Maidstone

[Deleted]

We lost at Maidstone 1-0.

Against top of the league team we could and should have won this match.

Very light on mid-field players all young the only real muscle being Wattsy who had to be substituted early as the injury he was carrying and a couple of strong tackles left him limping.

Defence tried to make it easy for the stones as they kept standing still for offsides when there were none. However as a unit they kept a clean sheet in open play and dominated at corners against a very large, physical and experienced team. They did so well that Andre had only to make 2 saves in the whole match.

The ref was very good he stamped out any late tackles with 2 early yellow cards and did not get bullied by the large crowd, which apart from the 7 travellers was very vocal.

The goal was a penalty, I could not see the handball by Piper as it was at the other end of the pitch, the ref played on but the lino gave the decision. Andre went the right way but was no where near the ball. This was something like 40 minutes in and we had looked good enough to go in at 0-0.

Poor Ashley at the front on his own had no service, we only had 2 shots through the game which werte on target, and probably no more than 5-6 off target.

Had we put out the full team and not bulstured the reserves we could have won this game.

Lloyd Cotton was my player of the match by a mile, he stood out above the rest of the defence who as a unit were comfortable all thought the game.

[bobby]

Why was Grice and Hill not playing for the first team yesterday?

[stoner]

theothermartin said:

We lost at Maidstone 1-0.

Against top of the league team we could and should have won this match.

Very light on mid-field players all young the only real muscle being Wattsy who had to be substituted early as the injury he was carrying and a couple of strong tackles left him limping.

Defence tried to make it easy for the stones as they kept standing still for offsides when there were none. However as a unit they kept a clean sheet in open play and dominated at corners against a very large, physical and experienced team. They did so well that Andre had only to make 2 saves in the whole match.

The ref was very good he stamped out any late tackles with 2 early yellow cards and did not get bullied by the large crowd, which apart from the 7 travellers was very vocal.

The goal was a penalty, I could not see the handball by Piper as it was at the other end of the pitch, the ref played on but the lino gave the decision. Andre went the right way but was no where near the ball. This was something like 40 minutes in and we had looked good enough to go in at 0-0.

Poor Ashley at the front on his own had no service, we only had 2 shots through the game which werte on target, and probably no more than 5-6 off target.

Had we put out the full team and not bulstured the reserves we could have won this game.

Lloyd Cotton was my player of the match by a mile, he stood out above the rest of the defence who as a unit were comfortable all thought the game.

The first booking was atrocious, our player won the ball cleanly and your player went down like a sack of potatoes. Can't comment on the second as it was on the far side from where I was sitting. The ref did seem very pally with your management and was clearly reluctant to give the penalty which seemed to be given by the assistant, still at least he wasn't as bad as the idiot we had against Chatham on Wednesday. As for your comments about the crowd, I sometimes think that works against us with referees, they don't take critisism well and then in trying not to be influenced sometimes go too far the other way.

As for the game as a whole, I was disappointed that we couldn't turn our pressure into goals, but our forwards have been misfiring for the last few games and we are having to grind out results we would have won comfortably a few weeks ago, I guess that's because when you are top eceryone wants to shoot you down. Consisdering that most of us would have been happy with mid-table at the start of the season, it just goes to show how your expectations can be raised and it would be a huge disappointment now if we didn't secure automatic promotion.

[jeffstones]

I think Maidstone United deserved the three points,only just though.Mario McNish and Ryan Royston pretty much snuffed out any sort of attacking play made by The Hillians and i just could not see you guys making a break through.Man of the match goes to Andre Foster.Always plays well against us.