Old V New. Colchester V Crawley

[Casey]

The powers that be decided Valentine's day was a good day to have a football match. I can go if I don't mind my testicles being displayed on the mantle piece!..... I will be listening in (on the quite).

Not sure if McNerney will recover from a "slight" hamstring problem from Saturday where we had to change the team in the warm up but Yorwerth is back from suspension so we do have two centre half's for this game unlike Saturday when our full back did OK but Hylton was left completely unmarked on the back post for the winning goal.

Our away form is atrocious. Our ability to hold a lead is atrocious. Our current form is, you guessed it, atrocious. Meanwhile Colchester have won their last five home league games.

Crawley win anyone?
Casey

 

[dedwardp]

Not really sure what to make of this one, we have far too many injuries plaguing us at the moment.

We've got five centre halves out injured (Frankie Kent, Tom Eastman, Luke Prosser, Lloyd Doyley and Jermaine Grandison) which, when we've been playing with three in the team, leaves us short. We've also got four central midfielders missing (Szmodics, Loft, Murray, O'Sullivan), with Garvan and Slater both carrying injuries during Saturday's game. Those two are so important to us, no idea if they're fit enough for tonight really. We also seem to have Richard Brindley, Lewis Kinsella, Drey Wright and Chris Porter all out with injuries too.

Scratching around for a team really, and with few options to change things up when the players look like they're running on empty with 20 minutes to go. Managed to battle through it on Saturday and nick all three points, despite two centre halves going off inside the opening quarter of an hour, but not sure about tonight.

Would like to think we'll pick up another win but half expecting to drop points really.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Not really sure what to make of this one, we have far too many injuries plaguing us at the moment.

We've got five centre halves out injured (Frankie Kent, Tom Eastman, Luke Prosser, Lloyd Doyley and Jermaine Grandison) which, when we've been playing with three in the team, leaves us short. We've also got four central midfielders missing (Szmodics, Loft, Murray, O'Sullivan), with Garvan and Slater both carrying injuries during Saturday's game. Those two are so important to us, no idea if they're fit enough for tonight really. We also seem to have Richard Brindley, Lewis Kinsella, Drey Wright and Chris Porter all out with injuries too.

Scratching around for a team really, and with few options to change things up when the players look like they're running on empty with 20 minutes to go. Managed to battle through it on Saturday and nick all three points, despite two centre halves going off inside the opening quarter of an hour, but not sure about tonight.

Would like to think we'll pick up another win but half expecting to drop points really.

This is exactly why I think the top ten-twelve will change a lot over the next few weeks. Those lucky enough to avoid injuries to key people or have a big enough squad to manage will probably shoot up the table.

Obviously only seen you both once, I think we were a bit more comfortable against Crawley, I remember Colchester being a bit stronger in defence. So I'll go Crawley win on no basis whatsoever.

 

[dedwardp]

First 20-25 minutes or so we looked the most comfortable we have all season I thought. The entire game had been played in the Crawley half, we looked calm and composed in possession and went 1-0 up. Their equaliser came totally out of the blue from a rare foray past the centre circle and it completely threw us as we were awful after that.

We had a lot of the ball all game but never looked like we had any ideas about what to do with it. Lots of long balls up to Guthrie who never won a single header all evening and even though Crawley offered absolutely sod all it never felt like we were going to score a second.

I think my fears about the injuries were justified to be honest, we were very disjointed and it looked like half a reserve team out there. Three attacks for Crawley led to three goals and it was a pretty miserable evening really.

 

[Casey]

Jimmy Smith scores a hat-trick! Is there an emoji for gobsmacked? He had a few chances against Luton and managed to miss the lot so I guess he was due some. Seems it was two years to the day the last time a Crawley player scored one, no I haven't checked but that's what I'm told. Izale McCleod v Barnsley in case anyone's interested.

Four points from 3 tough away games, Blackpool, Luton and Colchester. We have to be happy with that but now we will go and muck it up against Morecambe on Saturday.

Casey