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Pre-Match Thread Salisbury City v Southend United

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Smiffy said:
1-1 Lee Smith!

GetImage
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Bet that's something you've always wanted to write!
 
Bilel Moshni seems to have made quit an impression. Brought on at half-time, he seems to have made a few enthusiastic tackles, which led him to be taken off, ten minutes from the end...............for his, or the Salisbury players, protection! Lee Smith only got the last ten minutes..................not much time to impress.
 
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Glad to see the OS have finally got Bilel as the guys first name, but now they're calling him Moshni. Argh. :D One step at a time for them I suppose.

Taken off for too many crunching tackles eh? Methinks Granty has been his mentor...........

It is interesting that we've suddenly lost the plethora of trialists. Coughlan, Easton, Hall and Soares seem to be overworked at the moment and as I'm assuming we're still having players come in and train, it's odd that we're not seeing more players try out to give some of the guys a breather.
 
Definitely need a more potent goal threat although these friendlies are more about players fitness. In past years weve battered teams in pre season friendlies but then struggled to score goals once the league hits. Also, Sturrock has achieved a lot of promotions without necessarily having great strikers at his disposal. When Plymouth wiped the floor with everyone in the 01-02 season, their top scorer was Graham Coughlan from centre back! I just cant see Corr and Sturrock getting many though, Spencer maybe but he was pretty hot and cold last season, ditto Paterson. Possibly he might look at getting a loanee in, from one of his many former clubs!
 
Clinton Baptiste said:
Definitely need a more potent goal threat although these friendlies are more about players fitness. In past years weve battered teams in pre season friendlies but then struggled to score goals once the league hits. Also, Sturrock has achieved a lot of promotions without necessarily having great strikers at his disposal. When Plymouth wiped the floor with everyone in the 01-02 season, their top scorer was Graham Coughlan from centre back! I just cant see Corr and Sturrock getting many though, Spencer maybe but he was pretty hot and cold last season, ditto Paterson. Possibly he might look at getting a loanee in, from one of his many former clubs!
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Thats why i would love to see Adebayo Akinfenwa here. I don't think he will come cos of wages. But think in this team thats being put together the big man would have a field day against league two defensives.
 
In our current situation you can't see a proven goalscorer gambling on signing a pre-contract agreement when they'd be a number of other clubs keen to secure his services. I think we can only hope that if the gods smile on us and we get our embargo lifted then Sturrock will be able to persuade a goalscorer to come ... but I doubt if we'll be able to pay big wages. Otherwise we'll just have to settle for Paterson's 2 goals every 3 games!
 
Once the embargo is lifted (:D 'once'!! How confident)... I'm sure we'll be able to loan a front man in from a team higher up the divisions.
 
A beautiful city, a warm balmy night in Wiltshire, a lovely evening meal in a local Inn - then the game started!

A poor game of football. First half especially was so disjointed it was painful. Defensively slow all along the back line (Herd you are excused). Midfield was intent on self destruct, Granty throwing himself into stupid tackles. Up front Screech and Corr just didn't hit it off - Corr especially seemed intent on haranging the Referee for every single decision he made, awful.

It was a cracking strike from 35 yards that gave Salisbury the lead and they were unlucky not to go two up when another long range strike came banging off our cross bar.

Changing Corr and Spencer with Paterson and Crawford made a difference, Paterson gets involved, Crawford has bags of energy. These two started giving the City defence problems and it was just rewards Pato getting his second goal in two games.

Disappointing for me tonight was Soares and Hall, apart from a couple of early crosses neither really got into the game (although it was a Hall cross that led to our goal).

Salisbury fans were a bit abusive, especially towards Bilel whose second half 30 minutes (had to be subbed before he was red carded) was pretty poor, he seemed to have a red mist descend on him and just threw himself into some pretty poor challenges.

Nothing more than a fitness exercise to be fair. Oh and Ron Martin was there!
 
Just got in; a few thoughts on tonight's match. Firstly, what Tommy Widdrington said before the match was spot-on - to paraphrase the assistant boss, don't get too high when we get a positive result, don't get too low when we get a more negative one, especially in pre-season. It wasn't a superb performance, but was is clear is that this is a squad still gelling, and that's what these matches are all about.

Looking at the different areas of the pitch:
The goalkeepers: An Orient-supporting mate told me that Glenn Morris is a very good shot-stopper but can be suspect on crosses due to a lack of height (sound familiar?!). It certainly looked that way this evening, although he wasn't overly tested. The goal was a stunner, 35 yards out, dipping, he had no chance. More concerning was a regulation high cross into the six-yard box that he fumbled and the ball was swept into the net, though not before the referee had blown up for an infringement. Evans played the second half and looked more assured, although he was nearly beaten by another cracking strike from distance early on.

Full-backs: Both Herd and Clohessey looked to get forward well in support of the midfield, though when they did the final ball was lacking in quality. In getting forward, they were sometimes caught out of position, leaving the centre-halves to make decent saving tackles...

Centre-backs: Initial impressions of Coughlan are that he's a solid defender and that he'll do a good job in League Two. He will get caught for pace, but more often that not his nous will get him out of tricky situations. Phillips seemed like he didn't really want to be involved in the first half, but Coughlan covered him with his reading of the game, in the second period Phillips was much more impressive, and well worth another look.

Wingers: Whenever we got the ball in the first 20-25 minutes, it went wide to Soares or Hall, and they more often than not provided a telling ball into the box. Soares drilled a low shot against the post inside the opening six minutes and the quality of his crossing early on was excellent. For the last hour or so, that changed, and Hall seemed unwilling to take on his man, whilst Soares' delivery got progressively worse. I'm still excited about seeing these two and Zahboub, though, swinging crosses into the box; I think it will happen.

Central midfield: Grant was snappy as ever (no such thing as a friendly in his eyes), Easton oozes quality in the centre of the park. This probably won't go down well with everyone, but he reminds me of Kevin Maher in many ways, just keeps it simple, finds a blue shirt. Appears to be growing into the captancy role as well. Bilel came on at half-time in place of Grant, and something had clearly riled him as he threw himself into two reckless tackles on the Blues left, got involved in a fracas in the penalty box and, after two, quite frankly innocuous, 50-50s on a defender and the 'keeper going for the ball, had to be brought off for his own good. Lee Smith looked alright in the ten minutes that he played there.

Forwards: Corr won just about everything in the air, even if his team-mates didn't always read it; that may come in time. If we can get good balls into the box, he might just be the man to connect. On the ground, he doesn't look so comfortable, with a heavy first touch and wayward passing, but he is still easing himself into action. Spencer was lively again, reacting quickest to Soares' rebound to find the net, only to be pulled up for offside. Crawford came on and chased everything down, Paterson - rather than looking lazy and/or lethargic - just seems to me like a young lad who is still getting used to his surroundings and who lacks confidence. Hopefully finding his shooting boots in pre-season will mean that he hits the ground running on August 7th.
 
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Exiled Shrimper said:
Forwards: Corr won just about everything in the air, even if his team-mates didn't always read it; that may come in time. If we can get good balls into the box, he might just be the man to connect. On the ground, he doesn't look so comfortable, with a heavy first touch and wayward passing, but this was his first match action of pre-season. Spencer was lively again, reacting quickest to Soares' rebound to find the net, only to be pulled up for offside. Crawford came on and chased everything down, Paterson - rather than looking lazy and/or lethargic - just seems to me like a young lad who is still getting used to his surroundings and who lacks confidence. Hopefully finding his shooting boots in pre-season will mean that he hits the ground running on August 7th.
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Corr played against derby and looked decent to me.

Also, totally agree about Easton, very maher-esque with perhaps a little bit more about him?
 
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