Taylor's of Harrogate

Discuss all matters related to Dagenham and Redbridge
DaggerJoel11
Posts: 1190
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2014 7:14 pm
Location: Becontree
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Tremendous day all round and without doubt our most convincing performance of the campaign, which we mostly controlled aside for a couple of spells including one where they lay siege to our goal at the end, but we defended with calmness and composure. The Dagenham of a few weeks ago would've probably crumbled and succumbed to a leveller as Harrogate piled forwards in large numbers but we were solid and the two new defenders looked highly promising. Manny reads the game so well and while Smith at times looked like he hasn't played football for a while, his experience tells and there's definitely a lot for him to give. We've always been just two or three players away from being a good side and yesterday proved that. It's amazing what happens when we play McQueen on the wing, a back four, an actual centre midfielder in central midfield and an actual footballer up front! Little things but when combined, highly effective. Balanta does the simple things well and has a trick or two up his sleeve plus loving the link-up with Tomi up front. As has been mentioned, our strikeforce looked like they had the understanding and coherency of a group of players that had played together all season.

Really hope we keep it up because there's still a long way to go to banish that start to the season, but if we can win like that against currently one of the best sides in the division, we will steadily be looking up the table rather than looking down at the trapdoor. Now let's see how we handle the pressure of Tuesday where we'll go to Crabble expected to win.
''Dagenham & Redbridge look a very different side to about ten or fifteen minutes ago when they were on the back foot, and here's Benson...BRILLIANT!''
Alan
Posts: 1464
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2014 2:34 pm

Onariase is what we have been crying out for, a centre half who wants to dominate. And Nathan Smith has the experience we needed - he spent a lot of time talking to the back four and I noticed when there was a stoppage first half he ran to McQueen and was telling him where to run and indicating the balls he’d be playing out from left back.
Diggerthedog
Posts: 3893
Joined: Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:08 pm

What a difference a few days and a few new players makes. Can’t fault anyone who played yesterday, all three new players are a level above and unreal to think Smith has not played a game this season. Very surprised by Harrogate’s route one crap given they play on 3G every other week but perhaps we made them play like with our pressing.

Man of the match for me was Justham but Manny was very close and is an absolute tank, pretty good back four we have and some adequate back up now. Thought we could have been more clinical towards the end as some of the breaks were very favourable.

Well done boys.

Dover is a must not lose game to keep them at arms length.
dagger4eva
Posts: 1735
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:39 pm

So many men of the match yesterday but for me, I'd probably have to give it to Ben Nunn.

His enthusiasm, passion and leadership drove the team on literally from the get go. A REAL Captains performance.

There seemed a real buzz and spark about the place yesterday right through from before the game up until we finally crawled out of there around 1am

More performances like that and we'll be ok.

Great day!
rebeldagger
Posts: 298
Joined: Sat Oct 19, 2013 7:51 pm
Location: Romford
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Easily our best performance of the season to date. The team dug deep and found some reserve to withstand the kitchen sink that was being hurled at them by Harrogate. The last ten minutes of that much were some of the most nerve-wrecking I've seen for a while and Justham did more then enough to make certain those three points would be staying with us.

We deserved the win I feel, although Harrogate did pile on the pressure in the second half, we stood our ground and all the team to a man stepped up and gave their all. This was the Daggers of old, the spirit that I saw when I first started coming to Victoria road (around 2007) and I'm delighted to see it return.

I was just as pleased with the performance of the back four, as I was in all parts of the pitch, as been said before, despite having three debutantes in the team it seemed as if they've playing together all season.

Looking at the table we're really not far off securing our status this year at all, looking at the teams around us and considering we've lost too many games by the odd goal, now that we have those two or three players that we've crying out for I do think we should be able to save ourselves from the drop that only seemed inevitable a few weeks /days ago.

Having said all that it is of course only one game, and we do need to take each game at a time, yet COYFD!!!!!!!!!!!!
TommyD&R
Posts: 432
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:56 pm

Had a look at the highlights and I didn’t realise at the time just how good Justhams save was towards the end. Unbelievable reactions, probably the best save I’ve seen down there since that Robbo save on the last day of the 08/09 season. Make sure you have a look everyone!
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