Fylde v Sutton - Match Thread

[pinewalker]

I was pleased to hear from Dos nobody is ruled out of the Halifax game through injury. I hope the referee on Tuesday is on his game and alert to the late challenges from Halifax deliberately aimed at the opponent's standing leg as he passes the ball. Halifax at GGL were the dirtiest team I have seen this season in the VNL.

Today was a disappointing loss, Halifax with nothing to play for may represent a much better chance of points on the road.

[baboonfish]

Sounds like we put up a good fight but was anyone expecting a win from that one? Fylde look to have hit form at the right time and could well be the team to watch out for in the po's. I'm hoping we can pick up 6 from the next 4 games, but anyway you cut it that final game of the season is starting to look massive. Ebbsfleet and Bromley will really fancy their chances with the current indifferent form of most of the top sides, it could easily be a play off shootout and even if things go well it's likely to have a bearing on our chances of top 3.

If you'd asked me 10 days ago to take a bet on us finishing outside top 7 id have given very long odds, now I'd probably give you 3/1. I'm also now firmly in the 'not ready for promotion' camp, but it would still be a massive disappointment to miss out on the po's so here's hoping we can get back on track starting with 3 points at the shay against what can only be loosely described as a 'football' team.

[Del]

Great performance from the team today. Really unlucky with the deflection and i believe Simon slipped on the 2nd.
Football can be a cruel game and the looks on the players faces at Preston station waiting for the train said it all.
We go again on Tuesday at Halifax and if the players can play like that again then surely we can come away with 3 points.

All this talk of not being ready for promotion is absolute nonsense and i heard it all before we were promoted from the Ryman and also the National South.

[os]

Apr 7, 2018 22:22:50 GMT Del said:

Great performance from the team today. Really unlucky with the deflection and i believe Simon slipped on the 2nd.
Football can be a cruel game and the looks on the players faces at Preston station waiting for the train said it all.
We go again on Tuesday at Halifax and if the players can play like that again then surely we can come away with 3 points.

All this talk of not being ready for promotion is absolute nonsense and i heard it all before we were promoted from the Ryman and also the National South.

I heard from AB on the way back, the players were distraught, as they should be if they care, and they care. They will dust themselves down and come back more determined on Tuesday at Halifax.

Yes this talk about not being ready to go up. Is that the team or the club? If the team win the playoffs it will have shown its good enough. If the club are promoted, no its not ready, but then plans are in place over the summer to make it ready, so whats the issue?

[sallycat]

People tend to be apprehensive about change and the unknown. Maybe there's a bit of that here.

[mca]

Apr 7, 2018 23:30:06 GMT sallycat said:

People tend to be apprehensive about change and the unknown. Maybe there's a bit of that here.

I don't think it's necessarily that. I think most people are reacting to what's happening on the pitch. We've had some rotten luck recently, results havnt been great and (Not including yesterday) we've put in some of our worst performances of the season in the last few weeks. This disappointed feeling is natural. Whatever happens when we look back at the season as a whole it'll be a huge thumbs up, but at this present moment, considering we were genuine title contenders 3 weeks ago it feels a bit flat. If it wasn't for the bad results you wouldn't appreciate the good ones. Win at Halifax and that'll put alot right.

[oxford]

I think a lot of the worry about promotion to the football league is because it has come about so suddenly.If we had been at the top end of this league for many years,courting promotion year after year,I think everyone would be perfectly relaxed about,even used to,the current position.When you think that only a few years back we were delighted to get back to National South level, this certainly wasn't a situation I was expecting in 2018 and I suspect I was not the only one.

[sallycat]

That's sort of what I meant, only I didn't put it very well.

[scorpioeyes]

For such a big match,wouldnt travelling up the night before have made more sense?

[garethl]

Apr 8, 2018 8:30:52 GMT scorpioeyes said:

For such a big match,wouldnt travelling up the night before have made more sense?

Am sure this is always considered closely. We haven’t got an infinite amount of money though and it isn’t cheap!

[norman1]

Whilst we have complete faith in our Manager and his Team supporters are naturally worried about the implications of possible promotion to EFL.

Listening to some of their concerns- ripping up a perfectly good playing surface & funding a replacement surface. Unknown additional Stadium costs/full time staffing costs and the thought that promotion will me mean attending fewer games because we won't have many local derby's!

With the great possibility Havent and Dartford getting promoted and Barnet demoted it seems staying put is not a bad scenario.

You can see their point of view.

[tonyd]

I thought we completely bossed the first half and it was not surprising that a strong home team like Fylde came at us in the second. Even so, we looked quite comfortable with Davies and Walton outstanding. In the end it took a deflection and a mistake by the otherwise excellent Downer to give them the win, but for 75 minutes that didn’t look like happening.

The talk of not being ready for promotion is nonsense. The worst that could happen is we come straight back down.

The key is to finish 2nd or 3rd so we only have the one play-off game before Wembley. I still believe!

[Del]

Apr 8, 2018 9:07:46 GMT norman1 said:

Whilst we have complete faith in our Manager and his Team supporters are naturally worried about the implications of possible promotion to EFL.

Listening to some of their concerns- ripping up a perfectly good playing surface & funding a replacement surface. Unknown additional Stadium costs/full time staffing costs and the thought that promotion will me mean attending fewer games because we won't have many local derby's!

With the great possibility Havent and Dartford getting promoted and Barnet demoted it seems staying put is not a bad scenario.

You can see their point of view.

I guess its a case of do you want to watch us play Havant & Waterlooville and Dartford or would you rather us play Swindon Town or Notts County.
Personally i want us to play football at the highest level we can achieve and that is why i come down week after week to support the team.
If say we wanted to stay at our current level and go no higher i would certainly lose my enthusiasm for watching the team & wouldn't be travelling to places like Fylde.

[baboonfish]

I'm not sure how so many of you could label an opinion as nonsense when nobody, and I do mean NOBODY has any idea what the actual long term financial implications of promotion to the football league would turn out to be.

I do realise this season could represent a one off chance to go up, but that's because it's a weakish division this year with no standout sides and I think whoever goes up will struggle without significant improvement.

I'm sure any north Ferriby fans who offered a similar opinion when they went up to the national were also dismissed as spouting nonsense. The leagues are littered with examples of teams that tried to compete at a level that wasn't realistic and paid a heavy price. We've come along way in a short space of time but to me another promotion sounds too much like icarus and melted wings. There's certainly far greater worse case scenarios than just 'coming straight back down'.

That said just because I hold this opinion it doesn't mean I'm not fully behind the team. I still would have loved to see it happen this year despite believing it's not best for the club. What we want and what we need are not always the same.

[ryooon1999]

Apr 8, 2018 9:53:35 GMT baboonfish said:

I'm not sure how so many of you could label an opinion as nonsense when nobody, and I do mean NOBODY has any idea what the actual long term financial implications of promotion to the football league would turn out to be.

I do realise this season could represent a one off chance to go up, but that's because it's a weakish division this year with no standout sides and I think whoever goes up will struggle without significant improvement.

I'm sure any north Ferriby fans who offered a similar opinion when they went up to the national were also dismissed as spouting nonsense. The leagues are littered with examples of teams that tried to compete at a level that wasn't realistic and paid a heavy price. We've come along way in a short space of time but to me another promotion sounds too much like icarus and melted wings. There's certainly far greater worse case scenarios than just 'coming straight back down'.

That said just because I hold this opinion it doesn't mean I'm not fully behind the team. I still would have loved to see it happen this year despite believing it's not best for the club. What we want and what we need are not always the same.

Have to say I agree with you, I don’t think going into the FL in our clubs current stature is best but what we want and what we need are different. Personally I want the club to compete as much as possible but I think spending another 2/3 season in the NLP and getting the pitch right and stadium renovations is the best option and then pushing for FL status/promotion but I agree others will think differently.