***MatchThread*** 20th May 19:00 BENIL BallAlley Angels

Mousewar

Right, we've said a bit - not a bad thing to do after a loss but let's maybe chill it a bit.

Derek, I didn't like your first comment because you were criticising the team and doing so in a way which was so obviously exempting yourself from that criticism. I thought you had a fine game tonight but still it's not a great way of wording things.

Keith's point is that on those occasions when you miss a chance or whatever, I don't think anyone ever has a go at you because we want to encourage you rather than criticise you. And we know that you contribute enough other times. Maybe you might do the same for the rest of us on here and on the pitch.

helimachoptor

mrDerek wrote: »

where did i say i had a great game....

Your statement is very clear Derek, if you had wanted to say you had a poor game you would have

mrDerek

whats the fúcking point of a forum if ya cant post opinions
I didnt bring up shocking performances from the past to make a point
what started out as an observation on tonights performance has turned into personal attacks on me.
right well im out of this thread before something gets said that goes too far

Keaner

yeah your some hypocrite your the most aggressive person on the pitch to your own team mates when you think something is wrong and some 1 says we need to do better and you take it personally! the bottom line is we lost and people are attacking who said it instead of using todays loss to kick on! I scored but i was probably the worst on the pitch and I'm not one of the injured!! Fact is im going to use that to make sure I work harder!

And to Ed and Cillian fair play injuries and all you still done your best to help! should be said

sReq | uTeK

Be in being a bit cryptic most people have got what om trying to put out there but ill summarise it in one shirt paragraph just to stop any confusion.

We are a team who should play for each other, not players who play for themselves and personal glory when people understand this then perhaps this place will settle after defeats.

sReq | uTeK

mrDerek wrote: »

whats the fúcking point of a forum if ya cant post opinions
I didnt bring up shocking performances from the past to make a point
what started out as an observation on tonights performance has turned into personal attacks on me.
right well im out of this thread before something gets said that goes too far

You pretty much attacked the entire team whilst omitting yourself, this was simply a retort on that statement. If you can't take it don't post it mate, it wasn't an attack but I'm glad it hit home and showed it's not that nice when people take your game apart, forget the good and criticise the bad.

Also that picture of the crying female just seems all the more hilarious after your last post.

helimachoptor

time for a time out, Derek your initial post came across as you slating your team mates which is never going to end well, as you will see from other posts a lot of lads will come on and say we played **** and they'll normally say they were probably the worst of everyone.

There's obviously a lot of passion so let's take that into next weeks game lads

FrankGrimes

Lads, I can fully understand the energy: everyone clearly cares about the team winning and are very disappointed with the result and some aspects of the performance. But let's focus on constructive things - what do we need to do more of, or do better, to improve. While it's clear that everyone actually has good intentions, for whatever reason, the discussions tonight are descending into tit for tats.

Maybe we should look at a private forum where everyone can be as open as they'd be in a dressing room - I'm a big believer in that openness and maybe it'd be exactly what we need to clear the air by getting opinions shared and with some points being put to bed and others being taken onboard. But I'd suggest we try to all arrive early next week and do it then, doing it here on a public forum isn't going to be constructive.

Can see the rationale for closing the thread to allow breathing room, but I'd suggest that it be re-opened tomorrow as if someone feels that something needs saying, that'll be your own judgement. (Keith closed it, I've re-opened just to post this and will reclose).

What I'd ask is that we all remember that we have an exceptional situation as we have a bunch of lads all genuinely focused on the team's success and the level of harmony in our squad is generally way above that of the teams we play against. A little positive friction is a good thing, let's just not get personal or take things personally. I'd encourage us all to ask ourselves "is this post more likely to help us improve and focus on 3 points next week or to add fuel to the fire?" before posting.

helimachoptor

Right i've opened this back up, lets keep the comments constructive

Keaner

Right my point is we need to be able to say what we feel without being afraid of being jumped on, the singling out came from assumptions to how Kieth and Darren took Dereks post about the team, one shouldn't have to criticize them self to say what they thought, which apparently is the conclusion of last night. as Jules has said be constructive, Dereks opinion was we let ourselves down which i said in person after the match to every1 too. so why it got personal is beyond me, whether that was derek or any1 else the reactions from Kieth and Darren was too much

Mousewar

Keaner wrote: »

as Jules has said be constructive, Dereks opinion was we let ourselves down

We obviously disagree on what's constructive so.

Derek's a great player but I'm not sure telling the team that they let themselves and everyone else down, while exempting himself from that criticism, is very constructive. Especially when nothing is added to explain how and why. It's gonna rile people which is exactly what happened.

And I'm still struggling to think who it is that let themselves down so badly. No one had a great game but I don't think anyone who was uninjured stank the place up. We lost for reasons Darren pointed out best so far. Too easy to come on and just blame a defeat on a general 'players let themselves down' attitude. Just don't think it's gonna help anyone play better next week.

Keaner

where did he exempt himself from the team??

one way we let ourselves down was our clearances out of our own box went to there first man every time, another one was their small guy in mid field was beating the mid field to headers (beating me included), simple passes all over the pitch were being wasted and given away. I thought our free kick goal made the game look closer then it was. Like I said previously we did play well at parts but it was our bad moments we let ourselves down with. you encourage a team after a defeat by letting every1 know we need to do better!

Mousewar

Alright Ste, we have a difference of opinion here. Important thing is we take from this whatever we have to to make sure we show up next week and get three points. I guess that's different for different people.

Knowing Derek, he'll probably score a hat-trick next week after all this. :pac:

Keaner

To be honest yeah you took it up your way which is grand and you said it but you didnt go on about specific other times you just said not the way to encourage us, my point is you cant be afraid to get your point across. if he scores a hat trick now we'll never hear the end of it ha!

homerjay2005

thanks god we dont lose that often as we'd kill each other, we lost once in our first 15 games last season and after that defeat, we picked up 28 points out of 30...

hopefully last night has the same effect. we need to make up a possible 5 point gap though there is no reason we cant win all of our next 8 games until we play them lads again.

sReq | uTeK

Keaner wrote: »

where did he exempt himself from the team??

one way we let ourselves down was our clearances out of our own box went to there first man every time, another one was their small guy in mid field was beating the mid field to headers (beating me included), simple passes all over the pitch were being wasted and given away. I thought our free kick goal made the game look closer then it was. Like I said previously we did play well at parts but it was our bad moments we let ourselves down with. you encourage a team after a defeat by letting every1 know we need to do better!

I won't go into last night, but a lot of people except for Dereks mate took it up exactly the same way, a lot of individuals let themselves and the team down, to me and a lot included it was pretty much a dig while leaving himself out. And again if it wasn't then no worries.

But perhaps coming on and telling us how we lost the game and what we could have done differently instead of "we were ****" sort it out, then we could have had a discussion about what to improve on.

We lost it simply cause we played 3v2 in the middle, expended an inordinate amount of energy chasing them and had nothing left in the final 15, both times they scored.not to mention they had rolling subs. The midfielder won the headers as he was unmarked in the 1st half and he was picking it up between middle and defence we had too big a gap there.

You'd probably have noticed that for the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half we actually played our best stuff and we're the better team, there number 86 was anonymous 2nd half as we had the 3 in the middle to counter him and we won considerably more headers.

I flagged midfield after 10 minutes, we need to adapt quicker in games like that.

SteMcD1

even if derek's post was negative and unconstructive, the retaliation posts against derek were out of proportion imo. i can see what yous mean about his first post after the match, but tbh i think it's more an issue of his phrasing than anything. it didn't come across well but this thread blew WAY up after that.

derek didn't launch an attack at any one person, but that's what he got in return. he just said something we all knew and was stated by others immediately after the game; we didn't play a great game and need to step back up to what we were doing at the start of the season which was smashing teams up. i know we have reasons why we weren't performing our best but again i think it's just an issue of his phrasing.

pointing out specific misses he's made in recent games (yes darren, we all know you're the king of setting up chances :P), saying we could've picked up more points if he'd scored some chances etc...what is that trying to accomplish? a man with a more fragile ego would be devastated to hear these things. and that's despite being top scorer in the league. how much more do you want from him?
i know the point was more that when results don't go our way, you could look anywhere on the pitch and point fingers, not really pointing at him, but it's also super easy to read those as " stfu derek, we'd have more points if you'd score more. 9? i'd have 12 by now. and you're fat". which seems a little worse than derek's "we lost cuz nobody on my level".

i know it's not particularly relevant at this point, but i thought derek was our MotM. very clear now that you need a squad and not just 11 on that pitch. something we need if we want to win the league as darren said.

btw i ****ed my back during that game which is why i couldn't clear the ball properly for their 3rd goal , also why i wasn't able to sprint properly and w/e. would have defo gone off if we'd had subs. pretty likely i won't be fit for next week.

ps. gifs are not a sign of weakness.

FrankGrimes

Some fair points being made there lads. The points have been made that some of the comments last night weren't constructive, think we're all clear on that, so let's move on. Keep the constructive criticism coming, let's just measure it to ensure there's nothing open to being taken personally.

The point about being overrun in midfield is spot on, they smartly put an extra man in there and they used the space on that pitch very well. Several times I was faced with the option of pushing up and just having them play it in a triangle around me again (which they did very well a few times) or just jockey to hold the space and push them sideways (which isn't very effective either but does a job). We did recognise the problem early and Keaner was asked to drop a little deeper which helped a bit, but it's not the same as fully balancing 3 CMs vs 3 CMs. Add to that that their CMs frankly performed better than us, and they certainly had the upper hand in that pivotal area as a result.

While it'd have been a different game on a different pitch (that pitch being wider than any I can remember playing on does distort the shape somewhat) and if we'd had our full strength squad, we have to acknowledge that they played better passing football than we've played against in a long time.

Despite that and despite having Cillian totally banjaxed for the 2nd half (when I heard it was his knee I thought going off would be best with the full season in mind, but fair play to the man for trooping on, says a lot about his commitment to the cause in my eyes) and Ed and SteMcD carrying injuries also, and at times not playing well as a unit on an unfamiliar pitch, we were not far off getting a point or even 3. That's hardly end of days stuff so let's not lose perspective.

How you respond to a loss tells a lot about a team: I know we've got the ability, and the one thing the level of comments on here shows is we've got a squad that is damn well committed to improving so that we're right in there fighting for a title at the end of the league. Not too shabby a situation to be in.

homerjay2005

looks like we are going to be down a few players next week due to injuried and i think Cathal said he is away also.

from the league winning team last season, we already are missing Craig, Ciaran, Paddy, Dave added to Conor and Derek missing also last night.

thats 6 players down last night alone, need 3 or 4 of them back next week plus maybe 1 or 2 more.

dfx-

For what it's worth, I thought it was pretty close game, given the circumstances of injuries to keeper and winger/striker and squad depth on the night. They created chances ok and were physical, but ultimately won the game from two corners that weren't cleared after a bit of pinball. They were not very creative in open play.

I wonder how their direct style would be affected by the smaller pitch since the 'return' game is in Colmcilles.