The heat was pretty unbearable, and I pity players having to perform in it, as I couldn’t even get the motivation to go and find the free water the club were handing out. Sadly, even that caused debates online, complaints people were tipping it over their head rather than drinking or getting two or three bottles rather than one. Imagine having a life so empty that even a gesture of free water by your football club draws you to social media to complain. We’re a nation of complainers, and it drives me mad. Everyone has an axe to grind, and I get that sometimes a moan is justified, but I think some just do it for the sake of it. Yeah, I know, I’m moaning about moaners; how ironic, but seriously, the club tried to keep people hydrated, and that’s a cause for complaint? Wow, maybe I really did make the right choice by moving to the country away from people if that’s what the world is coming to.
Still, there was a football game going on, and I was rather enjoying it as the second half started. Sorensen got me hyped up when he lightly overrun a ball and put in a sliding challenge to win it back, the sort we used to see from a certain midfielder called Liam. It spooned up, their defender misjudged it, and Hopper put his effort narrowly wide. It was another good moment as we asserted control. From the start, we got possession again, Jamie Robson winning the ball high up the field (what does he ever do, right?) and feeding it to Sanders on the edge of the area, whose shot was blocked. A goal was coming, and it did, starting with *checks notes* Jamie Robson? Wait, he’s not good enough, though…. Oh well, that’s what it says here, let’s go with it. So it started with Robson, who had a neat passage of play with Bishop and then Scully. His cross was flicked on by Hopper, and their defender turned it into his own net under pressure from our brand new egg-chaser, Jordon Garrick. 1-0 City.
At that point, I felt there was only one winner. We’d been pretty dominant for thirty, forty minutes of the game; we’d restricted them to a couple of half chances, maybe one decent header they could have scored from, but I didn’t feel unsettled. I didn’t think we’d concede given how well O’Connor and Poole had played, and despite a few moments playing out from the back, I thought we’d simply retain control, kill off the game and bag all three points, which incidentally, would have left us ninth in the early table. For some reason, we just switched off.
Their change didn’t help; they’d brought on Conor Wickham, a player I’d slated pre-season, so he was always likely to cause a problem for us. Still, they hadn’t seriously looked like scoring, but for some reason we just took our foot off the gas, and I’ve no idea why. I expected Forest Green to have a spell, but it was as if things went awry for no real reason. One moment before the goal frustrated me; Jamie Robson heard the crowd yell ‘shoot’ with the keeper out of his area, did what the fans wanted, and the keeper caught it easily. Supporters around me were then saying things like ‘not like that’ as Robson turned away, and Mark Kennedy was going ballistic on the touchline; a good spell of possession had been wasted, and a good press to win the ball back resulted in a poor turnover. Perhaps (and I say this with the greatest of respect) fans don’t actually know football like they (we) think they (we) do. Perhaps.
From that catch, their keeper bowled it out, and within twenty seconds, they’d scored. To be fair, Robson had got back in position but was unable to stop a cross coming in. We didn’t deal with it; Eyoma got isolated with Wickham, who simply held him off and fired into the roof of the net. It was a gut punch, it hadn’t been coming, and yet it showed how quickly one bad decision can affect a game. I guess this is why Robson has been getting pelters online, but it’s a narrow-minded view of his overall performance, like judging a single film for a bad line of dialogue.
I did chuckle at their fans, a row of kids streaming down the aisle to try to goad our supporters across the other side of the ground. I know I’m falling into a stereotype here, but you have to commend their fanbase for sticking to the club’s eco-principles and not wanting to leave a big carbon footprint by actually going to an away game. 150; Seriously? They barely made a peep all day (some supporters that come in small numbers are quite loud), and they suddenly come to life after a goal. It’s no secret I don’t like Forest Green for the utter hypocrisy of the club when you scratch at the surface, and seeing twenty GCSE students celebrating a goal against us like we’re Manchester United really boiled my piss more than the hot weather. You know how sometimes you think, ‘yeah, their fans deserved that’, even if it’s against us and it grinds you? I didn’t think that at all.
They could have got more as well because from that moment we collapsed. Our midfield folded, and yet we did have chances, but they’re easy to forget when you’re unhappy with a result. With seven minutes left on the clock, Eyoma lofted a lovely ball over the defence to Bishop, whose pull back found Robson. His cross was nodded to the feet of Eyoma, whose shot was blocked. Ben House saw an effort blocked with five minutes left, and TJ’s cross from that block saw House again head just over. We didn’t completely lose our way, but the coherence definitely went. The changes didn’t help; Hopper came off after working like a pit pony all afternoon, but House isn’t a target man and got lost in the three defenders Forest Green engulfed him with. Also, for those on social media that said House won his headers when he came on, the heat must have you hallucinating because the official stats show he didn’t contest an aerial duel, but Tom Hopper contested 14. Sorry to be the bearer of facts again.
I did see something from Garrick I really liked; he outmuscled Conor Wickham. Normally, a fast and tricky loan player is not normally commended for his strength, but to watch him scrapping with a lump like Wickham, and come out on top, did give me hope of big things from Garrick. Still, as the game wore on, it was Mark Kennedy’s changes that fans got upset about.
The fact is this: Charley Kendall did well in midweek and will get his chance, but against three at the back in the final stages, he would have been ineffective. The subs were very much affected by the Oakley-Boothe situation; had he stayed on, I think we’d have looked for a Garrick and Vernam double with fifteen or so to go. I know that would have deprived us of Garrick, and right now, that would have been a negative, but when he came on for a midfielder, it cut our options down later in the game. Personally, I’d have like to have seen Vernam on a little earlier, perhaps for Scully, so as to stretch things. I might also have been tempted to have kept one of Sanders, Bishop or Oakley-Boothe on the bench, so we could have gone for a like-for-like switch with 25 to go, ensuring our midfield remained a little fresher in the heat. I know it was the same for both teams, but I saw the subs a bit like a pitstop yesterday, and we didn’t have the best pit strategy.
Yeah, I came away from the game unhappy because we took a point from an encounter we should have won. I know this will trigger some people, but the xG data suggested we should have won the game 2-1, and I stand by that. We had decent chances, the better chances, and nearly twice as many shots. I get what people will say; Kendall scores goals and should have played, but that’s showing a tactical naivety. I could maybe understand a shout for him to come on with 15 to go instead of Ben House, but actually, House put in a decent shift. Maybe we could have gone for Kendall over Vernam, but I see Vernam as one we’re hoping to start with soon, so again he needed the minutes. Football really isn’t as simple as ‘xxx did well, he should play’. By the way, Hakeeb Adelakun made our goal against Exeter and was borderline Man of the Match two weeks ago, I didn’t hear any shouts for him on Saturday. Why?
I’m not feeling happy this morning about the game, and it’s nothing to do with two dropped points or anything. I feel desperately sad that we’re four games in, and the positivity I felt on Tuesday has evaporated in many places. I spoke to my friend Roy in the Corn Dolly about it before the game and said as much; win and everyone remains happy; anything else and already the doubt creeps in. The togetherness this season, the lack of it last season, it’s nothing to do with patterns of play, manager’s reactions, fist pumping or players in the crowd. It’s down to results, pure and simple. Win = happy, draw at home = unhappy, draw away = happy, lose = unhappy. It’s a sad but simple stat, and it’s underlined when strong performances from the likes of Robson are labelled as something else. It’s an opinion, I’m not the opinion police, but I forgot how many people’s opinions are reactionary. Take my Dad; we argued all the way along the Sincil Drain, to a point where we were close to a proper fall out, but he sat in the Ivy Club after the game and admitted, “I just get so angry”. The difference is that he unloads on me, and that’s that; he doesn’t press the point on social media for the next 24 hours, picking fights.
I guess after a summer of not remembering why I had a mute button, I just feel a sad, inevitable wave coming over me. I’m sorely tempted to just use Facebook and Twitter for articles this season and not engage, and the problem is mine, not those with opposite opinions; it’s getting harder to ‘live and let live’, more difficult to turn a blind eye to those who have an opinion so far removed from my own that it makes me want to tap out a reply. I love football, but I don’t love toxicity, and maybe, just maybe, it is time for a different strategy. Just like the club has adopted a different approach on and off the field this summer, it might be time for me to do the same to prevent next week’s article from being another opinion-bashing debacle like this one has been.
Still, unbeaten in four, that’s not a bad start to the season; unbeaten in eight against that lot from yesterday, and I’ll take that as well.
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I agree with your reading of the game in every respect. I thought there was lots of good in there and Garrick could clearly be key for us. I was shocked when someone in front of me rubbished Robson at half time when I had got him as contender for man of the half. Is it because he looks (in italics – I cant find how to do it) like he is working hard rather than gliding through the game? I also couldn’t fathom how first they seemed to look exhausted really quickly and stopped playing, then we did the same. Something to do with the substitutions and change in structure I guess but which I am not clever enough to read. Also very interested in Mark Kennedy’s comments, and his hardly veiled criticism of Oakley-Boothe, and of the issue that lead to the equaliser (Robson for letting the cross come over or TJ for being overpowered by Wickham?).