Lewes 1
Sutton 0
Started off quite poorly against the league leaders. who really should of been 2 or 3 up before finally scoring after 25 minutes. The rest of the half was a bit more even, but in the 2nd half Sutton were a totally different team than the one we've seen since August (with the exception of Eastleigh away of course), and were desperatly unlucky not to score. Still at least it was a performance full of pride and passion, and i felt proud to be a Sutton United fan today.
Was at the game yesterday, so I can pretend to be neutral... well... sort of.
Lewes were a bunch of gutless mercenaries on balance.
They started in a professional vein, well-organised, confident, and went through the motions of the pat-game plan they'd been told to stick with.
And Sutton responded with... hit-and-hope.
1-0 Lewes.
I expected 2 or 3 more at least by Half-Time.
In the second half it was as if the chalk-boys were going through the motions until pay-cheque time.
By 75 minutes Sutton were matching them.
By 80 minutes they had all but the odd break in play.
By 85 minutes there was only one team in it, and it wasn't the 11 in the sensible shirts....
The away fans were quietly critical of your Warren, but I don't think he put a foot wrong. For goodness sake, just because he's CAPABLE of doing it, you can't expect him to beat 2 or 3 heavyweight defenders EVERY time, Shirley?
a) that's impossible, and b) you cannot rely on that as your only game plan....
I was mightily impressed by him. He may be selfish, but if you've got no one else begging for it, what else can you do but hog the ball?
Craig Watkins has great talent, but positioning and sheer nasty ruthlessness is something he should work on. I lost count of how many times Mr. McBean beat most of their defence, and had NO ONE in the middle to walk the ball into that everso tempting net...
Watkins is well worth holding onto with any means you can. Number 8 looked very tricky if he can get the confidence up.
I didn't see enough of your Midfield to form much of an opinion, but Blondey on the left looked lost at times, and relied totally on Warren to make the running up that side, when IMHO I think Warren ought to be a comparatively 'sedentary' target-man right in the middle...
And I think Warren was plain plum-tuckered by the end, (it was stinking hot on that suntrap side of the pitch), which probably explains why he couldn't be everywhere all the time.
This was most notable on the rare occasion you attacked from the right side - there was again no one there to fling a body at a ball.
(IMHO you should have used your wide-right more - he looked tricky, and he should have used the dazzling sunlight to ping more looping balls into the area to confuse their iffy Keeper. Sadly, most of the looping volleys came in from the left, and ended up in the Goalie's outstretched arms.)
Generally I think you share Salisbury's lack of ruthless finishing in front of goal, but I don't think much of the rest is 'broke'!!
I sure as hell didn't see the worst team in the Connie Sarf yesterday. Didn't see the best either, I suspect.....
Loved the game, though, especially the last 15 minutes when I genuinely believed
we you were going to nick one back.
Infinitely better fans from Sutton than the plastic rent-a-fans at the other end, certainly! ;D Never heard a peep from their main side stand all game. Miserable beggars...... Don't deserve to be top.
Courage, mes amis, if great fans like you can interact more with your players, (especially after a great performance/loss like that) and make them play for
you too, then I reckon there are plenty of other teams waiting to take your place in the Table.
The season's still young!
Along with regular updates of the England score as he walked around. BLAH BLAH BLAH
