Hornchurch friendly

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EssexDagger!
Posts: 531
Joined: Sat May 26, 2018 5:40 pm

Finished up 2-2 final result... was 1-1 with 90mins on the clock with 2 late goals..
Positives were Luque,Grant & in my opinion Harry Phipps who was our best player on the pitch! He has to start in midfield for us against Woking next Saturday, still can’t work out how he fell out of favour with Peter Taylor during our unbeaten run over Xmas/new year last season.
Also I thought the young ex millway lad Jethro Hanson looked lively in midfield...

Harold Odametey was lucky not to see red after his head butt on the Hornchurch lad, the ref obviously gave him the benefit due to it being a friendly..

Negatives for me was the keeper josh strizovich... made a good save second half but his handling and kicking were abysmal from start to finish , first time I have seen him so will assume it was just an off day, I think Justhams No1 jersey is safe for the time being.
NBDag
Posts: 1227
Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:22 pm

He’s still very young so you can’t be surprised at him struggling to adapt immediately to professional men’s football. But if Justham finds himself injured or sent off I would like to see us bring in someone on loan. The Essex Cup should be good enough experience for him.

Do think our preseason results aren’t the most encouraging of things though. Hopefully we’re just holding ourselves back for Woking.
dagger4eva
Posts: 1735
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:39 pm

Results in pre season are clearly not important, ive never taken a great deal of interest in them and probaby never will.

That said, we have won just 1 of them, our 1st Vs Concord and it has got me a little nervous about the kind of season were about to have.

Lets hope we are going to be ready, and fully raring to go Vs Woking on Saturday.... and more importantly, that we get off to a winnig start.
NickMurphy
Posts: 538
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:37 pm

Was at the West Ham game last night and the Hornchurch game today and I thought we zipped it around pretty well at times. Good close control, spreading the play and it showed with the opening goal this afternoon which was well-worked and finished off nicely by Luque.

That said, and despite scoring two goals today, it did feel a bit like we lacked a bit of cutting edge. Obviously with the caveat that it's pre-season and we've played two games in 24 hours, it seemed as though we couldn't find a killer pass in either match and that for all the nice passing at times it did come largely without that killer ball.

On the plus side, impressed with Odamatey and Luque from what I saw. Like the above I thought Phipps did well too and the trialist Hanson. Not sure whether another midfielder is really what we need, but he was tenacious, didn't pull out of a challenge, had good control in close quarters and used the ball cleverly. If we can pick him up I think it'd be a very good signing and solid competition for Robinson, which might help him.

The other trialist Sullivan did alright without setting the world alight, and I'm pretty content with the back-four, especially the centre-halves and Liam Gordon. Bit different to playing in front of 50,000 in the Gold Cup than Hornchurch on a drizzly afternoon! The 'keeper didn't cover himself in glory in the first-half but to his credit did make a fine stop in the second-half, which will hopefully do him good.

All in all it's been a solid couple of workouts over the last couple of days without us setting the world alight. Don't think PT will be overly enamoured with the feisty nature of the Hornchurch game, mind. Couldn't tell you who's going to make it into the starting XI for Woking next week but I'm looking forward to getting back and watching us play properly again after a couple of months off.
Diggerthedog
Posts: 3893
Joined: Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:08 pm

I see our lack of cutting edge an issue but I suppose that was always going to happen with losing a player like Wilkinson and failing to replace him. I went to the West Ham game and the concern I had was we went too long ball when we know we’re better on the floor just because the new tall signing was there.

The positives is we have played some good stuff at times so hopefully we can beat some of the brute type teams in this league. Our midfield is a million times better than last season and could be vital with chipping in with goals come April.
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