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........ and we've knocked from the top spot..

Att: 2599 (272 Gulls in the attendance).

Happy with that, a good away point against the league leaders.

Good result in the end. Looked like we were unlucky not to score two in that game.

Yes that's what I mean. If we had lost that I would have been gutted.

We had our biggest central defender missing. Had to play an inexperienced 19 year old centre half. Key player in Opi Edwards missing. Then we have lost our two best midfield players during the game and it seems that Asa Hall was struggling with a knock picked up during the game as well.

Given that we should have been in the lead by half time by all accounts we could quite easily have folded but deservedly came back to get the draw. Who said this young team hasn't got character.

Once again we have given as good as we have got against another of the supposedly best teams in the league away from home. If we get everybody fit we will be more than a match for anyone in this league.

W3, D3, L3 so far. If we manage a win on Saturday then we may be able to sneak into the play-offs by the 10 game mark. Very happy with this start and I am confident that we will be fighting for that last play-off spot this season.

brucie wrote: ↑03 Sep 2019, 22:00 Yes that's what I mean. If we had lost that I would have been gutted.

We had our biggest central defender missing. Had to play an inexperienced 19 year old centre half. Key player in Opi Edwards missing. Then we have lost our two best midfield players during the game and it seems that Asa Hall was struggling with a knock picked up during the game as well.

Given that we should have been in the lead by half time by all accounts we could quite easily have folded but deservedly came back to get the draw. Who said this young team hasn't got character.

Once again we have given as good as we have got against another of the supposedly best teams in the league away from home. If we get everybody fit we will be more than a match for anyone in this league.

I agree with brucie

I don't think there have been any games where we havn't played well and sneaked a point here or there, or got three points by a flukey last minute goal or anything.

Chucked the Barnet game away from a winning position. Had 90% of the game against Maidenhead. Should have won at Bromley. Hard fought win away against Dover. Didn't play well against Hartlepool but even in that one we got into a potential winning position.

Solihull are the only team that we have really lost heavily to but a goalkeeping howler and a ridiculous penalty lost us the game in the first nine minutes. Even in that game we could have scored three in the second half. Half a team out tonight but it sounded like with a bit more luck in the first half we might have won that one as well.

Noone is saying we have the perfect team but I honestly think its reasonable to say that we could quite easily be sitting with half a dozen more points than we have now, so people bemoaning our start aren't really taking into account the full picture.

I thought we looked reasonably solid at the back tonight and Lewis and Cameron looked a decent pairing. Although, clearly the very useful new signing will be here as a starter. In the middle of the park, Poku was both dirty and effective for them. Asa Hall did not have a good night at all. Reidy’s turn and shot from a delightful move where he showed great legs in getting inside his man from a Duku cross and swivelling and shooting hard against the upright was promising. We had the ball in the back of the net reasonable early on. It looked offside. The linesman took an absolute age and celebrations were almost over when he eventually put his flag up to signal offside. Think it was Duku who put it in the net.

But despite the better chances falling for us, I thought Woking shaded the first half. They left their foot in a lot. And we responded. It was no surprise that there ended up being early injury substitutions. The officials were bloody awful, tbh. I think Lemonheigh-Evans was withdrawn at half time to save him being kicked up in the air for large parts of the second half. Armani Little was another nobbled by Woking and his replacement showed early promise on the wing. Compact little player who likes to run at players with the ball and looks good at it. Woking finished much the stronger in the first half as we did switch off a bit after Little went off.

Second half, it was hard to pick a winner until Woking went ahead. Would need to see it again, but just before Hall had been dispossessed in half way (as he was a few times tonight). It was a well taken finish from their number 7. I was up the other end. I didn’t think we’d be getting back level. It seemed that sort of night. Andrews then puts in a delightful cross, the type that’s a bugger to defend and the shortest player on the pitch, Ben Whitfield, heads home at the far post. Came after a period of pressure and probably deserved by that stage. Woking weren’t wasting time anymore. Their chavs realised bedtime was approaching and Ben Gerring wasn’t going to be on the winning side. As it was to be.

My player ratings

Covolan 7.5 Bloody good. Great on crosses. Couldn’t do anything for their goal
Wynter 6.5 Had a few different midfielders in front of him tonight with changes required. Did well.
Cameron 7
Lewis 7.5 Looked quite strong at centre back for a young lad
Davis 7 Still never seen him have a bad game
CLE 6 Kicked early. Might have taken a knock. Always looking to create something
Hall 5 Poor tonight
Little 6 A few good through balls, but another kicked about a lot and had to be withdrawn for injury
Vincent 5.5 Not so good. Looked a bit lost in the second half and was unsurprised when he was withdrawn
Duku 4.5 Wasn’t impressed. Poor first touch. Doesn’t get very high for headers. Don’t lump it to him.
Reid 7.5 Great shot against the woodwork first half and a constant thorn in their side

Whitfield 7 A promising debut.
Andrews 7.5 Good. Nice ball for our goal. Downesy saying it was Wynter. He’s probably right.
Kalala 6.5 Not on long but good going forward. Hesitant at times.

Some top line thoughts having just gotten in:

- Expect a fair bit of tinkering and experimentation from Johnson over the next few games as he ponders over the best system and team based on the new arrivals and recent performances. Confident as most of us are that he will find the best formula
- Ref and linesman completely inept. Don’t think the game flowed for any more than about 30 seconds without the whistle going. Partly a factor in us not getting much going. Having said that Woking didn’t look up to much either besides set piece threat
- Tinpot operation once again from the clueless cards with only one turnstile open and 50+ queueing outside missing kick off. He must have stopped counting as there were many more than 272 in the away end

A good point tonight. Great effort from the lads. I agree our starting formation and starting line up is still not sorted. Although we are way of top spot, let’s face it we have had a tough August and no team has outplayed us.

A physical game and I left wondering if Woking were more suited to this level with their ‘style’. Fair play to them though, you couldn’t tell who was full time / part time even at the end both teams were still going for the win.

Agree with previous posters, game never got going, constantly breaking down for whoever was putting their foot in but our midfield got outfought.

Interesting times as Johnson shapes his team for this level. It was much more direct last night, sometimes frustratingly so as we pumped it up to Duke / Reid vs two of the possibly biggest CB’s in the league .

Fair result though. Looked like more than 272 away gams to me but a great turnout nonetheless.

Very hard fought point. Yes Poku is a dirty little sod, clearly set out to get Connor, nearly took him out with a similar flying sliding 'challenge' earlier.
Agree Hall didn't have the best of games and the midfield struggled and were second to most balls but clearly all the changes there had an effect.
Great cross by Wynter for the goal, and Whitfield
made a good run to get on the end of it, similar to Koszelas header at Chippenham last season.
Officials poor, the crowd don't get wound up if they are doing a good job and we definitely suffered from them more than Woking.
Laughable situation second half where Reid was surrounded by 4 players and pushed and hauled down , nothing given and Reid booked for his understandable protests. We did play a lot of long ball and Duku is not effective in the air. Kalala looked like he could open them up when he came on and beat two players with amazing skill.
Happy with the point but must back it up with a win Saturday.

Interesting comments on last nights fixture , I do wonder if some of them were made from beside the radio set or actually at the game, I saw Duku last night and he gave their defenders a torrid time, yep his timing is still a little off but if he continues like that he will come good, I would not say they are a dirty side but they are physical, Little was not moving freely from the start and I wonder if he was carrying a knock coming into the game, we were good value for a point , forget the match officials we know and expect them to be poor at our level we just need to be a lot more savvy in playing them like Woking did last night. Not sure why they are top of the league, Hartlepool were a far better organised team.

Duku sounded like he was causing trouble on the radio at least!! Decent result - I'm sure we will build on this. I also think when new players come in it brings new energy and gets everyone to raise their game. COYY.