The Lounge

[Wimbledon_rumours]

Not only is it kwesis birthday it’s also mine turning the very old age of 18 hopefully the dons can give me a win for my present

[Windlesham Don]

Happy birthday Rumours – don’t drink too much tequila! Let’s hope a birthday lifts Kwesi out of his current slumbers as well, he’s been very disappointing so far.

Devon – I don’t get the security around watching abroad. Surely the match passes should be aimed at UK fans who are on holiday? Forcing them to pay with a local bank account is simply shooting themselves in the foot IMO.

On to today and an important test of our new style. Shrewsbury have improved considerably under Paul Hurst and should also be looking to play some football, so hopefully an entertaining game is in prospect. IMO the key to the result will be whether we can get Abdou and Trotter on the pitch. On Tuesday the central midfield lacked bite, with no one actually wanting to tackle. If we are the same today then I fear for the result.

If Abdou and Trotter play then I feel that we will have too much for the Shrews, if neither of them play then an unexpected loss could be on the cards.

Ever sitting on the fence, I will go for a share of the spoils in a 1-1 draw.

COYD!!

[Wimbledon_rumours]

Thanks windlesham it’s a shame that we aren’t playing well- atleast that’s what I’m seeing on twitter

[Devon Womble]

Having watched my first match via ‘ifollow’, I offer this perspective.

IFOLLOW: It took several frustrating minutes to get the live link to fire up. Finally I resorted to their on-line ‘chat’ tool, which, I have to say, was prompt and accurate with the advice. Annoyingly, the advice was to wipe out just about everything from my google chrome cache and restart the browser. Sadly however, it seems that Chrome still has issues with video streaming. Firefox was not much better, so, I finally resorted to Microsoft’s ‘Edge’, which, as much as I hate to admit it, it seems that Microsoft has got something right, it worked. However, streaming quality was still a little patchy. The last ten minutes in fact became almost unwatchable. (NB: Here in the upstate of South Carolina the arrival of BMW and Michelin’s US headquarters ensures we all have superb Internet, so I have to put the streaming quality down to ifollow and not a local issue.) All things considered, I’ll see if my $7 gets better value next week.

THE GAME: The Shrews goal was as simple as unmarked far post tap ins gets. It seems we haven’t learned the lesson of last year that it is prudent to start playing football when the ref blows the whistle for kick-off.
When we did get going, the Shrews were able to cut out almost everything we did, if not with a fair tackle, then with a professional foul or sacrificial yellow card. How long this tactic will serve them this season remains to be seen. Thankfully the ref appeared to be one of the few in the league able to spot this sort of gameplay, albeit that we failed to convert any advantage his decisions gave us.
The other obvious lesson not learned from the end of last year was how to score when in front of goal. Several chances went begging, the price for which, we duly paid.
Of our players, it was hard to single anyone out for praise. LTB did a lot of running, but his crosses and finishing were woeful, while Kaja and Egan’s cameo appearances gave them zero chance to make any impact; (seems NA hasn’t learned his lesson from last year either). Fuller probably had the best of the game, but not for his on the ball skills, but for his ability to read the referee. Every time trouble loomed, he appeared to act as Rottweiller for the ref, actively pushing Wimbledon players away from the ref, leaving him to brandish his book at will in the direction of the only remaining players in front of him… namely the opposition.

Overall, I get the impression that the team is not firing on more than one or two cylinders. Our flow was non-existent, with way too many hopeful lobs, and miscalculated passes. Even our back passing to George Long often sent him scrambling to save a corner.

Still, early days yet, so chin up, we have at least another eight games to go before I can go into doom mode.

[Windlesham Don]

Well that was a depressing performance! The best thing in the day was meeting up with messers Nolan, Kenwery and McAndrew of the WDSA collective, but sadly there was very little fat to chew after a performance from the Dons bereft of ideas.

Difficult to pick the bones out of 90 minutes where the opposition strolled to victory, but for me the midfield needs to take most of the blame. Abdou, Francomb and Parrett were bullied and outworked by their Shrewsbury counterparts. On the flanks, Barcham and Appiah did little to help the situation.

IMO, if we are to attempt to play a ‘pass and move’ game then there is little point trying to pass if no one is going to move into space. This happened repeatedly, with Long rolling the ball out to one of the centre backs or Francomb who saw no one available and proceeded to shift across the back until an inevitable long ball was comfortably mopped up by the Shrews defence – candy from a baby springs to mind…

The few plus points were the performances of Long and Oshilaja. Apart from those, McDonald battled against the odds as ball after ball was hit long over his head and Taylor also showed some desire when he came on in the second half.

NA needs to find a way of getting his midfield to work as they were truly awful today. If he doesn’t then we are going to in for a very long season, as the better sides in the division will pick us off far easier than Shrewsbury did today.

[Wimbledon_rumours]

Watched the second half on ifollow and Jesus we were crap besides long in goal who made a couple great saves from what I saw but where was the defence and the midfield and then what’s happened to appiah and why are we playing the style of football that suits tom Elliott when we have appiah and McDonald up front who are both smallish

[Author]

Posts