with a different perception.
Difficult to draw too many judgements on yesterday. Stevenage are a notoriously difficult side to play against and with 8 changes including a couple of full debuts we were always going to look disjointed. We were actually pretty impressive in the first 20mins or so and could easily have had a goal or 2. Once they scored it was set for a tough afternoon, even more so with the sending off. It was a shame it took to the final 10mins or so for us to really have ago at them and Stevenage were certainly hanging on for the 3 points.
I thought the it was the right call to make the changes to the starting line up. Of course resting players didn't really work out due to the KVY injury and the red card early in the 2nd half. We'll have Potts and McCleary coming back Tuesday and hopefully Grimmer and Taylor and at least a few others will have been partially rested at least.
Don't recall hearing from you before @Frenchfry but 100% agree with your analysis, especially Taff, he ‘flatters to deceive’ just too slow of thought and action which he masks as calm cool collected.
Still I’ll be there on a cold wet Tuesday night in February, let’s hope the team turn up as well. A Cheltenham mate tells me they have been better of late and we have played 180 more minutes of football than them over the past ten days so it’ will be a real test of a cliched six pointer.
Great post. I agree with lots of it, especially on the critique of Tafazolli’s headed ‘clearances’. Thanks for sharing.
If you had told me when I was a child that one day I would own a small black hand-held object that allowed me access to every TV show, movie and book ever made plus the ability to communicate with anybody on the planet and talk about anything, whilst at the same time being able to take photos and videos more powerful than any camera in existance I would have assumed you were describing some sort of magic wand.
So now that we all have these wands it's hardly a surprise that 22 men hoofing a ball about on a cold winter afternoon isn't enough to stop many of us from staring at them. It is what it is. Ban phones? That would probably see quite a few not coming to the game. Make the football so brilliant that people can't take their eyes off it? He's trying. He just needs more time.
Plus how else are irate fans supposed to take to the Gasroom during the game?
The fan's lack of excitement is largely due to the team's lack of excitement. The football, with the exception of a couple of games, has been lacking in fire. We have some really exciting players in the squad but rarely do we get wow moments out of them. Under Ainsworth we had a team of warriors, you would cheer them as they were giving everything until the last second of injury time to win or draw a game. Usually central to this band of warriors was a midfielder who would put his body on the line time and time again for the cause. Yesterday we were second best to Stevenage in passing, shooting, possession and dare I say commitment.
This season has for the most part been forgettable. Both in terms of performances and results. A transition season ? Maybe. I'm missing a few games now and where as once I would have changed the dates of weddings to ensure I could see the team I'm not really that fussed.
I will continue until my end support the team but I think if the quality of the football continues at this level we will find it really hard to recruit and retain new fans. It's an entertainment business after all, and not a cheap one.
Didn’t see anyone complaining about phone use when we were biting our nails holding onto an aggregate lead against MK Dons.
It’s one thing that the ball is barely in play for 45 minutes of a 90 minute Wycombe game, but it’s another when we’ve got pretty much nothing to play for in the League beyond pride.
I do agree with the earlier poster that a lot of wit appears to have been lost in the support behind the goal. The balance between wit and nonsense blabbering has been shifted in favour of blabber.
Cost of living has disproportionately affected the support too, as yesterday’s attendance was much more family-driven with many more adults with children than usual in my opinion. People in my age bracket generally cannot afford to regularly support. This also affects the atmosphere.
The on-pitch product has to improve before the atmosphere significantly improves, although there would be quick wins in the drumming department.
I would argue that none of the League 1 clubs regularly have a fierce atmosphere. Most of the stadium acoustics at this level are very poor, including the Lamex’s yesterday.
At the end of the day, we’re a middle class town in Buckinghamshire. I’d rather we continued to be a decent family club, rather than push to be something we’re not. We need to generate more supporters - not bemoan the traits of the existing loyal crop.
Terrace wit is a myth right up there with people getting their arms broken by swans. Lots of claims, little evidence.
Joe Low was actually booked for raising his finger to his lips as if to 'sshhh' the Bristol Rovers supporters I think
We’ve had our quota of ‘what the fuck is that rule?’ this season
Shhhh - booking
Steward’s jacket - booking
Push keeper over - no foul
Being fouled if over 6’ - no foul
Strange season.
Interesting reading the post about the referee yesterday. I have always thought over a season the decisions level out. Yes it could have been a yellow instead of a red card. Max didn’t complain !! My main concern is as I stated in an earlier post 1 shot on target and away at Bradford 2 shots on target. Yes we are going to Wembley but 3 shots on target in over 3 hours of football WHAT THE F Is GOING ON
We had had a period earlier in the season where it looker like we'd turned the corner but were just losing out by the odd goal then the form dropped massively. Hopefully this isn't like that and we're onto something now.
Bradford and Stevenage were always going to be tough. While it’s disappointing not to get many shots on target it’s probably worth remembering we have just had 6 excellent prior performances.
Although I didn’t see the Stevenage game, due to work, I’m guessing the Bradford game had left its mark. 8 changes suggests that.
I’m confident we will return to the previous performances if fielding our strongest 11 available on Tuesday.
let’s not get into a negative mood again
COYB
If we don't create chances tomorrow, that would be more of a concern. Saturday was a tough one. We had a couple of very decent chances first half (one off the bar and the keeper made a good save from the other) along with several other opening that we should have made more of. Second half down to 10 men with Stevenage having a 1 goal lead to protect, was never going to see us producing free flowing football. I'm convinced Vokes would have put away the chance Sadlier created near the end had he not been fouled. Having watched it again, it was a clear penalty.
Pressure is on tomorrow though, we can't afford to lose and ideally we could do with a win to put some breathing space between us and the bottom 4. Cheltenham are going very well at present though, so I think it'll be a difficult one.
Creating 2 chances in a game is hardly a sign of creativity overload. We are going back to the days of no shots for 2 or 3 games, and I am not sure why.
We played isolated lone striker in the form of Taylor D and Taylor L and that was terrible. Kone was very isolated similarly on Saturday and it seems that it is a simple tweak of getting a player just a bit closer to the lone striker. When Taylor played a little higher up we seemed far more effective. After the 5-2 I thought we were going to really push on with some attacking swagger. Saturday and Wednesday were very much step backs in attacking terms.
I agree to a certain extent, but Wednesday was a poor performance on a pitch we never got to grips with, although we did dig in and get the win. Saturday there were some very promising signs early on and we got in behind the Stevenage defence on a number of occasions, but either failed to create from these positions and when we did, the chances weren't taken. After they scored and even more so after the sending off it became the slog it so often is against them.
Tomorrow we'll be back on a good pitch and we'll have the likes of McCleary and Potts at least returning to the starting XI. If we're not creating chances, then I'll be more concerned. For now, I'm happy to write off 2 the previous games and celebrate the fact that we still somehow managed to won one of them and earn ourselves a trip to Wembley!