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    We gave them a game Archived Message

    Posted by Stranded Hatter on 14/1/2020, 10:25 pm

    for about the first 3 minutes.

    Once they got the corner that lead to their first it was their's for the taking. We looked lacklustre and uninterested from front to back. Turnbull and Sam Walker should not be playing together in the middle ever again, play one or the other, never both.

    The only players who came out of the first half with anything for me were Minihan and Jackson, maybe Thomas and Garratt but everyone else was appalling. Second half we huffed and puffed but they were happy to sit back and soak up and hit us twice on the break. Minihan was effectively playing as a striker for large periods of the second half. Their 15 (they weren't playing with numbers 1-11 as an aside, no names on shirts but clearly squad numbers) was the best player on the park by a country mile and took his goal (their second) well.

    Festus Arthur and Ashley Palmer are the only centre half pairing we should be playing with until we get a new centre back. Keane and Palmer does not work and we need Keane further forward anyway. Arthur did more in his brief cameo towards the end than nearly any of our other 11 on the pitch and he even got what may have been our only shot on target. All those saying he needs dropping I completely disagree, I'd have him in with a new centre back over Palmer right now.

    Quick word on the referee. It's entirely irrelevant to the result (with the possible exception of him disallowing a perfectly good goal at the end of the first half that would have made in 1-2) but that was a comically bad performance, it's not hyperbolic to say it might be the worst performance I've seen from an official in non league and there have been some bad ones. If it later came out that he'd been bribed by the Dorking lot I wouldn't even be remotely surprised, and this is not sour grapes I would be absolutely be saying the exact same thing if the result was the other way around. There were so many just plain wrong decisions that it's hard just to pick out one. Their players played him like Johnny plays the fiddle and he bought every single con they threw at him. It was laughable. There really needs to be a way for clubs to hold referees accountable. Again, it made no difference to the result but he shouldn't be refereeing another game at this level.

    Whole thing was embarrassing, if we play like that on Saturday Sutton will have a field day. Neither Bell nor Mulhern deserve to start that game, they've gifted a starting position to McAlinden.


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