Bashley (H) Mon 16 December

[Boomer]

A video clip from last Wednesday's Cambridge City v Bashley game -

[Hatboy]

They really rubbed it in keep showing the restart after they scored !

This weeks matches best available odds:

Monday 16th December 2013

Redditch (8/5) Draw (13/5) Bideford (11/8)
St Albans (1/4) Draw (5) Bashley FC (19/2)

Tuesday 17th December 2013

Arlesey Town FC (5/4) Draw (13/5) Hungerford Town FC (9/5)
Biggleswade Town FC (2) Draw (13/5) Chesham United FC (6/5)
Hemel Hempstead (5/11) Draw (15/4) Burnham (21/4)
Poole Town FC (1/5) Draw (5) AFC Totton (12)
Stourbridge (4/5) Draw (3) Frome Town FC (3)

Wednesday 18th December 2013

Cambridge City (4/5) Draw (11/4) Hitchin Town FC (29/10)
Corby Town (6/4) Draw (13/5) Banbury Utd (6/4)

[Saint]

1-0 Frendo pen after 2 mins.

[Saint]

Full back sent off for the penalty leading to the penalty.

[asaintreborn]

Most pathetic first half I've watched this season...

[Saint]

HT: 1-0

[Deleted]

One of the poorest performances I've seen this season. Wake up saints

[Saint]

2-0 Frendo

[Saint]

Sub: Nwokeji on for Watters

[Saint]

Sub: Henry on for Keenleyside

[Saint]

ATT: 280

[Saint]

FT: 2-0

[asaintreborn]

James gray called Cambridge players a bunch of pre madonnas in his interview. That's exactly how we played tonight!
Winning the penalty and the sending off was our downfall, there was no urgency. Disappointed a real chance to continue making a statement. We made a statement to the rest of the league with our performance after the Cambridge game. We might as well not have bothered. The plus side 3 points and onwards and upwards in the league. Despite my disappointment this is a one off performance and looking forward to gaining a much needed 3 points against redditch as I'm sure there will be a more professional performance. Bastock was MOM producing a professional performance and was there when called upon.

[Deleted]

Redditch 3-1 bideford

[davymac55]

Bastock made a couple of saves. For that MOM. We got 3 points. hope goal diff doesnt come into play at seasons end. a golden oppo to finally give someone a gubbing and we score one more than we did against Cambridge. We couldnt have asked for a better game to have after Saturday. Outfield players, to aman, including my fav Rambo, well off today. Slack, no urgency, not direct enough. and when we did threaten a 16yr old(man of the match by a mile) on loan for one game goali(from salisbury-their no.2)stopped almost everything. One goal from open play against this mob. oh dear. Bashley were ripped apart in the 2nd half on Saturday. We played against 10 men for 88 mins and you wouldnt have known it. Need to wake up. Now that we are concentrating on the league(!!!!) we cant play catch up playing this poorly. We didnt look promotion contenders tonight by a long chalk. got away with this one. Need to better on Saturday for sure.

[eartheart]

To be fair for the team the come down from the effort, hope, excitement and disappointment of Saturday. Little atmosphere tonight and job done and energy saved. A good few days rest now.

[Hatboy]

A bit disappointed but got the 3 points and a third clean sheet in 4 up to 6th now 3 points off the play offs with 2 games in hand.

Let's see if we can keep our unbeaten away run going (15 all comps & 8 in the league) on Saturday before the big Boxing day game.

[Saint]

Their 16 year old goalkeeper on loan from Salisbury City was MOTM for me...

[bob666]

I think it is important not to overreact. In a sense it was quite a strange, almost artificial, situation tonight. In almost every game the objective is simply to win. Tonight there was clearly a different set of exceptions- which were compounded by the early goal/ sending off (which may be technically correct but was quite unnecessary). The St Albans' players had a almost freakish amount of time/space on the ball. In a sense placed in an alien situation to which they did not respond brilliantly but I do not think it has any significance going forwards. Disappointing crowd tonight. I know it was raining but there does not seem any sense in which generalized upturn in performance has improved attendance

[Boomer]

Dec 16, 2013 23:08:04 GMT bob666 said:

I think it is important not to overreact. In a sense it was quite a strange, almost artificial, situation tonight. In almost every game the objective is simply to win. Tonight there was clearly a different set of exceptions- which were compounded by the early goal/ sending off (which may be technically correct but was quite unnecessary). The St Albans' players had a almost freakish amount of time/space on the ball. In a sense placed in an alien situation to which they did not respond brilliantly but I do not think it has any significance going forwards. Disappointing crowd tonight. I know it was raining but there does not seem any sense in which generalized upturn in performance has improved attendance

Spot on with your assessment, bob666. It was all a bit too surreal. You have to question, if we were suffering from the after effects of Saturday, as well. The Cambridge United game was very tough and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume there might have been a reaction/backlash to all the effort that we expended in that game. I thought Bazza did well tonight but on the field, far too many passes went astray and in the final third, it just seemed we were trying to walk it in all the time. Sorry, davymac55 but I just cannot agree with you about Rambo. For me, he was the one player on the field who looked after the ball and didn't give it away. I thought he was easily our best player tonight.

Ok, Hemel hit them for 10 goals and Cambridge for 7 but, frankly, I don't care. We took the 3 points, have moved up to 6th and are now homing in on Bideford, something a month or so ago, you could have thought very unlikely. Well, it isn't so unlikely now. Likewise, the likes of Chesham, Hemel Hempstead, Cambridge City and Poole will very soon be looking over their shoulders at us, as well. Take a look at the bookies, more money is going us than other team at the moment. Gosport came from a lot further back than us last season, made the play offs and got promoted. We are certainly capable of equalling or even bettering that.

Now to Redditch Utd. They beat Bideford 3-1 tonight and it will not be easy. We have to shake off the cobwebs from tonight's comatose performance and get back on track on Saturday and we will. James and Graham won't allow a repeat of tonight, that's for sure.

Onwards and upwards.

COYS No images allowed -http://i44.tinypic.com/34o7ceq.jpg

[Saint]

Dave Tavener's report: www.stalbansreview.co.uk/sport/10881280.Two_more_for_Frendo_but_10_man_Bashley_frustrate_City/

The final two paragraph's:

City are back in action on Saturday with a Southern League fixture at Redditch United. The Saints will again be without the suspended Richard Graham while the influential Ram Marwa will miss the next five games due to a family holiday in Thailand.

Talks are ongoing with Tom Ward and Gainsborough Trinity to extend his time at Clarence Park, as his loan period is due to end before Christmas.

[davymac55]

Ok. I am aware we won 3 points, as Ive stated. Of the top 11 teams we have the worst goal diff at + 6. and im aware we have games in hand. HOwever, this was a midweek youth team with an on loan 16 year old in goal. Oh and they 10 players for 88 mins, right or wrong. We are due to lose key players in upcoming weeks for a variety of reasons. No point upping your game against teams like Cambridge and Angels and thinking we can put in shoddy efforts like this against teams in our league. Wonder what the management thought of the team. I know Bazza was vocally critical of them at end of first half. Im glad it was Bashley cos not many teams would have let us get away with that effort And Basley had a couple of efforts at the end that troubled us. Their goalie had a good game but to be honest, only because we didnt bully and pressure him. But anyway as said 3 points and off to Redditch who have just won 3-1

[davymac55]

Against Bideford

[St Michael]

It seems strange to me that we have let Bailey and Taylor go out on loan with so many games coming up in Dec/Jan and other players absent, Marwa, or gone, Ngoyi. Maybe we are gloing to bring in one or two more ?
The Chesham and Hungerford games will be tough ones, and Redditch won't be easy.

[EFMTFTV]

We have a +17 goal difference davymac

It would have been a good game to increase the GD though, I think the Top 6 will be us, Hemel, Chesham, Stourbridge, Poole and Cambridge so one of them 6 will miss out, lets hope it not us on GD
Intrestingly we've played 6 games v these teams already and only picked up 4 points, however we're a different team now

It was a very frustrating game last night and at the time I was very pissed off but we have been playing weekends / midweek / weekends for weeks now so a game where we never got out of first gear was probably what we needed
It reminded me of a Herts Senior Cup tie or when England struggle to break down someone like Andorra
Give Bashley credit though, when they went down to 10 they were really on a hiding to nothing so just got in the way of everything, I think we were guilty of trying to walk the ball into the net, better teams would have given us more space as they would have been committed forward, I think we should have tried a few more long range efforts against a 16yr old keeper, who was MOM and took the banter well as well
But 3 points and a whole heap of energy conservered for Saturday

Good news about trying to keep Ward, really really bad news about Ram missing for 5 games, his arrival has really turned the team around, I'm guessing Green will fill in on Saturday and Graham on return from suspension, if we can come through the next 5 games with a decent tally of points I will be very happy

[EFMTFTV]

Dec 17, 2013 8:15:12 GMT St Michael said:

It seems strange to me that we have let Bailey and Taylor go out on loan with so many games coming up in Dec/Jan and other players absent, Marwa, or gone, Ngoyi. Maybe we are gloing to bring in one or two more ?
The Chesham and Hungerford games will be tough ones, and Redditch won't be easy.

I'm guessing Taylor can be called back at a moments notice, we seem to have some kind of unoffical tie-in with Potters Bar Town, Bailey cannot be recalled though
We do have Frendo, knockers and Lowe as strikers, and Henry can play there, losing 3 of them 4 would be very bad luck
However this is St Albans City so we'll probably lose all 4

[cheshuntsaint]

Can't remember the last time i came away from Clarence Park so frustrated that we didnt win by more!

Must give credit to ten man Bashley as they defended well and even created a few chances of there own.

Oh well, 3 points, another 2 for Frendo and a clean sheet.

Bring on Redditch.

[pirate]

Dec 17, 2013 8:42:45 GMT EFMTFTV said:

We have a +17 goal difference davymac

It would have been a good game to increase the GD though, I think the Top 6 will be us, Hemel, Chesham, Stourbridge, Poole and Cambridge so one of them 6 will miss out, lets hope it not us on GD
Intrestingly we've played 6 games v these teams already and only picked up 4 points, however we're a different team now

It was a very frustrating game last night and at the time I was very pissed off but we have been playing weekends / midweek / weekends for weeks now so a game where we never got out of first gear was probably what we needed
It reminded me of a Herts Senior Cup tie or when England struggle to break down someone like Andorra
Give Bashley credit though, when they went down to 10 they were really on a hiding to nothing so just got in the way of everything, I think we were guilty of trying to walk the ball into the net, better teams would have given us more space as they would have been committed forward, I think we should have tried a few more long range efforts against a 16yr old keeper, who was MOM and took the banter well as well
But 3 points and a whole heap of energy conservered for Saturday

Good news about trying to keep Ward, really really bad news about Ram missing for 5 games, his arrival has really turned the team around, I'm guessing Green will fill in on Saturday and Graham on return from suspension, if we can come through the next 5 games with a decent tally of points I will be very happy

We need ten points minimum from the next five to lead the charge into the new year.

Pity the midfield has been taken apart like that, but time for others to step up.

[fatboy]

I know this is not really part of this post , but as someone had mention Redditch won 3- last night Bideford were down to 8 players.

[Hatboy]

Redditch scored two goals in the final five minutes to win the game.

www.hertsad.co.uk/sport/football/job_done_move_on_gray_1_3118570