Mickleover home

Relieved to hear the final whistle but, if only we'd taken our chances in a second half which we'd dominated, the score line would have been more comfortable. Mickleover were far from the best footballing side seen at Amblecote but they were never really out of the game.

Nonetheless, a win is a win and the three welcome points puts in a stronger position to reach the play-off places.

Thought Kristian had a good game and Joe made a sound debut. Stuart once again gave a true captain's performance but Matt's lack of height makes me nervous at set pieces. Karl had a second half that I don't think he'll want to remember but his class and experience are always evident. Although I am not a great fan of Justin, I thought he had a better game, perhaps because of the arrival of Gurjit.

Leon was my MOTM.... yet again !

Best of luck, lads for next Tuesday.

Man of the match voting was as follows,

KRISTIAN GREEN. 21 votes

Leon Broadhurst 7

Stuart Pierpoint
Brian Smikle. { all 2
Karl Hawley

Joe Hull
Justin Richards { all 1
Sean Geddes
Matt Gould

Wine was won by IAN PILKINGTON

Thanks to everyone who took part.

Still can't decide if every team in this league is tough to beat or whether we just let ourselves get dragged down to the standard of the opposition each week. Another game that wasn't pretty to watch but from which we emerged with three points, which at this stage of the season is all we can really ask for. I think we'll need to sharpen up our finishing if we're going to get maximum points from the next two games.

Another very poor game of football in my opinion.

I've seen some really poor Stourbridge matches across this season,it's been my bad luck to have missed the games in which we've played well and scored plenty of goals,for me the performances v Kiddie in the cup and Salford away have been the benchmark of what we should be trying to achieve week after week.

That said,it is encouraging ( albeit more in the home matches than away ) that we are able to tough it out to win games whereas in past seasons we'd end up losing points, but we do need to see this resolve in away matches as well and not end up with more Barwell/Nantwich results in the coming weeks.

Whenever we've played teams that end up being promoted in recent seasons it's very obvious that such teams tend to control games,mainly based on midfield dominance and quality up front,i still don't get the feeling that our midfield is dominant in games and i still feel we need an athletic,physical presence in there to help Leon.Leon is a great forager and workhorse and one of the first on the team sheet but i'd like to see a force alongside him and Geddes playing further forward.

Sutton Coldfield on Tuesday will be tough,their plastic pitch is not to my taste and i think it does give them an advantage,a win would be great but not losing is going to be very important.

Devil's Advocate wrote:
Sutton Coldfield on Tuesday will be tough,their plastic pitch is not to my taste and i think it does give them an advantage,a win would be great but not losing is going to be very important.

They've played 16 home league games this season and won 7 and lost 6 so it doesn't seem to be giving them that much of an advantage.