Stevenage Thread (part two)

What silly postings Lindsay Ormerod, not even interested as to why you weren't at the match. As others have said, the off the ball thuggery was ridiculous, you had to be there - they are an absolute disgrace & so were the officials! Agree, we were posibly guilty of being naive and even John Coleman said they had done a number on us - lets hope they get hammered in the final.
 
Couldn't get there tonight as working, but feel gutted for the whole team at the crown. That said, I also feel immensley proud of the team for the way they managed to get into the play offs, we were after all expected to be further down the league at the start of the season lol.

This summer could be an interesting and possibly trying one for us fans, will the dynamic duo still be with us........I hope so, but you never know.

No matter what tho, thanks to the generosity of the town, fellow football supporters and two very special gentlemen one thing is for sure, we will be back next season!

Thanks asfc for a tremendous effort, its been fun!
 
Of course if we had won the play offs we would not have had renewing our rivalries with Steve Evans to look forward to - or at least it would have been deferred for another season.:):):)

And Wimbledon could be in the League with us.
 
Well we can talk about poor officials all day long.

But the fact of the matter is we where beaten by a better side over the 2 games.

The pitch yet again was an absolute disgrace as was Mark Roberts in getting Mcconville sent off. I really do detest that man.

We Will Be Back.
 
Westley's post match comment looks innocent enough, but hides a cynicism about their play such as I have never before witnessed on a football field.
" It was important not to let them allow their game to develop."

They suckered Stanley into losing their heads trying to fight fire with fire, but I don't want our players "to learn from that" as he suggests. I am stuck between hoping Torquay give them a stuffing, but at the same time never wanting to be subjected to their ugly ploys again. Wonderful support from the Stanley faithful last night, especially at the end, which I thought was quite moving, but then I'm a sentimental old get. I am grateful for an astonishing season with some wonderful performances, but I have a nagging feeling that, if Coley had fully used the squad he is always going on about, we would easily have been in the automatic play-off positions.
 
Agree with most of the posts,and stevenages game plan worked home and away.The key was the second balls,and again they won that battle.
But whats happened to the pitch?,they have had 3 weeks at least to prepare it,and the sight of a wheelbarrow filling up holes with topsoil takes the biscuit.
Talk about playing into there hands,unbelievable!!!.
Someone must be accountable for it,thats all the neutrals talked about.
Its impossible to play fast one and two touch footie in the middle,even Barca would struggle,so how was we going to beat them?,no wonder Coleman seemed deep in thought all the time,he must have been so frustrated.
 
An excerpt from an article by Paul Fletcher on the BBC site:

Back in March the Football League wrote to Stevenage asking them for their response to suggestions that players were systematically feigning injury during games so that Westley could use the stoppages to relay tactical information to his team and provide them with fluids to refuel.

"The Football League asked the club to be mindful of certain aspects of the spirit of the game," said Westley in March. "There's no specific criticism in there."

Here's the link: BBC - Paul Fletcher: Westley steering Stevenage to new heights
 
Definitely noticing a difference in reaction from those who were at the game (including neutral journos) and those who watched it on Sky.
 
football19 said:
But whats happened to the pitch?,they have had 3 weeks at least to prepare it,and the sight of a wheelbarrow filling up holes with topsoil takes the biscuit.
Click to expand...


Not sure how many games have been played on it in that time but it has been used for local cup-finals.
 
We were better than Sunday but allowed Stevenage as others have said to dictate the pattern of play again last night.

I expected a big change of game plan last night but it never materialised with play being broke up or injurys being feigned on both sides putting paid to that.

We literally fell down our own trap of focussing more on what they had done rather than what we were capable of doing and then falling hook, line & sinker for it all again.

As daft as it was it seemed we created more when we went down to nine men than when we played with eleven?

It has been a wonderful journey this season with great football along the way but for it to end as it did is a hard pill to swallow.
 
Over the two legs I think we failed in two key aspects. Firstly, our tactics. In the first leg we allowed Stevenage to isolate our key attacking players and give us no options through their high pressing. We should've been quicker on the ball and better in our movement off it. In the second leg we were too reliant on the hope that Terry could somehow outjump/outmuscle two goliath centre-halves and singlehandedly provide a second phase that our midfield could capitalise on. It didn't work. Obviously, the pitch halted our normal passing game, but we should've adapted and exploited the channels that Stevenage dominated in both legs. Granted, Coley tried to bring some width to our game in the likes of Chris Turner but it was too little too late (well done to Chris though, he did well with what he was given).

Secondly, our mentality was not strong. Perhaps it's down to the average age of the starting eleven being so young (apart from Grandad Hess), but we allowed Stevenage's bullying tactics to diminish our will to fight on. Stevenage had very, very simple tactics but were 100% concentrated on them over 180 minutes. We on the other hand often looked clueless. I do think that resting the majority of the first team at Burton was a massive mistake and only made the players lose their winning mentality by giving them more time off the pitch to get overwhelmed by the prospect of the play-offs.

Our weaknesses were exploited well and we got what we deserved out of the two legs: Nowt.
 
"On the evidence of what I saw on Friday, Accrington should not be too disheartened because they have a lot going for them. The Crown Ground was awash with red and white flags and Stanley's fans deserve great credit for the effort they put in to making the ground as colourful and atmospheric as possible. I thought there was an intimacy about watching a game there that you rarely experience. Many of the players were on first-name terms with the fans and the local community appears to be at the very heart of the club."
 
It was always going to be an uphill battle but the same "key" players that let the team down in the first leg did the same in the second. Especially McConville who with his sending off put the game to rest. Fair enough Jacobsen (who had played very well IMHO) was red carded for a bad challenge but the latter card was avoidable. Pat on the back for all the others on the pitch they battled to the end and kept the score respectable. Coley's body language wasnt good from the off and he looked like a man with a lot on his mind. Big question now who should stay and who should go. Lets hope next season brings as many highs as this one. Play offs were just that bridge too far but would settle for the same next season.
 
Stevenage deserved to go through as they were the better team over the 2 games. We couldn't cope with the physical element of the game and this is a weakness we need to address if we are to push on for next season. They were first to every ball and every header and this helped them to implement their game plan. Stevenage had done their homework and knew they couldn't let us have time on the ball, so they hurried us in possession and forced us to resort to long ball tactics which meant Gornell wouldn't get a sniff. Our full backs were also pegged back to stop the link up play between the wide players.

When you look back over both games we only really created 2 clear chances which just shows how well Stevenage stuck to their tasks both individually and as a team. Charles would be sort the of player we need in our squad to help give us a Plan B, which is so lacking at the minute. I can only hope that JC will learn from this and bring in some "physical" players that can help to boss a game so to speak. I think Chris seemed to offer a bit more to the game in 30 minutes than Craney did for the 140 minutes in the two legs. Ian didn't seem fit and wasn't ever really in the game, he shouldn't have played in the second leg in my opinion. I also don't understand why we didn't play Kevin Long who at least has some height that would have helped us to deal with all the set pieces and stop Charles bossing the game for them.

We can blame the referee and the Stevenage antics but at the end of the day we just weren't good enough. That said 5th place was a brilliant achievement, its just a bit disappointing that we didn't make the most of this great opportunity. We need to keep the majority of this team together with JC and JB and we may just have a chance of maintaining the high standards that have been set this season.
 
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