Match Thread Most liked posts in thread: Home vs Oldham Saturday 14th August

Enjoy today guys! I totally understand that “Christmas feeling”. Getting up with an air of expectancy, having a full English to line the stomach for those pre match drinks at your pub of choice (mine was always the Dolly). The walk/drive to the ground and getting the buzz when you see your first fans in City colours. Then the impatient wait to get through the turnstiles, giving the food bars a swerve cos there’s already queues, and then that moment when you take the stairs up and out to the stand, with the green of the pitch taking your breath away. Always think at first “there’s not many here” until you’ve sat there for a bit reading the programme and watching the boys warm up, then turn around and see the ground is filling up nicely and say to yourself “why do folk leave it til last minute to get here?” (then realise you’ve got here early and could probably have fit another pint in). You have a look over at the Dallas stand to see how many they’ve brought, giving a nod of approval to all the away fans who’ve made the effort to come here (and think to yourself “I bet they're impressed with this ground” and you feel proud). Then there’s that moment when the players are called in, and you realise it’s about ten minutes til kick off. The announcer starts to crank it up a bit, the music starts to play, and they are out. Cheers all round, chants of “City City”, and you promise yourself you’ll stay seated and not get giddy, but the people in front of you are standing, so you have to as well, and that starts a chain reaction, and before you know it, everyone’s standing and cheering and the games kicked off. You then sit back down, and there’s a moment of quiet resolve all round the ground, hoping we start well, but at the same time thinking that the other team look to have come out the blocks quicker than us. And then the 90mins pans out….but that story can never be written.

Would love to be there, and I’ll get over a few times this season for sure, but for now I’ll do my usual thing of bumbling around until 4pm (Estonian time) before setting up iFollow and going through my own routine.

Enjoy the day and sing your hearts out!

 

I know we are all feeling a bit emotional and excited about this afternoon and don't know if anyone else has seen this or not but there is a fantastic story on the bcafc hashtag on twitter. Guy called Nicholas that lives in Hawaii. Never heard of us before last year but bought a PS4 at the start of lockdown and started playing FIFA. Decided to play career mode and looked for a league 2 team to start his game. Immediately fell in love with our colours and chose us. Since then, he has become obsessed with us. Researched our history, watched old videos on You Tube, bought and had shipped shirts and other merch, and watched 90% of games on Ifollow last season. He has set his alarm for 3.45am so he can watch his first game at VP in real time with the fans present and he cannot wait. Love stories like this, reminds me of our very own Dmitry.

 

Regardless of not having more possession, which is the most overrated statistic in the sport. If you didn’t enjoy that game and the occasion then watching football isn’t for you imo.

 

Agreed. I thought the first half was an entertaining and pretty even game. We really struggled to retain the ball second half when Evans went off and Cooke had to drop back. But we still carved them apart at pace on the break several times. Our finishing let us down, but on genuine chances created we were streets ahead. Having said that, I thought they looked decent, but toothless.

 

My thoughts.

For all their possession, Oldham created hardly any chances.

We missed a hatful. Should have been three ahead before they scored.

We should have had a penalty in first half. Blatant push which the ref waved away, then penalised Angol five minutes later for a lesser push.

Angol is a massive handful, but needs to learn to get his weight over the ball when shooting. The one time he did that, he scored.

Their left winger was very good. Unsurprisingly, FCD struggled against him.

Evans did ok in CDM first half. When he went off, and Cooke had to drop back, we were overrun in midfield, couldn't keep the ball and lost a lot of creativity.

We are very dangerous on the break.

Cook was poor. Their CB had him in his pocket all game.

We need Songo, Sutton and Threlkeld back fit asap.

 

Jeez there's some right miseries on this forum. The player who scored 2 needs coaching on how to score and the one who provided the assist and won the most aerial battles than anyone else in league 2 yesterday was crap and in their defenders pocket all game!

Yeah we got lucky in the end but it's the second game, we won that's what's important. Move on, get injured players back in, chill out and enjoy the win!

 

I think he's overthinking some things a bit too much too. If you listen to his interview, he was second-guessing that the keeper had seen his preseason penalties and would go left. So he changed it up and went right... And nearly got saved. Your body betrays you when you are thinking like that in the moment, and tiny cues would be picked up.

I also think given his need to have a successful season and how it's been portrayed as sort of "last chance saloon", he could be getting a bit too in his head. He does come across as somebody who overanalyses.

He also said he's never played in front of a crowd like that and he felt like it was a premiership game.

I think when he relaxes into things he'll be fine. His movement and work rate was very good.

 

Not sure which game you were watching. As well as scoring both goals, Angol also won us the penalty, not Vernam.

 

Best team lost? You mean the one that had loads of possession but created virtually nothing from it except a speculative shot from distance that possibly took a deflection on it way in through a crowd of players?
Whereas we, with two of our first choice midfielders injured and forced to play most of the second half with our creative fulcrum forced to go to DM, looked dangerous every time we broke forward and wasted several golden scoring opportunities.
I'd rather be creating lots of chances and missing some than playing pretty approach play with little actual goal threat.

 

It's finally here.
The Homecoming.
Sing loud and be proud.
Up the Bantam's.

 

Home sweet home

 

Agree with all of that.
I really did enjoy the last minute penalty though. Sweet revenge after the flares, spilling on to the pitch OTT celebrations for their equaliser.
Their bench sent a sub round with a message to their keeper just after they scored. Next thing he is collapsed in a heap. Blatant time wasting and cheating, got what it deserved.

 

Seen a few people talk about Angols finishing needing to improve.
Perfect example of a player who wouldn’t be in league two if it did.
Yes he missed chances, and a couple of very good ones, but his pace, movement and touch were excellent yesterday - he deserves a lot of credit for being in the those positions.
Cook in contrast, didn’t miss chances, but neither did he create or get himself in positions to miss chances.
Positive start but as a team we need to be more efficient in front of goal, as well as ball retention (we gave it away sloppily far far too often) otherwise we’ll come unstuck against better teams.

 

Cook didn’t win a header, meanwhile…

 

Great to be back wasn't it. Cracking atmosphere generated by both sets of fans

As for the game, Oldham played some good stuff and were very threatening out wide, yet they were very toothless up front.

City created the better chances and should have been out of sight before that equaliser pegged us back.

Thought Evans did well before his toe injury.

Angol was a handful and impressed. Disappointed with Cook though

Cooke the pick of midfield

I thought Gilliead had a good first half but barely noticed him 2nd half

Vernam impressed me after coming on

I think Songo'o is going to make a big difference when he eventually plays.

All in all, a very enjoyable day.

 

Two games in we're nicely placed in 7th position and some are quoting we wont score enough, for all the possession today Oldham never had ROD break sweat, if not for a deflection it would have been another clean sheet, what happend to the "I wont judge them until 10 games in" even that is far to early IMO.

 

Worked harder than anyone I saw tackling and tracking runners

Great shift

Now Watt was missing first half that's for sure

 

Don't know which game you were watching then, he was by far the best player until his injury

 

I think people are going to have to change their outlook as to how they think City should play. Morecambe had the lowest possession stats in the whole Division last season! Adams is a “hang in there and get it forward as quickly as possible” manager.

 

Their attendance on Saturday was around 500 up on their last home game in 19/20, so their boycott isn’t off to a great start.