Colchester United v Luton Town

[Maple Hatter]

Here we go the key Easter weekend and a tough fixture to start with, at least based on how poorly we have performed at this ground. That said we should be going into this with some confidence after our last game. Would have nothing against NJ keeping the same line up which means Shea, JJ and McCormack keeping their places. Cornick back after his illness is a big plus and gives us options with his pace especially later on in the game when legs tire. Don't know what to make of Colchester this season. Were tipped by many to be chasing the promotion spots but they look as if they might miss out on the play offs. They were a little disappointing at ours but we were on song so perhaps can't read to much into it. I've no doubt they'll give us a decent game but I'm hoping our team will be more motivated with whats at stake. We are being backed by a sell out away end today so lets hope they do their job by chearing on the lads to a win. I've predicted a narrow victory but a draw wouldn't be the end of the world providing we beat Mansfield on Monday.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Really hoping that that with the win last week, albeit against bottom of the league, we go on and finish the season with a good run. That means we have to start winning again away from home.

This game last season was possibly the worst I have seen us under Jones, certainly that first half we were absolutely dire.

Not sure I’d change too much from last week, you do wonder if McCormack will last 2 games in this period so we may have to pick one for him to play though.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Easter weekend is upon us and this is where leagues and promotions are won.

Colchester's season is already over; they're not going to overturn a 10 point deficit in the last 7 games, unless they win all seven. And even then it'll be a tight squeeze with 7th place likely to be a far higher points total than previous years.

As for us, if we beat Colchester and Mansfield this weekend, we are virtually there. We'd get to the 80 point mark and from there we'd only need 3 points from the remaining 5 games to pretty much guarantee automatic promotion. Still a lot to do before then though and frankly I'd be delighted to get 4 points from those two games.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Today's match will be officiated by Mr Trevor of Kettle for about the thousandth time in the last two seasons.

Tobefairlike, he's actually not been too bad recently.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

That just means he’s due a bad one!

 

[BelizeHatter]

Last week I thought we needed a win. This week I think we need a performance

 

[BelizeHatter]

Not a good start. MoM last week and welcomed back at long last with a super display and doesn't even make squad

 

[BelizeHatter]

Omg.Poor Luke Berry. One of the worst broken legs I've seen. Fuck that looks brutal. Caught his ankle in the turf and almost looked like his foot was backwards on his leg.

 

[BelizeHatter]

Let in yet another shit goal early on. Four defenders around him and a free header from secondary play after a corner. Ffs.

 

[Judge Dredd]

The players are completely heads gone, and it's hard to blame them. That leg break is the worst I've seen, absolutely sickening. You could see on the faces that the players were absolutely shell-shocked. Looked like Sheehan was crying while him and Cuthbert stayed on the pitch to talk to Berry as he got treatment.

Would be surprised if we don't get a real hiding here now, mentally we are in bits.

 

[BelizeHatter]

Heads gone? The same fucking errors week in week out so is it the leg break. We all know it could/would happen anyway as it does all he fucking time. Man nobody continually shoots themselves in the foot like Luton Town

 

[BelizeHatter]

 

[BelizeHatter]

Another free header from a set piece. Gonna get battered

 

[shoddycollins]

Commentator on BBCRC just commented on hearing the latest score from Colchester that he thinks Nathan Jones looked like he'd lost his cool following the Barnet match. Could this be a Keegan moment?

 

[oakroader]

Michelle keegan could do better managing the best out of this team...

 

[mowgli]

Michelle keegan could do better managing the best out of this team...

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Some mitigating circumstances with Berry but that’s dreadful from us. We weren’t looking too good before the leg break to be honest either.

Just not dealing with basic balls into the box, criminal defending. Jones hasn’t set us up in midfield very well and he needs to get Shinnie off, he’s a passenger in games like this.

Having said that, the players are clearly very shook up. Feel so much for berry, it looked terrible.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Heads gone? The same fucking errors week in week out so is it the leg break. We all know it could/would happen anyway as it does all he fucking time. Man nobody continually shoots themselves in the foot like Luton Town

Don’t want to be all woe is me, but the amount of stuff that’s gone wrong for us in the past few months has been ridiculous. Refs giving penalties after we’ve scored goals, silly red cards, teams scoring worldies against us, goalkeeper errors, blatant penalties not being given in our favour and now one of our best players having his leg snapped so it’s unrecognisable!

Whatever luck we had going our way in the early part of the season has totally left us.

 

[oakroader]

Your deflecting the blame away from the root cause.....it’s not the bad luck
Abject management ...,

 

[Vanni]

Yep, similar to Hurst's mismanagement of Grimsby's very decent squad back in the Conference years.

While I usually tend to agree with TFCH's views, this time I think he's wrong. All football sides* suffer from the stuff he's taking about - injuries, bad refereeing decsions, etc.

*bar cheating Accy.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

Your deflecting the blame away from the root cause.....it’s not the bad luck
Abject management ...,

Agreed to an extent, some of those things could have been mitigated by Jones. They have clearly been playing with less freedom and more pressure of late and that I think Ian in part due to his intensity.

Some of the stuff though has really been out of his hands. The key Accrington game is totally different if their player is sent off and we are given a penalty as should have happened for instance.

 

[BelizeHatter]

But hat shit happens through a season and evens out. We've been shite for half a season. I'd be ok with that if we hadn't been so fucking good for the other half. That's an issue. I don't know what the problem is but it's more than bad luck

 

[BelizeHatter]

I do think the Jan transfer signings have messed with the rhythm. Maybe there's some squad disunity or cliques. Hard to see from the outside. Not battling for each other like before.

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

But hat shit happens through a season and evens out. We've been shite for half a season. I'd be ok with that if we hadn't been so fucking good for the other half. That's an issue. I don't know what the problem is but it's more than bad luck

Not saying it’s the only thing, but even we were playing well we’d be up against it. Jones does shoulder some responsibility, whatever he has done to set them up for this second part of the season/run in hasn’t worked. They are lasting with pressure and can’t handle it and that is on him.

It’s clear to me as we have built a team not capable of grinding out results at key times and incapable of playing in anything other than perfect conditions.

 

[oakroader]

When your THAT good and top of the table pissing the league the plaudits are well deserved.,
When it goes tits-up and the wheels start to come off then your credentials are scrutinised....
He won’t be with us next season whatever happens...

 

[BelizeHatter]

I wouldn't go that far. There's issues but he's still the man for the job for me. He's just gotta learn and resolve the issues

 

[oakroader]

Disagree BH....
Forget the 1st half of the season....
You could’ve achieved similar results....
The 2nd half of this season when the above mentioned bad luck etc has been used as an excuse for his inability to be proactive than reactive

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

2nd half we did better but they had a 2 goal lead so obviously sat back. Overall we didn’t deal with the injury break very well, didn’t deal with balls in the box and didn’t deal with the conditions until much too late in the day. Justin in particular I thought was dreadful and didn’t at any point deal with the conditions.

Dreadful day all around with Berry’s injury. Been such an important player this season and now we have lost him for a long long time I’m assuming. One of those where you wonder if they’ll ever be the same again. Such a shame

 

[oakroader]

Putting the discord aside.....
Best wishes to Luke berry positive thoughts from us all ...

 

[Kenneth E End]

Great 1-0 win Luton...


... I got stuck in the A12 traffic for the first 30 minutes.