AFC Wimbledon v Torquay United - 21/4/12

[Colorado Gull]

2nd one from yesterday's game

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[Sexy_Gulls]

Well that was rubbish. We were useless and Dons were slightly less useless. I'm convinced that if we had played them a month ago we would have played them off the park. But anyway well done to them, I reckon they'll be fighting for promotion next season.


Someone needs to tell Stevens he is a winger. Yesterday he spent all game trying to be a central midfielder and as result not only was he useless, but he made the whole field congested. Eunan, Rene, Morris, Manse, none of them had a chance to play their game because Stevens was making the pitch so narrow. Even if he just stood on the touchline and done nothing he would have stretched the Dons defense and given us some space to pass the ball.

Anyway it is disappointing not to grab the chance to get back into 3rd. But I'm actually not too bothered if we don't go up. Unlike under Buckle I don't get the feeling the squad will fall apart if we don't succeed.

[harpenden gull]

Managed to get into the ground yesterday thanks to a very nice womble and a spare ticket.
I wish I hadn't bothered.
I know its probably because a small squad is tired but wow that was dire. Even more dire than last week and certainly worse than Barnet.
Maybe Bobby is tired and forgot the rules of a back pass.
Maybe Nico is tired and forgot to defend his bit of the pitch where both goals came from; oh and put some useful balls into the area .
Maybe Danny forgot to act like a winger and create forward not backwards and sideways movement
Maybe Morris forgot that kicking the ball over the white line scores goals; and also being his height maybe winning a fewballs in the air
And maybe a few of the team could remember that with a less lenient referee one or twos seasons would have been over
A game to forget; but what a c**p timeof the season for some of the players yesterday to forget what we were all there for.

[Plymouth Gull]

Worst I've seen us since that terrible day at Shrewsbury back in our barren spell. The only positives for me were the Saah-Ellis partnership again, Saah was my MOTM. Midson struggled all day, a bit like our Rene against Mitchell-King and Stuart. Stevens was back to the level he was when he joined, I thought. Seems scared to run these days, always floats in to the middle and hides from the play. The midfield tried, but were all off their game. Morris probably should have done better with his first half effort, and if we'd gone 1-0 up who knows what would have happened. Good turnout off the field, shame we didn't turn up on it. The fact Crawley didn't win was also good, keeps the dream alive for another week, and I'm desperately hoping this gives the lads a kick up the backside that we need. We haven't sparkled for weeks now, I hope the fact we were well beaten pumps them up and we see a backlash against Crewe.

[Awayday]

Annoyingly Wimbledon didn't deserve the win either, but they had 2 chances and got them on target. There was opportunities to shoot, but we didn't, passing was aweful and there seemed to be no imaginiation in our play. The players got frustrated and then just started the 1980s Wimbledon's style of playing the long ball. Difference is they played 2 or 3 up front.

Promotion of no promotion we should be playing better than yesterday at any point in the season.

[londongull63]

What a load of complete rubbish about players not interested/not wanting promotion/not giving 100% or whatever other reasons like that are given for Saturday - and I don't even think they were tired. There was some great battling and tackling from our players yesterday and bodies were being thrown in front of Wimbledon shots. They were gutted to lose But I'm afraid most of it goes on the 2/3 of the pitch we are defending, rather than in the final third up front. (that's not a criticism or Rene). But we just don't relieve the pressure on ourselves enough IMO and put it on the opposition, which we desperately have to do if we're to get these two wins. Even if we do pinch the first goal against Crewe, we don't want to be say defending it for 80 minutes, we want to be playing in their half, so I think we need something different up front.
I've never before criticised Danny as I always thought he did have skills that other lower league players don't as far as first touch, keeping possession, balance etc, but I've now come to realise the end product is ineffective and he's now started giving the ball away with his passing. I've seen quite a lot of recent games and I can't barely recall him beating a full-back on the outside and getting to the byline for a cross or pull back and so many goals, or at least corners come from that. Look at Bristol Rovers forum and there's a clip of the umpteen times Carayol goes outside past defenders and crosses with his less favoured left foot or cuts inside and shoots (switching between both seems to completely flummox defenders). We haven't got width because Danny cuts inside or stops and looks inside or backwards.
Zebs might not have been the best in front of goal but at least with his drive and step-overs he took on people down the right and made things happen. Perhaps LRT would be better - i haven't seen enough of him though.
Or alternatively at least we can pressure teams by "bullying" them with strength up front - Atieno or perhaps Jarvis - to run the channels or balls down the line. It may not be the prettiest football, but in the cup matches against Blackpool and Coventry I recall Billy Kee and Matt Green (can't remember if Sillsy was in one) - not necessarily the greatest of strikers - just keeping us on the attack all the time by fighting and chasing and forcing full backs to concede throw ins and corners and ensuring we were on top. Even Benyon - not a big bloke - with his harrying could do this. The perfectly good disallowed goal at Oxford just came from a headed flick on, I think by Tai, and Rene was in on the keeper.
But having Rene alone up front with limited pace on the right, although I think Morris has been playing some really good football (and winning lots in the air), and Danny stopping on the left just isn't creating chances. Agst Wombes, Southend no goals. Against Oxford that produced one goal from a poor back pass, Barnet one chance and a goal when a defender slipped. nothing against Swindon, (OK Burton we scored and then they were down to 10 men). It also produced no goals against Port Vale, or Accrington until subs came on when we got 3 goals in those two games, and Atieno coming on scored the 2nd at Oxford. So 2 goals in the last 7 games with the usual starting 11, 4 goals in under 4 half games with the subs on (subs also led to the fightback against Bristol). Lathrope could still sit in front of the back four and there's no reason Jarvis or Atieno can't track back to help the full-backs as Zebs used to do. Perhaps put Morris on the left and Atieno right.
Sums it up when my Wimbledon fan mate said before the game we'd win because they are crap, I said don't worry, we go for 1-0 wins, he said their defence is so bad that we'd get at least one. Then, a team with promotion beckoning, barely musters a corner until late in the second half (which is quite common). Afterwards, he said he was expecting more from us. Yet, so much of the rest of the team is so good as our 4 nominations in the league team of the year reveals, and that hasn't even got the best two current performers Saah and Ellis

[GulldenBoy]

I've not been to many games this season being an exile but the performance was simply terrible and, as Ling has said in his post match interview, too many players went missing.

As said by many above, our control and passing was terrible with Danny Stevens being the worst (but not the only one). What I don't get about Danny is that he's at his best when he runs at players and tries to beat them but every time he got the ball he kept cutting back and looking for the ball inside. Is that confidence or has he been told to do that?

Howe battled away today but I think his injury is taking it's toll. The guy really looks like he needs a rest and I think Ling should have either taken him off or possible rested him and played Jarvis or Atenio from the start. Unfortunately I don't think we can rest him against Crewe.

Anyway, still in with a chance and if we can beat Crewe then I do think we'll do it. The game is doubley as important because if we are to slip into the Play-offs then we will probably be playing them and psychologically it will be important to get one over them.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Interesting points from londongull and gulldenboy about their appraisal of Stevens. I'm going over old ground here but Stevens will not push the ball past the full back, bomb on and look for a cross into the box. I don't actually believe he is capable of doing that or confident in his own ability to execute this. As a consequence he will always without question choose to come inside and either lay the ball back, across the field or try to run at defenders. This does condense the midfield and can be more problematic sometimes as if we had some width then we might start creating more chances and look more potent attack wise. He also loses possession a lot once he cut inside leaving opponents to claim the ball in dangerous positions. I don't actually feel that our style of play would suit us anyway if Danny DID skin the full backs and whip crosses in as we don,t throw players forward quick enough anyway to get on the end of them plus Rene is pretty shocking at heading a football so it would be pointless. Danny will not suddenly change this style of play , he is what he is but we need another option it's as simple as that. We need a plan B. All i can say about Danny is that this season he has proved me wrong in the fact that i was confident he was not a league footballer. The improvement i have seen from him this season has led me to change my mind although i don't believe he is good enough to consistently hold down a starting berth at Torquay and if we had another option then maybe he would have been out of the team like under Buckle. If we get promoted though there is no way we can have Stevens in the side and hope to win matches. Again, not a Danny bash because i am over the moon about what he has done this season. I'm just giving my opinion.

[Wisconsin_gull]

I think Danny's form (which has never recovered from the Crawley injury) will force some changes to our line up vs. Crewe.