Saturday 22nd January

[FGR Stroud]

SkyBet odds

 

[Deepcut Cobbler]

My first visit to Sutton this week as part of a 500 'sell out', what am I/we to expect??

 

[BarraMatt]

Mansfield are on a roll, would take a point here, would be another ticked off in the journey to 45.

 

[Fedora Dale]

The Mediocre-and-Frantically-Recruiting Derby at the Crown Oil Arena, with our old friends from Bradford visiting.

Legendary player for both clubs, Gary Jones, is the guest of honour and will be joining fans (those of both clubs, hopefully) in the posh dining bit for a pre-match feast. Unless either club decide he would be a useful signing to bolster their midfield...

 

[denzel ecfc]

Matt Taylor Derby Part 2.
Stopped the rot with last weeks win, but Walsall will be a tougher prospect than Scunthorpe.
Still don't think we will have Nombe or Hartridge available, so looks like sticking with Zanzala up front.
Should be a good following from Devon, hope they will be witnessing a win. Maybe 2-1.

 

[denzel ecfc]

My first visit to Sutton this week as part of a 500 'sell out', what am I/we to expect??

To be squashed in. Get to the front if you want a view.

 

[FGR Stroud]

Gosh, the fixtures have thrown FGR a curved ball.
Three consecutive games against teams at top of Form Table.
Okay last night's game against Mansfield [1st] was abandoned, but on Saturday FGR [3rd] play Carlisle [4th] and next Saturday they play Tranmere [2nd].

 

[The Terminator]

My god we might actually be able to play a game for the first time in 5/6 weeks, if it wasn't for the cup game at Stoke last week I'd have forgotten what watching my own team play feels like.

We've now played the fewest games in the league, slipped to 13th in the table and now have 5 games in hand

Unless we can string 3, 4 or 5 wins together in the cluster of games which are coming, our season will likely now be a write off. We have a talented young group of players, but have very, very little in terms of experience/strength in depth which is partly the reason why away from home we cannot keep hold of narrow leads and get cleans sheets. In particular we have heavily relied on Harry Smith and Aaron Drinan for goals, unless we sign another proven striker we will have very little in terms of players who can make an impact off the bench. Tyrese Omotoye was moved on and Ruel Sotiriou who is out of contract in the summer is simply not consistent enough.

Having a young squad is part of the owners blue print though, so have to take a season like this where they end up having to learn.

On the plus side I am now on 90/92 with only Wimbledon and Bolton left for me to do.

 

[valefan16]

My god we might actually be able to play a game for the first time in 5/6 weeks, if it wasn't for the cup game at Stoke last week I'd have forgotten what watching my own team play feels like.

We've now played the fewest games in the league, slipped to 13th in the table and now have 5 games in hand

Unless we can string 3, 4 or 5 wins together in the cluster of games which are coming, our season will likely now be a write off. We have a talented young group of players, but have very, very little in terms of experience/strength in depth which is partly the reason why away from home we cannot keep hold of narrow leads and get cleans sheets. In particular we have heavily relied on Harry Smith and Aaron Drinan for goals, unless we sign another proven striker we will have very little in terms of players who can make an impact off the bench. Tyrese Omotoye was moved on and Ruel Sotiriou who is out of contract in the summer is simply not consistent enough.

Having a young squad is part of the owners blue print though, so have to take a season like this where they end up having to learn.

On the plus side I am now on 90/92 with only Wimbledon and Bolton left for me to do.

Dont get too excited! We couldn't name a full bench yesterday and picked up a couple of more injuries last night so the odd case or two and we might call it off!

 

[The Terminator]

Dont get too excited! We couldn't name a full bench yesterday and picked up a couple of more injuries last night so the odd case or two and we might call it off!

Indeed, this has been mentioned all week by our fans on the various social media platforms and groups!!

 

[Bottega Don]

Another game in which I imagine we will be outclassed by the opponent.

We just can't compete with anyone in this division due to our complete lack of quality. Only chance we have is if Newport just don't fancy it and we outbattle them.

We have never beaten this iteration of Newport, drawing 3 and losing 4 against them. I can't see that changing this weekend.

 

[hellogregory]

Forest Green some amount Carlisle United nil

 

[F!RTHY]

Rochdale (a)

2 wins in 3, a decent January window thus far, and all of a sudden I’m looking forward to football on Saturday‘s again. Easily pleased or just fickle - I’ll let you decide.

Anyway, this is a great opportunity against a side we’ve already beaten this season to move a step closer to the play-offs.

For me, Matty Daly has to start. Taking nothing away from Levi Sutton (who actually may slot in at RB), he works his bollocks off for the team, but a distinct lack of goals from midfield has been the main talking point all season. It’ll be interesting to see if Pereira gets the nod over Gilliead.

GK: Sam Hornby

RB: Finn Cousin-Dawson
CB: Paudie O’Connor
CB: Niall Canavan
LB: Liam Ridehalgh

CM: Elliott Watt
CM: Matty Daly

RW: Dion Pereira/Alex Gilliead
CAM: Jamie Walker
LW: Charles Vernam/Lee Angol

CF: Andy Cook

Tough game, but I’ll edge towards a narrow City win.

2,300 sold as of this morning, so I expect the 2,650 allocation to sell within the next 24 hours. Whether Dale are able to allocate more/allow POTD is yet to be confirmed. Decent following nonetheless.

 

[JaredSUFC]

My first visit to Sutton this week as part of a 500 'sell out', what am I/we to expect??

It’s fair to say Gander Green Lane retains many non-league qualities. It’s not a big terrace, and remarkably like all full terraces the view isn’t always the best unfortunately. Hopefully one of the non-league qualities we’ve retained is the friendliness of the welcome.

Can’t believe this is a game between 3rd and 4th. Even with our exceptional home form, I can’t predict a score.

 

[LS Bantam]

Rochdale (a)

2 wins in 3, a decent January window thus far, and all of a sudden I’m looking forward to football on Saturday‘s again. Easily pleased or just fickle - I’ll let you decide.

Anyway, this is a great opportunity against a side we’ve already beaten this season to move a step closer to the play-offs.

For me, Matty Daly has to start. Taking nothing away from Levi Sutton (who actually may slot in at RB), he works his bollocks off for the team, but a distinct lack of goals from midfield has been the main talking point all season. It’ll be interesting to see if Pereira gets the nod over Gilliead.

GK: Sam Hornby

RB: Finn Cousin-Dawson
CB: Paudie O’Connor
CB: Niall Canavan
LB: Liam Ridehalgh

CM: Elliott Watt
CM: Matty Daly

RW: Dion Pereira/Alex Gilliead
CAM: Jamie Walker
LW: Charles Vernam/Lee Angol

CF: Andy Cook

Tough game, but I’ll edge towards a narrow City win.

2,300 sold as of this morning, so I expect the 2,650 allocation to sell within the next 24 hours. Whether Dale are able to allocate more/allow POTD is yet to be confirmed. Decent following nonetheless.

There’s no way Pereira walks straight into the side, I do though agree with Sutton starting as right back and Daly going straight in. Reasonably confident of a win if Andy Cook is fit to start, us winning seems to depend entirely on whether he’s on the pitch or not.

 

[F!RTHY]

There’s no way Pereira walks straight into the side, I do though agree with Sutton starting as right back and Daly going straight in. Reasonably confident of a win if Andy Cook is fit to start, us winning seems to depend entirely on whether he’s on the pitch or not.

Why not, Jamie Walker did!
Gilliead is our weakest offensive winger.

 

[kieran_vale]

Will be heading to Brisbane Road on Saturday, looking forward to it.

Orient are clearly a very good team and we'll have our work cut out to get anything as they seem to be particularly strong at home. Watched their game against Stoke and was impressed with them even if their finishing was rather wayward. Although we are on a bit of a losing run right now we were very unlucky last night and if that game was played ten times we'd have won nine of them.

Just need to grind it out and find a way to get something. It starts with cutting out these brain-fades we keep on having at inopportune times. Hopefully Connor Hall is ok for this one and we've got Dan Jones available again. Really don't want to see Smith and Martin in the same backline. Neither are good enough with the ball to operate the way we like to play. Have one or the other of them as a head it and kick merchant but not both.

 

[Bone Idle]

Another game in which I imagine we will be outclassed by the opponent.

We just can't compete with anyone in this division due to our complete lack of quality. Only chance we have is if Newport just don't fancy it and we outbattle them.

We have never beaten this iteration of Newport, drawing 3 and losing 4 against them. I can't see that changing this weekend.

Looking forward to coming up to you this weekend, we will be bringing well over 1,000 who have taken up the offer of free transport for this so we are well disapointed that scunthorpe have only sent us 300 tickets at £18 a pop, but not to worry we have been informed we can buy tickets on the day for £25 a pop, which is a bit of a piss take.

 

[Bottega Don]

Looking forward to coming up to you this weekend, we will be bringing well over 1,000 who have taken up the offer of free transport for this so we are well disapointed that scunthorpe have only sent us 300 tickets at £18 a pop, but not to worry we have been informed we can buy tickets on the day for £25 a pop, which is a bit of a piss take.

Had no idea you were bringing that many, great numbers that.

The club is a shambles from top to bottom and the prices are ridiculous, 25 quid to watch the second lowest team in the FL is mental.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Probably won't browse the site again until next week, not sure I can take HelloGregory's relentless bullishness in the run-up just because they've hit a bit of form.

 

[BogDaddyO]

Gonna go rogue here and product a rare P-P for the Orient...

Can we just call the season off now please? Thanks.

 

[Cas]

Renewed optimism, decent January additions, 3,000 away following at Rochdale.

Probably lose 4-0 or something. Typical City.

 

[Randolph Haggerty]

Think it’ll get worse before it gets better, orient look a decent team, our confidence must be really low, can’t remember us ever winning there.

 

[Bottega Don]

It's becoming a yearly tradition for Port Vale to have a good summer and start well, have loads of their fans flood here, then they struggle and those fans start to post less. They then pick form back up towards the end of the season causing the optimism to return for the next year and the cycle begins.

 

[valefan16]

It's becoming a yearly tradition for Port Vale to have a good summer and start well, have loads of their fans flood here, then they struggle and those fans start to post less. They then pick form back up towards the end of the season causing the optimism to return for the next year and the cycle begins.

For donkeys we’ve always had a shit spell mid season, even in the promotion season in 2012/13 we had a spell of 1 win in 8!.

Never remember us having hot form in January ever.

Squad is good enough but injuries seem to be hitting again added in too a weird mass turnover this month we seem very much back to the Vale of the opening month of the season looking in transition.

 

[Boz]

Crawley v Rovers, a game against another side in reasonable form. We ground out a Cup win here and after the way we set up after going 2 up at home last weekend, a similar approach may be on the cards. Would guess a similar line-up to the Rochdale game unless we've picked up any more covid cases or one or two haven't shaken off knocks.

A boost for our chances of taking something from this one in that I'm now unable to go and extend my winless run at away games. Thinking at least a draw.

 

[Devon_Lad]

About 30 tickets left of the 500 we have been given, so a strong following from Devon, with probably 100-150 sold on the day as well. I've only been to Walsall once but saw us win, which looking at our head to head, was quite unordinary as our record there has been woeful, a bit of bogey team when we play there. Although I'm seeing a win, and a 3-1 win at that. UTC

 

[MadJohn]

While we will still start favourites against Stevenage on Saturday, I'm apprehensive to say the least. They're in better form than us, and they 've used the transfer window to add significant EFL experience to their squad, while we've reduced the squad numbers by 7 or 8 but only brought in a young defender on loan and a journeyman striker who's spent most of the last 5 or 6 years playing National League North. Our once peerless home record has also taken a wobble (19-2-1 in Challinor's last 22 league games but 1-2-2 since he left, including goalless draws against the bottom two). Not confident at all but a win would be very very welcome.

We are in danger of squandering this transfer window. Our chief exec is asking for patience and saying we should judge he club's performance at the end of the window. That's reasonable up to a point, but the January fixtures looked generous, an opportunity to collect points and ease worries, and we appointed a head of recruitment to much fanfare seven weeks ago. Time for him to earn his coin.

 

[shoddycollins]

See Dale Vince hasn't followed through on his threat to make the Carlisle directors adhere to his jeans and trainers dress code. Shame, I'd have paid money to see Nixon rocking double-denim, ah well. Maybe we can convince Jenkins to turn up wearing a fairtrade bamboo sarong anyway.

 

[Chief Rocka]

While we will still start favourites against Stevenage on Saturday, I'm apprehensive to say the least. They're in better form than us, and they 've used the transfer window to add significant EFL experience to their squad, while we've reduced the squad numbers by 7 or 8 but only brought in a young defender on loan and a journeyman striker who's spent most of the last 5 or 6 years playing National League North. Our once peerless home record has also taken a wobble (19-2-1 in Challinor's last 22 league games but 1-2-2 since he left, including goalless draws against the bottom two). Not confident at all but a win would be very very welcome.

We are in danger of squandering this transfer window. Our chief exec is asking for patience and saying we should judge he club's performance at the end of the window. That's reasonable up to a point, but the January fixtures looked generous, an opportunity to collect points and ease worries, and we appointed a head of recruitment to much fanfare seven weeks ago. Time for him to earn his coin.

Was that from Hobin?

What happened to getting our business done early, suppose if Carver and Hull are it then brief fulfilled!