Friday Night Football - 29/12

[Valeite]

How handy for Stevenage to have a rest before a big game against Pompey on Monday, against a localish team as well so no great expenses to refund, how fortunate.

 

[Floreat Salopia]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1740868986198454539

Those stats are almost unbelievable for any team. 14 goals in 25 games… Matt Taylor will be out of a job by February. For any of you betting people on here, NEVER put Salop on a BTTS accumulator.

Salop chants from the away end last night were:-
“Your football is shit, your football is shit… Matt Taylor, your football is shit”

“Fuck off Taylor, Fuck off Taylor”

“Sacked in the morning, you’re getting sacked in the morning”

“Steve Cotterill’s barmy army”

Taylor blaming players in his post match interview is not something we’re used to. The end is near. Pressure is getting to the clubs hierarchy. Never seen our fanbase be so toxic in my lifetime. Rightfully so though it must be said!

 

[K-Win]

We were really poor tonight and it looks like the wheels are coming off. We look like a far cry from the team that beat Bolton so convincingly and took the piss out of Northampton at the start of the month.

January gives us a chance to freshen up the squad a bit, but we might well have lost our grip on top spot since then. I'm getting PTSD flashbacks from 2018/2019...

In October I told the old "Pompey usually come down with the Christmas decorations" joke to non-Pompey family members, and this is now coming back to haunt me.

I'm very pessimistic now about the New Years Day game against Stevenage. Wouldn't put it past Evans to sabotage his own floodlights to give his team a nice rest before coming to Fratton. One for the conspiracy theorists there.

The transfer window has come at a good time for us though. Our sporting director has orchestrated two successful windows so far - let's see how ambitious the club is by backing some strong recruitment to alleviate the growing injury list. Edmundson from Ipswich would be a good start.

 

[Si Robin]

Not just Evans, but Stevenage as a whole.

Back in the late 90s we played them in an FA Trophy replay and it snowed in the first half, we were winning and the ref had to take the players off the pitch. After a bit it had stopped and he said if the lines could be swept then the game could restart. Amazingly, Stevenage had no brooms in the entire stadium so the game was abandoned and we had to replay the game from the start.

 

[denzel ecfc]

I'm no great fan of Stevenage or Evans, but to suggest that they deliberately abandoned a game in front of a big crowd when there was a power cut in other parts of the town is a bit much.

 

[kieran_vale]

I'm working on the premise that these performances show we're plenty good enough to get out of it. Best not to focus on those two mins, but on the other 95 mins where we were easily the better team. Even some of the dross from early on in the season are starting to look like decent players now (hello Oli Hammond).

That first 45 was outstanding and I honestly think we're a match for any team in the league at the moment.

That being said, I've predicted a defeat against Northampton on Monday.

Pleased to see DC has rediscovered his mojo as a manager. He’s brilliant at developing a togetherness among a squad and having them play as a unit. In hindsight leaving us to have that break from the game was the best thing that could have happened for him as sad as it was.

 

[denzel ecfc]

"Goals per match (0.6) - 23rd"
I wonder who is 24th.....

 

[SVH]

I'm no great fan of Stevenage or Evans, but to suggest that they deliberately abandoned a game in front of a big crowd when there was a power cut in other parts of the town is a bit much.

UK power network didn’t say anything about power cuts in Stevenage last night though. I assume you’ve just gone off the made up twitter comments from the football club.

 

[Luke Imp]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1740868986198454539

Those stats are almost unbelievable for any team. 14 goals in 25 games… Matt Taylor will be out of a job by February. For any of you betting people on here, NEVER put Salop on a BTTS accumulator.

Salop chants from the away end last night were:-
“Your football is shit, your football is shit… Matt Taylor, your football is shit”

“Fuck off Taylor, Fuck off Taylor”

“Sacked in the morning, you’re getting sacked in the morning”

“Steve Cotterill’s barmy army”

Taylor blaming players in his post match interview is not something we’re used to. The end is near. Pressure is getting to the clubs hierarchy. Never seen our fanbase be so toxic in my lifetime. Rightfully so though it must be said!

Very similar stats to when we sacked Kennedy (can't imagine we're much better off now tbf!).

 

[coronakopite]

I'm no great fan of Stevenage or Evans, but to suggest that they deliberately abandoned a game in front of a big crowd when there was a power cut in other parts of the town is a bit much.

Yeah. But there weren't power cuts in other parts of the town

In fact parts of the stadium had power (in addition to the emergency lighting) and there were no problems in the surrounding streets, shops and houses.

It might have been a 3 phase overload or just general overload from the new stand, screen (first time used) and electronic turnstiles blowing circuits - but we put it down to the power drain of the horrendous Xmas light shows on the nearby estate.

 

[denzel ecfc]

UK power network didn’t say anything about power cuts in Stevenage last night though. I assume you’ve just gone off the made up twitter comments from the football club.

So they made up the statement from them, then? This is some conspiracy theory. It will cost them tens of thousands in refunds and costs for another game

 

[Luke Imp]

Yep we’ve been there, start of the season our attacking change off the bench was 19 year old centre half Max Dyche who was sent up to win some headers.

Skubala doesn’t seem too popular from what I’ve seen?

Difficult to make any real judgement on him. Those who aren't a fan of him already probably expected him to come in with a magic sponge to make our attacking options reappear, conjure up some additional players and go gung-ho. The reality is we don't have the players and/or available players to really change much - the squad is built for a 5-2-3 and we don't have the '3'. Even changing to four at the back is risky because of the lack of pace in the backline and we don't have any real proper full backs.

Now, after Blackpool we have a couple of weeks off with the potential for Peterborough being off as well depending on how they do in the FA Cup. That far more training time in January than he's been able to have because of Sat/Tues/Sat since he's been here. If at the end of January, or perhaps even by the Wycombe game in two weeks, there there aren't players in, a change in how we're playing etc then you could half understand it. Either way, we need to be showing far more than we are doing. At some point he is going to have to change something and start implementing his own ideas. It's not a bad squad we've got, they're underperforming, but the forward issues have had a knock-on effect throughout the side and completely derailed our season in early September.

To add insult to injury, we lost Erhahon to injury last night and O'Connor will be suspended so for Blackpool we'll be without six of our starting XI.

 

[Tom_CUFC]

So they made up the statement from them, then? This is some conspiracy theory. It will cost them tens of thousands in refunds and costs for another game

The statement is a lie, there was no local power outage. Nothing sinister about what happened, they've just built facilities that use more power than they have available to supply it. Believe this was the 4th time this year something like this has happened at their games (with this being the worst), it's just very tinpot.

 

[AmberAndy]

Uk power networks have just confirmed the problem was the customers (Stevenage) not anything to do with them. Stevenage supporters reporting there have been recurring issues for some time, as indeed there were against Pish recently. Utter tin pot club, surely facing an expense claim and sanctions from the EFL. The literny of problems we, and other clubs have had while visiting Broadhall Way just goes on and on.

 

[leedsvaliant]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1740868986198454539

Those stats are almost unbelievable for any team. 14 goals in 25 games… Matt Taylor will be out of a job by February. For any of you betting people on here, NEVER put Salop on a BTTS accumulator.

Salop chants from the away end last night were:-
“Your football is shit, your football is shit… Matt Taylor, your football is shit”

“Fuck off Taylor, Fuck off Taylor”

“Sacked in the morning, you’re getting sacked in the morning”

“Steve Cotterill’s barmy army”

Taylor blaming players in his post match interview is not something we’re used to. The end is near. Pressure is getting to the clubs hierarchy. Never seen our fanbase be so toxic in my lifetime. Rightfully so though it must be said!

I'm still incredulous that you beat us! Thought you were probably the worst team we played this season.

We had I think 14 corners to your 1 and 20 odd shots to your 9, plus 70 odd % possession.

We've had a few games like that, where all the stats suggest a 2 or 3-0 win, yet we've walked away with nothing. We've played shite in some games too but we've frustratingly probably dropped 12 to 15 points that we shouldn't have.

Ironically the stats weren't massively in our favour last night, yet we win comfortably 3-0. Football eh? I'll never understand it.

 

[leedsvaliant]

Uk power networks have just confirmed the problem was the customers (Stevenage) not anything to do with them. Stevenage supporters reporting there have been recurring issues for some time, as indeed there were against Pish recently. Utter tin pot club, surely facing an expense claim and sanctions from the EFL. The literny of problems we, and other clubs have had while visiting Broadhall Way just goes on and on.

This is the issue you get when you have essentially a non league club who've had a few quid thrown at them. Their infrastructure, mentality, fanbase and whole setup is still very much non league and amateur, so as soon as they try to run before they can walk, things go wrong. They'll drop off back to non league again, just like your Forest Green's, Dagenham and Redbridge and Rushden and Diamonds of this world. It virtually always happens...Yeovil and Crawley also heading that way. It'll happen, they're just having a purple patch.

 

[Si Robin]

It should already have happened - they're only in the Football League because of Macclesfield being chucked out.

 

[SVH]

The only way to get them to sort it is to dock them points or give us the 3 points. Yes, give us the 3 points.

 

[denzel ecfc]

OK I will stop defending Stevenage then

 

[Pompeyblueboy]

How handy for Stevenage to have a rest before a big game against Pompey on Monday, against a localish team as well so no great expenses to refund, how fortunate.

What are you suggesting?

 

[Pompeyblueboy]

This is the issue you get when you have essentially a non league club who've had a few quid thrown at them. Their infrastructure, mentality, fanbase and whole setup is still very much non league and amateur, so as soon as they try to run before they can walk, things go wrong. They'll drop off back to non league again, just like your Forest Green's, Dagenham and Redbridge and Rushden and Diamonds of this world. It virtually always happens...Yeovil and Crawley also heading that way. It'll happen, they're just having a purple patch.

When will you be joining them?

 

[leedsvaliant]

When will you be joining them?

We've never been in non league and have spent the majority of our existence in this division and the one above. We're absolutely nothing like the teams I referred earlier.

 

[Valeite]

We've never been in non league and have spent the majority of our existence in this division and the one above. We're absolutely nothing like the teams I referred earlier.

It could happen though, don`t fall for the wind up.

 

[Valeite]

What are you suggesting?

Make your own mind up if you are capable.

 

[Super_horns]

It should already have happened - they're only in the Football League because of Macclesfield being chucked out.

Although tbf think Macclesfield did go bust soon after due to their troubles I think ?

 

[valefan16]

Although tbf think Macclesfield did go bust soon after due to their troubles I think ?

Was Macc and Bury so they only stayed up due to the most unlikely of events really.

Think they only had about 23 points when Covid ended the season so were miles adrift as well. Fair turnaround they’ve made.

 

[Pompeyblueboy]

Make your own mind up if you are capable.

I'm not capable so what do you mean?