Exeter (A) Tuesday 7th December

[guest3086]

. Excellent.
Don't forget Betty's with their many varieties of loose leaf.

Been to Betty's in Northallerton. Scrummy sarnies.

[guest3338]

Been to Betty's in Northallerton. Scrummy sarnies.

The most redeeming feature of the otherwise boring Vale of Mowbray.

[606 Parklands_Cobbler]

Managed to get a few nights in the West Park, looking forward to this one very much. Harrogate is a great town with no 'city' pretensions!

and even further away than Northampton is...weeknight as well, you probably won't get to sleep in the hotel.

[Coolcat]

Managed to get a few nights in the West Park, looking forward to this one very much. Harrogate is a great town with no 'city' pretensions!

Harrogate is pretentious centraal! With its tearooms, micro-cafes (not pubs) and Spa status, as a Bradford City fan remarked, it pretends it's in leafy Surrey!

[Manwork04]

Harrogate is pretentious centraal! With its tearooms, micro-cafes (not pubs) and Spa status, as a Bradford City fan remarked, it pretends it's in leafy Surrey!

You mean it’s not a shît hole?

[Coolcat]

You mean it’s not a shît hole?

Maybe! 
To be fair, people say places such as Preston, Bradford and Plymouth are s***holes...love all three! Now, Hartlepool...

Back to Exeter. The Great Western outside of St David's Station is a great pub. Up the hill from there is the Imperial...surely the finest Wetherspoons in the country!

The Old Fire Station (around a ten minute walk fron St James Park) is three floors, with ales, ciders and certainly on Tuesday nights from past experience, do their own decent pizzas.

[GrangeParkCobbler]

The first of two difficult (on paper) away games sees us make the 380 mile round trip on a Tuesday night to St James Park, home of the Grecians.

Exeter City current sit in third place, one place and one point behind us. They are one of the divisions draw specialists having drawn in nine of their 19 games so far this season, and they have only tasted League defeat twice. Their goal difference is plus 10, the same as our, but they are outscoring us by 31 goals to 25 overall.

At home they are unbeaten, in fact you have to go back to early March last season to find the last time they lost on home soil, a 1-0 defeat to Cheltenham. Since then they've gone on a 15 game unbeaten League run which has included 7 wins and eight draws. You can also add four cup games to that run where they also have not been beaten in normal time.

After going on a 19 game unbeaten run home and away in all competitions, they have stuttered slightly, losing two of their last four games including a 2-1 defeat to Cambridge in the FA Cup this weekend.

City are managed by Matt Taylor (no not that one!), he took over from Paul Tisdale in June 2018 and has 80 wins from 185 games in charge, just 48 defeats in that period. He is a former City player who made the bulk of his career appearances whilst with the club between 2007 and 2011. City themselves have never played at a higher level than the third tier, a position they were last in back in 2012, they have spent the last nine seasons back in the fourth tier, this is the 10th consecutive season. They also had a spell in non-league circles after relegation from the EFL in 2003, it took them five seasons to get back out again thanks to a playoff victory over Cambridge United.

Looking through the scoring charts at the present time, midfielder Matt Jay leads the way with 10 league goals, alongside Pierce Sweeney and Josh Key he is one of three ever presents for the Grecians in the League this season. Following him in the goalscoring stakes is forward Sam Nombe with 9 goals (7 in the league) and Thimothee Dieng with 6 in all competitions (4 league) coming next.

There are no former Cobblers in their current squad listings (as far as I can see).

We have a long history with them in the head to head, this will be the 120th meeting of the two sides, Cobblers hold the upper hand with 55 wins to Exeter's 30 in all competitions. We have won the last three encounters with them, one of those games being the 4-0 Wembley playoff win in 2020.
Our last victory at St James Park in the league came in January 2015 when early goals by Marc Richards and John-Joe O'Toole were enough for the win, since then two draws and a defeat, that coming in 2019 as Goode and Hoskins goals were not enough as we went down by the odd goal in five. Our last visit there was in the Trophy, almost the same date last year saw us win 2-1 thanks to strikes from Danny Rose and Benny Ashley-Seal in front of a crowd of 714.

John Busby will be blowing the whistle for this game, he's an experienced ref who has handled a number of games in the Championship this season including todays Cardiff v Sheffield United encounter where he brandished one of his three red cards to date this season. There have also been 67 yellows issued in just 17 games, that makes him one of the more prolific card flashers we will have seen. The last time we did actually see him was almost two years ago at Crewe, a game we lost 2-1 and a game in which he sent off Joe Martin. His last Exeter assignment was just 6 weeks ago as he handled their 2-1 win at Salford, prior to that his last visit to St James Park was in March 2021 for their goalless draw with Walsall.

[west stand oap]

I think we beat the divisions draw specialists in our last game (Orient had 10 draws and only 2 defeats) although Exeter, Bradford and Rochdale are running them close with 9 each.
As GPC says Exeter are unbeaten in their 9 home games with 5 wins and 4 draws. After beating Bristol Rovers 4-1 and Sutton 2-0 they have won their last 3 at home 2-1 against Mansfield, Oldham and Carlisle. Bradford, FGR, Walsall and Newport County have all come away with a point. So the only victory against a top 10 side was against Sutton. They have scored 16 and conceded 8, failing to score twice and keeping 3 clean sheets all of these in their first 4 home games. Since then they have scored 2 goals in each game but have conceded 7 in the 5 games.
We will have Guthrie and McWilliams back but it must be extremely doubtful if Etete will have recovered from an hamstring injury in 10 days.
This will be Exeter's 5th game in 15 days while we have had a 10 rest, will it be beneficial or will we be rusty?
Exeter fans seem to regard us as a bogey team and we do have a very good record there as we have left with some points from well over half of our visits and I think we are capable of continuing this record.

[CobblerForever]

Before purchasing my IFollow ticket I'll be checking the team sheets. With Etete playing it could be a humdinger of a game. Without, I just can't see it as much of a match. We'd be mad to risk him if he's at all doubtful.

[everbrite]

Before purchasing my IFollow ticket I'll be checking the team sheets. With Etete playing it could be a humdinger of a game. Without, I just can't see it as much of a match. We'd be mad to risk him if he's at all doubtful.

Not going then? It appears that most of the Admin team are. You’ll have Ccolie there and Dan for community Carol singing of sorts!

[Coolcat]

No, sorry Evers (strangely on another but identical thread!) won't be going - though it was in the balance! 

[everbrite]

No, sorry Evers (strangely on another but identical thread!) won't be going - though it was in the balance! 

Don't blame you as tickets are "£22 for Seniors" and £26 for Adults. So much for a fan run club - Good riddance.

[Peter Frost]

Don't blame you as tickets are "£22 for Seniors" and £26 for Adults. So much for a fan run club - Good riddance.

Clearly not following the German model 

[Coolcat]

Don't blame you as tickets are "£22 for Seniors" and £26 for Adults. So much for a fan run club - Good riddance.

To be fair it wasn't admission prices that swayed me either way.

[The Hask]

I hope the weather doesn't play too much of a factor tomorrow evening I do not want to get there for it to be postponed.

Lots of rain forecast for Exeter way tomorrow all day.

[everbrite]

Clearly not following the German model 

So not a fan run club

[guest3481]

I hope the weather doesn't play too much of a factor tomorrow evening I do not want to get there for it to be postponed.

Lots of rain forecast for Exeter way tomorrow all day.

41 - 42mph winds! 

[guest49]

41 - 42mph winds! 

Get your bets on for a high throw-in and goal kick count!

[west stand oap]

With the weather conditions as they are this could be similar to the Orient game, which team handles the conditions the best. Some Exeter fans questioning if the game will go ahead with the amount of rain they had yesterday and still more today.

[Coolcat]

A fair few Exeter fans have cast more than a doubt on the game going ahead this evening, heavy rain and strong winds in Devon.
However, one at SJP did post a pic of the relatively new pitch, saying it's holding up well!