What a beautiful sunny day for an easy drive along the A12 for a visit to Colchester and easy parking in the high-tech well managed park & ride. With the Colchester manager declaring that his side were decimated with injuries, what could possibly go wrong! Well, let’s see. Firstly, this rather hideous ground will I am sure, look fairly awful by the time it’s half the age of our beloved Kenny. The queues for food and beer pre-match were almost legendary whilst the travelling masses were entertained by a band admittedly trying their best, as they belted out from within a steel shipping container outside the ground. If Carlsberg or even Fosters designed football grounds then…….Nice helpful Essex folk in Colchester that made us welcome but maybe finishing touches to the ground could make some difference.
Inside the ground, the policy seems to partly anesthetise the away supporters with the hydrogen sulphide odour from the septic sewage that emits from I suspect, from an ill-managed pumping station. If the foul smell in the air does not get you then the unwary traveller, having consumed an ale or two, could easily become a victim of the steep poorly configured steps at the away end: personally, I saw a few legendary Hatters followers take a tumble. So, onto the game for which Nathan made three changes from the sub-standard Newport eleven being without the injured Hylton and Mullins and dropping Palmer to the bench: replacements were Gray, D’Ath and Marriott. This enabled two forgotten D’Ath and Gray to be given an opportunity to restart the engine room with “he has to turn up” Cook. Well sadly within that first 45 minutes the Cook virus; note the comments “has to turn up” are from NJ, had obviously taken hold of the majority of the team and we were just dreadful and I mean truly dreadful: second to every ball, disinterested, feeble and disorganised. Within four minutes a nice cross from the left was well headed by Porter as once again the Luton defence demonstrated their vampire vulnerability to crosses: if only we had a defender or two in the coaching staff! With half an hour of the game gone, Nathan decided it was time to make a change and bring Justin on; truly Nathan was spoilt for choice in terms of which midfielder to take off apart from Pelly who was at least showing a will and some urgency. Gray was selected as the lucky departure although it could easily have been the invisible man Cook or D’Ath. Justin to his credit was immediately into the game, initially in midfield, giving us two midfielders, Justin & Pelly, who seemed interested in the day. This performance in the first period was simply embarrassing and easily on a par with that Marx Brothers effort at Bristol Rovers last season. A second goal followed when Macey could not stop a Porter shot from just going over the line but to be fair to Macey he did make one really good save in the half to stop what looked like a third goal. In the second half with the game just about won, Colchester did sit back a touch more and the Hatters began to gradually improve as the game wore on. Nathan made a couple of more substitutions: Palmer for Marriott and Lee “the most gifted player at the club”, for the injured Cook. Poor Lee, he has had a dreadful season firstly being played in an alien position by Jones and then being set up by those delusional comments from Hart. Yet surely even then it’s touch unkind for some of the frustrated travelling masses to sing of Lee “Olly, Olly Lee, when he get the ball he does feck all Olly, Olly Lee”; this chant just went on repeat and repeat. As the second half wore on we did improve a lot. The gifted Justin now playing as a left wing-back had a great strike on goal that beat the keeper but was well headed off the line by a defender, Sheehan had a screamer from some distance out that fizzed just past the left-hand post. Then we also had lots of scrambled efforts in the area some featuring D’Ath who had at last woken up. Finally, deep into stoppage time, Vassell, who incidentally earned his wages, got a goal but too little too late. Overall Impression: Worthy performances: Cuthbert, Pelly, Vassell, Justin, most of the others were quite honestly just embarrassing in that first half. Honestly, have some of our players just given up; just simply no motivation or pride in wearing the shirt in the last few games and the performance was not that much of a shock to me as this one has been coming based on recent lack of commitment. Why should things have changed so much since that sparkling 4-0 win at Yeovil? Simply since that time belief and commitment have just drained from the side. I have always thought that a successful team ideally needs a spine of four; goalkeeper, centre-back, midfield enforcer and persistent pain in the arse striker. We have had two of those spine points whilst NJ has played Russian roulette with the first spine point, the keeper and never addressed the Mary Celeste midfield. Let’s hope our incredibly stubborn manager learns well from this season and grafts a sense of reality onto his undoubted passion. Sadly our travelling mass, almost 1800 supporters yesterday, feel rather let down by the management team & players. Yet it would be plainly daft to surrender now: ok, we are in totally crap form no matter what NJ tells. We are not a great team, we don’t play with an entertaining style despite the “Luton way”, whatever that is, that NJ talks about. We have seven games to go and hopefully, the players will start to turn up and play for the shirt again but if that is to happen some faith has to be restored within the camp immediately! Has something gone off track with the togetherness of the manager/team, are we really just a one man Danny Hylton band? Who knows, but while there is still a chance of promotion via the playoffs all we can do is remain behind the team; easy words I know especially after yesterday’s first half performance but let’s not raise the white flag just yet. Some Thoughts On Individual performances: Macey: shall we blame Macey, well this development team keeper does need to improve and learn to come off his line but it’s not his fault that the “Mary Celeste” midfield aimlessly drifted in the first half. I reckon eventually Macey will be fine but how difficult is it to recruit an experienced keeper these days; remember when we once had Tyler and Pilkington? O’Donnell: nothing changes in terms of commitment and sadly nothing changes in terms of quality. Cuthbert: played well enough but looked like he was carrying an injury. Rea: fairly decent at times but still has a tendency to let the man he is marking just get away from him when the ball is crossed over: that can be coached, so he will improve. Sheehan: just nowhere near his best but did try to drive forwards in the second half. Pelly: tried all afternoon, some good passes and in some instances despite having done all the right things, his final touch letting him down: easily the pick of the midfield. D’Ath: looked rusty and lost in the first half but he really did improve in the second half. Gray: just about zero confidence or self-belief yet at Crewe a few weeks back he looked really good before he was dropped from the side. Cook: Nathan asked him to ”turn up” and having seen the first half performances of D’Ath and Gray maybe NJ as limited options but Cook really just has not hit it off at Luton: time for a rethink with the midfield Nathan. Marriott: never made much on an impression on the game but to make an impression he has to have the service and not balls pumped down the middle to be gobbled up by L2 centre backs! Vassell: never gave up and got a small reward in injury time with a goal. The Subs: Justin: I thought he played well and it was good to have his obvious class on the pitch: time for him to become an automatic first choice Nathan! Palmer: he does try so hard but worth retaining? Lee: tried to make some spectacular passes. He has the vision but sadly lacks the quality to deliver anything much. The Teams: Colchester: Walker, Brindley, Lapslie, Wright, Porter (Bonne 88), Brennan Dickenson, Elokobi, Eastman, Murray, Pyke (Fosu 66), James (Wynter 59). Subs not used: Dean Brill: remember him? Briggs, O'Sullivan, Lewis Kinsella once on loan to us from Villa.. Luton: Macey, O'Donnell, Sheehan, Cuthbert, Rea, Pelly, Gray (Justin 31), D'Ath, Cook (Lee 68), Vassell, Marriott (Palmer 61). Subs not used: Moore, Bakinson, Famewo, Smith. Booked: Lapslie 70. Attendance: 5,445 (1,775 Luton). Referee: Gavin Ward; fairly lenient only booking one player.
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Well, its four months since we had our double outing to Exeter in November to play a side languishing at the base of league two. The two games were themselves very forgettable affairs but at least my football education was supplemented by Paul Hart informing us in a post-match interview, who the most skilful player at the club was. Since that time Exeter have gone on a magnificent run on their shoestring resources and climbed the table to sit in the play-off places: quite some achievement for such a financially strapped outfit and well done to them. So once again we found ourselves up against playoff contenders. In fact, the last six games have been Doncaster, Plymouth, Yeovil, Stevenage, Carlisle and Exeter. Yes, we managed to comfortably thump Yeovil but from the other five games against top 7 clubs we only managed four points; ok, granted we only lost one of that series but it’s hardly promotion form.
For the game once again Nathan shuffled the pack some by desire some due to injuries. In defence Senior came in for the unfortunate Potts; he collects so many injuries that surely JS will have him on his wanted list. Gambin replaced Olly Lee and Jack Marriott replaced Isaac Vassell. In the first half, both sides played open if somewhat unexciting football as they softly probed and passed their way forwards. Certainly, this Exeter side looked a transformation to the one we played in November yet still both sides looked like two reasonable L2 sides and certainly to my mind, not like two sides that would be comfortable and strong enough for life in L1. The Hatters did have some goal attempts in the first half: a header from Marriott which he should have scored from, a difficult effort for Smith that he placed over the bar and a fine free kick from Cook that went narrowly wide plus a few other less close calls. Exeter themselves had first half attempts on goal but the improving Macey dealt with their efforts well enough; in fact, it looked at one time as if Macey had picked up an injury in one outing well off his line but he recovered to continue. I will put my hand up yet again and say that I belong to a probably small minority that reckon within Macey there is a really decent keeper waiting to emerge; it’s quite lonely having such unpopular opinions! So, the first half was fairly uninspirational for the Hatters fans. In fact, the supporters were, in my opinion, getting rather nervous, edgy and critical. From my point of view based on very contained expectations, it was a reasonably even first half maybe just shaded by us and at least we had not gone the customary goal behind. Well onto the second half and we were very fortunate not to go that goal behind when from the slimmed down figure of Reuben Reid had an attempt on goal for the ball to come out to mid penalty area to an unmarked Exeter player who really should have scored but shot way over the bar. The alarm bells were ringing and those bells reached a crescendo on the hour mark when our left flank was undone and the ball sweetly cut back to the unmarked Taylor in the area to coolly slot the ball past Macey: sorry NJ terrible defending again. Well, the customary goal behind at home had duly arrived but no worries, Jones & Hart were both defenders so they will soon sort this type of thing out. Jones then decided to make a couple of substitutions; firstly Vassell coming on for Marriott followed by Palmer for Gambin. Within a few moments of Palmer arriving he cut in almost like a tall winger from the right to deliver a fine cross. Then a couple of minutes a Palmer effort hit the top of the crossbar. It seemed that Palmer had a taste for the wing play stuff as he tried his luck again delivering a very good cross for marvellous Danny Hylton to head the equaliser. Jones then made one final change taking off Cook to replace him with Olly Lee: actually full marks to our management team for managing to actually spot Cook in the second half; takes a keen eye this management malarkey. There were then a couple of near misses at both ends including Macey making a “Walton like” stop with his legs at the near post. Probably a fair result and I should say that once again Mr Kettle refereed the game well enough. Overall Impression: A reasonable but not exceptional game from two playoff candidates neither of which to my mind look capable of standing up to the likes of highly motivated hungry Stevenage in the playoffs should either of these two sides take part in that competition. I just wish I knew how Darren Sarll manages to lift a bunch of mediocre players to such levels; I am just a little envious I guess. I feel that Jones needs another season or maybe two to build his side and I hope the fans in this internet/social media opinionated world manage to support him during that time. Maybe Jones could do with a little more help from the experienced heads around him assuming they are the right heads; I really don’t know but it would be nice to think that maybe a David Pleat type could be his mentor. I guess the key work is patience and after all, it did take the Luton legend avid Pleat a fair while to build his side: onwards and gradually and sustainably upwards. Some thought on individual performances: Macey: improving all the time but I would say that as I suspect I am the only member of his “yes, he is worth having” club. O’Donnell: as ever what you see is what you get a ticking back pass time bomb mixed with splendid athleticism and effort but really he is at best a L2 right back who really get’s stick from some supporters when he makes any error. We do have a very promising right back; just trying to recall his name. Rea: reasonable game; certainly a better defender than a midfield player. Sheehan: this guy is straight from the WW1 trenches; massively brave and committed: if only he was two inches taller! Senior: I thought he looked a little rusty; some good part and some less so. Smith: I really admire the fact that you will get 100% effort and commitment from Smith, not the most gifted player but if he were he would be in a higher league. His overall performance yesterday was not by playing him on the left for much of the game. Pelly: frequently most of the excitement came from Pelly’s play but that has to be balanced with him occasionally doing the simple thing poorly and the difficult thing splendidly on occasion. Keep him playing NJ, he is well worth his place. Gambin: a real mixture of promising and poor; maybe his mind was on Malta? Cook: some nice touches in the first half but then took on his invisible man persona in the second half; sorry, he just does not do enough for me for NJ to have him as the first name on the team sheet. Marriott: looked a touch rusty but as ever full of effort. Hylton: he is now beginning to look as though he has battled his way through a hard season but having said that, there he is with the equaliser. The subs Vassell: I don’t think it really happened for Vassell yesterday. He is a great talent to have with us but just did not get those powerful runs going against Exeter. Palmer: for a guy who can’t play football he really did an excellent job; it’s not plan B it’s plan P. Lee: only on for a while: one horrible misdirected penalty area clearance but otherwise ok in his brief spell. The teams: Luton: Macey, O’Donnell, Rea, Sheehan ©, Senior, Pelly, Cook (Lee 81), Smith, Gambin (Palmer 67), Hylton, Marriott (Vassell 55). Subs: Moore (GK), D’Ath, Palmer, Justin, Famewo Yellows: Sheehan, Senior Exeter: Olejnik, Woodman, James, Harley, Wheeler, Watkins, Moore-Taylor (Croll 6), Taylor (Oakley 86), Stacey, Reid (Tillson 74), Brown. Subs: Grant, Hamon, Ampadu, Sweeney Yellows: Watkins Referee: Trevor Kettle: he did ok in my opinion. Yet again beaten by the side from one of the few towns that make Luton look an attractive place.
It’s simply so frustrating that Luke Wilkinson was not picked up or his path blocked for that opening goal. Why is it so frustrating? Well, it’s not as if NJ had no knowledge of Wilkinson’s threat in the penalty area as he had scored 7 goals in his 62 appearances for the Hatters. Maybe NJ would have benefited from having an experienced defender on his coaching staff but hang on, Hart is that experienced “dump them on their bum’s” centre-half, in fact, Hart when he was manager of Portsmouth, said of Wilkinson “the most impressive debut I have seen from any young player” when he signed him and made his Portsmouth reserve team debut. So, with that background knowledge, why had precautions not been taken against Wilkinson from set pieces? Ok, these things happen but it does not stop it from being simply annoying. Overall the game was just so disappointing from a Luton point of view with our visitors Stevenage, being just so up for the game: during the entire 90 minutes they were consistently first to the second ball and Wilkinson and his co-centre back dominated in the air. We did have our chances but the 41-year-old Day in Stevenage’s goal pulled off some excellent saves; maybe on another day we would have managed a point but to be fair, the commitment shown by the Stevenage players was simply way ahead of anything offered by our Luton players. The second goal by Ben Kennedy, a player I have liked for a while now, was worthy of winning any game; simply a superb strike from range. Overall Impression: Simply beaten on the day by a side who wanted the win more than we did. Stevenage worked harder, won most loose balls and continually pressed when they had the opportunity to do so. Overall a very disappointing day to be a Hatter and I for one can’t see any reason why Dan Potts, a decent defender but no wing back, should be selected ahead of a guy who can actually play wing back; Jack Senior! Oh, and while I am at it, why ever is O’Donnell selected ahead of the very talented Justin: sorry Nathan you got a fair bit wrong on Saturday. Please don’t think that I am getting anti-NJ, I think he needs a couple of full seasons to build his side and for what it’s worth he has my support albeit it only about 60:40 in terms of satisfaction; can’t fault the away form as that is brilliant but for the long suffering home supporters its tough. The problem is that he is learning and that I can accept, yet the frustrating part is he seems to be learning rather slowly. Maybe if Hart is up to it he could more forcibly mentor Jones but there again after hearing Harts comments about the odd player maybe not but I really don’t know anything about the dynamics of the Jones/Hart working relationship. A few comments on individual performances: Macey: personally I feel he should have done better with that corner that resulted in a typical Wilkinson goal. O’Donnell: as ever, tried his best and did actually produce a couple of decent crosses. Cuthbert: mostly decent but surely he should have been more aware of the Wilkinson threat that resulted in the opening goal. Sheehan: reasonable game but not at his best. Potts: not really impressive: ever time he had the ball moving forward he looked to pass backwards “god where am I, where is Sheehan to help me”: mistake by NJ and for heaven's sake start learning from these selection mistakes. Rea: do we really need a centre-back playing at the base of the dreaded diamond when we are at home? No more to say on that one. Smith: chasing the game most of the afternoon and never imposed himself on the midfield in the desired way. Pelly: tried to play some football but passes were often over-hit. Cook: can’t really comment as I am not overly sure he was on the pitch. Vassell: all credit to Vassell he really did try his best and ran at the Stevenage defence at every opportunity. Hylton: for most of the game really well managed by Darren Sarll’s tactics of his two centre backs. , maybe Sarll learns a lot quicker than Nathan does. Well unlike last year we arrived in good enough time to make good use of the beer marquee. Unfortunately no real ale on offer but such are the sacrifices I make in following Luton. Seriously, not a bad at all with home and away fans mingling which is just as it should be. Sadly when enquiring to a couple of the locals about our pair of departed Alex’s’ they were not overly impressed with either: mind you they did not seem to be enthusiastic about any of their players. However, a chap the Yeovil supporters were very enthusiastic about was an ex-player by the name of Nathan Jones; they simply love the guy down here and talked of his enthusiasm and commitment, good to hear.
On returning to his old patch, Nathan made a few changes to the side that lost to Oxford recalling the preserved duo of Cuthbert and Smith in place of Mullins and Senior. At full back, O’Donnell replaced Justin with Sheehan taking the left back slot thereby giving a rest to Senior. So we lined up with a back four of O’Donnell, Cuthbert, Rea and Sheehan. The town got off to a blistering start really going at the Yeovil defence who seemed to enter panic mode every time that Isaac Vassell had possession and started running at them. One such run as he screamed past his marker and into the area, resulted in a penalty that Danny Hylton coolly converted to give us the early lead. Oh, it's just so nice to score a goal that early in the game. Luton kept up the pressure and Rea came close to adding a second as did Cuthbert; lots of pressure and the centre backs involved, nice but Cuthbert should have put that shot on target rather than over the bar. That pressure brought about the second goal after half an hour with a rapid fire counter-attack following a Yeovil corner. The cleared ball came to O’Donnell in the left back position, yes, that’s right the left back position and he slipped the ball through to the onrushing Hylton who powered towards the goal, rounded the advancing keeper and passed the ball into the empty net for goal number 22 of the season; fabulous stuff! We were really looking very comfortable against a poor Yeovil side and the feeling was that we would be more likely to add a goal than concede one. As you would expect after a few encouraging words from the Yeovil manager’s half-time team talk, the home side came out really fighting in the early period of the second half and to be fair we did just look a touch wobbly in that period as Yeovil had really upped their game; surely not a repeat of last season’s second half demise? Well, thankfully that was not to be the case as we came through that minor onslaught and increased our lead, effectively killing the game, in the 55th minute with our third goal of the afternoon, this time from Rea. Following a free kick awarded for a foul on Hylton, Sheehan’s cultured left clog swung over a free-kick to the far post to be met by Rea to send a header across goal and into the net. You know for a bloke that I am always saying needs to improve his heading; he was not having a bad afternoon. Oh, and Sheehan the man with the magical left foot almost added a third with the early taking of a free kick from a very long way out. He spotted the Yeovil keeper off his line and sent the free-kick high from close to the halfway line that just went over the bar with the keeper desperately trying to recover his position. That was a really clever bit of football from the thoughtful Sheehan. At 3-0 Nathan decided to add extra steel to the defence and brought on the unlucky Potts for Gray who had started to disappear from the game and within a few minutes Potts made an excellent interception around the penalty spot with the Yeovil striker in space and just about to pull the trigger; that really was a classy tackle. The game was finally completely closed off after 85 minutes when Smith passed to Pelly just on the left of the area. Pelly cut in and across the area before sending a firm shot into the floor of the net; lovely goal, now let’s have a few more goals from our Pelly. Overall Impression: Well, a great day out for the 698 travelling hatters fans to see their side put in such a commanding performance against an admittedly poor Yeovil side. Nobody had a poor game, a couple were a touch quiet but some were closer to outstanding. In that higher bracket, I would definitely put Pelly with Hylton at the top of the exceptional list closely followed by Vassell. It was Vassell who never gave a Yeovil defender a moment's rest as every time they had the ball the powerful Vassell would be after them and when Vassell had the ball at his feet they simply struggled to hold him. Well done to Mick Harford for unearthing this gem called Vassell. Some thoughts on individual performances: Macey: a couple of good saves, well one actually in the second half when diving to his right was exceptional. His handling in the air really needs some work; maybe staying for extra afternoon training simply practising taking crosses under pressure may help. I think the raw material there within Macey is rough but good and we should consider recruiting him when Arsenal let him go. O’Donnell: a fairly decent game by SOD’s own standards: a real mix of the good bad and the ugly but to be fair the good part came out on top. The good was the likes of his fine pass to Hylton in the move that led to our first goal; the bad, getting out of position so often which in turn dragged Cuthbert to RB to cover & the ugly the number of times he miss hit passes out of play but as I say, by SOD’s standards, not a bad game. Cuthbert: he was up against some tall types today and had a real battle in the air and did fine. His no-nonsense clearances particularly in the first 15 minutes of the second half, were invaluable. Rea: some good tackling and some mixed distribution. Just as I was saying last week that Rea needs to improve his heading, he pops up with a well taken headed goal. I do think that Rea looks far more comfortable as a defender rather than the holding midfield role; simply more suited to that CB position. Sheehan: a strong and brave performance from Sheehan and the bonus of that cultured left clog. He almost scored one in the second half when spotting the keeper off his line, sent a long range effort from a free kick, just over the bar. Pelly: had a very good game and was involved in most of our better moves. After an age without a goal, he cut into the penalty area from the left and planted a beauty into the back of the net. Smith: the nonstop Smith was booked after about half an hour and I worried that the booking may reduce his effectiveness but he just became a touch more thoughtful and saw out the full 90 minutes without risk of a second yellow. Gray: a bit of a surprise starter and looks as if he could do with a run in the team to get some match sharpness. Some parts of his play were decent and he quietly played his part in our victory: can’t be easy for him being so readily sacrificed from the team after a game or two, needs a run in the side but is now the right time? Cook: fair contribution but being honest, a relatively quiet one. After a couple of recent good performances, he has slightly slipped back into his “is Cook on the pitch” style: not a lot bad, not a lot good but simply just not a lot, would D’Ath or Gambin offer more? Vassell: simply scared the Yeovil defence to pieces every time he got the ball: he terrified them with his pace and power as seen in the winning of that penalty for our opening goal. Hylton: magnificent striker’s performance crowned with a superbly taken second goal giving our talisman his 22nd goal of the season. As ever he leaves a new band of Hylton fans at another ground in L2; the Yeovil crowd really took to him! The Subs: Potts: did well and made one particularly telling clearance when the Yeovil player was in a really good shooting position. Palmer: did quite well and added that extra bit of aerial power; as I have said before, a decent addition to our squad. Marriott: not on for long but nevertheless buzzing with energy and was just what we needed late in the game. The Teams: Yeovil: Krysiak, Shephard, Mugabi, Lacey, Dickson (c), Lawless, Dawson, Dolan (Goodship 82), Whitfield (Harrison 62), Zoko, Akpa Akpro (Eaves 66). Booked: Dawson, Lawless Luton: Macey, O'Donnell, Cuthbert (c), Rea, Sheehan, Pelly, Smith, Gray (Potts 66), Cook, Vassell (Palmer 69), Hylton (Marriott 77). Subs: Mullins, D'Ath, Justin, Moore (GK) Yellows: Smith Referee: Kevin Johnson. |
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December 2017
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