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Escape the drop or relegation?

Will we still be in Football League two next season?


  • Total voters
    303
  • Poll closed .
Nothing wrong with non league football, I go quite a bit, mainly Harlow and bishop stortford, a lot better value and a fair few players would love a crack at league football and make it, I see Acquah play and score a few goal for Harlow when on loan, he was still rubbish but got the odd goal, I for one am looking forward to going to a fair few away games next season if we go down, it’ll make a massive change.

I agree......but having watched Orient get hit for six at Bromley and having watched clubs the size of Wrexham, Luton, Chesterfield and Notts County struggle to extricate themselves from that level, I really don't want that for us.

You're also right about Harlow and Bishops Stortford. They are both good grounds but I'm not keen on the Harlow artificial pitch........and you need to get there early to park for the big games.......
 
I agree......but having watched Orient get hit for six at Bromley and having watched clubs the size of Wrexham, Luton, Chesterfield and Notts County struggle to extricate themselves from that level, I really don't want that for us.

You're also right about Harlow and Bishops Stortford. They are both good grounds but I'm not keen on the Harlow artificial pitch........and you need to get there early to park for the big games.......
Mercy me! It's come to this.
The thought we've got Harlow as a prospect in the future.
I recall the red-faced shame of being knocked out of the FA Cup by them in 1979.
Hadn't thought of that in a while, and now I've gone into a cold sweat...
 
Big concern for me is that despite sorting out our defensive frailties we are not clinical in front of goal in any way shape or form.

We need wins, not draws and without goals that ain’t happening.

We should have scored yesterday, but we can’t keep blaming luck. The problem I see is that if the scores are level after around 60 mins MM starts shutting the game down rather than going for the win. Cannot understand why Holmes didn’t get at least 20 mins yesterday. He needs pitch time to get fit, and the sooner he’s fit the sooner we’ll be more potent up front.

Two very difficult games coming, two losses and my glass will be very half empty. (Like most it fluctuates between being half full / empty each week).

Go for the win, better to win one and lose one than getting two 0-0 draws.
 
Why does MM persist with just one up front when we have one foot in the NL? Next year what will he do about rebuilding as the loanees will return to their clubs rather than play in the NL. Or will Ron put him out of his misery before then
We had 15 shots yesterday, the issue isn't creating chances it's that we don't finish them. Putting 2 up front won't make our players better at shooting and it would mean our wingers couldn't push forward as much as they do since we'd be a man lighter in the middle.
 
So, do I think we will avoid relegation? Sadly, my head is saying no. In my opinion we do not have the right blend of players in the squad.

Oldham’s extremely patched up side yesterday included McAleny on the bench, their top scorer this season with 12 goals, so for their fans there was some hope that he would come on at some point and change the game in their favour. As it happened, he did come on but didn’t have an impact thanks to our strong defence. By comparison our hopes from the bench were Goodship and Holmes, one a player who works hard but has never really turned a game for us and the other in the twilight of his career who didn’t exactly stand out in his last appearance at Cheltenham. We simply do not have a player to bring on that can dramatically change our game in attack. Ricky would have been that player three or four years ago and I am sure his head is telling him he can still do it but unfortunately the body tends to respond less and less to messages from the brain as years tick by.

I thought we played quite well yesterday but failure to secure all three points against a weakened team does not fill me with confidence for the remaining 13 games. It could be said we were unlucky to hit the bar twice but when teams are fighting for their lives it very often seems that the rub of the green is elusive. In this position we have to hope luck holds out with players remaining fit and that we are not the victims of any bad decisions by the match officials.

It may well go to the final day of the season but I just do not think we are going to find the necessary goals to keep us up.
 
For someone who has supported the club in excess of 55 years I have witnessed many highs and lows,mainly lows.So to answer this question is difficult. Obviously I hope we survive after last season cant believe we are in the mess we are in but we are.Cant believe our club is staring relegation out of league into the graveyard of non league but that is the reality of what could happen.We still have a number of games to be played we can still do it as anything else is unthinkable.So until we get into the position of no return will continue to believe that I will be visiting league grounds and not non league ones.
So everyone keep believing we can do it until we cant

UTB for ever
 
Our performances improved noticeably from the Stevenage game onwards. From that game onwards we have scored in 10 out of 19 games and conceded in 9 out of the 19 games, including our 4 poor games in January where we played 5 at the back.

It's not unreasonable then to expect we will score very other game. Given our scoring weaknesses let's assume we can only score one goal in the games where we do manage to score. Our defence is playing so well now that assuming we keep a clean sheet in 50% of our games may actually be conservative but let's use that as a basis.

Our remaining 13 games will then yield 7 clean sheets. We will score in half those games so let's say we get 3W and 4D = 13 points from those 7 clean sheets. In our other 6 games we concede but score in half of them, i.e. 3 games. Our defence is good enough to get two 1-1 draws from those 3 games where we both concede and score. That gives us another 2 points.

So, the fairly conservative basis above gives us a very good chance of getting 44 points. This probably won't be enough but just one more win would give us 46 - 47 points which would probably give us a greater that 50% chance of staying up. Given that we have 13 games left it's too early to go chasing that additional win. We don't need to take the risk yet. Our best approach is to keep playing to our defensive strength, keep our belief intact and keep ticking up our points tally over the month of March. We can then see how our rivals are reacting.

There are three big questions still outstanding:

- will Col-U and Port Vale continue falling like bricks
- will we get the lucky breaks in our games
- can Barrow match 44 points?

44 points is still a tough ask for Barrow. They have managed just under a point a game and that form has remained remarkably constant all season. There is as yet little sign that it's improving. They don't play Tuesday evening. That will leave them with 3 games in hand on us but is that really so big an advantage given the detrimental impact it will have on their other 12 scheduled games? A point a game gives Barrow 44 points too.

The other big question is who we get our wins against. Just one win against either Barrow or Col-U will have a massive impact on the season. And those two games don't fall until our final 4 games.

So, March is the time to continue with our current hard-to-beat approach. We don't have the firepower to change it and we will know better at the end of the month whether it is time to start taking bigger risks.
 
Our performances improved noticeably from the Stevenage game onwards. From that game onwards we have scored in 10 out of 19 games and conceded in 9 out of the 19 games, including our 4 poor games in January where we played 5 at the back.

It's not unreasonable then to expect we will score very other game. Given our scoring weaknesses let's assume we can only score one goal in the games where we do manage to score. Our defence is playing so well now that assuming we keep a clean sheet in 50% of our games may actually be conservative but let's use that as a basis.

Our remaining 13 games will then yield 7 clean sheets. We will score in half those games so let's say we get 3W and 4D = 13 points from those 7 clean sheets. In our other 6 games we concede but score in half of them, i.e. 3 games. Our defence is good enough to get two 1-1 draws from those 3 games where we both concede and score. That gives us another 2 points.

So, the fairly conservative basis above gives us a very good chance of getting 44 points. This probably won't be enough but just one more win would give us 46 - 47 points which would probably give us a greater that 50% chance of staying up. Given that we have 13 games left it's too early to go chasing that additional win. We don't need to take the risk yet. Our best approach is to keep playing to our defensive strength, keep our belief intact and keep ticking up our points tally over the month of March. We can then see how our rivals are reacting.

There are three big questions still outstanding:

- will Col-U and Port Vale continue falling like bricks
- will we get the lucky breaks in our games
- can Barrow match 44 points?

44 points is still a tough ask for Barrow. They have managed just under a point a game and that form has remained remarkably constant all season. There is as yet little sign that it's improving. They don't play Tuesday evening. That will leave them with 3 games in hand on us but is that really so big an advantage given the detrimental impact it will have on their other 12 scheduled games? A point a game gives Barrow 44 points too.

The other big question is who we get our wins against. Just one win against either Barrow or Col-U will have a massive impact on the season. And those two games don't fall until our final 4 games.

So, March is the time to continue with our current hard-to-beat approach. We don't have the firepower to change it and we will know better at the end of the month whether it is time to start taking bigger risks.

You are MM and I claim my £5.
 
No RH is nearer. As it happens I have never watched a game at Wakering so it is on my list.

I've played there in my time (though that was some time ago tbf).Thought it was quite sneaky of them to have their bar open pre-match.Noticed none of their players had a drink while I felt the swift half that I had later.
 
You post plenty of one liners against on sort of positive posts but who would you have as forwards?

As the Irishman said 'I wouldn't start from here' but as there is no other choice.......

MM has done well to shore up the defence so that's OK and that leaves six more players to pick and it would depend upon the opposition.

For 'must win' games against poorer opposition the six would be:

Holmes, Ferguson, Dieng, Akinola, Acquah and Goodship.

For 'if we have to settle for a draw we will' games.

Demetriou, McCormack (substituted by Dieng straight after he is booked), Ferguson, Holmes, Acquah and Goodship.

Have to see Mellis before I can comment on him.

Apologies for not feeling positive - I'm actually feeling effing miserable (about the football only) - hey ho.
 
As the Irishman said 'I wouldn't start from here' but as there is no other choice.......

MM has done well to shore up the defence so that's OK and that leaves six more players to pick and it would depend upon the opposition.

For 'must win' games against poorer opposition the six would be:

Holmes, Ferguson, Dieng, Akinola, Acquah and Goodship.

For 'if we have to settle for a draw we will' games.

Demetriou, McCormack (substituted by Dieng straight after he is booked), Ferguson, Holmes, Acquah and Goodship.

Have to see Mellis before I can comment on him.

Apologies for not feeling positive - I'm actually feeling effing miserable (about the football only) - hey ho.

Not an RHF fan then? :Winking:
 
I agree......but having watched Orient get hit for six at Bromley and having watched clubs the size of Wrexham, Luton, Chesterfield and Notts County struggle to extricate themselves from that level, I really don't want that for us.

You're also right about Harlow and Bishops Stortford. They are both good grounds but I'm not keen on the Harlow artificial pitch........and you need to get there early to park for the big games.......
there will be a few of our existing experienced pro's that can't play on artificial pitches due to historic injuries. Any previous ACL weakness injuries for example would be a nightmare on those pitches
We have at least 3 or 4 that would be in that group. For that reason, barring other reasons to stay with SUFC those players wou!d not drop to those leagues\pitches
 
Nothing wrong with non league football, I go quite a bit, mainly Harlow and bishop stortford, a lot better value and a fair few players would love a crack at league football and make it, I see Acquah play and score a few goal for Harlow when on loan, he was still rubbish but got the odd goal, I for one am looking forward to going to a fair few away games next season if we go down, it’ll make a massive change.
Thats interesting, its something i dread not look forward too. I would be totally gutted. My whole life we've been a proper league club. I dont think we'd come back for many years if at all, and it would be like a chapter of my life closed.
 
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