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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Hi there, welcome to my site where I chronicle various things about the Hatters, a team I have followed since the mid 60’sArchives
December 2017
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