The Lounge

[Singapore Don]

Great Liam! I think Monday 4th March may be best – or Tuesday 5th. Shall we pencil in then? Let’s hope after Charlton and Shrewsbury we may be in more hopeful and celebratory mood!!

[Colum]

Well. Where did that win come from? A win is a win, but now that the initial euphoria has subsided, I can’t help feeling that it just delays the inevitable. We conceded three goals, two of which were virtually immediately after scoring ourselves, and one straight from the KO. Such defending shows defensive and mental frailty. OK we scored one more than they did, but this was very much a game where both sides shows their relegation metal. The stats speak for themselves. We had 22 shots of which only 7 were on target. Rochdale has 17 of which 7 were also on target. That’s not a great percentage, but then it is better than many a game this season. So we go into the Charlton game on a high. Will we still be thinking we can escape relegation come 5pm Saturday? I doubt it.

[Windlesham Don]

Agree with that summary Colum, but of course it is the hope that kills us!

What can we expect today – the Fleetwood/Burton experience, or the Walsall/Rochdale experience? Wally has talked about consistency, but during his two months in charge we have seen little of that. The defence is still woeful at times – just look at the goals conceded at Rochdale, a schoolboy team would be embarrassed by defending like that.

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but any club escaping from a position as dire as ours needs to do so from the defence forward – stop conceding goals first, then improve the attacking play to pick up the points.

With a lousy defence, occasionally there will be a result such as Tuesday, but it will be the exception that proves the rule. If our defending is as bad today then Charlton will punish us at least as severely, but this time there will be no 4 goal response!

The only sources of optimism for me are the massive boost to morale and team spirit that should have been gained from Rochdale, and the fact that Charlton are not on the best of runs.

Today we will have to play like we did against West Ham, be fast out of the blocks and in the faces of the opposition, putting them on the back foot. If we sit back and admire their passing then we will be heading for a world of pain.

My guess is that we will know the course of the game (and the destination of the points) within the first 15-20 minutes…

COYD!!!

[liamwimbo]

Hi Pete. Have woken up to another defeat this morning. Going to be almost impossible to survive.
Either Monday 4th or Tuesday 5th is fine for me to meet up so whatever suits you.

[Colum]

Well Windlesham. We did outplay Charlton for 45 minutes, but to win a game of football you need to do that for the full 90. Unfortunately we didn’t do that.

The warning signs were there in the first half. We were especially prone to issues when Charlton spread the ball wide. I lost count of the number of times our full backs (and especially poor old Sibbick) was left with a two on one situation. We were far too narrow and slow to get back and cover from midfield. It was only Charlton’s lack of enterprise and some good defending that saw us lead 1-0 at the break.

The second half was poor to watch. We looked leggy from the start of the second half, and once Taylor had dived to win a free kick on the edge of our box, it was largely one way traffic. Without Ramsdale it would have been a cricket score. I wonder how much this second 45 were the result of long away trips and Saturday/Tuesday games of the last couple of weeks.

The only bright spot of that final 45 minutes was seeing Nightingale continue to have Taylor exactly where he wanted him – in his pocket. Taylor showed what a temperamental, moody sod he can be. After getting his feet all in a mix and having his pocket picked yet again by Nightingale, he fell over right in front of the home end. When he realised his predicament, he suddenly clutched his right calf and rolled around the ground until the referee allowed the trainer to come on. After a minute and a half of sprinkling holy water on the offending area, he got up and sulked away with that pretend limp we’re all used to seeing. He was fooling no one!

So next up is another six pointer. It’s not over yet, but if we don’t get something from that game, it soon will be.

All my family and friends keep asking me if we’ll get relegated. Hope springs eternal, so I can’t say “yes” with any certainty. Two weeks ago I’d have said “definitely”, but after the two away wins maybe we can believe we can do it.

[Windlesham Don]

IMO Saturday was a match that illustrated almost perfectly why we will not be plying our trade in League 1 next season.

45 minutes of high energy ‘up and at ’em’football, where we scored one, but weren’t clinical enough in front of goal to get a second. Followed by 45 minutes of being dominated, not having the ‘nous’ to break up Charlton’s rhythm, nor the skill or creativity to turn the tide in our favour.

Easy to talk about defensive frailty again, but I feel that both of the opposition goals were down to defensive lapses.

I may be being harsh here, but I fell that Ramsdale must take the blame for the first goal. Setting aside the horrendous belly flop from ‘you know who’ to con the referee and win the free kick in the first place, the subsequent direct effort on goal did not go in the corner and went to the side where the keeper should have been covering. That Ramsdale didn’t even dive for the shot is evidence that he was indecisive and hadn’t assembled the wall correctly.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that Ramsdale is an excellent keeper and could well make it into the highest level of football in a few years. His effort to pull off a miraculous double save to stop Charlton’s winner was superb and only fingertips away from enhancing his growing reputation. However, he was at fault setting up the wall against West Ham and he was at fault again on Saturday.

When a free kick is close to the goal a keeper has to decide which side of the goal he is going to protect and then commit 100% to protecting that side. If the ball has enough dip to go over the wall and into the net on the protected side then it is either a great free kick or the wall was at fault. So be it.

On Saturday Ramsdale seemed to set up a wall to cover most of the goal and then couldn’t really decide what area he was protecting. This indecision of course was fatal and a reasonable, but by no means world beating effort was made to look unstoppable.

IMO Ramsdale needs to do some work with Bayzo (and his Bournemouth coach) to improve this weakness in his game.

The second goal was a complete mental switch off at a corner, which left me and a few fellow fans with our heads in our hands. With a couple of minutes of injury time to go to secure a battling point, allowing the opposition to take a short corner unopposed was criminal. Sadly it was not the first time this has happened this season, and a lack of defensive concentration will be one of the main reasons that we will be relegated.

Shrewsbury is now being labelled a six-pointer, but realistically we now need to do more than just beat the teams around us. Unfortunately for us, one of the qualities that differentiate the teams in the top half of the table is their ability to not make silly defensive mistakes and to concentrate for a full 90 minutes…

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