Basingstoke Today

[Gareth]

Ross M was thrown in at the deep end today, even though he wasn't fit.....not helped by Warren's late arrival obviously, so let's not be too harsh on him. For a 18/19 year old who hasn't played for the club yet, I didn't think he did too bad.

With 5-6 first choice players out of the starting line-up today (for various reasons, I wasn't as confirdent of picking anything up as I was this time last week, but I think there are a few positives we can draw upn....Asher's performance at centre-back was first-class for starte rs.

We'll get there this season.....have faith

[SpiderBee]

Wonder why McBean was late?

[Del]

Fair comment about Ross.He didn't look fit for a full time pro and hopefully we shall see the best of him over a few games. Asher seems to play well alll along the back four line.St Albans got a bit of a shock today and hopefully we can capitalise on tuesday.

[Dave L]

Match report now up on the official site.

Would appear Warren was left out of the starting eleven after feeling a tweak during his warm up.

[johnboy]

NLP report on match shows that the home reporter has little knowlege of non league players. He reports the miniture Sutton front pairing of Jason Henry and Warren McBean as making little first half progress. According to him Zak Graham came on for McBean in the second half and made an immediate impact!

[jade]

So there is only one team below us in the betting for the Blue Square South Basingstoke complete outsiders at 40/1 while we are 33/1 and yet we lose to what the bookmakers think are the worst side in the division and they dont get it wrong often,one week ago plenty on here were talking about play offs,thats a joke as the team clearly are not good enough,I know its early doors but if you cant beat teams like Basingstoke,what chance.Excuses o.k watkins was not playing,bray was not playing,but you have still got reliable Mr Palmer?.Lets all wait until at least 10/15 games in before we start talking silly predictions.By the way,with Quinton and Harris being let go by Bromley before a ball has even been kicked what odds on Mr Hazel having one,or if not both of them back.loyalty.

[Millsy]

johnboy said:

According to him Zak Graham came on for McBean in the second half and made an immediate impact!

That is pretty poor, partly due perhaps to the announcer giving the substitution that way round but still inexcusable!

[markf]

For Amber Aleman. The force of any arm thrown deliberately into the face of an opponent is irrelevant. It is a straight red card. Henry went back to his position afterwards because that is where he was for every corner throughout - no doubt an IH tactic & nothing wrong in doing so either.

That photo of the moment Paul Honey got injured late in the game suggests there was alittle bit more to the challenge than ref thought - although, I thought it looked like a studs showing tackle at the time.

As for the game, the home team created more chances and as a result probably deserved the win. We only looked dangerous for 20 mins & that is not enough unless you score three goals as a result.

Still, the team were missing a number of players & I reckon a full strength side would have seen of 'Stoke yesterday.

[Millsy]

ps - Scooby, Bash, Lewis (?), AJ, Craig W and half a McBean missing, effectively 6 first choice players didn't start, that's more than half a team, I wouldn't read too much into it Jade, especially as the bookies probably haven't taken into account that Basingstoke are now Farnborough in disguise, a similar side to that one that took us apart at their place.

[suttonview]

millsy said:

johnboy said:

According to him Zak Graham came on for McBean in the second half and made an immediate impact!

That is pretty poor, partly due perhaps to the announcer giving the substitution that way round but still inexcusable!

NLP reports are usually done by a home team person, who wouldn't know our team, so he probably went by the announcements. I presume these would be wrong because of the very late change of Zak for Warren, due to the latter's late arrival/warm-up problems (whatever). Last week at Leatherhead, we had Craig and Nick swapping numbers, which also led to the announcer getting them wrong.

Not a good game or performance yesterday, but we aren't really near to our full first team yet, and you can't judge Montague on his first outing - give the guy a break! I reckon the team Haze would send out if everyone was fit and available would be:

Wilson/Williams (not sure which yet)

Hudson
Scarborough
Charles
Bray

Watkins
Greene
Honey
Tanner

McBean
Montague

[The Editor]

No Bash, SV?

[Amber Aleman]

markf said:

For Amber Aleman. The force of any arm thrown deliberately into the face of an opponent is irrelevant. It is a straight red card.

I had a feeling you might respond on that point, Mark! Technically, I'm sure you're correct - but you've been watching the game long enough to know that refs often interpret the laws loosely in order to avoid showing red cards. That's why I said I wasn't surprised at the yellow - I deliberately didn't say I thought it was the right decision! I'm also not sure that the officials had a clear view of the incident - if they didn't that's another reason why the keeper may have been given the benefit of the doubt.

[taz]

We were very slow out of the blocks yesterday, but hardly surprising given we were missing a few from the starting line up.

Looked much better when Warren came on, but the game had 0-0 written all over it until they took a rare chance. My only worry at the mo is we're looking a little thin depth wise. Still, we should be ok if we can get everyone back fit.

As for the comments about Montague, give the guy a break! He was thrown in the deep end having been injured and not yet played with the lads.

Was the first game. Hardly panic stations.

[Andy K]

Agreed with Taz. Last 2 seasons we've won the first game and spent a lot of the season worrying about relegation. Still another 41 games to go, and with a full strength squad, i'm still very confident we will do better than any previous season.

There were some positives out of yesterday. Ryan gave a really good display at left back, one of his best games in ages. Perhaps not being a captain has taken some of the pressure off and now he can just concentrate on playing. Ug was solid and dependable in the centre of the park, and Warren was...well Warren.

To be honest it wasnt an awful performance, and it really did have 0-0 written all over it. Only a momentary defensive lapse let them get a result. Onto the next game against St Albans, who lost 3-1 against Dorchester Town. I think it will give a much more realisitc view of the season to come.

Little clip for you on youtube from yesterday, involving Mr Henry and the keeper. I don't have the elbow, but I have some of the aftermath. Swearing included, by too many of us!!

[oldman]

Asher and Charles looked solid but we lacked upfront we will put this right with warren and Craig aim sure but we need that first win to get confidence to keep going we are a very young team so lets get behind them on tuesday