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Gillingham Thoughts
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Izale's Done It!
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By:
Max Bygraves
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17/08/2011
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Gillingham
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H
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16/08/2011
(Click date for match details) |
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D
2-
2
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Attendance: 2466
(1052 Away)
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Well, that was a strange one, wasn’t it?
It was always going to be a difficult task last night, against a strong side that should be in the shake up at the right end of the table come May.
The first half was shocking. Basically a carbon copy of Saturday and my word, how poor was that goal? I coach an under 11’s side and if any of them defended as badly from a throw in as we did tonight, I would be severely disappointed. If it’s a header from a long throw, fair enough, it can go either way in the air, but a goal like that and a bloke totally unmarked? Unacceptable.
In general, the first forty five was nothing to write home about. Gillingham were by far the superior team, although failed to carve out any real clear cut chances, or we could have been in serious danger. What I want to know is why we seem to think long ball is the answer when we’re in a pickle? The first half completely bypassed the likes of Byrne and Deering, through no real fault of their own, as the only Barnet player who seemed to touch the ball was Jordan Parkes. When he did, his only target was Mark Marshall. But, like Saturday, not to the feet of little MM, but a few yards ahead of him for the poor lad to try and chase on to. It didn’t work against Port Vale, so why try it again? Excuse me; in fact, there was the odd ball down the middle, to the extremely ineffective Jason Price who won bugger all in the air, or balls in the general direction but actually nowhere near Izale McLeod.
Izale McLeod eh? Oh Izale, what ever are we going to do with you? Absolutely absent on Saturday, despite ninety minutes on the pitch and extremely similar for the first half last night. However, you have to tolerate that with him, for what he does offer. His goal to make it 1-1 early in the second half changed the whole tone of the game and also his performance, attitude and effort. I just wish he could be more consistent!
After Izale’s first equaliser we looked a different team and were agonisingly unlucky when Price managed to hit the inside of both posts with the same shot. It just wasn’t his night. Don’t get me wrong, I too think he was a total embarrassment to the Barnet shirt last night, it was genuinely one of the least productive performances from a Barnet centre forward I can remember, but I do think some are over-reacting. At Morecambe he did enough, at Portsmouth he was a total nuisance to a Championship side and played a big part in us getting that result and despite not setting the world alight, he did bag a goal against Port Vale. I don’t care if it was the worst header in the history of football, ever. Let’s not start slagging our players off yet, please? I’m as guilty as sin for it normally, but we’re only four games in and have played some seriously tough opposition already. We had the same amount of points as this after four games two seasons ago and by September 4th we were sitting proudly on top of the league, so let’s just chill out a little, yes?
Back to the game, we were also unlucky the referee didn’t hesitate in blowing his whistle for a foul on Izale a few seconds, or Mark Byrne would have been responsible for scoring another superb long range goal. You just knew that Gillingham would score the next goal in the game after that and credit where it’s due, that was an absolute belter. However, the movement and positioning of Mr Senda and Mr Uddin could have possibly prevented their man having all that space to get his shot away in. When you see it again, look how guilty Senda was of being out of position and then making the wrong decision totally in terms of where he went next. It was a big pity, as that was during our best spell of the game and to be honest, I thought that was going to be it once those charming gentleman from Kent got their noses back in front.
We didn’t really look like equalising, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave early. I really want to believe this team are capable of getting themselves out of a situation. A lot of these lads played in that game against Chesterfield back in March where we somehow got ourselves a point with an awful lot of fight, so I certainly wasn’t going to lose all faith tonight. I did, however, take a stroll to the bottom corner of the East Terrace once the stoppage time board went up, as I couldn’t face watching a bunch of inbred pikeys going spare at us when the whistle blew.
No need. Good boy Izale. A lovely finish to create general bedlam around Underhill and give you that feeling when your team’s only got a point but it feels like three. On balance, we maybe just about deserved it, although if Gills had been sharper in the first half, it maybe would have been a different story.
It’s been a pretty interesting start to the season. I don’t know what to make of this lot yet, really. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad Lawrie Sanchez is the manager of my football club. However, Mr Sanchez, you do need to think of a few new ideas. You can’t relentlessly try the long ball approach to players who are only just over 5ft tall. It doesn’t work. We can’t rely nearly solely on Mark Marshall to be our creative spark. We could probably do with an out and out right winger, as Sammy is more effective in the middle, as we saw in the closing stages of last season. Oh and Charlie Taylor is so far out of his depth it makes me cringe a little when he comes off the bench. I know he wasn’t even that bad in this one, but just as a general point. Not slating the new boss, just a few areas I believe changes or improvement are needed.
All in all, however, I’ll take that point. Gillingham are not a bad side at all, after all. There’s work to do still and we’ve got a very difficult run of away games coming up, but who knows at this stage? A lot of team’s results in League Two have been very inconsistent so far. Shame our next opponents, Rotherham’s, haven’t really, but at this stage of the season I genuinely don’t think that is a home banker by any means. I do believe though that Lawrie Sanchez has got to think very carefully about what team is most effective there. It can’t be the same starting eleven as tonight, I don’t feel, or the result expected by most will occur.
Keep the faith though, eh? My word there are some miserable individuals that frequent Barnet Football Club as an activity of their leisure time. We’ve started a hell of a lot worse than this in several of the past few seasons!
Anyway, rambling over. I was going to write something on the messageboard, but felt this a better way to get my views across. Knew more of you would read this. Am I right? Thought so!
I should write more articles in the small hours after several drinks. I hope this proved a compelling read and like me, you’re all looking forward to us putting in another fine away display and surprisingly a few people with our result in South Yorkshire on Saturday.
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