Stevenage 15th March

[Melbourne Cobbler]

Just won away from home and at a canter until the last 20. Fcuk me it’s a tough old job this association football, in any other profession you’d be telling the customer to stick their opinions up their ar5e. On a separate note, what are the signs that you need a pacemaker?

[EB Claret]

Another result which leaves me with mixed feelings.
Two really good goals from open play and a spell in each half where we looked comfortable, in fact so much on top that Stevenage looked to have given up after an hour.
From then on we continuously gave the ball away, allowing our opponents back in. Lines scores when a deflection sets him up and we go to pieces, hoofing the ball anywhere. We don't pass the ball around to give our subs a chance to get into the game, Zimba's first real touch is to shoot at goal, no wonder he looks rusty.
So I'm thinking we made bloody hard work of that, then look at the league table and realise that we are still far exceeding our expectations for this season. Happy Days! UTC.

[Mysterious Curle]

How the hell are we still second and to be honest a top 3 position is still very much in our hands - this is a very poor division and no question a massive restructure required to stay up if we go up.
No question for me that Mills is a poorer option than Koiki - a fact they exploited immediately.
Hopefully both Koiki and McWilliams are back for the gas.

I hope for your sake neverbrite doesn’t see this!

[guest49]

How the hell are we still second and to be honest a top 3 position is still very much in our hands - this is a very poor division and no question a massive restructure required to stay up if we go up.
No question for me that Mills is a poorer option than Koiki - a fact they exploited immediately.
Hopefully both Koiki and McWilliams are back for the gas.

A very precarious 2nd. We were a whisker away from occupying the bottom play off spot tonight.
It feels like waiting for the inevitable but hopefully it doesn’t happen. Pity about the rest of the results but can’t grumble at a win, although apparently you can. 

[Manwork04]

Stevenage as poor as I’ve seen and we made really really hard work of it.
We need Kioki and Shaun back for Saturday otherwise I’ll have a very bad feeling!

[everbrite]

That goal was Pinnock’s fault. He does not track but whatsoever.

Was level with Mills when he should have cleared the ball so purely based on his indecision;led to the goal.  The real heroes today were the defence. Guthrie MOM.

[Clarity]

Just Watched the John Bradley interview on YouTube. He was saying all the right things but he really looked pissed off

[Clarity]

Just Watched the John Bradley interview on YouTube. He was saying all the right things but he really looked pissed off

[guest2995]

Thank you for the miracle that allows us to be second in this division.
For that i am truly blessed .
It is simply because we have the best defence and keeper in the league .
The ability to create or pass is virtually non existent .
Fair enough , we are strong and we run and we run but it is poor in reality .

[Mysterious Curle]

Thank you for the miracle that allows us to be second in this division.
For that i am truly blessed .
It is simply because we have the best defence and keeper in the league .
The ability to create or pass is virtually non existent .
Fair enough , we are strong and we run and we run but it is poor in reality .

Give over. We play bums off seats football.

[guest2995]

Just Watched the John Bradley interview on YouTube. He was saying all the right things but he really looked pissed off

he knows full well that wasn’t good enough but he doesn’t want to say so .

[Terryfenwickatemyhamster]

Two great goals and a win. But if only it was as simple as that   

Tough test on Saturday, if how they took us apart at their place is anything to go by…

[everbrite]

I hope for your sake neverbrite doesn’t see this!

He is basically right as Koiki was causing them issues. When he came on as a replacement he did very well but faded somewhat he also dallied on the ball which via a fortunate deflection led to their goal! We played well in parts but at times we let Stevenage have the ball. Apart from the last 20/25 mins we looked comfortable bit too comfortable for my liking! There were also a few moments when we looked the better team. As said before the defence got us through the game.  If anything the defence will get us promoted! We missed McWilliams though!

[the grumpy old man]

Unless we have a game postponed that's the last Tuesday night game of the season, so it's bye bye ifollow for me, unless we can watch the Good Friday game at Oldham. I quite enjoy watching the away games on ifollow, gives me a good excuse to shout at the screen !

I wonder if we will ever be allowed to watch the Saturday games, just the away ones of course as I am a season ticket holder ?

[everbrite]

A very precarious 2nd. We were a whisker away from occupying the bottom play off spot tonight.
It feels like waiting for the inevitable but hopefully it doesn’t happen. Pity about the rest of the results but can’t grumble at a win, although apparently you can. 

Ouch!

[Risdene]

We battle and edge over the line regularly but we missed out getting 2 passing midfielders. At present the midfielders just hit areas of the pitch rather than a weighted pass to a teammate, hence regularly loosing posession!

Massive game against Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

[Bertie]

Vital win but edgy towards the end because of the Cobblers' continuing failure to kill games off. It would have been ridiculous if Stevenage had equalised as they weren't really at the races for the first hour - but yet again we let a poor opposition get back at us. Being fair I suppose they were going to start playing sometime. Hope Zimba's confidence hasn't taken too much of a battering - he should at least have worked the goalkeeper with his two chances; he could have eased the last 20 minutes considerably by putting one of those away. Also hope Appere can find his shooting boots soon.

[crazycobbler]

Our record at home to the top sides this year has been decent and I can see that continuing on Saturday. Watching us play there are many times you wouldn’t think we’re second in the league but I do think massive credit needs to go to the defence and keeper because if you keep 17 clean sheets by March you’re going to pick up a lot of points.

As others have mentioned, if we do go up it will be because of our defence but I don’t really see that as a negative at all. We all want to see more goals and attacking threat but there are two parts to the game. In many games and seasons, the team who shows excellent defensive ability often gets rewarded. There have been so many times this season (particularly at home) where we’ve won and not really given the opposition a sniff. Of course, in those same games we probably could have shown more attacking threat but shutting out the opposition time and time again will always give you a good chance to win and many times this year we have taken that chance.

[guest2995]

I think we stand every chance against the Gas .
We stop teams from playing and are the best in the division at it .
Going forward , we completely rely on Pinnock having a decent game and set pieces .
Appere is not the answer and neither is one up front because we have no one that can play that role .
We struggle when we have to take the game to sides because we have nothing .

[WadeyCobbler]

Crawled over the line in the end after looking comfortable for the most part. I like Appere but Zimba had more shots (albeit wide) and got himself into more goalscoring positions in his 30 minutes than Appere has in his 9 games. Why is that? Can we play them both?