Lopo’s View
Posted by lopo1 on 13/09/2008
With the new season now well under way, a mixture of results and a division where anyone can beat anyone on their day leaves us in 18th place, but only 8 points off the top and 6 points off the play-offs. After two straight defeats against Wrexham and Eastbourne we needed 3 more games to pick up our first win. The away defeat to Ebbsfleet was one of the worst performances I have seen for a very long time. Both going forward and defensively we were poor and never looked comfortable against a well organised Ebbsfleet side. It was one of them games where we couldn’t build up any sort of attack and ended up going long to Thomas and Christie which didn’t work!
Signs of missing Steve Morison (suspended) were showing and he returned against Crawley with no luck in what turned out to be another tricky game. New signing Chris Day found his feet quickly and so far has turned out to be a fantastic signing. Day is a class above Ashley Bayes and brings Football League experience to us too. He showed this in our away trip to Barrow where he made several top draw saves and kept us in the game. Steve Morison gave the Barrow defence a tough time. Barrow for me was the first game that we really looked convincing even though we conceded so early. Morison, McMahon and Vincenti all had good chances and if we had gone in 4 or 5 up by half time that wouldn’t of flattered us at all. It was good to see us really attack and look so comfortable defensively, with Barrow starting the season so well too. With a clanger to beat all clangers from the Barrow keeper, Lawrie Wilson tucked home Boro’s 3rd and a deserved 1st win. It definately made the long trip worth it.
After such a good win at Barrow to then go to Kettering and lose was a real kick in the teeth. We didn’t even play that badly. I don’t think we were the better team and Kettering proved that having an organised team is very useful in this division. It was one of them games where we had chances, but it was never going to be our night and unfortunately Kettering did win and took Iyseden Christie with them. It all became clear why Westley allowed Christie to go at the 20/20 meeting before the Burton game. He told us that Christie was lazy and didn’t want to do anything about his excess weight/fitness unlike Ashley Bayes who has continued to work hard in training despite being dropped. After listening to an interview on the Kettering website, Christie spoke about his move just before the Kettering game. I lost all respect for a player I once rated. He never really wanted to have to work for his place and rightly was told to go. Despite him scoring twice against York for Kettering I still agree with the decision to let him go (just about).
Since the defeat at Rockingham Road we have really upped the tempo and won our next two games very convincingly at home against Burton and Altrincham respectively. Both of these games were so pleasing to watch and we are definately beginning to look more of a threat going forward aswell as playing good football (most of the time). Morison is finally beginning to score goals and John Martin has returned nicely into the midfield alongside Michael Bostwick. We surely have enough to push up the table and into play-off contention. 18th position doesn’t sound good at the moment, but we are only 8 points from the top and hopefully with a bit of luck we can continue to improve and push it all the way.
Lopo
