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Hi Pete, thanks for the match report. Very much appreciated by all of us down under, even if it is a loss.
A big irony of football is that a poor performance (or two) can still yield a point, but a decent performance can result in nothing.
So now the anti-Ardley brigade are raising their heads again. We may not be in a good place at the moment and…[Read more]

How on earth did we lose that? Shrewsbury were dreadful, lacking any goal threat, yet from two set pieces they managed to steal all three points. We have only ourselves to blame (although we can apportion a big dollop of blame with the ref who disallowed what looked like a perfectly good header from Elliott at the end of the first half -…[Read more]

Aha – are we now hearing the latest sproutings of a more widespread discontent with the Gaffer? The last time we had such a germination was about one and a half years ago. Clearly we need some new potting mixture upfront. Taylor appears to be a liability and Poleon was fortunate enough to have a purple patch upon gaining a first team place, but…[Read more]

Being a Don in exile I am dependent on these excellent reports, and of course what I can glean from Radio WDON, iploughlane and other sources.
Sadly, from every one of them it is clear we seem to have fallen off a cliff.
In fact, while tuning in last night, I got so fed up with our banal, lacklustre, performance that even when we scored at the…[Read more]

An accurate description from Singapore Don, nicely summing up the atmosphere from the evening – it really was depressing to watch.

I feel the performance summed up where we are as a club at the moment. Without 5 key members of our strongest starting XI we really do not have the ability to compete at League 1 level. Add back into the mix Fuller,…[Read more]

We are in a bad place right now. What we saw last night was poor, very poor, with a complete lack of ideas, creativity, imagination. Possibly the only fresh approach was putting David Fitzpatrick on for the second half, but even his youthful enthusiasm and freshness failed to break our stodgy, deadlocked mindset. We looked like a team running on…[Read more]

Just a couple of further observations. Having watched the highlights, my initial suspicions were confirmed.

There was a blatant handball in the run up to Coventry’s goal.
James Shea was slow to get down to the shot, or am I being harsh.
The Coventry fans were terrific all game, until we equalised.
The commentator may have though Soares was…[Read more]

What did we learn last night? Not a lot.

We struggle to break down teams that come to defend in numbers.
Our forwards aren’t scoring.
Neil Ardley has as much confidence in Tyrone Barnett, as I do.

Surely we’ve used up all of our “Get out of jail” cards now. The Coventry players were crestfallen at the end, and rightly so. They played well and…[Read more]

Am probably in the minority on here, but for many of us, the hatred of all things Franchise runs very deep. So I can understand why one of our supporters allegedly told Robinscum what he thought of him and why someone felt the need to display that banner. Although it seems a big deal now, it will blow over and we will always hold the moral high…[Read more]

An interesting story to take our attention away from our gradual decline in league position over the last few months. The club is going to have to learn and re-learn that there are supporters who cannot forgive and forget, regardless of Samuelson-type moralizing. Yes, it was all very rude. But they are all very angry. They made their point and I…[Read more]

I missed yesterday’s game, so I’ve been catching up with events today. The first thing I saw was the banner unfurled in the home end. My first reaction was utter horror at the language used. It should not be allowed, and should be dealt with quickly by the club. That is the sort of language that can get you evicted from the ground, and rightly so.…[Read more]

Thanks for the on and off pitch observations Windlesham – I concur with all you say.

On the pitch, we were as bad as we’ve been all season in the first half. Second half we were much better: Francomb looked much more comfortable at right back, Barcham added width and pace on the left, even Barnett did his job and provided the assist for Tom’s…[Read more]

Off the pitch there were several incidents which have taken the headlines.

First was the item thrown by the Charlton fans which hit the linesman on the head. This was completely out of order and should result in serious action – of course it won’t. Second, the Charlton fans also let off some form of firework on their terrace, again out of…[Read more]

An incendiary encounter at Kingsmeadow yesterday, the details of which I am sure will be available from press reports so I will not go through the match facts. However, I do have a few random thoughts/opinions on the day which I would like to share.

On the match, it was always going to be lively – a London derby with the first visit of the…[Read more]

Very much agree with Windlesham that points from the next two games are vital. I would hope that 4 points is the minimum we need. We need to take advantage of playing at home, especially against Coventry on Tuesday. There are some very tough games coming up and I would like to see the Dons back in the top half of the table before those games.
Some…[Read more]

An important couple of home games ahead. Charlton and their hated manager tomorrow, followed by Coventry and their disgruntled fans and disinterested players on Tuesday. We need to regain our mojo after a bad few weeks and get to safety as quickly as possible.

Two points must be a minimum from these two games, 3 would be acceptable and 4…[Read more]

I don’t think the Dons thought they would win and that has got to affect the way you play. Certainly after the Shea fiasco the result was never in doubt. It worries me how little the team offered going forward. Nothing would be about right. Elliot did nothing apart from to try and hold the ball up. Taylor given a more forward role in the second…[Read more]

4-0? We were lucky!

Apologies for the test messages, which I now cannot edit for some reason… :o(

We have all been searching for the reasons for yesterday’s capitulation and FWIW I feel it comes down to two issues:
1. Confidence – I feel that the players as well as the rest of the club were hit by the Sutton performances. Missing out on a televised match against…[Read more]

Still having problems posting…