The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Although we've scraped through several games, we really haven't got going in the league this season - it was only in those last 10 minutes when Gearing and Dunkley came on and Fazel moved infield that we looked anything like as good as we performed last season - truly exciting football that perhaps has only been seen once before this season. We really didn't test their keeper enough prior to that - and its the lack of goalmouth action that will have an impact on attendances.

Most fans will accept the odd "ground-out win", but if this becomes the norm then there will be an impact.

In the equivalent game last season we had 534 against Harborough Town (5th Oct), so I don't think the Ryder Cup can be totally blamed, especially given its only on Sky TV (and that was at the end of a run of home games). We'll be able to judge better next Saturday, I guess.

Yeah, I was disappointed with the crowd as well, we seemed to average around 500 if not a little higher for every Saturday home league game the first 2 seasons, but like Dowlo says, if we're to stay at this level for another season longer, average crowds of 400 will become the norm, only the real hardcore fans will be interested in watching a mid table UCL side, even in the conference as a pro club, our crowds slowly declined through the mid table seasons before we made the playoffs in 2010. So we will need to have a decent promotion push this year to get crowds back up above 500 again.

And does anyone know why 3 of our best players (Dolman, Gearing and Dunkley) were on the bench today? Like already said, Gearing was far more effective than ELJ when he came on. Lot of work to be done at the moment, we don't look like a team capable of mounting a promotion challenge right now I have to say and really need to improve for Holbeach in a month's time.

Agree with most of the comments. It's not working at the moment. Boston could have been out of sight at HT, missing two gilt-edged chances and having what looked like a stonewall penalty turned down.

We've got a run of home games coming up that we should be winning and this gives us an opportunity to get a bit of momentum to take into some tougher games later this month/next month. Bedford aside, the only time we've looked remotely convincing this season has been with Dunkley and Koriya up front. I'd return to that personally because I think they bring the best out of one another. It's something that wasn't done enough last season.

I don't think it'd hurt to get a couple more bodies in to be honest.

So am I disappointed in the crowd/attendance.

We had a few chances to score more goals, hitting the post a few times. Then the goalkeeper making a mistake. Thankful not costing us any points. The goalkeeper needs to stop making silly mistakes before it costs us.

We need to take are chances more so then it doesn't turn into a scrappy game.

Olly wrote:
And does anyone know why 3 of our best players (Dolman, Gearing and Dunkley) were on the bench today? Like already said, Gearing was far more effective than ELJ when he came on. Lot of work to be done at the moment, we don't look like a team capable of mounting a promotion challenge right now I have to say and really need to improve for Holbeach in a month's time.

Would you have dropped Parky to bring Dolman in, or Turner/Lorraine to bring Dunkley in after Tuesday? I wouldn't have. Gearing has a case as I thought ELJ was poor against Pagnell.

I think Dolman has been recovering from illness.
The first half was awful. A lack of quality, a lack of urgency and we just didn't impose ourselves at all. Second half was going the same way until Faz scored, we changed a few players and BINGO we look like a force. We should always be looking to bring players in if they're available & quality. The management have lots of work to do in order to mount a title challenge IMO.

For me it was a very lethargic performance which I was relieved to win in the end, their goal showed a real lack of concentration by us and we need to stamp that out !!

Team selection? Matty Gearing offers us far more than ELJ in my opinion and we looked far more balanced and a real threat when he came on - he must start in the next league game!! I don't normally pick on individual players and ELJ is a good young player, but Mattys offers us some real drive - I think Elliott has a lot to learn still, especially with the delivery of his final ball.

I don't quite get what the problem is at the moment - we haven't really clicked into gear yet apart from the Bedford game and the 45 minutes with 10 men against PNS and it must be as frustrating as hell for Peaksy, I know it is for me because I know we're better than what we're dishing up at the moment.

When we play a passing high tempo game the opposition can't live with us, but we do that so rarely. We have good players but they seem to lack the confidence to take the shot or make the pass without two or three unnecessary touches - have belief and faith in your own abilities and move the ball faster lads!!!

The good news is we didn't drop points and if you can win when not playing to your best that's great. When you look back at chances created yesterday we could have run out with a much larger winning margin than we did, but that would have been unfair on a Boston side who made it really hard for us and who on another day might have got something from the game.

As others have said, disappointed with the attendance, but a +400 crowd at Step 5 is still impressive, but it has left me wondering where the missing 100-150 were?? Just a case of getting out of the habit of coming with us having so many games on the road?? Let's see next Saturday.

Regarding the attendance, I don't think the stupidity of the league fixtures is going to help.6 home games on the trot including 4 Saturday's is going to affect attendances. Regarding the team I agree that performances have not been great but we need to play a settled 11. For me the team would be Finlay, merrily, brown, dolman, Ashton, bunting, confue, koriya, dunks, turner and lamb-Johnson. the team keeps changing for many reasons and I believe that once we play together a bit more it will come. If no improvement in a month or so I would look at a couple of new faces.

Mal's pics added to Adam's match report - http://www.afcdiamonds.com/afc-rushden- ... ton-town-1

fentiger79 wrote:Regarding the attendance, I don't think the stupidity of the league fixtures is going to help.6 home games on the trot including 4 Saturday's is going to affect attendances. Regarding the team I agree that performances have not been great but we need to play a settled 11. For me the team would be Finlay, merrily, brown, dolman, Ashton, bunting, confue, koriya, dunks, turner and lamb-Johnson. the team keeps changing for many reasons and I believe that once we play together a bit more it will come. If no improvement in a month or so I would look at a couple of new faces.

Bunts just doesn't seem to be able to get fit and, more importantly, stay fit at the moment, so Brad for me all day long at the moment, he's played really well this season and deserves the extended stay in the team. ELJ flatters to deceive at the moment - he has great pace and gets into some good positions, but fails to deliver time and time again, some of his corners yesterday were atrocious - Matty's delivery from set peices is a different class in my opinion and he runs at defences with more confidence - Elliott could do with a few games in the U21s and he needs to learn to listen to some of the more experienced players around him, he's got the potential to be a really good player, but needs to work on getting his head up and on his delivery.

My team, after yesterday - Findlay, merrill, dolman, Ashton, brown, gearing, Harris, confue, koriya,dunkley and turner in a 4-4-2 formation !! That's the settled side I'd like to see, but as we know Peaksy had the difficult task of rotating the squad to keep all the players happy, not an easy task !!