Millwall (A) League 1 Saturday 15/9/07.

[Saddler1971]

Couldn't go today as i was working, listened to WM and sat on the edge of my seat towards the end as i had a couple of quid on Fox 1-0 @ 185-1. As you can imagine i was gutted when they equalised but soon cheered up when we went 2-1 up. Oh well its only money! 3 POINTS far more important. WELL DONE LADS!!!!!!!

[Jockney]

Two awful sides played today.

The more awful lost.

Good goal from Fox, but he could hardly miss (he nearly did)

Good luck for the rest of the season saddlers.

Regards

Jockney (Millwall fan)

[sack]

if we are not bringing any else in for the midfield i think gerrard should be given 6 or 7 games there, coupled with some midfield coaching and looking through the video each week with some one to tel him where and when he should have done what, he could really grow in to that roll. at least some one is actually winning the ball in there now, and thats mad a big differance you know. fox looked much better than he ever did at left back, Sonko has that look of genuine quality about him, and will work for the team as well. a good result but more importly a good performance. i'd still like loans though to help with the problems that were still all to obvious. PS can some one post a link for the millwall fans after match thoughts.

[mel58]

I thought Ishy went off because he was injured - following a hefty challenge from a Millwall player a few minutes earlier he took an age to get up again - similar to the way the Vale got into him last week.

[Jolly Johnny]

Couldn't go today as i was working, listened to WM and sat on the edge of my seat towards the end as i had a couple of quid on Fox 1-0 @ 185-1. As you can imagine i was gutted when they equalised but soon cheered up when we went 2-1 up. Oh well its only money! 3 POINTS far more important. WELL DONE LADS!!!!!!!

What sort of work do you do where you can sit on the edge of your seat listening to the radio? Pikey funfair? :wink:

[WarsawPact]

PS can some one post a link for the millwall fans after match thoughts.

http://www.millwall.vitalfootball.co.uk/forum/forums/forum-view.asp?fid=5

http://www.hof.org.uk/index.html

Quite frankly, they're not HP.

[dler]

PS can some one post a link for the millwall fans after match thoughts.

http://www.millwall.vitalfootball.co.uk/forum/forums/forum-view.asp?fid=5

http://www.hof.org.uk/index.html

Quite frankly, they're not HP.

They lost at home to the bottom team. How happy would you be?

[geoffwhiting]

Thank goodness for 3 points. This was just the sort of performance from the lads that we needed to cheer us all up. Apart from a spell of 20 mins or so in the first half, when we let them control the game, we looked the part today. The defence was fine.. Ropes made a superb last minute tackle to keep us from going one down... only to be injured (blow in the face?) and taken off a few minutes later. Fox scored with an overhead with the first half almost over.. always a good time to score and we went in with our tails up. In the second half the lads gave us everything. Both Wrack and Sonner worked their socks off and the defence was sound. Ishy came on - but upfront and not where he does most damage, i.e. on the wing. I cannot for the life of me see DD's reasoning in this. He was duly replaced by Deeney after they scored. But why did they score? Methinks we just wanted to hold out, waste some time and hope for the final bell. Always a mistake in my book! But then we came to life again, pushed forward relentlessly and got our just rewards with a well worked goal, put away by Deeney.
My man of tyhe match... Darren Wrack! He was immense. Pity I can't be at his do at Cannock. If you are reading this Geoff, buy him a pint on me :lol:

I am, and if I get to speak to him, I WILL, and if my information is right he's unlikely to refuse! :lol:

[Duke]

Phil - I agree it is silly to talk of playoffs at this stage - but, if you think that, it is also silly to talk of relegation. Just think you should all enjoy it for a while before starting on next week. I do agree that your posts are well constructed criticism, but they do err on the side of negativity (realism in your book) every time.

Spot on Steve , whats important now is we follow this result up , with 3 points next saturday.

UP THE SADDLERS.

[Fray Bentos is God!]

Right then, my opinion on the game.

It was our worst league performance of the season apart from Gillingham and we managed to score twice and play some football, Jockney was right when he said the worst team lost as Millwall stank. Their goal came from a right (our left) sided cross. Me and others around me believe DD took Ish off because he wasnt tracking back although he did take a knock 5 minutes before it. Roper could be out for the Oldham game as he had to be helped from the pitch by Whitney.

Phil, youve done the "smart kid/thick remark" again havent you? 7 poor performances? I can only think of 2 in the cup and Gillingham that were truly crap performances, the others we grafted hard and if we had a little bit of footballing luck we could be looking at double our points tally right now and having a little wander into dreamland.

I read the 4-5-1 thread before I posted this and whichever one of you said Wrack wouldnt come near it, im very glad youre not in a position to affect team choice as he was our best midfielder today, he ran with the ball and really wanted to work well with Sonko, when these two have an understanding it should be fun to watch with Sonko doing some intelligent running. If anyone should worry its Sonner as he was total gash today and as usual his set pieces were powder puff.

Heres some player reviews then pop pickers:

Ince - I know he was in the sun for both halves but he worries me more this season where I had only slight doubts last season, kicking is still awful but throwing and catching is still there for the big lad. Added to this though he did make 2 good reflex saves

Boertinen - Solid but still doesnt like to cross in the air, something to be ironed out in training as he does overlap more than our former leftback/winger combo

Weston - Read Boertinen except he just needs to learn how to cross.

Roper - Taken off due to getting his head stuck in, fought hard for the ball and made a great tackle to deny a 'wall goal.

Jean-Claude Van Dann - Solid but performance wise in Roper's shadow, its going to take time for him to adjust to this level but hes coping well

Sonner - Sinner more like, weak in the tackle and slack with posession. Hope he improves for the Oldham game or that Dobbo is back because if that performance turns into form, hes in trouble.

Gerrard - Played well, distribution wasnt great but then he is a centreback by trade, broke up a good portion of Millwall play. Moved back to cover Roper's injury and performed ably with Dann. Saw him in KFC later on aswell, glad he likes the Colonel.

Wrack - Passed well, tracked back and looked for posession saving passes rather than killer balls. Ran with the ball :shock: and didnt look worse for moving into centre midfield after Roper's injury. As said further up if he can gel with Sonko while hes in the centre it should get better and better.

Fox - Get ready with the print button kids... FOX IS HAVING A DECENT SEASON SO FAR well taken goal "he could hardly miss" said the Millwall fan, I disagree, he took his goal with an overhead kick or I was dreaming. Plays well with Boertinen and is very comfortable with him overlapping, its starting to come good for Mr Fodder I think.

Butler - Harried and hustled but couldnt get the balls into positions to get a final product, looked decent but the boy needs goals.

Hall - I dont mind him up top but the ball just cant stick to him a la Carniero. He can turn his man and out pace him but this doesnt happen often enough, needs to be ironed out by playing the ball to his feet rather than lofting them up, loft the to Mooney and Butler FFS! Carniero and Hall need it to feet.

The Den is a nice tidy ground occupied by pink shirted children who think theyre a carry on from their forefather's infamy. I hope the pink shirted ones among them have apologised to Lawrence Llewellen Bowen for their fashion faux pas.

[Exile]

GES - best review yet.

[Fray Bentos is God!]

GES - best review yet.

Cheers sexy

[Ned_Kelly]

GES - best review yet.

Cheers sexy

No point making a comment on the game. GES has done a spot on job of summing it all up. Not too many of us made it down there yesterday, but it was well worth it to see the 1st win of the season. Unless your a certain s.o.t.v who was thrown out after about 20min and missed the goals. Naughty boy, shouldn't stand up at the back. Thats a hanging offence in some grounds ya know.

Oh how the pink shirted kiddies club enjoyed our renditions of "bubbles" :lol: :lol:

[Duke]

GES - best review yet.

Cheers sexy

No point making a comment on the game. GES has done a spot on job of summing it all up. Not too many of us made it down there yesterday, but it was well worth it to see the 1st win of the season. Unless your a certain s.o.t.v who was thrown out after about 20min and missed the goals. Naughty boy, shouldn't stand up at the back. Thats a hanging offence in some grounds you know.

Oh how the pink shirted kiddies club enjoyed our renditions of "bubbles" :lol: :lol:

Again :lol: :lol:

[Whitti Steve]

Gaz - you should be a Journo - I would buy your paper :lol:

[Ned_Kelly]

GES - best review yet.

Cheers sexy

No point making a comment on the game. GES has done a spot on job of summing it all up. Not too many of us made it down there yesterday, but it was well worth it to see the 1st win of the season. Unless your a certain s.o.t.v who was thrown out after about 20min and missed the goals. Naughty boy, shouldn't stand up at the back. Thats a hanging offence in some grounds you know.

Oh how the pink shirted kiddies club enjoyed our renditions of "bubbles" :lol: :lol:

Again :lol: :lol:

It was more ridiculous than me getting chucked out at Forest. At least they had a good excuse to eject me, even though sticking 2 fingers up to a load of Forest fans shouting abuse at us wasn't exactly the crime of the century. To pick on 1 person for standing at the back when there was loads doing it was a joke. Unfortunatel, Steve didn't see the funny side of it :wink: :D

[philthesaddler]

Phil, youve done the "smart kid/thick remark" again havent you? 7 poor performances? I can only think of 2 in the cup and Gillingham that were truly crud performances, the others we grafted hard and if we had a little bit of footballing luck we could be looking at double our points tally right now and having a little wander into dreamland.

Oh forgive me!

Last season we were constantly told it's the results that matter, not the performances. This season, the performances have been 'ok', so sod the results. Thats tosh.

To have played 8 games, all against beatable opposition, and only pick up one win is not 'bad-luck' gary. We're still well under scoring a goal a game, we're not performing well enough, or consistently enough. Simple.

[Geordiesaddler]

GES got it spot on.

We played better at Orient and lost because we didn't put the ball in the net, yesterday we did thanks to Sonko's creativity and some clinical finishing. Those that keep saying we are going to struggle can't have been to many games because from what I've seen we are perfectly up to the standard of this division.

When Mooney gets fit I think we will be even stronger, but the essence of our mini revival has been the reduction of giving away soft goals. Keep it tight and we look well capable of taking something from just about every team we've played, nobody has really outplayed us in the league yet.

[Bernie]

Thanks for the match reports. It is great to read about a win.

Looking at the goals on TV, Fox did really well to score. I was not impressed with him in midfield last season, but this year he seems to be doing much better.

Their goal did come from a cross from their right/our left. Not much of the build up is shown; Ishmel is there, not doing much, but then neither is Boertien. It seems that both Ishmel and Boertien were facing one attacker, leaving two unmarked behind them.

The winner came from Wrack taking the ball forward, finding a good pass to Sonko on the right who threaded the perfect low cross for Deeney to put in. An excellent piece of football.

[sack]

I personally can't see what sonner did wrong yesterday, i thought he hade a quietly afective game,.

[We-ARE-Walsall]

I personally can't see what sonner did wrong yesterday, i thought he hade a quietly afective game,.

I have only seen the first two games of the season, Carlisle and Orient, but in those two games I thought he was superb, his passing is excellent, and he gets through a lot more work than he used to. Some people just have it in for him from the start

[Duke]

Sonner as come in for a lot of strick on here , from what I've seen of him its unfair. at least its given Dobson a break. :roll:

[We-ARE-Walsall]

Sonner as come in for a lot of strick on here , from what I've seen of him its unfair. at least its given Dobson a break. :roll:

Yeah but Dobson is cack :D

*legs it *

[latviancheese]

I can see why people say Sonner is whack, he is powderpuff and frustrating.

But thats not the kindof player he is, i dont hear anyone complainin when Fabregay doesnt tackle :wink: He's a passer of the ball, something creative.

I even heard WM say he headed the ball yesterday :shock: is this true?

[We-ARE-Walsall]

I can see why people say Sonner is whack, he is powderpuff and frustrating.

But thats not the kindof player he is, i dont hear anyone complainin when Fabregay doesnt tackle :wink: He's a passer of the ball, something creative.

I even heard WM say he headed the ball yesterday :shock: is this true?

:D

[Duke]

Sonner as come in for a lot of strick on here , from what I've seen of him its unfair. at least its given Dobson a break. :roll:

Yeah but Dobson is cack :D

*legs it *

:D

[WFC_Rob]

I personally can't see what sonner did wrong yesterday, i thought he hade a quietly afective game,.

I have only seen the first two games of the season, Carlisle and Orient, but in those two games I thought he was superb, his passing is excellent, and he gets through a lot more work than he used to. Some people just have it in for him from the start

I haven't seen him have a bad game so far. Your last sentence is spot on, unfortunately.

[gray]

I personally can't see what sonner did wrong yesterday, i thought he hade a quietly afective game,.

I thought he was really sloppy. His saving grace is that he doesnt seem to stop running and he puts in a lot of effort but sometimes his first touch is awful and leads him into having to make tackles just to keep possesion. His set pieces weren't that good either even though they have been good in the other games.

Overall I think we played better in the 2nd half and a draw probably would have been a fairer result but considering the group of 15 year old scallies were abusing us for the full 90 minutes I have no sympathy.

Also I want more songs from Godfrey in the future, I reckon Minnie The Moocher would sound amazing to other fans as they cant hear us copying him but here perfectly timeed random noises and One Step Beyond is becoming a song we are recognised for.

Overall a very good day out and an improving performance I reckon. Still a long way to go though lads.

[Geordiesaddler]

So what do we know?

1) Maybe things aren't as gloomy as some people would like to believe. Maybe this set of players aren't as bad as is being made out.

2) Youngsters getting an opportunity left right and centre. So much for DD not playing the kids.

3) Out of the three (that's only THREE) foreign signings this summer - one is scoring for the reserves, one is not very good but injured and one comes on to set up the winner today. Maybe STM shouldn't be told to F- off like he was a week or so ago on here.

4) Sheff rounds off a rather spectacular week by making his biggest faux pas of all!
*stifles a laugh while looks for those drugs that everyone was clearly on*

You baffle me you really do.

After 7 very poor performances people start [rightly] expressing worries, you [wrongly] tell them they're wrong, talking rubbish and everything is rosy.

One good result, and everything IS rosy? Do me a favour.

This is a good result, but it was against a struggling side with an under pressure manager. Good result, but it will be completely undone if we dont beat Oldham next week. Lets hope todays result isn't a flash in the pan. So far its 8 games, and 1 good result. To ensure we continue this feldgeling improvement we must improve our team, not pretend everything is rosy and ignore the problems.

Just read this tosh Phil, and sorry but I've got to rise to the bait before I depart to the pub to continue celebrating yesterday's superb victory.

1) After 7 very poor performances people start [rightly] expressing worries What 7 VERY POOR performances are you talking about, what utter nonsense. And no it didn't take that long for certain people to start expressing their "views" you just picked up where you left off last season which was virtual none-stop whinging about every aspect of the club.

2) This is a good result, but it was against a struggling side with an under pressure manager. So does that in some way devalue our achievement?? When we lose its because we're very poor, but when we win you have to dig up some churlish excuse, can't you just accept that we were better than the opposition and thoroughly deserved to win?

3)but it will be completely undone if we dont beat Oldham next week Will it really Phil? Sorry I must have missed this change in the rules, so let me get this right if we don't beat Oldham The Football League will deduct the 3 points we won yesterday???

Does this work both ways?????? Do we now get awarded the extra 2 points from the Vale game because we beat Millwall yesterday??

4) Can you please show me one post that seriously suggests that everything is rosey, or one where anyone with genuine concerns has been told to shut up "because everything's alright" because I don't remember any.

All the more reasoned and balanced posters have suggested is that this team deserves better support as they are giving their all whilst adjusting reasonabley well to a higher level of football. The support from the few that went yesterday was awesome, maybe it would be nice if more than 4,000 members of the Walsall public bother to turn up next week and show the same passion, belief, and vocal support that the few hundred did yesterday. We have some great young players who are learning their trade, and I believe a fantastic player in Sonko who is now finding his feet in English football, some patience and intelligence therefore wouldn't go amiss.

[Bernie]

I personally can't see what sonner did wrong yesterday, i thought he hade a quietly afective game,.

Since I was not there I cannot comment on what Sonner did yesterday, but I think that your comment could sum up why people disagree about midfielders.

Midfielders who are quietly effective impress some but frustrate others. I am of the opinion that midfielders have to be more than quietly effective. It is not enough to be neat and tidy when the ball happens to come your way - if you are not having much influence on the match. We have had midfielders over the years (who have impressed the self-described "connoisseurs" of football) who have looked OK when making their interventions and tidying up lose play - but who have neither created many opportunities for our forwards, nor been a big obstacle to the oppostion.

I have yet to make up my mind on Sonner this season. I don't think he has been much better or worse than the others I have seen him with in the middle of midfield - but I am sure that time will tell.