Shildon - FA Cup Replay

As it's been raining for over 24 hours, what's the chances of a P-P, and a pitch inspection would have to be done early because of them departing at 2pm.

We really need to get into em' from the start and make it a difficult game, especially as I can see 1 goal winning it.  Given the weather I'd be surprised if we get a big crowd to the game tonight as well, so we all need to make as much noise as possible.  And that goes for when we're standing behind the goal at the main road end, not just in the shed

COYG...

The rain is due to ease off this afternoon and our pitch drains well so i don't see any chance of the match being off.

It SHOULD be a half decent crowd though,if you can't get motivated for a match like this in the FA Cup it's a pretty poor show.

Updates to follow here later for anyone who can't make it.

Team:

Coleman
Till
Knight
Richards
Canavan
Harris
Haynes
Francis
Brown
Billingham
Craddock

Subs:

Fitzpatrick
KRD
Wood
Morgan-Parker
Gueyes
Kalenda
Hill

0-1

0-1 HT

Fitzpatrick on for Francis HT
KRD on for Craddock HT

0-2

Morgan-Parker on for Canavan 76 minutes

0-2 FT

Firstly,well done to Shildon.

They were solid,resolute,had a game plan and executed it perfectly,always looking dangerous on the break,their centre forward worked his nut's off and offered them something that we totally lack up front…a focal point.

We just couldn't get the ball to stick when we got it forward,considering Brown was our only regular forward in the starting eleven why on earth was he out on the wings most of the first half!?

Dissapointed that Fitz didn't make the starting line up.

No lack of effort from any Stourbridge player and their keeper sapped our spirit with a couple of "worldy" saves so fair play to him.

It's hard to fathom exactly what our game plan is at the moment but the glaring omission of an additional quality forward in the squad from the start of the season is a lesson we continually fail to learn,until we pay a minimum of two and possibly three forwards of Luke's quality it's going to be very hard to progress to the Conf North.

To lose Benbow and the cupboard to feel so bare is pretty "average" planning for a club at our level.

In my opinion it's time for some pruning down at Amblecote,the arrival of Tommy Berwick and Macca will hopefully see the start of a re-shaping of the squad,it appears to be badly needed.

Well done to Shildon though and i expect them to beat Norton.

Firstly over the 2 games they deserved it. As soon as the draw was made I thought they would bully us out of it and they did. Well done to them they played to their strengths.

However. Where to start with us? The whole 'we scored this many goals last year' line....How many of those were penalties? By a certain Sean Geddes. He got 29 last year. Our top scorer and he's now gone. You had Rowey who got about 15, he's not here. So that's 45 goals gone straight away. Have we replaced that? No chance. You cannot use last season as a base for this year. The same happened at United last year. They didn't strengthen as they 'were champions' but that didn't stop every other team strengthing and wiping that supposed advantage out. Is the squad better now than it was last year? No chance at all. Macca is an excellent signing. The club deserve a lot of credit for that signing and if Berwick hits the ground running he can also be very good. But that still leaves us with 2 strikers! And one of those spends half the time injured! Mpi from Hemel last yesr would walk into our team. He very rarely started a game. Hemel won the league. Its as simple as that. I don't buy this 'spend spend spend' idea (excuse the pun) I appreciate the long term cost of getting the ground where we want it, however for a team who has had multiple lucrative cup runs and been knocking on the door of promotion it isn't good enough to have no striker on the pitch tonight. We never ever looked like scoring apart from Ben. He's too good and he will be off soon enough if there isn't changes. The most frustrating thing is that all of this was avoidable. That or the fact every fan could see it from a mile off.

Till and Deano were excellent, well done lads. The rest tried very hard no doubt about it, however there's a lack of belief there in my opinion at this present time.

On the plus side....a core of Macca-Louis-Ben-Luke is very good. IF it ever happens.

We scored 115 goals last season as i was reminded by the hierarchy when i mentioned before the second game of the season that i thought we were at least one striker short.

We the fan's know nothing.

Not good enough in the first half I'm afraid, too many passengers. Shaky at the back, most of the midfield lacking ideas and nobody to hold the ball upfront. Gave it a good go in the second half but that's about it. Can't believe Andre went off unless injured - our best player in the first half and no matter what formation changes should have stayed on - got to be more suited as a wing back than Drew? I don't agree DA with the lack of effort - Shildon were the classic team that wanted it more as far as I'm concerned.
Don't like to single out players on a forum but Josh hasn't done much for me since his return and shouldn't have started, Kayo isn't suited to leading the line which showed when KRD came on as we at least held the ball up a bit better. Drew isn't a wide player, the effort was there but he's not effective out wide.
On the plus side, I thought Josh showed a lot of promise and we should give him more chances, let's not keep him on the bench like we did with Jordan Murphy.

Although we huffed and we puffed, we never really looked like blowing Shildon's house down. Fair play to them as they, on the night, were the better side with a very strong all-round team performance.

We never really matched them with skill or goal-scoring threat and their second goal killed off the game.

I thought Andre, one of our better players and a loyal team member, was unlucky to be sacrificed at halftime with us moving from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2. I disagree with Jack in that, although Peter saw a lot of action, his final ball was disappointing and we missed Kyle's more threatening attack play.

Louis had an off-night and looked a bit slow. It was no surprise to see Josh subbed at the break. The other Josh, Morgan-Parker, showed promise when he came on.

Not a night or result we all wanted but, with our squad being strengthened and with our injuries starting to ease, we can can now concentrate on our no 1 objective - promotion.

Good luck to Shildon in the next round !

I said at the start of last season that our manager (nice bloke that he his) had taken this club as far has he could. I have said again at the start of this season that he his the best manager that the stour have had in recent times but I believe there is better out there.
We have not replaced sean, tho I am not sure the 1k we got for him would be enough to bring in a quality midfielder.
Rowey has not been replaced , we then have moved Richards and knight to centre halfs, so where are the goals going to come from.
We then bring in another centre half who has already left twice (good signing though he his). It is only a matter of time before we lose billingham, benbow won't sign a contract.fitz is pissed off at constantly being dropped to the bench, look at tonight, he picks Andre in midfield then realises that he's got it wrong and swaps it at half time. I am all for trying new ideas but come on , a full back in centre mid with a good centre midfielder on the bench.
Hemel filled their team with goal scorers and got promoted yet we fill our team with defenders, I rest my case.
Your comment jack about our management team going out watching other matches, well I have it on good authority that GH never does.
It is time for a change but whilst he is on the board it won't happen.
Nuff said

If you think that stour are going to get promoted you are living in cloud cuckoo land

Stourbridge81 wrote:Not good enough in the first half I'm afraid, too many passengers. Shaky at the back, most of the midfield lacking ideas and nobody to hold the ball upfront. Gave it a good go in the second half but that's about it. Can't believe Andre went off unless injured - our best player in the first half and no matter what formation changes should have stayed on - got to be more suited as a wing back than Drew? I don't agree DA with the lack of effort  - Shildon were the classic team that wanted it more as far as I'm concerned.
Don't like to single out players on a forum but Josh hasn't done much for me since his return and shouldn't have started, Kayo isn't suited to leading the line which showed when KRD came on as we at least held the ball up a bit better. Drew isn't a wide player, the effort was there but he's not effective out wide.
On the plus side, I thought Josh showed a lot of promise and we should give him more chances, let's not keep him on the bench like we did with Jordan Murphy.

"I don't agree DA with the lack of effort"

I didn't say we lacked effort,on the contrary what i said was,

"No lack of effort from any Stourbridge player and their keeper sapped our spirit with a couple of "worldy" saves so fair play to him"

As far as Morgan Parker is concerned,it's no surprise to see him thrown on once the game is virtually gone,funny how such precocious talent ( as shown in pre season performances and goals ) can't get a start,we seem terrified of giving kid's their head's.

If you're good enough you're old enough and it's not as if anybody else is ripping up trees in our forward department at the moment.

The worst performance of the season in the most important game.

Don't agree that we put in plenty of effort - Shildon wanted it much more as far as I could see.

Cannot comprehend why Andre, our best player in the first half, was substituted at half time.

For me Craddock did nothing, Canavan tried his best but better in the middle I think, and Till had an anonymous first half but did better in the second - but absolutely no-one in the box for all of his reasonable crosses into the box.

Yes Ben may be our best player but he was anonymous after our good spell at the start of the second half. I am utterly at a loss as to why Fitz continues to get sidelined.

Coleman kept us in the game at 1-0 and again had a solid performance.

The crux of the matter is that we did not sign a striker in the summer. Can accept we were unlucky not to be allowed to play Hales but surely we knew that when we loaned him. We couldn't have relied on Benbow all season, so with Hales out of the equation in the cup there is no replacement when Luke is injured.

By the time we arrange cover in the form of Berwick he is already cup tied and doubtless 90% of potential targets are as well. This should have been sorted in the summer.

I can't understand the comment on the manager though, he must be one of the best if not the best manager in the local area given what he has achieved with us.

Make no mistake though this was a disappointing performance regardless of the striker issue. Far too many mis-placed passes, less commitment and effort than the opposition and nothing created except a few good chances at the start of the second half.

Well done to Shildon who fully deserved to progress.

You can't understand the comment about the manager??
You have just mentioned some of the problems that should not have occurred.
We are in a worse position now compared to two tears ago. Our best players are leaving the football is dross, the training is the same week in week out.
Tell me another club in England that would accept the position we are in compared to where we where two years ago.we are not improving we are getting worse.
Sub standard players will not get us out of this league .look at Hemel

Very disappointed but well done to Shildon,my gripe is i am not sure how near Luke is to full fitness but why was he jumping and leaping about in goal at the interval,while the subs were shooting at him? We know his original injury was kicking the ball hard while not properly warmed up.

I think too much emphasis is put on the Geddes malarkey. Let's be honest, good player as he was (is), we were pretty poor while he was still in the side. The problem is the fact there are a number of players that are not good enough for this level, and one or two not good enough for the level below.  I'll also suggest, as mooted by a friend of mine this evening, that it's not necessarily GH that needs to go, but perhaps he needs to look at his own back room team. No encouragement, no instruction, complaining to the lino about time wasting. Clueless tonight, and it's happening too often.

baz wrote:Very disappointed but well done to Shildon,my gripe is i am not sure how near Luke is to full fitness but why was he jumping and leaping about in goal at the interval,while the subs were shooting at him? We know his original injury was kicking the ball hard while not properly warmed up.

I totally agree Baz,before the game he was crashing in powerful volleys from the edge of the area as well as running and twisting and turning,to see him leaping around in goal put the "tin hat" on proceedings for me.

Surely if he's fit enough for that then we could've got 20 minutes out of him if the match had been tighter tonight.

Aled wrote:I think too much emphasis is put on the Geddes malarkey. Let's be honest, good player as he was (is), we were pretty poor while he was still in the side. The problem is the fact there are a number of players that are not good enough for this level, and one or two not good good enough for the level below.  I'll also suggest, as mooted by a friend of mine this evening, that it's not necessarily GH that needs to go, but perhaps he needs to look at his own back room team. No encouragement, no instruction, complaining to the lino about time wasting. Clueless tonight, and it's happening too often.

Top post Aled.

Agreed about Geddes; reckon Baggie Stour must be a relation of Geddes the way he goes on about him! Didn't think he was playing well this season before he left and we've scored more goals per game on average since he left.