[ Tue 26th Feb ] v Sileby Rangers, KO 7:45pm UCL1 AWAY

[bozzer]

if anything I expected them to beat us last night,I just hoped we gave a good account of ourselves, perhaps they expected to beat us easily their manager certainly didn't look best pleased in the club house afterwards.

Maybe the pressure is getting to them!

[luckyfour]

Yes be interesting to see how they bounce back from that defeat with 3 clubs closing in on them all in great form. Can't believe from the attendance information on our website, Sileby's lowest attendance 40 and highest 90 with a total of 521 people having watched them all season. It must be pretty disheartening playing so well and being top of the table all season and running out to that.

[FOOTYMAN]

I agree with the fact that they were more under pessure than we were with the overall impression of them being favourites for both the match and the league. 3 points it is and what a 3 points it was, but, we do have to keep this momentum going. Going into the match, I said after we beat Wooton that we had a good chance of 5 or 6 winnable matches to set up a good run to go into this showdown, and having only conceeded 1 goal this month, set the standard. The team that played the better football over 90 minutes, took the points and that was us. More tough encounters will come and we are good enough to play our way to victory against any team in this league. A couple of weeks ago,I made a bold statement that we could go the rest of the season without losing another match. I stand by this.
COYD


Only one No.1 D.R.

[Chas]

It was the rest of that sentence that left me scratching my head too Sara, they thought some of us would expect it to be a pushover?? Playing a team top of the table who hadn't lost since Sep 8th (and with our own poor record against other top teams), surely we all expected it to be easy!!

Having said that maybe with just a tinge of sarcasm after seeing them previously I knew they were beatable if we kept their front two quiet (I may have said this once or twice last night!!) and although we rode our luck a bit in the first half we had chances of our own and in the second half we more than 'just edged it'.

On reflection no, a draw would not have been a fair result.

[SouthRushdenJFC]

Thinking back the 'keeper made a right a hash of Wizz's lob (which while accurate had all the power of a four year old's fart) an easy catch beacuse a fumble (bit like a Saturday night in Higham).

He's the weak link

[Diamond White]

Their whole defence looked uneasy and anxious to clear at the earliest opportunity.

An arrogant club in my opinion summed up by their right back having a few attempts at tripping players towards the end when the ball was out of play. What made it worse was that he was doing it right in front of their directors seats. It was the sign of someone who is just not used to losing and not coping with it at all well.

3 points thank you and onto Saturday. We'll 'welcome' them back at the D & D soon.

[UttoDiamond]

That report is a wind-up right? Bad spelling mistakes, piss poor grammar, and totally biased! I didn't speak to one Diamonds fan who thought Sileby would be a "pushover" and we're not "desperately hanging onto their coat tails." They should be miles ahead with the squad they've got, basically a Southern League Central side, the majority of whom won the UCL Prem last year. I would love to know how much they are paying some of their squad (*cough * Micheal Byrne *cough*). As others have said must be so demoralising to run out in that nice stadium with one man and his dog watching when you are top of the league. At least Oadby get 100+.

[Trek]

That report is a wind-up right? Bad spelling mistakes, piss poor grammar, and totally biased!

I reckon you're to blame, Phil, for winding them up the other week on twitter saying they are bottling it when they struggled to beat lowly Buckingham.
You're right, however, since a 10 point lead is now only 4 points and they've still to come to fortress Dog n' Duck. ;)
Oh and £200 a week has been mentioned for some of their stars.

[Sid]

I was told, back in August, that their sugar-daddy is paying £3000 a week in wages from his own pocket. I'm not sure how how he came by that information (it could have been a wild guess for all I know) but it was from someone with longstanding UCL connections.

p.s. I'm well aware that people have made ridiculous guesses about our wage bill :lol: , but that is the figure I was told for Sileby.

[UttoDiamond]

Sid - I think that figure is probably not far off. No other reason why some of those players would drop down to Div One, particularly mercenary Byrne (on his third club already this season).

Paul - I really did get under their skin didn't I! :lol: Obviously it got to them yesterday! ;)

Seriously though, I know they hit the post three times but they didn't take their chances. And in the second half we nullified their front two. I think Starms made a great tactical shift, very nuanced, by pushing Sean and Brad just 20 yards further forward onto their midfield two, thus stopping the supply to Bryne and Foster. Everytime their midfield two got the ball Sean or Brad were on top of them forcing them to hoof it which Parky and Deaks dealt with brilliantly.

By the way, I know I have been critical of these three, but Quincey, Brad and Gilly were superb last night.