Billericay v Hamlet, Isthmian Prem, Tues 10 Oct 2023
- Thread starter Bugpowder Dust
- Start date
blueheaven
Well-Known Member
As someone who rarely gets to games any more, I have to ask, why do people think we are so bad right now? Is our budget significantly poorer than the other clubs in the league, to the point that we should be expecting to struggle (if that was the case then it would make running with a 30-ish-player squad even more baffling). Have the wrong players been brought in, and if so why? I'd have thought that given our location and fanbase we'd be in a strong position to attract players. Is it just a case of the manager being the wrong guy for the job? He seemed so promising at first and it felt like once he'd cleared out the wrong characters from the dressing room and built his own squad, we'd see a positive fresh start, but if anything things are just getting worse. When we moved on from Gavin Rose I thought maybe we'd find someone who wanted to work with a more settled squad and be less prone to falling out with players, but for some reason there's still constant chopping and changing for some reason.
At the Cheshunt game I stood quite close to our dug-out for a bit as I was interested to hear what messages were coming from the management. To me Hakan came across as surly, frustrated, non-communicative. Very different to the positive character I remember seeing speaking in interviews when he first arrived. The only positive or constructive communication I heard was coming from his assistant. Maybe that's deliberate and the two of them have some sort of good-cop bad-cop arrangement going on, but I think I'd really question whether it's working.
At the Cheshunt game I stood quite close to our dug-out for a bit as I was interested to hear what messages were coming from the management. To me Hakan came across as surly, frustrated, non-communicative. Very different to the positive character I remember seeing speaking in interviews when he first arrived. The only positive or constructive communication I heard was coming from his assistant. Maybe that's deliberate and the two of them have some sort of good-cop bad-cop arrangement going on, but I think I'd really question whether it's working.
I wonder if it's our games he's talking about.
AveryDave
Well-Known Member
Listening to Gary McCann’s interview from last night, most telling remark is they thought we were there for the taking before the game - we’re clearly seen as a soft touch at the moment and are doing little to prove that wrong.
Other thing he mentions is that his team wanted to get the win for their supporters, knowing there’s a rivalry there. How nice it must be to have a team that understands their relationship with the supporters and wants to show that kind of desire.
Other thing he mentions is that his team wanted to get the win for their supporters, knowing there’s a rivalry there. How nice it must be to have a team that understands their relationship with the supporters and wants to show that kind of desire.
Al Cunningham
Brockley Hamlet
I think they have to admit the recruitnent was poor. Certainly the players are not performing at anywhere near the level that was expected. Our strength at the moment is moving the ball out of defence through the midfield to the wide players. Outside of that sequence we are poor. It can look quite good for periods of the game but has little effect in the result. In the crucial action areas of both boxes we are usually 2nd best. Even in the area you would think we would dominate with our height from crosses and long throws (our attacking strategy) we dont .
I was looking at our team from our last time playing Billericay away at this level ( what a great night that was) and how many from our current team would get in that team ...0.
I was looking at our team from our last time playing Billericay away at this level ( what a great night that was) and how many from our current team would get in that team ...0.
Al Cunningham
Brockley Hamlet
Al Cunningham
Brockley Hamlet
Strong bench too
Pink Panther
Well-Known Member
Who cares what Billericay fans think? I couldn't care less. That's a club that totally disfigured our league a few years ago during the Tamplin era, when those same fans revelled in spending obscene amounts of money for a couple of years of short term success, while their owner's creditors were left to whistle for their money as he liquidated a string of his companies. I'll always despise them for that, and they're the last people qualified to claim any sort of moral high ground on just about anything relating to our club and our league. They even managed to screw up their chance of establishing themselves in National South faster than we did. They're lucky their club emerged with no apparent long term damage after selling themselves to a chancer like Tamplin.
Our club exploited a dubious rule to delay playing a difficult away game when we felt it more advantageous to regroup. I'd prefer that we hadn't done that, but don't fool yourself that Billericay would not have done exactly the same under the same circumstances if it suited them. Their supporters are now revelling in the fact that we haven't ultimately benefited, just as our own supporters would have done. That's fair enough, but it doesn't make them "right".
Pink Panther
Well-Known Member
I pretty certain we were told the budget would be similar to last season (and I'm sure it is) and certainly good enough to challenge for a swift return to National South, even if 2 or 3 other clubs were spending more. A draw on Saturday will mean we have the same number of points (8) with the same playing record (W2 D2 L6) as we did from the first 10 league games last season, but obviously in a lower division, which has to be a worry.
.
I go to every home game, but I haven't been away since the opening day of the season. We've now had 18 away league games without a win (4 points) and I've just had enough of that. I reckon it's our worst run of away form since the 2000/01 season, when we didn't have a single away league win, with 6 draws and 15 defeats. That run started with losing the final game of the previous season and ended by winning the first game of the following season, by which time we'd unsurprisingly been relegated, giving a 22 match winless sequence. We'd also gone 11 games without a win before the last win in April 2000, and went another 10 games without a win after ending the run, so 2 wins in 2 years across 45 matches. I went to nearly all of them.
I'm at a loss to explain just how far we've regressed in the past 18 months. We collected precisely 70 points from our last 70 National South matches, so that's a season and a half of clear relegation form, and it's got no better in the short time since then. It just goes to show how easily many years of painstaking progress and development can unravel in a much shorter space of time. We had 8 consecutive seasons of tangible improvement from 2011-2019, inching closer to promotion each time, then we seemed to hit a glass ceiling in National South. The biggest single factor for me is the procrastination over Gavin Rose's position at the end of the 21/22 season, initially sticking with him, then choosing to twist after just 7 games of the new season.
With hindsight, it was rather optimistic to expect an instant challenge for promotion this season. The best we could realistically have hoped for was probably an away semi-final in the play-offs, given that we threw together an entire new squad over the summer. That squad list from the Billericay away game in March 2018 includes 9 players who had been with us since at least the start of the previous season. We had quite a poor start to the 2016/17 season (I recall a 1-4 defeat at home to a Harrow Borough side who were bottom of the table at the time, and a late equaliser to salvage a point away to a poor Leatherhead team) but by the second half of that season we were enjoying a memorable FA Trophy run and eventually finished 3rd before losing the play-off final at Bognor. All of that put us in a position to successfully build towards the triumphant end to the 2017/18 season.
For me the Gavin Rose era began to lose it's magic during the winter months of the first National South season, when we abandoned the tiki-taka game for a more pragmatic approach. We made a pretty good start to that first season, with 21 points (W6 D3 L6) from the first 15 games, despite having a weaker squad than the one that got us promoted. Ironically things started to go wrong around the time we were cleared to return from exile. I reckon other coaches just worked us out, and we no longer had greater individual quality in the big boys league as we did in the Isthmian, and after losing at Eastbourne on New Years Day there was the drastic cull of experienced players including Carew, Ming, Kargbo and Tomlin. We recovered to finish in a respectable mid-table position, but for the following season we recruited cynical old hands like Ijaha and Smith, who were the antithesis of how we'd always played under Gavin in previous seasons. I can't believe Gavin was entirely comfortable with such a change of philosophy, and I suspect that was a big factor in his inability to ever fashion a team that consistently looked good enough to challenge at the top end of the division, or even looked like a cohesive group with a shared sense of purpose.
I must admit I'm pretty disillusioned right now. It feels like we're not only losing but serving up a poor spectacle, although losing most games is generally less entertaining than winning most games regardless of the aesthetic quality of the football. The very first Gavin Rose season (2009/10) consisted of lots of pretty passing and possession play in the middle third, little threat up front, and little resilience under the slightest pressure at the back. We didn't win a home league game until December and there was a 10 match sequence in the new year with only 3 goals scored, with a 1-0 win delivering the only points. It was one of the most depressing seasons I can remember, as average attendance slumped below 200 for the only time excluding the ground sharing season at Tooting in 1991/2. Our highest attendance of the whole season was only 274 and several Saturday league games were below 150, while we were knocked out of the London Senior Cup by South Kilburn in front of just 59 at Champion Hill, the only time we've been beaten by a second tier county league side in my 45 years of support. I was mainly turning up as a prelude to having a few beers with friends afterwards, with the match almost feeling like an irrelevance. Within a couple of years, under the same manager we'd gone from one extreme to the other. I didn't want to miss a single game, it began to feel like only a matter of time before we were promoted, a feeling that endured right the way through a sequence of near misses and two actual promotions until we reached National South in 2018. Anyone who began supporting the club around the start of that period has been spoilt. The previous 30 years consisted mostly of lower mid-table mediocrity with the odd exciting season, a few successful relegation battles, two relegations and one promotion to get back to where we'd started. That's not to say we should all just shrug our shoulders and accept that we have to spend another prolonged period in the doldrums. The club was very different in those days with all sorts of mitigating factors, whereas now it's much more financially viable with the advantage of the largest supporter base in the league. At the very least we ought to be where we were 10 years ago as perennial, if not always successful, promotion candidates in the Isthmian Premier Division. However we find ourselves back at the beginning of the redevelopment cycle, with a new manager who may be capable of building something that endures, or may ultimately depart without having achieved any progress.
Excellent as always PP
muel18
Well-Known Member
I think for me the most concerning things is lack of creating chances. I’ve come accustomed conceding goals but recently we’ve barely created a thing in terms of clear chances. Elements of nice build up play yesterday but we cannot seem to get the ball into our strikers whoever we choose to play, as said in this thread for me Mills is the most effective choice but needs someone playing off him or it’s pointless. Saturday you feel is pivotal one way or the other
MrFouldsy
Well-Known Member
We're really missing an academy and we surely have way too many players signed for the squad. How much money is that costing us? The football strategy seems to need more support. A leaner, younger squad - good enough to keep us in the league - with additional resource put into the football director function may have been a better way of prioritising what we have. Never saw the point in chucking money at promotion (for us likely to drop back again anyway) until we'd got the rest of the house in order. From what I recall from the fan forum a little while ago the ambition was to try and do both. In reality, it doesn't look like that's possible. No shame in having given it a go; I'd encourage the chance of a rethink now though.
MrFouldsy
Well-Known Member
Big fan of Mills on and off the field, but needing another player alongside him to feed off knock downs feels a bit dated now and a bit of a luxury.
AveryDave
Well-Known Member
Just rewatched Hayrettin’s interview again - not for the first time, he says 75% of goals at this level are scored in the six-yard box.
I’ve just had a quick scan through the highlights of all our games this season prior to last night, and including all goals both for and against, 26% were scored in the six-yard box, 41% in the 18-yard box, 18% outside the box and 15% from penalties.
That might well change over the course of a full season, but on the sample so far he’s miles out.
I’ve just had a quick scan through the highlights of all our games this season prior to last night, and including all goals both for and against, 26% were scored in the six-yard box, 41% in the 18-yard box, 18% outside the box and 15% from penalties.
That might well change over the course of a full season, but on the sample so far he’s miles out.
MrFouldsy
Well-Known Member
75% of the goals scored inside the six yard box are scored within the six yard box
Pink Panther
Well-Known Member
When he first arrived he said 75% of all goals come from set pieces, therefore we needed to focus on dominating those. He probably just has a habit of saying "75%" to emphasise the point he's trying to make, which at least is mathematically achievable, unlike Harry Redknapp's default setting of 110%.
I've come to the conclusion that at least 75% of comments in interviews with any manager are not really worth listening to, especially when he's required to speak directly to the camera within minutes of the final whistle. What else can he do except mention a few key incidents or pretty much state things that are obvious to anyone who watched the game? When we're winning no one seems especially interested in these interviews, then when things go wrong whatever he says is criticised. I found it much the same with Gavin Rose and Paul Barnes. It might be more enlightening if interviews were done a few days later, after the manager has had time to reflect on the last game and speaking about how we're approaching the next game, but that's probably not practical for the media team.
Not really sure what to say to this. We had a host of injuries and 3 players on international duty at the time of the original game. The league rules allow for a game to be called off for that many players being on international duty. So, sorry, 'Ricay fnas not "rightly" stating anything.
As for Hak's heart not being in it, I speak with him often and he is so passionate about getting it right and desperately wants to achieve for the club. He is proud to be manager of our club and I believe that we need to stick with him as I do feel he can turn it around.
On players not being an improvement, I believe both the new keepers are better than the one before, many of the new recruits are young players who are being given a chance to impress (inclusing Will in goal), whilst Kresh & Luke have been good in most games. The one thing we all agree on, I believe, is that individually we have some quality defenders coveted by many clubs, but collectively they have just not gelled.
The return of Jeffrey , will also change the dynamics of the attack. giving us real pace through the middle.
Paula_G
Flitting in & out like Tinkerbell on Meth
For
sake!! What were the defence doing for that first goal? It’s like their striker had his wingmen shepherding him into the club at closing time. The less said about the other two the better. The only positive out of that one is if we had to gift ‘Ricaay goals like that for them to beat us the rest of their efforts that evening must have been pretty 
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