Wycombe v Stevenage.

[mowgli]

Never beaten them at Adams Park but never lost away either. We need an improvement in our home form after losing our last 2. We have 33 points from away games and 26 from home. Think we may win this though 2-1 with Westley being a prick afterwards as usual.

 

[Brox]

Would have taken a point before the game, would have taken a point when Beardsley was sent off but left the game feeling gutted not to get all three points. On reflection it's a decent result for us, we didn't particularly deserve to win and it's the sort of match we'd have lost earlier in the season.

I thought Deacon did well at left back and Parrett had a good game as well. On the flip side Beardsley was an idiot yesterday, picked up a needless yellow card and then (apparently) lashed out for the second card, luckily it didn't cost us yesterday, but it could have done.

 

[mowgli]

Pathetic dive for the injury time penalty and justice was done thanks to Matt Ingram's save. Seriously how can anyone enjoy watching Stevenage every week? Shirt pulling, off the ball kicks and leading with elbows those sort of tactics are killing football.

 

[Brox]

Kennedy was fouled by Mawson for the penalty, like he was being fouled on a consistent basis for the 20 minutes he was on the pitch, every time he tried to run beyond Mawson he was being fouled, it didn't look like a dive at the time and I've just seen a replay and it doesn't look like a dive on the highlights either.

Even if he had dived it'd be a bit rich of a Wycombe fan to pull him up on it after Ingam's behaviour in the Cambridge game earlier this season.

As for the gamesmanship, Wycombe are as bad as we are, the fact your fans are blind to it is bemusing, your lot were getting so het up about it, similar to Shrewsbury last year and they were as bad.

Did you not enjoy the game yesterday? I thought it was an entertaining game, lots of action, talking points with last minute drama thrown in for good measure, just a shame it wasn't us celebrating after the penalty.

 

[GrahamSFC]

This is going to be long-winded...

'Waaaaa Waaaa they dared to tackle us waaaa waaaa.'
Not exactly sure why Wycombe are getting so up in arms about Saturday... Wycombe themselves have a reputation of employing the 'dark arts' to get the win at all costs so it's very amusing to see their fans throwing their toys out the pram because they couldn't beat us. An example of this would be the antics of both Ingram and Jacobson (I think?) to put off our penalty taker, both stood right next to him as soon as he set the ball down and decided to give him an earful about something, totally unprofessional.

THE GAME:

0-25 Mins: Was convinced we'd get a tonking, Wycombe were first to ever single ball and Walton was doing his best impersonation of a blind man by gifting almost every pass to a Wycombe shirt, we should've really been 2-0 or 3-0 down tbh, Wycombe looked very good. (included our usual drinks break of course)

25-45 Mins: We grew into the game, the first goal came at a good time to swing the momentum in our favour and we looked very comfortable going into the half with a 2-1 lead, although I would say that was a little fortunate given how bad we started.

45-70 Mins: We started to sit deeper and deeper and only had a few rare forrays forward... the equaliser always looked like it was coming but we defended fairly well, Wycombe fans then decided that we weren't allowed to compete for the ball anymore and we should just let them stroll through on goal at every opportunity and that they would moan whenever two players made any kind of contact (for the record the foul count was 10 to 11 in their favour, hardly us 'fouling them at every opportunity really...?)

70-90(+5) Mins: Pressure started to tell, Wycombe got a fairly simple goal off a set peice that I still think Chris Day should've tried to come and claim, but noone could argue they probably deserved their equaliser. The goal was followed by a very very silly red card for Beardsley who decided to lash out after being initially fouled in my view, of course this sent Mr Ainsworth into some kind of possessed-state as he ran up and down the touchline flailing his arms around about how much of an 'injustice this was'. After this we were definitely under the cosh and I was biting my nails ever more at the threat of a Wycombe winner, but it never came, they seemed to just resort to 'hoof it and see' and against Dembele and Wells we dealt with it fairly comfortably.

90(+6): The penalty. Ben Kennedy had only been on the pitch for about 25 minutes but in that time there had been NUMEROUS occasions where Wycombe players had fouled him off the ball (one in particular where Mawson clearly gave him a bear hug from behind to stop him closing down a backpass), this then boiled over when he ran into the box and was fouled by Mawson once again and the penalty was awarded, leading to Kennedy to mock the Wycombe defender who lay inconsolible on the floor. At the time I thought it was stone wall and even now watching the highlights it still looks like a very clumsy block tackle, not sure how Wycombe can have any complaints? Just looking at the reaction of the Wycombe players tells you they thought it was definitely a penalty too. I knew as soon as the younger lads ran down the front we'd miss and unfortauntely it was a good save by Ingram, although in truth the penalty wasn't great.

So to conclude, a fairly even and well fought game between two sides near the top end of the table, I think the draw was probably about the right result but it was so dissapointing not to snatch it at the end, which in all truth wouldn't have been deserved given the balance of the game.

After the game:... A number of Wycombe fans decided to make their feelings known for our football club directly to the fans as we exited the away end, two 'lads' threated to beat me and my Dad up if we ever came back to Wycombe and numerous people abused us for our rugby-esque style of play, which I did find a little rich considering Wycombe's main play was to go long to Hayes or in behind for Onyadimna, the number of 'long-balls' played was probably even between the two-sides percentage wise, i'm not even sure where these people were coming from in all honesty, apparently teams aren't allowed to come to Wycombe and try and win the game now!