Thetownend.com

Anyone going?

Quite local for me and a nice sunny day so making the short journey.  :pint:

Looking forward to seeing Goddard and the other new sign...Goddard.

Don't forget A Trialist should be playing  :-[

I wouldnt be so sure, A.Trialist didnt get off the bench tuesday night ;)

Haha, you never know... could make a cameo today..

Which to me is baffling, surely if you name A triallist in the match day squad you at least play him!

You've got me wondering now.  My youngest was mascot on Tuesday and we went round getting her ball signed by all the players.  I need to look at the ball and see if there is a signature of 'A.Trialist' anywhere!

If you can make out the names 'I Atiku' or 'H Agombar' then worry..

Im sure this one says Cherno Samba.  Or it might be Freddy Adu.

Nowt else to do today, so just landed in leafy suburbia.

Woking, home of former angry young men The Jam.

Only here for the beer today, hopefully some decent football will break out later.

Woking is my other team (mid-weekers only, it beats being stuck on the M4) so after a couple of pints at the Sovreigns you'll probably find me outside the ground looking for a souvenir half and half scarf.

Is that the fake 17 year old one or with his genuine age of 32? :D

I walked passed the Sovreigns, looked a decent boozer. Found some place quite close to the ground to sit outside and have a few beers.

No Obika or Branco today.

Oh fuck... that means they're off to Oxford for 2 Jolly Rancher's and a packet of Green Rizla.

Starting XI: Henry, Barry, Thompson (C), Sendles-White, Ormonde-Ottewill, Rodgers, Kasim, Thomas, Goddard, Hylton, Brophy

Subs: Vigouroux, Evans, Trialist, Trialist, Smith, Trialist, Trialist, Iandolo, Stewart

'@Official_STFC That side just screams relegation dogfight.'  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Dearest chetnav, he tries too hard.

Still no Obika but 4 trialists, interesting.

It does badly need striker strengthening to say the least.

Is that for his triple points comment?

This one, I'm guessing...

"@Official_STFC That side just screams relegation dogfight."

Morgan Ferrier ex Arsenal striker
Kenny McEvoy ex Spurs midfielder
Charles Dunne ex Blackpool defender
Harley Wise ex QPR centre back

Are todays trialists.

Thanks JJ.

Wasn't McAvoy touted as one of the potential loanees a couple of years back?

Chang be like

He was indeed.

1-0 Woking.

HT 1-0 to Woking.

Phew a bit of lack of form in pre-season. We all know good pre-season=bad real season ;)

OK, so who are the traillists? More importantly do they look good on youtube/FM?

Well, Bristol Rovers are going to romp the league.

Getting thumped at home by Swansea at the moment- 0-4

Imagine that....or wait until Wednesday..

2-0

2-0

Im sure power has at least 5 players lined up to come in dont panic.

2-0 down and few positives to take. Desperately need new additions up front, presume that will be done next week.

Not quite sure who is panicking but its not me, theres still 2 weeks to the start of the season, but I would be shocked if 5 new signings come in before then, 2 or 3 max IMO.

They will come trust me :pint:

3-0

Depressing.

Not really surprising given the second half line up.

3-1 BOO

4 x Balmy

Pretty crap all over for 90 minutes apart from Henry

BOO has scored a couple in pre-season now hasn't he?

He played more as a winger today. Belting goal from him.
25 yards.

At least there's a plus-side then :-)

He starts up front vs Coventry

Will be interesting to see what our line-up will be.

By all accounts, and only going by Twitter, the Trialists were pretty shit, I gather?

Anyone who went wanna enlighten us?

The triallists will be decent....








Stacking shelves for Tesco.

Haha, 'nuff said.

The two centre halves are worth another look, assuming no one else is lined up.

Best of the trialists was the centre forward from the Ameobi school of gangly.

Tom Smith looked decent.

Jordan Stewart looks as if he may suffer from short man syndrome.

Lairy? Did he look any good on the ball?

Can I just mention Smeeton's 3rd Rule....never read anything into pre-season friendlies.

Great rule.

Had a wonderful trip to Surrey in lovely English weather. Very friendly locals also. Glad there was no competitive football to ruin things!

I'm guessing that Smeeton's first rule is that French players will always disappoint, and the second, that if you permanently adopt an overly pessimistic view, all your surprises are pleasant ones.

Not sure you need to post again Reg. The TEF has worked you out.

1st rule.....never have more than one player wearing a headband, although revision to include glove wearing is being considered.
2nd rule....never have more than one Scouser around the club in any capacity.
3rd rule....never take notice of friendly results.
4th rule....all televised games, chiefly domestic, but not exclusively, should have an STFC link, either on pitch/bench, com box, studio pundit

French players tend to be covered by headband and glove wearing.

Who wore a headband? Nalis? Prutton? Can't think of anyone else.

Balmy and Traore, round their ankles

Thomas Dossevi.

2 weeks to go....tick tock tick tock!!

Five coming in I'm sure of it.

Ah true. So that's one and a half Frenchmen so far.

Tom Smith is a neat and tidy footballer. I reckon he could be a really good player for us.

I remember a bbc phone were certain mr power said we would have a squad capable to compete in this league next season after things were learned from this season Just gone well im still waiting.no wonder fans are starting to disapear.

It's getting worrying for  sure. If we start badly due to not having any strikers the majority will turn, and he'll have problems, that will be hard to turn round.

Not defending Power, but we aren't the only club struggling to recruit - especially the loan market.

Last season PL clubs had to have their squads notified before the window closed. This season it isn't until after the window has closed.

I just hope we don't end up in a 'Balmy' situation where time constraints = anyone will do.

Its a bit of a risk replacing a 20-odd goal a season player with a loanee.

On that basis a bit disappointed we haven't signed a permanent recruit with a smidgen of experience to replace him (in addition to the Palace lad if he comes).

Could still happen, bah, blah, Ajose didn't come until, blah blah. All true. Would be nice to hit the new season running.

Thing is power has had plenty of time to to get things ready  since the end of last season but as usual is dragging his feet just cant see things getting any better at this club .i feel most the fans are split at the moment no sense of excitement for the fourth coming season.williams is unproven he still shows me nothing as a manager maybe a good coach but hes no manager and giving him a 5 year contract is stupid.

It's very difficult to find 20 Div 3 league goal strikers, they don't just grow on trees.  Also if you have one, then other bigger fish come and take them away.

Clearly Willams' plan is to play Obika up on his own, and Goddard in behind, not as an out and out striker, but someone who can score a few.

Of course the other requirement when you don't have an out and out goalscorer is for others to chip in a few.  Last season Ajose's goal were important but Doughty scored a few....there still must be a bit of a chance of getting him back, which would be good.

Which is a poorly thought out plan if that's the case, as Obika is injury prone. I'd hope for a least 2 this week, if not there will be no time to bed them in.

Surely Williams is a 2 up top man.

I'm worried. Feels like it's going to be a patched up squad as we go along to just avoid the drop. It might all change in the in next two weeks like Sutton hopes as do I. I just feel so meh about the start of the season. I really just want to feel a bit positive.

To be clear I don't expect us to be able to recruit a proven 20 goal a season man. I do expect us to recruit a permanent player to replace the three permanent strikers we've let go - a young upcoming one with promise, the Goddard of the striker role. We still very well might, but it would be nice to have done it already so they can start fitting in.

I bloody hope we don't go one up top. Its clearly wank.

Oh, and for the benefit of the Ranitomeya reticulata, this isn't panic, its frustration.

exactly, IF, and its a big IF, Power does get two or three more faces in there is no time  to gel as a team, its like Woy Hodgsons Euro  preparations, play friendlies to find your best starting 11 and formation, then change the whole system on the opening game :suicide:

It was Lingy who went 2 up top.  Williams wasn't going to change it as we had a good little run.

I only ever base my thoughts on the available evidence, which of course these days is a bit sparse, but from Williams re Goddard....

Just curious, but are you suggesting he does this as a deliberate strategy or that he's too lazy/thick/disinterested to sort things out earlier?

Struggling to see what our first 11 actually is.  Other than poor.  Why will power not look for investment when he isn't up to it financially alone. Our full backs can't defend. We are short of a decent centre back. Kasim could be off.  And if Obika isn't fit we can't hold the ball up.

After January window Williams said we need another striker in Obika's mould.  We seem very amateurish in our recruitment.  We had all this talk of having more of our own players and yet we seem to be struggling to get any.  Young loans is a huge gamble. More sink than swim. 

I thought pre season was time to bed in new players and get them fit and get understanding between them. So is pre season not a total waste if players only come in the week the season begins.

Williams is beginning to sound a tad pathetic in his views. Views not shared by the fans I feel.  We start bad and fans will implode.

Just a reminder that everyone was in a similar mood last season until Power came in with a bunch of late signings, including Ajose and Wes Thomas, that suddenly had everyone jizzing themselves. Injuries stymied him last year, but Power has a history of doing what's required.

Pre-season hasn't been like that for years. Especially in the lower leagues. Teams in the lower leagues rely on Premiership youth loans to flesh out their squad. However, the Premiership teams want to keep all their 132 professional players around for their own preseason so when the actual Liverpool first XI are in Beijing playing a high profile money making friendly infornt of 160,000 people they can still send a Liverpool 'select' XI for a friendly against Tranmere.

Plus, young players closer to the first team aren't made available till the transfer window has SLAMMED shut, just in case teams then need them in their squad (....even if it's just to hit the home grown quota)

Now a days squads aren't usually complete till the end of August, then it takes till October to bed in and all of sudden you've wasted too much of the season.

true, but why do it late, as many have stated we need to assemble a team that can play the game of football as a team

See DV's post above. We're not that high in the food-chain. And if you are clever with your money like Power, you know that you get more bargains later on, when selling teams are running short of options. We're just not in the "buy early, pay a premium" set.

It's the same every single year. Power or no power, some fans expect us to make 12 new signings before July.

We have signed some, sold some and let some go. We have had trialists.

I would say this year is the same as any other.

Matt Jackson of Wigan put an interesting spin on that in something I read: players who are released from higher up the pyramid take a longer time to become available to lower clubs because their agents tout them around other PL clubs, then wait. Then put out names at Championship, then trials at Championship, then at L1 etc.

It is the agents interest to place them as high up as possible make sure the player waits on clubs as high as possible as once they go lower, it gets harder to get back up. 

The same principle could also be applied to youngsters going out on loan...

They've already imploded.

You can't mean "fans are starting to disappear" in relation to attendances because we haven't played any league games yet, and last season ended with attendances bang on average.

So, you must literally mean that our fans are vanishing, which sounds worrying to say the least.  Have the police been informed?

Why do people insist that a few people chatting on the internet, or a small group of friends, is somehow an accurate barometer of the entire fan base?

We get the same old impatient, petulant whining year in, year out.

For anybody that saw that game, did anything of interest happen? Any interesting A. Trialists and the like?

Cheers

Have the club released a number of sold STs?!

No....silence speaks volumes.

He's probably referring at the 'meh' fans who were ST holders and now can't be fucked.

The ST issue is really only a short term problem if, indeed, they have actually decreased substantially.

I can't imagine all the ex-ST holders don't intend to go to any games at all. But when they do they pay full whack. So a semi decent performance on the pitch will actually increase revenue.

It is, however, a good barometer of fans' satisfaction or otherwise. Obviously Power knows what the number sold is so if he is genuine about assembling a squad capable of challenging he will address this.

As regards our present first XI, the first 70 minutes against Reading wasn't too shabby.

We're not shit. We are just terribly thin on numbers at the moment

Agree with this. I'm not really one to get antsy, I fully accept that most of the time squads aren't really finished until January in some cases (Di Canio's championship winning season a good example) but our biggest problem last season was that we had nothing in reserve and absences hit us hard. I know it's hard to account for injuries, and with any luck we won't have as many injuries as last season, but I really hope we learn from our mistakes.

It seems like some fans genuinely think that Power just can't be bothered to get off his arse and make the effort to bring in players.

It's a complicated business bring in players, would he have liked to have a full squad assembled by now? Of course but that's not the real world of football

Perhaps the signings of Balmy and Ojamma, for example, still haunts Power so he is trying to make sure the right players are signed - no matter how long it takes.

Ojamma was a strange one, could have been a blinder that, his track record spoke for itself

Just think - Port Vale have signed an entire team of Ojamma-alikes.

I did post a couple of comments about the game but I'll do it again.

First half was probably what we would class our first XI currently with Brophy LB and BOO playing more of an advanced role, and they worked quite well together including a belting 25 yard goal from BOO. Hylton tried hard but him playing up front on his own just isn't going to cut the mustard. Woking scored with pretty much the last kick of the half but we probably shaded the half without being overly dangerous.

I think we made 8 changes including 4 triallists, the 2 centre backs, a left winger an gangly striker who seemed to struggle to keep his feet. None of the triallists impressed me, although Harley Wise the ex-QPR player seemed to be comfortable bringing the ball out of defence and trying to organise things and might be worth another look. Tom Smith, the young ginger midfielder looked neat and tidy but Woking totally got on top in the second half understandably and but for Will Henry would have had 4. Henry did kick the ball out of play a couple of times trying to play the ball to BOO rather than whacking it forward which clearly required work.

It was a nice sunny day, and the park in Woking was lovely.

Cheers Bob

If you like Art Deco stuff, there is a cracking fair in the sports centre over the road from the ground every 2 months.

Those of you that follow me on twitter may have saw that I bumped into Williams on Friday evening and he said to me that last year some players that we were looking at securing on 2 year deals only wanted 1 so they could move on at the end of the season. Not something I'd ever considered before but just goes to show that this recruitment lark isn't always plain sailing.

Put me in the "slightly concerned but of the belief we'll have it sorted by September" camp.

I always thought Power's sweetener on deals was he wouldn't stand in their way if an opportunity to better themselves came their way.

But I guess the difference is we'd get a transfer fee, whereas a 1 year deal we wouldn't - plus the player may pick a signing on fee up for himself/agent instead.

That doesn't necessarily mean letting them go for nothing though, as would be the case if they were on a 1 year deal.

Good point. But his usual deal, see Ajose, is sign for 2 or 3 years and I wont stop you moving on after one should be good enough to entice some.

I've heard Ivan Toney may be a striker we are looking at loaning.

but as I said, there may be financial incentives for the player to be a free agent when they move on.

I'm sure that's the case with some players.

If it was me responsible for recruiting I'd avoid them like the plague anyway.

we presumably are, hence not many recruits :)

                                Vigs

Barry, Sendles-White, Nathan, Branco, Boo/Brophy

                    Thomas, Kasim, Rodgers

                               Goddard

                                 Obika

Where's the elbow-meister Branco?

Rather have one of the kids than Rodgers.

Cheers Sutton, not a massive Art Deco person so will probably give it a miss, had you said real ale/beer tasting, then you may garner my interest :)

That's interesting Benzel, cheers for sharing that, certainly does make the notion that signing players isn't as easy as it seems, especially if we are trying to secure players that we can nurture and sell for a profit.

He's there.

Lot of pressure on Goddard...but he is our big signing, so hopefully he''ll rise rather than sink.

 

I'm presuming the game tonight is pay on the door?

Still need to get a ticket from the office first, I think. There's no actual paying cash at the gate.

Ticket on the night is what I meant cheers

I'm going tonight, glutton for punishment.

I'm going tonight, I want to see how are new signing is gelling ;)

.

Which one ;)

This is going to end badly for me either way!

Don't worry it will all be cowin lush!

I know its pre season and results mean fuck all but Bristol Rovers got dicked by Swansea 5-1 at home a few days ago....lets hope we aren't this bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEpUlhUmH1M

I'd imagine a lot will depend on the strength of Swansea's side and what they want from the game....but as we know we're more than capable of shipping numbers of goals at the CG, so it wouldn't exactly be a surprise...

Pre season is always a lottery with results as there are so many changes usually in games but with Rovers they played a near full strength team for the first half Mildenhall (Puddy - 62); Leadbitter, Kilgour, McChrystal (C), Brown; Bodin (Harrison - 46), O. Clarke (Mansell - 46 (Broom - 86), Sinclair (Lines - 46), Gosling (Lawrence - 46), Moore (James - 46); Taylor (Easter - 46) and were 4-0 down after 43 mins.

I also see the Pox shipped 4 goals to nil at home to Brighton last night, there is always a good chance we could as well but hopefully with Obika starting tonight...or at least playing some part at least we are more likely to score.

Anyone know if there are any more friendlies after this one?

Yeovil away on Saturday.

On the OS as a 3pm KO but I am assured by YTFC that its definately a 1pm KO.

We could probably do with avoiding a tonking tonight even it is a pre-season friendly....given our poor defending at the CG last season, you'd hope to see that some work has been done on improving that

Is that 'our' Mildenhall, how bloody old is he now. I remember seeing him in a friendly at Witney Town when he was coming through the ranks - he was bloody enormous, although less so after the bollock incident!

Sneaky bastards, hoping to get an early lead by kicking off an hour before we turn up.

It is indeed, hes 37 now. The Pompey testicle slash still haunts me :D

And with their strikers the game would still probably be 0-0 when we turn up!

That would be a good name for a novel.....

Or a band. I think I've got one of their EPs from the early 80s

Sounds more like one of those 50s bands to me Mildy and the Pompey Testicle Slash.

:)