The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

olio wrote: At the end of the day, we're still in the FA Cup, and I'm delighted at that, but there's no doubt that we'll need to perform a lot better to beat a very useful outfit on Tuesday. For one, Deaks needs to come in for Jamal at the back.

I don't think Jamal is the problem back there TBH but I agree with your general point.

Is Aaron King back on Tuesday? I'd expect Nat and Alfie to come into the side. Yesterday was desperately poor. I don't think we'd need to improve significantly to beat London Colney who I thought were pretty average, but Huntingdon will put us to the sword if we play like that again.

I didn't rate Jamal at deeping and I certainly didn't rate him yesterday either. I hope deaks is back Tuesday. But to be honest the whole back 4 had a stinker of a game. Time after time they were static and allowed one up front striker to be played clean through. Tuesday they will have to pick up their game and please play more football!! How many times yesterday was the ball hoofed forward in the hope of finding dunks. Whizs performance at deeping won the game, running off the wing and in from the side, yesterdays tactics were wrong.
I think lance should of been given a chance, he is such a pacey striker, that's what we missed in my opinion.

Well done crossy, fantastic game which basically keeps our cup dream alive :lol:

The problem with our defence is they were too square, added to the fact that both McBride and Harris are defensive midfielders so when balls were defended in the Colney box their midfielders were able to capitalise in the break situation.
The tactic of Gilly always looking for the long ball to Dunkley, certainly didn't work and I see both King (if available) and Liburd (back from suspension) being included in our starting XI on Tuesday night to provide the creativity that was sadly lacking yesterday.

Cross certainly deserved his MOM award, despite nearly allowing the ball to cross the line (cough) and although I feel the lino was well positioned he could not be certain, which he needed to be, to indicate that the ball actually crossed the line. ;)
As they say you need a bit of luck to progress in the FA Cup.

I'm certain that the boys know, as a team, that they didn't do themselves justice yesterday and I feel that they will be fully committed to see us progress to the next round.

Mal's pics added to the report. The pics of the "non-goal" are certainly a talking-point. It's quite ironic to have such an issue on the day the premiership introduced goal-line technology.

Yesterday was a reality check for us all, fans and players alike. Even if we get past Colney we have Northwood away ..and they are a Step 4 club who won their first match of season yesterday.

So lets come back down to earth and face the prospect of an early exit.

Yesterday before the match we were discussing whether we were allowed 5 or 6 subs in FA Cup ties, so it comes as a bit of a shock to discover we can select 7. I should think there are quite a few teams that would struggle to name that many subs. Yesterday we could have done with using seven!!

sussexdiamond wrote: So lets come back down to earth and face the prospect of an early exit.

Let's come back down to earth - yes. Face the prospect of an early exit - never!

Let's turn up in numbers on Tuesday, be loud and help lift the team to play well, they know what they need to do, and reach the next round

I'm there!!! And waiting to hear from Big Bruv. SS

sussexdiamond wrote:Yesterday was a reality check for us all, fans and players alike. Even if we get past Colney we have Northwood away ..and they are a Step 4 club who won their first match of season yesterday.

So lets come back down to earth and face the prospect of an early exit.

I agree it was a bit of a reality check, I obviously knew it wasn't going to be easy, but did think we'd get through, it shows that just because we've got a team which on paper should be as strong as any at step 5 and perhaps even some step 4 teams, doesn't mean we're going to win easily and teams at this level are no pushovers. Having said that, no reason to think we're going out just yet, we can beat Colney on Tuesday if we improve and learn from Saturday and on a good day, I think we'd give a team from the level above a run for their money.

Brilliant large double centre page match report, with Malcolm Swinden's excellent photographs, by our own Sam Wildman in today's edition of the 'Non-League Paper' of yesterday's match. It really shows just how far we have come as a club. It makes me so proud.