Views from the Sieve

Anyone else worried after today's game for next Saturday? Quite confident that we can let in the odd shocker when we are scoring... similarly we can have an off day in front of goal with a solid back line... Not at all convinced we have either at the moment.

Can't even rely on us having a strong home league record from last season... Top marks at least for Doidge who came on and looked like he fancied it today! The less said about the penalty the better

yep im worried
i mean we hit the post, hit the crossbar, gave away a stupid pen.

other than that we was outplayed ;)

Liked the look of Doidge, reminded me a bit of Sam Williams

What was the score?

Loss 2-1

If Greg Dyke had his way this would be a League 2/3 fixture in a few years.

Every Spurs player was comfortable with the ball, that's why they are at a Premier League Club in the Development Squad, earning more money than any of ours, no disrespect.

Presume Partridge was inj, whilst Batt did okay I can't see him keeping Matt out. Apart from 2 decent 2nd half crosses Conners had a poor game, but he'll learn.

The gaffer can now sit tonight with his chinese and decide on the future of the trialists.

O'Brien will start in goal

I wish the gaffer would take a chance on Goldberg, and I might pin him down tomorrow until he tells me why he won't start him.

Pretty content. I really want us to sign Doidge. Had a bit of Benson about him. I can see the Sam Williams comparison as well.

We were guilty of overplaying around the box today but largely I thought we were alright. I do worry about the size of our squad though and this could well be our undoing.

I thought we looked ok, passed it about nice, hit the post and crossbar. and had we not given away the penno would have been a draw.

but as always preseason means nothing, let's at least wait till after the season has started before we get doomy/optimistic.


hopefully we can make some noise this season and get behind the team, and none of this "give us something to cheer about" nonsense. if i played in front of silence and grumbles i wouldn't feel motivated either!

Also yeah, O'Brien for No 1 shirt

The team is screaming out for a big striker, someone who can feed into Cureton. I just felt today that with a week to go, we were saving ourselves for Morecambe. There wasn't enough closing down and we were a good yard off the pace. It's still too early to judge, let's wait until we're half a dozen games in.

Said this before, but I think we have a lack of physicality in our squad which could cost us, which is ultimately why we need a player like Doidge. Not to mention he looks good and a striker who's capable of winning a flick on.

Other than that I was fairly happy with the afternoon and pleasantly surprised at the crowd, although I imagine most of the kids were over there expecting a proper Spurs team which was slightly amusing.

Wayne said he wanted to do something about our lack of size. Then gets rid of Femi and Wilkinson and hasn't signed anybody with any strength or height. Ogogo is about the only player we've got who might actually out muscle his opponent.

Mark wrote:Wayne said he wanted to do something about our lack of size. Then gets rid of Femi and Wilkinson and hasn't signed anybody with any strength or height. Ogogo is about the only player we've got who might actually out muscle his opponent.

Hang on... haven't we got Hemmings, Goldberg, Raymond, Porter (possibly), Connors... one of those must be at least 5 ft 9!?

The height I don't think is the only issue as Saah has plenty of that but didn't seem ot win a header all day yesterday... been more impressed by Gayle in pre-season who looked much smaller...

Looked a decent workout. I would like to see more of Goldberg and hope Doidge joins our ranks. Thought Conners was shocking at times and both goals conceded via his "mistakes". He (in my opinion) tends to hold on to the ball longer then necessary. Yes he's young but the opposition soon suss him out and play a lot of ball down his side because of that. Liam O'Brian had a decent game and I'd be surprised if Cureton doesn't add a few goals to his portfolio.

I think we looked decent, not sterling but as a lot of people said, its pre-season and no one is throwing themselves into insane tackles this ealry on (excluding giving away stupid penalties.)

so good things

O'Brien definitely no.1 for me, cousins did well with the penalty but just seemed really nervy to me whereas Liam looked like he's been there for years. Batt looked good to me, able to whip in a few really good passes from the back, and whilst I hope we dont go back to longball, having someone with Currie-grade long ball skills would be a very nice option if we get predictable. otherwise even though we were under the cosh a lot the defence looked quite solid, just pulled about a little too much by the Spurs passing play and leaving ourselves open from time to time.

Hemmings and Chambers both looked good, and capable to definitely supplying a lot of good balls over the season, but we do need a Doidge to aim at, as much as Cureton is a great striker leaving him up by himself for the first half was a hiding to nothing when both CB's are a foot taller and solidly man marking him. speaking of which i'd be very happy with us signing Doidge, looked smart, good positioning and anticipation and good awareness, very good target man for us if we get him, however we'd need to actually play with two strikers at some point to try and build any kind of partnership,

Negatives, not so many but ill explain them - as said earlier, Connors didnt have a great game, but i think his problem was the same as Howells, those horrible neon boots must have Teflon bottoms, as people were falling over left right and centre yesterday. (not to mention that those things are hideous.) Didnt think anything of Pykes, couldnt win a ball of pass it, chugged around and was basically useless, poor substitution IMO, Porter was much better first half. and theres still too much passing it around inside the box looking for an opening that a well drilled team like Spurs wont give you, these guys knew what to expect and the only time we undid them was from a sudden cross they didnt anticipate as they were all staring at the floor waiting for a bit more of the "to me - to you" routine. and when the players had a crack, of the 5 shots i remember, one was narrowly wide, one was well wide and 3 rattled the woodwork - and were all more on target than the spurs speculative efforts (with exception the one excellent save Liam had to make early on) I think if theres still one hangover from the Still days is that theres a reluctance to shoot, like nobody wants to be the one blamed if it goes wrong, so its a lot of faffing about in and around the box, then it goes back out to a winger to cross it back in, by which point the box has about 9 spurs players waiting for it. just a bit more "screw it, i'm gonna have a punt" and we could have netted a couple more yesterday. asides from that there were a few sloppy passes where someone assumed that someone else would be waiting for it and wasnt, but thats a gelling issue. new players take more than 2 weeks to form up so i'm not too fussed about that part.

all in all i think we look okay, but as usual, the first game will be the benchmark. and if my bloody ST has arrived by then, i'll be in the Sieve trying to futilely make some noise :)

Overall relatively happy, We got angrier and sharper when we were 2-0 down than during the rest of the game, so its good to see the guys not giving up, however i dont think we want to be losing before we start taking shots ^_^