Thetownend.com

Good morning all! I trust you had a merry Christmas and we look forward to a bountiful Boxing Day. Christmas here is on the 7th of January so yesterday was just another day in the salt mines for me.

Town to continue their climb 2-0.  :starwars: The force has awakened!

Good morning, win today. 3-1 - 2 from Ajose and 1 from Gladwin

What are we expecting the crowd to be?

Swindon to ruin their cup final; 2-1

7895 (696 gypsies, tramps and thieves)

STFC to win 3-0. Robert, Turnbull, Rodgers. Attendance: 10,015

Is everyone optimistic today? Think we'll lose this one.

2-0 to them, crowd of 7,232 (400 from medway)

3-2 Swindon (hopefully)

250 travellers, 120 caravans and 1 ton of heather

Mostly hungover.

Difficult game today but if we can beat Walsall we can beat this lot - 2-1 large crowd

2-2

It's interesting, and been the subject of many a pub conversation....the consensus seems to be that the traditional bumper crowd, won't happen, because (a) people have got out of the habit (b) many people evacvuate Swindon at Christmas (c) public transport, non existent.....see Ells. Personally no idea.

You'd expect at least 1000 from the Pikeys, given it's their cup final, and they're going well.  Hopefully they're quarantined on the Bank and it pisses down with rain.

Talking of the bank anybody heard anything about the roof?

3-1 to us. Attendance of 8795. 497 Pikeys.

We can win this if the new fighting spirit continues. . Here's hoping.

The last I heard was that the Trust commissioned a survey into what is under the Bank.  Now my guess would be a load of railway clnker, ballast etc, which was probably delivered when sidings were up to the back of the Bank. If that is the case, then I'd imagine it would mean it might complicate any roof supports, for a "cheap" style job. Just my hunch of course.

I'm out in the west of Ireland and have lent my season ticket to someone so we'll win handsomely.

4-1 win

Extract from The Trust:

In terms of the Stratton Bank roof, that is definitely a major objective of ours, nothing has changed.
 
We are a long way off the half million pound total that is required, but our objective has always been to grow the fund up to be a pot of money that the supporters can use for multiple causes (charity groups/club museum/improved facilities/schools and youth football etc) - which we are doing.
 
The roof funding will realistically have to come from local companies and grants, on which we are always working (although if enough fans get on-side with the Red Army Fund that job obviously gets easier). One sticking point we have found is that companies are reluctant to invest in the ground as it's owned by the council, but this is something we are working on, and as you may have seen we've brought James Phipps in to help solve a few of those problems.
 
The more fans we get on board with the Red Army Fund, the better, as it's important as supporters that we are working together as a group to improve our club.

We have a clear strategy and we'll be doing a lot more PR around this, along with Red Army Fund updates.

For information: representatives of Kent Police in Old Town Subway just now. They seemed very bored.

Forst match since the start of the season for me. Got in nice and early, no traffic on the roads, county ground and winners pretty deserted, Town have just come out to warm up and it appears that the keepers and staff have all got shirts on for the lad who's ill which is a nice touch.

3-2 town but the attendance is gonna be rubbish at this rate, unless everyone us finishing their lunch late and heading over.

Also, new scoreboard looks nice, although very reminiscent of an arrivals board at a railway station. New floodlights are small in number. They make the gantries look quite bare.

There will doubtless be more of my inane observations at half halftime.

Here today with my 5 year old boy!

2-1 Town.

COYR!

4-0 gladders hattrick and obika

Gladders 100/1 hattrick

OH YES!!!! NOW FOR THE GLADWIN HATTRICK!

fuck sake, backed off them still celebrating goal  in our heads

Bollocks

Fucking gillingham cunts! Fucking hessenthaler only scored 1 goal a season. Fucking fucks

Dack is such a cheat.

Obika is having a howler since scoring.

How the fuck he is still on the pitch is a mystery.
The fact he hasn't even been booked is a disgrace

Rodgers should feel embarrassed for that dive

Yep and Rodgers is also doing nothing to show he deserves to start again next game. Louis looks like he's carrying an injury.

Disappointing that they've scored twice by lack of marking/poor defending.  And for christ sake, sort the throw ins out.

competing well, sloppy goals conceded. that's how I'd describe it.

Our goal kick routine is comical, how long have we been doing that?

I'd say we only competed for a third of that 45 minutes, less than half of the team are willing to put a challenge in. Ajose is a big wuss

How the fuck does Robert get subbed before Rodgers?

And no, from his reaction he wasn't injured

Can't understand why Robert has been taken off when Rodgers and Thompson have both been shit. Ridiculous sub.

fuck me, shit half so far.

nearly shit ourselves in the foot.

9228 with 488 pikeys. Decent crowd that

Utter shit.  Marking non existent again.

good shot, stood off him again

Fuck

And from the kick off we go backwards & try to get ourselves in trouble again

Very poor away showing from a team in nosebleed territory against their biggest enemy.

fucking bizarre sub. El abd has been our best defender, my mom

If El Abd isn't injured that's an utterly shit substitution.

Thompson needs replacing, he's been struggling all game.

Fundamentally Gillingham are working harder than us and for each other.  We're second to every ball.

Are we going down again now?

maybe. poor defending again. gills were better mind

Of course.

The good little run had bought us a bit of breathing space, so games against teams like Gills and Burton, become a bit of a free shot.

Replicate the first half of the season in the second, points wise and we'll just about be OK, but no room for complacency, as with the likely wheeling and dealing to be done in Jan, who knows what we'll look like.

By way of seeing what complacency can do, we are in exactly the same position as 10/11, 28 points from 23 games and we know how that ended up.

Completely outclassed in every position they were stronger ,quicker and more skilful .  Gladwin just does not look interested and Rodgers is not football league standard.

That was shite. But why did it take 85 mins  to take Rodgers off? After Robert was subbed by Kasim, which didn't make any sense, we had 3 out of 4 midfielders who don't/doesn't tackle. And bar the goal by Obika, the front two didn't did much. They certainly didn't hold the ball up, which Obika should be doing, especially on a day like today.

Didn't deserve anything from that game, outclassed, outbattled and failed to learn the lessons as the game went on.  The annoying thing was we gifted them the goals by poor defending and a lack of communication.  Thought the forwards were poor and there seemed to be a little friction between Branco and Rodgers at times.  Gladwin with the ball can be good, Gladwin without the ball is a liability - not interested unless the ball is placed at his feet.  Difference was magnified in the throw-ins, they took theirs quickly and always found a man - we took ages to take a throw and by the time the ball is delivered everybody is marked tight and possession was lost!  Poor today.

Probably not but that was shockingly poor. Half of them looked totally disinterested today.

ProZone stats show that the fox covered more ground than both Gladwin and Ajose.

Best thing about the second half was the fox that ran from the Town End straight onto Stratton Bank - got nearly as big a cheer as our solitary goal!!

That was a Cooper performance today.

Up to their equaliser it was a pretty even match, we were probably slightly on top. Great ball from (??) Gladders to release Obika and he slotted cooly home. But almost straight from kick off the Gills caught us sleeping and we left them pretty much unmarked in midfield to take time to pick a spot and thump home the equaliser. They were then well on top for 10 minutes, but we came back into it.

Unfortunately what looked like a keepers ball from a cross was headed into the path of a pikey, who missed it but the ball somehow found another to hit home. At half time I thought we'd pretty much matched them but slack defending had cost us.

But what a change in the second half. We were utter dross, a real throwback to the run that saw Cooper sacked. We were second best to everything, physically inadequate and pretty dire all over really. The third was a good strike, we allowed him too much space and maybe Vigs will be disappointed, but it was hit with power.

Onto the subs - all wrong. Robert wasn't great but was at least trying. I'd have taken off Rogers myself who at that point was merely disappointing. The el-abd one left me really thinking WTF though. Turnbull, playing poorly at left back was moved to the centre - and el abd who was playing well was taken off. I can see why the sub was made, to attack with more movement/pace down the left. But he should have taken Turnbull (or Branco) off no question.

It was a pointless move anyway. We seem obsessed by trying to play down the middle and ignore the easy balls wide.

When all is said and done, Gillingham have a better team than us, and played better than us. But it was a disappointing Town display.

While I can't disagree with what's been said, the refereeing was as bad as I've ever seen today. It enabled them to commit a series of obvious fouls to disrupt our pattern of play without freekicks to us, warnings, or yellows, for most of the game. A guy said to me after the game that he was an experienced referee assessor, and that was the worst display he'd seen at the CG, terrible.

I suspect they would have won anyway, but it was so blatant, and they took advantage of the ref's weakness.  

The only thing I'm going to say is that the goalkeeping coach and Luke Williams need to grow a fucking bran and stop all this short goal kick bollocks. It's clearly an instruction and in reality all it does put us under pressure and gives the other team momentum, and when it's not on Vigs doesn't have a clue what to do anymore. It just seems a fuckkng brain dead tactic....

At least they're consistent.

Agree. At least it finally puts to bed the notion that there is a "rivalry" here.

The timing of their first goal was most unfortunate. I was sat in the Arkells near the away fans and had barely sat down when their equaliser rolled into the net.

Shit performance for the most part, gillingham are a good side this year and deserve to be up where they are. This result isnt the end of the world and we go again in 2 days time!

The best run made today:

Haven't read back yet.

Piss poor from the town from the equaliser onwards.

Up to that we were pretty good value.....then house of cards collapse.

Outwitted, out fought, out battled, out ran and out cheated.....we never matched em....better than us and a shit ref added to the frustration but be clear the ref never lost it for us today!

Dack was a crafty cunt and could play a bit and put the boot in....a player we have lacked for three seasons now.....I liked him.

Woeful from Vigs to the front but special mention to Beeks, who fell over every time he got a challenge and my old mate Rodgers who was back to his usual shit after such an improvement recently.

A few floaters turned up today and they won't be coming back.

The Pikeys impressed me, strong, very strong, quick AND put the boot in when it was needed. It was a red card game and unfortunately it us that got it after scape goat Branco was left stranded again.
The only thing that will prevent Gills from steam rollering  teams would be a picky ref, he wasn't today and they took full advantage, cannot blame them at all.

What did The Fish say? I hope he didn't do a Cooper and say we were unlucky or a Cotterill and say the ref cost us the game.

Reality check all round.

Better get padded up for Burton...I might go....

In the sense of turds that you can't get rid of? Yep, saw a few of them. None of them turned up in any meaningful sense though

Dodgy pint Paul?

It seemed like our goal woke Gillingham up, made them a bit angry and they then put us to the sword for having the gall to breach their defence.

No one came out of that well, but I'd like to reserve special criticism for Kasim, who does not look interested or committed at all. I think he's more concerned that his agent gets him a good deal elsewhere, asap.

Said pretty much the same to be fair. Said their 1st completely changed the game. We weren't good enough etc.

As for my opinion, thought we were unlucky to go in at half time 2-1 down. Were never going to win playing into the wind, they harried us superbly second half and were worthy of a 3-1 win. Their RB was the best player I've seen this season and Dack is a crafty but effective prick.

Oh and our throw ins are fucking awful

Having not listened to Ling on the radio, I'm assuming El Abd was taken off when we were forced to go with three at the back, purely because of his lack of pace.

Rodgers, Gladwin and Kassim all think they've made it.

They haven't.

As talented as he is, Gladwin will struggle to get a stiffs game when he goes back to QPR. As someone already said, with him, it's more about what he doesn't do without the ball, rather than what he does when he's got it. Until someone sorts that out and he has a road to Damascus moment, he'll remain in the lower leagues.

That said, even playing as he is, we can't afford to lose him for the rest of this season as he'll contribute goals and assists against the mediocre sides.

Rodgers is talented, but has no brains. He'll be gone - possibly sooner than we think.

Kassim. I suspect it wont be long before the crowd turn on him, specially if Rodgers goes. The poor performances are wearing very thin now, but the petulant, can't-be-arsed body language is becoming more and more obvious. The classy, strutting Kassim of old seems a distant memory now. I suspect he'll never recover those halcyon days for us again. I'd fuck him off in January.

Pikeys were a good side. Strong all round, smarter, nastier, wiser, fitter and quicker than us and deserved to win.

I hope Ling is allowed to drag in a few new bodies in the transfer window, because we need freshening up.

Our throws ins have been awful for ages.

My missus and kids came today.  They were amazed at how bad the refereeing was.

From my point of view they were better than us after we went ahead.  We had 2 other good chances to score before that but failed.

Thing is, and this may sound like sour grapes, but that Dack, good player though he was, was a fucking horrible little cheat.  He got away with kicking Rodgers.  Then running to Branco and pretty much elbowing him in the back.  You could see he was going to do it and you could see his intentions from the moment he lost out on the header.

2 petty petulant off the ball attacks that he got away with and that useless cunt of a ref managed to miss them both.  

There were at least 4 more severe fouls that that ref decided weren't fouls whilst any slight touch by us was penalised.

His performance was so bad I was starting to wander about money having changed hands.

We didnt deserve to win, but there was not a level playing field.

Please don't tell me we're going to have to put up with "the fish" for the foreseeable future

No one thought "chuckles" was amusing either did they?

No offence flash but aren't we suffering enough..

OT, I wasn't there today (which I might have mentioned. Furiously. To everyone.) but I've not seen us have a decent throw in for a long time. Even under our best performances with Cooper, players were never crying out for the ball.

We haven't really had a good throw in man since Bobby Woodruff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrVsyIODbp0

j

I am offended.

Suffering? Getting beat by Gills is no disgrace.

Under the 'previous manager' we were getting beaten like that by shit sides.

I am hopeful we will end up just about where we are now.

Our goal was class between Obika and Gladwin.

Vigoroux seemed to be beaten fairly easily with the low hard shots (although I'm probably being very harsh).

Not sure why I thought we'd win 4-1 yesterday, got totally carried away on our 4 wins on the spin!

Even until the goal, shit thereafter.

Stupid from Branco, yes Dack should have been off the pitch in the first half, but we can have no compaints over our red..

I love the Dack was arguing/bantering to take the penalty, then had it saved. Brilliant.

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/league-one/10110866/swindon-1-3-gillingham

Vigs looks suspect?

Gillingham probably best team that's come to CG this season. Organised, positive , strong and pacey. Just highlighted the missing pieces in our team and the imbalance. Full back positions are a problem for us. Need NT back as Barry can't defend, thou has improved going forward. Turnball isn't a left back but the left backs we have can't defend. Brophy looks like a winged and one with potential. Rodgers and Kasim are to slow in mind and legs and offer bugger all. Gladwin can be great on the ball but is a passenger off it. Ajose seems to offer nothing in linking play at all. If there are no crosses he may as well sit on a deck chair out there. We lack leaders I think , players who want the ball and want to make something happen. We are overly tippy tappy. Ling says pass with a purpose. But that isn't showing in our play as we are to slow and negative. Feel we need a midfielder who can tackle and get around the pitch, one who goes with runner's. Hopefully we can sign that fox, great pace and would add some bite.

He'll be disappointed with the third. It was hit fairly hard though

I'm more disappointed by the first (too much space), but in particular the second. That looks keepers ball all day long to me - did Vigs shout for it?

I dunno Sean Morrison had a bit of a throw on him....

True, but because he was a centre half not something you could use often and develop....Bobby Woodruff, could get a big old heavy ball, to the back stick, which took a bit of doing, Highworth boy.

Dack's a cheating little cunt. Troare has a very shiny forehead.

This is spot on - we need our central midfielders to be dictating games. Rodgers and Kasim are not the men to do this. Robert tries but I sometimes feel he's fighting a losing battle.

We need Jonathan Douglas mark II, just without the cliquey bullshit.

I was in the Town End for a change and was directly behind the goal and Batch, yes, I clearly heard Vigouroux call for the cross on the second goal but Branco went and headed it. The third goal i was opposite end of ground so not the best of views but looking on tv replays it looks like Vigouroux should have saved it.

As good as the front two have been of late, and taking out Obikas goal which was a good finish i didnt think they re great yesterday.

Midfield i think is our biggest problem, i dont think Kasim, Rogers or Traore are good enough and Gladwin is good in spells when we have the ball but a passenger when we havent got it. Although not Louis best game yesterday he was still committed and easily our best midfielder and it worries me if he goes back to Norwich.

January will be a big month on and off the pitch in terms of games/points and what we do in the transfer market

Rodgers gave up trying to close down Dack for that equaliser. He just stopped running.

Not easy to take throw ins on a warm day wearing woolly gloves.

 :D

cheers Mr mason, glad he called - guess Branco made his mind up and got it wrong this time

The parallels with 10/11 are a bit scary, insofar as we had 28 points from 23 games going into the meaty part of the window.

Then it was the loss of a couple of key players, who weren't adequately replaced, which undermined us....we'll have to see how we look after January, before a similar scenario can be dismissed.  3 of our next 4 home games are against fellow strugglers, win the lot and we shoud be able to breath easy.

Luckily this time we don't really have any key players of any value..  :D

The season which we relied on Austin to score goals for us. As soon as he went we had no-one who could score. Ajose and Obika are perfectly capable and can't see them moving on in January.

Main worries are retaining Gladwin and Thompson till end of the season.

Think we're only likely to lose Kasim who based on yesterday's performance isn't a huge loss.

Reg, what are your thoughts on tomorrow's trip to Burton given that we got beat there 2-0 during the PDC promotion season?

Gladwin and Louis have been key to our recent revival, we may lose them both, possibly El Abd also. So reasons to be worried without necessarily re-booting the panic button yet.

I dislike these away games against newly arrived "small" clubs, out of non league. We've got a pretty ropy record.

Fleetwood this season already being a fine specimen. Cheltnum  :suicide:

I still have nightmares about the game v Rushden and Diamonds on Boxing Day some years ago.  :(

From a points and games perspective there is a parallel but there are a number of differences.

We have made the managerial change earlier in the season and it has made a difference so far.  Don't think anyone was in any doubt we were in the shit in October/November or we could be too good to go down.

The previously mentioned Fitton interview stated they should have got rid of Wilson after the Bournemouth Xmas defeat. We then won 4-2 at Charlton which bought him more time and convinced many we would push on which never happened.

As mentioned the squad this year is more balanced than the 2010/11 post window. Obika and Ajose offer more than Dossevi, Benton, Calvin Andrew or Obika 2010. The concern would be midfield if Louis and Gladwin go back but have they shown enough to suggest they will get loans above League 1?.

Agree the January games are the chance to put some clear light between the bottom 4. If we adopt the same application for the last few games we should be OK. 38-40 points by end of January would be a big step to safety.

Of course no two seasons are the same. That we just don't know what will be happening with the squad in Jan, is the concern. If we had a stable squad then I'm sure we'd be OK, but we haven't.

It does make for the interest for this season mind.

There is very little else.
The buzz has left a few...

If any offer comes in for Kassim, we should take it, a shadow of last season.

Apologies :D just kill it with the awful nicknames please!

I'd say suffering, yes, because from what I've heard we put in abysmal performance. No one has said "well, they were simply the better team", they've said we were gutless, which is not nice to watch.

That said, why on earth some people insist on comparing our season to previous ones or a mathematical blueprint I've no idea. The only numbers that mean anything are the ones in the table, not the potential numbers, and comparing the team to one under a completely different regime and with completely different players is something people do all the time but seems to me to be incredibly pointless.

Makes me laugh how Reg predictably picked out a season where it went wrong and ignores other multiple seasons of similar points, after similar number of games, where we end up nowhere near relegation zone

I think a fair few gave them credit for being the better side. The defining game for me 10/11 was orient away, awful awful team out that night. And karma does worry me a bit that our main striker that night was Obika ;)

I didn't mean no one said they were the better side, I meant no one had said "we were beaten by a better team but we gave it our best and deserved to lose", which is tolerable. They've said they were the better team and we weren't even in the game. Very different!


Quite. Who'd watch it if it was that bloody predictable?

Reg.

just to add my twopenneth of comparisons. this squad overall is far worse than the 2010/11 season - attackers aside.

that doesn't mean it can't succeed though. 2010/11 had a bunch of capable but disinterested arseholes . this years only has one.

whilst our defensive frailties remain, I'll continue to be cautious. we look like we may have turned that around recently though , ignoring gills and Fleetwood.

January is going to be very interesting indeed.

Our style of play, and lack of effective muscle, means we rely on getting proper protection from the referee. This did not happen, and those sitting by me thought the same. It was interesting that neither Ling nor the SA reporter mentioned the appalling refereeing having an effect on the game. Perhaps I misread it then, and there were no nasty spoiling fouls, thumping in to backs, pulling and pushing every time, and Dack kicking Rogers then shoving Branco in retaliation.

Perhaps Power could write to the FA/FL about it.

Whatever happened between Rodgers & Dack the latter should have been sent off for his retaliation. It reminded me of the Wade Elliott incident last season.

So it was the ref's fault we lost the game.

Who knows. A strong ref who punished their consistent foul play would probably have evened up the game .  We get weak poor refs and strong refs, and they can strongly influence the result in my opinion.

Yes a ref can influence a game, but doesn't affect a players shitness. We all know we are shit, so blaming the ref is a poor kop out.

Sounds like Gillingham were better. Dirtier yes, but who came away with the three points. This is league one remember, and sometimes it plays to be dirty. It's a shame we don't have many committed players.

Spoke with El Abd after the match on boxing day. He seems very keen to stay, but says he is waiting for the toen yo decide his future

I don't think we have physically capable players to do that.

Gladwin is 6ft 3, and no word of a lie I've seen my 7 year old put in harder tackles - and he's shy.

Which reiterates my point. It's league 1 and some times you need to give as much as you get and not just blame the ref.

I agree with you. But how do you get someone to tackle if they mentally just won't?

I guess you could call that lack of commitment.

Players like Ajose just bounce off.

Bullshit.

Ajose doesn't even get close enough to an opposition player to bounce off them.