Lopo’s View

With the season finally underway and two games under the belt it would be fair to say that it hasn’t been the great start that I was hoping for! When Wrexham was announced as our first game back in July I would of settled for a draw even before really seeing the squad. We have tended to struggle against the bigger teams in recent years, especially away from home. Aldershot, Oxford, Cambridge and Exeter all beat us last year when we played them away, so defeat last week didn’t really surprise me, however we weren’t as poor as we were on Tuesday. Wrexham’s very fortunate free kick really changed the game and despite us creating a few chances it was one of them days that we were never going to score. We then struggled to recover from Morison’s red card and Wrexham took advantage of that. The fracas between Mills and Albrighton for me was disgusting and both should of been dropped on Tuesday. Albrighton is lucky to have that armband and after his poor performance on Tuesday should not play on Saturday in my opinion. 

I was more disappointed with the performance on Tuesday. We started well until they scored and then we were static and invited them to score again two minutes later. Part timers Eastbourne weren’t a great side but took their chances and were able to pick up all three points. Despite Anaclet not being the best defensively I still believe that Michael Bostwick should be in the middle of midfield and not right back to give the centre a bit of strength as Mills and Drury aren’t exactly the biggest. I think Bostwick would be best in that position. Westley did put him there in the second half on Tuesday and he definately looked more at home. Boro’s performance improved too! I was surprised to see Drury start in both games, but he hasn’t been the worse on the pitch so far and took his free kick well too. 

One problem we always seem to have is in defence. Last season with Nutter, Fuller, Henry and Arber we didn’t seem to concede many goals, however since then we have had no problem doing that! Losing Arber for me was a big loss and whether he left because he wanted to or he was forced out we will never know, but ever since he moved to Dagenham we have not looked solid at the back. Fuller and Nutter came on leaps and bounds while they were here and with Anaclet and Laird we have two similar players that just lack a few things. Anaclet is good going forward like Fuller, but defensively isn’t quite as good, yet. Laird is only 20 and in pre-season really impressed me. At times he has been one of our better players this season. He could be one to watch this season and I hope he does improve more and more.

The main two disppointments for me so far have been Albrighton and Bayes. Ashley Bayes maybe 36 years old, but seems to have lost a lot of agility. It might just be that we had an incredibly agile goalkeeper before in Alan Julian but seeing Bayes on Tuesday night he didn’t seem as comfortable as I would of liked him to be and his passing to the back four everytime he had the ball baffled me.

With a lot of our youngsters going out on loan the squad has been trimmed to a more reasonable size, but I still think we need to strengthen the squad with a couple of new players, although I can’t see it happening. There is plenty of work to do and plenty of support needed to do so. One win can give the side so much confidence and it could be worse we could be Luton!

Overall after a fairly good pre season and all the optimism that came with it, we aren’t completely out of it and there is a long way to go. Things can only get better, surely and despite the booing on Tuesday I’m sure a lot of you will be out in force for the rest of the season starting on Saturday against a tricky Weymouth side. Lets get the destiny train back on track!

Lopo