It started out pretty bad before the match, our kid say's could I get him a ticket for tonights match and saturday's game against Rotherham. I said "yes" so off I trots up St Margaret's Drive and there's this biq queue. So I wait and wait and wait and eventually I rang him and gave up. I saw him at the game but I'm not sure of he got the "double header ticket".
Teams are read out and Alex Bailey and Gareth Davies are missing from the lineups. I listened to the Radio to find out and it looks like Super Alex is out for five weeks and Gareth has a three week problem. It's happening already I said to the lads.
Derek Niven, who's been out all pre-season comes back to the midfield and it's a home debut for Reuben Hazell a summer signing who's here for six months.
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Basically we start poorly and they look a very good side, from a corner from the right Sam Sodje out jumps our new keeper Barry Roche from Nottingham Forest and it's 1-0 London!! We then decide to wake up and quite deservedly at that time get our equaliser through another home debutant Paul Hall. The rest of the half peters out into a scrappy affair that I won't waste your time about, but quickly mention that Aaron Downes limped off and was last seen leaving Saltergate on crutches.
Second Half starts and slowly we are being pushed back into our half, Rankin picks the ball up from way out, moves into a few yards and curls the ball over Roche and the Bees take the lead again. Five minutes later Brentofrd effectively kill the game with a low drive from Rankin 3-1 game over Blues.
Brentford at one point were stringing the ball around like no tomorrow, they harrassed us non-stop and it was disappointing to see us wilt to their pressure, I thought we were better than that. For me their best player was Jay Tabb, diminutive is the word for him, also a pest that has good control and a decent shot. Isiah Rankin and Lloyd Owusu are going to cause problems for many a defence so that bit I'm not too bothered about.
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So to talk about us, I'll start with Barry Roche, he did ok flapped at the first goal but otherwise pulled off some fine saves when needed. Reuben Hazell, steady game didn't pull up many trees but didn't make any mistakes either. Shinner played like he normally does.
Blathers our best player on the night. Downes went off injured, O'Hare who replaced him played ok but he's never a centre half. Paul Hall scored and played ok but we didn't see enough, Mark Allott was bypassed everytime and Derek Niven and Adam Smith were marked out of the game.
Up front the Chief tried but failed against a top centre half in Michael Turner, also the Referee didn't help us when they were fouling but I'm just papering over the cracks there. Debolla ran his socks off again but failed. A brief cameo appearance from Tcham and Caleb saw them do nowt but the game was lost by then so why bother.
One thing that does concern me is we haven't got a playmaker. You can't play Derek Niven and Mark Allott as we were forced to last night because they are the same player they break up attacks. I would have thought with us 3-1 down last night Mcfarland would have tried Colin Larkin in midfield and brought off Niven who looked shattered by the end.
Let's face it though we were beaten fairly by the better side. A side I hope on that performance will finish in the top six. The referee was woeful but as mentioned before that's not the real issue and Mcfarland in his after match comments acknowledged this and rightly so.
After Saturday's elation to Wedneday's dejection comes Saturday's prediction that we will bounce back against the Millers be it a draw or a win. Remember it was April 12th 1972 when Rotherham last beat us at home with a 1-0 win in front of 7140. Are you hopeful?