Darlington (H) League Saturday 26/8/06

[Exile]

could have done better overall, but we did win. Well done Ince and Fox for clearing the lines when we needed it, and the rest of the team for not letting them create more than that one double chance.

[Neuromantic]

Average performance, but solid and resolute.

Ince - not much to do really

Westwood - Awful, truly awful.
Gerrard - Strong but caught out couple of times
Roper - dont really need to say much, cos we all know what.
Fox - Solid, won challenges, but wasted ball a few times.

Fangueiro - Creative, tired towards end, played up front second half , but stayed on the big lad to stop him playing. Great flick for goal.
Pead - Great, great performance, love how he runs with the ball forward.
Keates - never wasted a pass
Wright - a tale of two halfs, poor first half, but dangerous second. still a bottler tho.

Butler - full of running and got in the channels well. good finish.
Constable - sorry mmf, but he isnt first team, nowehere near it. works hard but doesnt look threatening.

Subs:

K Taylor - Provided a bit more bite when needed.
Sam - held the ball up, and made it stick.
Dann - Lieutenant marshalled the midfield for 1 minute.

[coxy_saddler]

Not a bad performance! I thought we missed dobson in the mddle of the pak, but he's due back soon so that will be sorted. Keates was superb imo never gave up, Butler was quality. Wasn;t our best performance but the 3 points are there on the board, Another clean sheet. Westwood though, Something needs doing, He was awful. Not a right back! Id play pead right back as dobbo will be back soon.

UTS

[philthesaddler]

Pretty average to be honest. But they do say that the sign of a good side is a side that can win when playing badly.

Thought Pead was poor, so was Wright, again, Keates was ok, Butler worked his socks off, Fanguerio looked better playing off Butler but tired after a while, Westwood was piss poor again. With Dobson back, Pead at right back, Fanguerio on the right, and the Demon on the left, we'll be a much better side.[/quote]

[WFC_Rob]

I thought we looked very average today but restricted one of the so-called stronger sides in the league to very few chances.

Westwood's distribution today was clearly awful however I did think he defended well at times, especially at set pieces. Today made it clear to see why he is in the side - he is strong at both defending and attacking set-pieces. Whether that is enough to warrant a place in the team is up for debate, but he did make a couple of superb defensive headers today.
Roper and Gerrard were both very solid and personally, I thought one of them should have got man o the match. Having said that, Martin Butler did reasonably well feeding off scraps today. We simply didn't get the ball into his feet enough.

Whilst Wright doesn't show enough grit and determination for me defensively, I thought his attacking play was some of the best he's produced. He put in a couple of superb crosses today which we were unlucky not to score from. The way he ambles towards an opposition player with no conviction whatsoever and no will to win the ball is very frustrating, but if he does what he's good at as much as he did today, we can manage.

Don't understand the hero worshipping of Keates. He runs around, runs around a bit more, boots the ball forward and runs a bit more. He often looks like he's busy and I can't criticise his effort, but I don't really think he adds anything to the side apart from some fresh legs coming off the bench. Pead is similar, but he does run with the ball and look a bit more threatening going forward.

Fangueiro wasn't a impressive today, but he shows flashes of threatening play and can hold onto the ball well.

I thought Taylor should have started the game today. When he came on, he played a couple of very decent balls through to the forwards and we were at last playing the ball in Darlington's half. For some bizarre reason, he then started playing a lot deeper and we looked like we were plaing with 2 left backs.

In case anyone was wondering where Dobson was today (the OS said he was able to play), saw him outside the ground after the game and he said he'll definitely be back next week. The gash on his forehead really is huge and it doesn't look like all the swelling has gone down yet. We really missed him today in my opinion.

[Stalky]

I agree that, in his distribution, Westwood was very poor, abysmal, but defensively he was OK.

Fanguiero was very fortunate to not see red for his horrific tackle. Overall, I didn't see much from him to write home about. He seems to me to be a similar type of player to Ishy (including his tackles). At least he got the flick-on to set up the goal.

The left hand side looked much more solid when Kris Taylor came on.

How did Constable miss that open goal - Oh I know, he missed the ball.

Other than that, another very solid performance, even if we were lacking in creativity.

Sam looked good when he came on. He does hold up the ball well. What a pity he rarely scores. Presumably Dickie is still looking for another striker.

Yet another clean sheet. The difference between last season and this ( apart from the manager, the organisation, etc.) is that we look SOLID! The defence just doesn't look like being beaten.

Roll on the good times!

[Manchester Saddler]

I've said all along that Westwood needs to be dropped - or given a good kick up the jacksy!!

[geoffwhiting]

A very hard-working performance, and three very welcome points against a difficult side that will surely be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

I thought we gave the ball away to them far too much and far too easily at times, and couldn't hang on to it for love nor money - God only knows why - and that is why they had so much of the possession and we had to contend with so much pressure from them.

Agree that Westwood's distribution was awful, especially first half - if he wasn't giving the ball away, he was mis-directing it into the crowd, but he did a lot of good work defensively, so some of the criticism is OTT for me. He was not on his own by any means in passing the ball to the opposition, we made it too easy for them many times during the game.

BUT we got the all important goal with a perfect execution of that free kick by Keates, straight in on centre-goal into the right zone with Fangueiro (sp?) making the cross-goal run to confuse the 'keeper, get the slight touch, and the ever-alert Butler did the rest.

Apart from their two chances second-half, I thought we generally had the better chances while Darlington had more of the possession, and Roper and Gerrard were brilliant at the back, constantly clearing the high balls that Darlington pumped forward towards our box.

Don't know how Constable missed that sitter, a totally open goal - pathetic finishing, just pathetic - and it could have been SO costly, but thankfully it was not.

Pead was superb, transformed the game second half with his surging runs and I fail to understand the criticism of him today.

Man of the match between Roper and Westwood, though Pead and Butler ran them close.

Three hard-earned points, and I'll gladly take that, from the toughest game of the season so far, and another clean sheet is a superb achievement.

Great to catch up with Sheff today too, hadn't seen him in ages, nice to share a pint at half-time.

All in all a good day.

[1933]

The problem with Westwood, shoddy distribution apart, is that sometimes he just doesn't look bothered. His defending at set-pieces though gives great value to the team, this is why it is such a tough decision to drop him.

We worked really hard today, quite nailbiting and felt certain they were going to score at some point. Straight after their double substitution we looked our most vulnerable but we managed to hold out.

Goalkeeper could easily have been sent off for them in the opening 15 minutes for his silly handball - but as we know, referees in this division tend to bottle the big decisions.

My man of the match today was Pead, worked hard and some great forward running was great to watch.


Final point, was Barbie Girl back but in the Floors to Go Lower today, annoying person sat in front of me today.... think it musta been Barbie.

[Redordead]

A lot of people are slating Westwood for todays performance, Defensive wise he didnt put a foot wrong, there left midfielder never got past him. I would agree however that his distribution was shocking. I would prefer Pead to play on the right side of defense out of the two.
Another point is why did everybody boo JJ?. We only had him on loan and he turned us down for family reasons. Put it this way im not going to boo Blockbusters everytime i go past... :?

[Registered Saddler]

Comments on the individuals:

Westwood - everyone agrees his distribution was awful. That's problem one of putting a centre half at full back. Problem two is that they are dragged inside the whole time. I thought his defending was very poor and he was badly exposed in that position. We need a proper full back, one who can get up and down, pass the ball, mark wingers, block crosses, defend the far post. Don't think Westy did any of that today. If they had brought that player on down the left a bit earlier (Simon Johnson?) I think they might have got some more joy. Well done to Wrighty for helping out, but Westy is looking lost at the moment. It's all well and good heading away set pieces, but all that shows is that he would be a much better central defender.

The Fang - didn't know what to make of him. He showed some neat touches and did trouble the Darlington defence. But the two footed lunge was criminal and could well have been a red card - we can't afford any stupidity like that. Also he tends to wander all over the pitch which means our Money patented solid 4-4-2 becomes more disjointed. Impact player off the bench I reckon.

Keates - You either love him or you, er, quite like him. I think he's fantastic when he plays like he does today. I'm not sure how much he contributed to our losing possession too easily, but he way more than made up for that with the number of times he won it back. He must be hellish to play against as he never gives up and covers every blade of grass on the pitch. I reckon almost as many Darlo attacks floundered due to him as they did due to interceptions from Ropes and Ant Gerrard.

Constable - what a frustration. I think he's great - young, raw talent and willing to learn. But he has the knack of doing the hard bit and mucking up on the easy bit. Twice he ruined great openings by rushing the finish, but then can pull something out the bag like that cut inside and left foot shot which whistled just wide. Keep persevering with this one, I'm confident it will come good in due course.

The rest - Ince was imposing, Roper was almost impeccable, Pead showed great graft and Butler is simply one of the best strikers in the division. Overall we were OK, but OK was enough today. It'll be enough on a lot of occasions this season if we keep up our excellent defensive record. Great work by Dickie today who had to keep pace with Darlington's increasingly flamboyant tactics and changed the shape of our team at least three times and on each occasion got it spot on. I see Swindon are top and have won five out of five. They have a very similar record to ours with wins against Hartlepool, Rochdale, Stockport and Darlington. But they will be tested in the upcoming matches with away games at Chester and Wrexham and home matches against MK Dons and Peterborough.

[Mozza_saddler]

Pretty average to be honest. But they do say that the sign of a good side is a side that can win when playing badly.

Thought Pead was poor, so was Wright, again, Keates was ok, Butler worked his socks off, Fanguerio looked better playing off Butler but tired after a while, Westwood was piss poor again. With Dobson back, Pead at right back, Fanguerio on the right, and the Demon on the left, we'll be a much better side.

[/quote]

i disagree, i think pead had a great game, looked comfortable on the ball helped defensively well, and looked dangerous when running at darlingtons defence.

[latviancheese]

westwoods almost as bad as darren bazeley. crikey.

[sid swifty]

anyone know what the attendance was....oh and by the way i know your all dieing to know...we won at cricket today...cant wait to start going to the match again...haven't been this season yet... :(

[futuresobright]

Overall a disappointing performance for which the manager must take most responsibility. Two of PMs most glaring faults were his failure to establish a settled team and misplaced loyalty to Craig Pead. Today's team selection can be best be described as interesting (Westwood left back, Pead midfield, Constable on the right wing, Sam on the bench) and his substitution surprising (Taylor for Constable). We were very lucky to come away with all three points.
Butler was hopeless today. His simple goal apart he contributed nothing in the air or on the ground. Is he still suffering from hepatitis? Constable completely overshadowed him in the first half.

Keates was man of the match and Ince, Gerrard and Roper all gave strong performances. Let's hope Dobson, Nicholls, Wrack etc are fit soon...and the manager knows when to introduce them to the team and where to play them. On today's showing is anyone confident that he will?

[WFC_Rob]

Another point is why did everybody boo JJ?. We only had him on loan and he turned us down for family reasons

The same family reasons that saw him move from Boston to Darlington a year later? I didn't boo him because I appreciate what he did when he was with us, but at the same time, I think he went to Boston for money alone.

[YGA Saddler]

I thought first half today we were shocking! Second half it did get better but overall it was'nt a very good game. I think a draw would have been a fair result.
Surely Dickie Dosh realises we have not got a right back at the club. Pead is better off in central mid with Dobson, Westwood is there to provide competition for central defence and Mark Wright is no longer considered at right back (thak god!!). He needs to dip into the transfer market before a team with a "real winger" really causes us problems.

Pead was outstanding today. Going forward is was OK but he gave the defence support when Keatesy was none existent. I will feel more confident when Dobbo is back next week.

Cant complain though, 5 clean sheets out of 6 and 13 points from 15. We are getting difficult to break down.

UTS

[geoffwhiting]

Overall a disappointing performance for which the manager must take most responsibility. Two of PMs most glaring faults were his failure to establish a settled team and misplaced loyalty to Craig Pead. Today's team selection can be best be described as interesting (Westwood left back, Pead midfield, Constable on the right wing, Sam on the bench) and his substitution surprising (Taylor for Constable). We were very lucky to come away with all three points.
Butler was hopeless today. His simple goal apart he contributed nothing in the air or on the ground. Is he still suffering from hepatitis? Constable completely overshadowed him in the first half.

Keates was man of the match and Ince, Gerrard and Roper all gave strong performances. Let's hope Dobson, Nicholls, Wrack etc are fit soon...and the manager knows when to introduce them to the team and where to play them. On today's showing is anyone confident that he will?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but really, you are well wide of the mark on the points I've highlighted.

Butler worked hard, scored a fine poacher's goal, and generally made a decent-enough contribution up front with his intelligent and classy movement - maybe you missed that or just don't understand it.

Westwood played left back - did he? He was at right back, right in front of me, when he passed/cleared several balls into the stand first half!

Pead had a tremendous game today, no question, and was the force driving us forward on many occasions second half - even a contender for MoM. Did you note the ovation he got when he went off? That wasn't any indication of pleasure at his departure - that was appreciation from a crowd that (in the main) had been impressed and pleased by his contribution. I'm certain you are in a tiny minority in your opinion of Pead today. It wasn't strange to play Pead in midfield today - if you were keeping up with what's going on, you'd know he has already had several good performances there this season, including one in which he transformed the game in our favour - at Lincoln wasn't it?

Taylor for Constable was OK. Constable missed at least one absolute sitter, and rarely looks to have the confidence to finish, despite some decent approach work. Admittedly he had one decent shot zip wide of the right-hand post first-half, but to say he overshadowed Butler, well - sorry - but no! Taylor, I thought, did well, and increased our attacking options down the left side - combining well with Fox on several occasions and getting decent crosses over.

We were definitely NOT "very" lucky to come away with three points. In fact we created more good chances in the game than Darlington, despite their greater possession. We also scored an excellent goal from a well-planned and well-delivered free-kick, something Darlington failed to do when they got their limited number of chances, and in the main our defence coped very well with whatever they threw at us, and rarely looked likely to concede.

In short, we worked bloody hard for the points. I accept it could be argued that Darlington deserved something from the game, but it's no coincidence that we now have FIVE clean sheets from six games, and the only goals conceded were away from home to a team involved in last season's play-offs.

I would agree with you though about Sam - thought he should be on with Butler from the start, and for me he's made that position his by his workrate and his ability to hold the ball and to see/make opportunities for others. I love his effort and commitment - a bit like Jorge in that respect.

I wouldn't have put Keates at MoM, but he had a good game. Agree that Ince, Roper and Gerrard were excellent. Agree also that it will be good to get Dobson back, we are missing his drive and strength through midfield, I think we'll be very much stronger when he returns next week (hopefully).

Wrack and Nicholls? Not sure, too early to say if they can add anything after their serious injuries - anyway we'll have to wait and see until September for Nicholls and October for Wrack.

[Burnside]

Thought Pead was poor,

?????????????????????????????????? Were you there ????????????????????? He was outstanding ?

I thought it was a Man of the Match Performance

[RED 5]

Again Westwood and Wrights side was shocking! :shock: We were punished at Lincoln by the two muppets not defending properly! Then today crap again! When Westwood comes up against a half decent player he hasnt got a clue! He cant tackle, has no pace and keeps kicking the ball into touch! :evil: Get him out! :evil:

[Stu]

Maybe its just me, but our performance today reminded me of a Colin Lee team before it all went sour.

We went out to defend and keep a clean sheet, we sat 10/15 yards to deep as soon as we scored a goal, and generally looked sound at the back despite giving a lot of possession away.

Must admit, I didn't really think it was a very good performance. Defensively it was good, but going forward I didn't really think we offered too much of a threat, I'll re-word that, we didn't offer enough of a threat as a home team should.

Think the criticism of Westwood is way OTT, yes, his distribution was frankly diabolical, but so would Roper's be if he was being played at right back. However Westwood won pretty much every ball in the air that he was given, he blocked numerous crossess and made some good tackles. Defensively, he was sound, he didn't look like a weaklink. It was just his distribution.

Thought the biggest problem today was the midfield, we didn't have any real presence there. Wright-Pead-Keates-Carlos F must surely be the smallest, weakest and most lightweight midfield quartet in the world. We missed Dobson, and he'd be back in for Keates in my book. That's harsh on Keates, but Pead was simply superb today. He looks to get forward, looks as to create and tries to make late runs from deep.

An okay performance, not great, Darlington may feel aggrieved to have gone home empty handed, but despite a promising strike trio, they had the potency of a 90 year old man whose smoked enough weed to leave him sleeping for a week. No service what-so-ever to the front trio.

[geoffwhiting]

Maybe its just me, but our performance today reminded me of a Colin Lee team before it all went sour.

We went out to defend and keep a clean sheet, we sat 10/15 yards to deep as soon as we scored a goal, and generally looked sound at the back despite giving a lot of possession away.

Must admit, I didn't really think it was a very good performance. Defensively it was good, but going forward I didn't really think we offered too much of a threat, I'll re-word that, we didn't offer enough of a threat as a home team should.

Think the criticism of Westwood is way OTT, yes, his distribution was frankly diabolical, but so would Roper's be if he was being played at right back. However Westwood won pretty much every ball in the air that he was given, he blocked numerous crossess and made some good tackles. Defensively, he was sound, he didn't look like a weaklink. It was just his distribution.

Thought the biggest problem today was the midfield, we didn't have any real presence there. Wright-Pead-Keates-Carlos F must surely be the smallest, weakest and most lightweight midfield quartet in the world. We missed Dobson, and he'd be back in for Keates in my book. That's harsh on Keates, but Pead was simply superb today. He looks to get forward, looks as to create and tries to make late runs from deep.

An okay performance, not great, Darlington may feel aggrieved to have gone home empty handed, but despite a promising strike trio, they had the potency of a 90 year old man whose smoked enough weed to leave him sleeping for a week. No service what-so-ever to the front trio.

Very, VERY accurate Stu - nowt new there though! :)

[redalways]

What a load of crap written above. We have won five out of six games and had five clean sheets and we are still moaning! Our fans are worse than the Dingles.

Fact 1
Dicky is playing some out of position in order to get more out of the squad. He cant dump them all and start afresh. How did Taylor play at full back under the Scumbag. He did not want to know then. Today he came off the bench to give a quality performance. Remember Pead in midfield last year. Prefer Wright at full back to Westwood?

Fact 2
Having sorted a very leaky defence, he has produced a midfield that has worked harder than I can remember in decades. How could Keates be still running at the end of that performance? Wright had his best game for many months. OK there is still room for improvement in a number of areas, but when we get it, we are going to tear some team apart.

Fact 3
He has recognised that we still need someone else up front. However Constable has improved and Sam is creating. The only reason Darlington had so much possession today was because we did not kill them off with a second goal, despite having the chances. The last task for DD is to refine the final ball into the box to strikers who are ruthless.

No doubt some of you will be saying that because he hasn't achieved this in 6 games he should be sacked. Start giving Westwood, Wright and Constable some slack! Start enjoying our success for God's sake!

[Jeef_Boner]

Could it possibly be that we gave them too much respect, or that we had a bit of a cup-match hangover going in to the game?

[redalways]

Its been much the same in all of the games so far. We are quite content to hold on to a clean sheet and nick a goal when we can. Isn't that how Graydon got us promoted?

Respect for the opposition? Forget it - we are going to beat Bolton!!!

[a.j.]

anyone know what the attendance was....

4692 if i remember correctly!

[hullsaddler]

We went out to defend and keep a clean sheet, we sat 10/15 yards to deep as soon as we scored a goal, and generally looked sound at the back despite giving a lot of possession away.

Exactly what Mick Kearns was complaining about throughout 2nd half commentary.

[sid swifty]

anyone know what the attendance was....

4692 if i remember correctly!

thanks a.j.... :wink:

[PerStener]

anyone know what the attendance was....

4692 if i remember correctly!

thanks a.j.... :wink:

The OS and the other websites said it was 4651.

[WFC_Rob]

What a load of crap written above. We have won five out of six games and had five clean sheets and we are still moaning! Our fans are worse than the Dingles.

I agree, we all like a moan. That's mainly because many of us who have been to most or all of the gems so far know we can play much, much better than we did today. No matter what the results are, there is room for improvement in any team - Ryan Giggs said after the Man Utd. game today that they were disappointed with their performance and they picked up 3 points to take them to the top of the Premiership table.