The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

...why is there so much negativity on this forum at the moment? We won the game for flying sake!!

Ok so the first half was frustrating, and the ball kept getting knocked long, but we virtually had the ball for 80 per cent of the time.

You've got to remember that after they scored they put nine men behind the ball and were looking to hit them on the break.

Lots of credit must go to Edinburgh, Driver and the team for remaining patient. Edinburgh must have got the right message across at half time to change things up, mix the play up a bit and it worked - the team responded.

As soon as Smith scored the equaliser, realistically only one team was going to win that game.

We're not the world beaters of last year, and after losing Tommo, we were never going to roll teams over 5-1 as often as we did last year. People need to accept that we are rebuilding this year, both physically and emotionally particularly after the events of December.

Let's go to the Abbey with Positive thoughts, a run of 5 or 6 wins on the spin and who knows? That fifth place is still up for grabs. Fleetwood and Newport look shot, and the other teams are capable of losing a few they shouldn't.

We have a decent run of fixtures now :-

Cambridge (a)
Gateshead (a)
Bath (H)
Eastbourne (H)
Histon (a)
Hayes (H)
Forest Green (H)

I would we have be looking at getting 18 out of 21 points from that?

So come on, let's start getting behind the lads.

Well said some players are struggling for form and we have limited resources to work with ,shouting abuse from the stands does not help their confidence and most of what's said is rubbish and annoying to other fans

Quite right, some right nonsense been talked this season about relegation, lack of effort etc

We've lost some good players, we've suffered a terrible tragedy and we're probably slightly underachieving in the table with a decent run of games coming up...this is for the long haul folks

I'd agree with all of that. We seem to have a number of more "vocal" fans who make the worst sort of criticism of our players - that they are not trying, or that they are disinterested, or that they "don't want to be here" - or write them off after seeing them for no more than 45 minutes.

We've put up with the desparate times under Tippett and Hill, yet some people start sniping as soon as we fail to win a game under a manager who brought us all those memorable games last season after starting from what Hill left behind. We did overachieve last season,especially in comparison to clubs who can attract three times as many fans as we can - and hence have much bigger budgets.

If these people really want to help the club, rather than criticising they'd be better to attract a few more fans through the turnstiles.

i was saying to someone last night that you look at the players we don't have in our team that we did last season.

Dale
Downer
Stuart
Terry
Byrne
Tomlin


Now any team is going to miss those players, i think Justin thought he would be able to kick on again this year, however it seems that it is a rebuilding season.

There is no one better to do that imo than Justin.

I agree with the general positivety of this thread, I didn't feel quite that positive at half time, but the number of chances we created in the second half shows me we're getting there - I'm reasonably happy at the moment, the 2 points dropped against Tamworth annoyed me a tad, we should have been on a 3 match winning streak !! I looked at that fixture list and felt all were winnable to be honest. Play-offs? It may be just beyond us in the end, but it'd be good to be in the mix at the end eh?

Threads like this make me laugh. If we were all extatic every Saturday evening regardless of whether we've lost 2832-0 this would be a bloody boring forum.

Yes we won our last game, but we've won twice since October. People have every right to be frustrated and annoyed. I regularly get accused of being negative, but I just say things as i see them, and i'm also quick to praise people if they do well.

The negativity comes from the fact that we seem to be standing still as a team on the pitch (in terms of performance) in my opinion. Ok we've lost better players in the summer than we have now, but this team (and I include the management in this) doesn't seem to be addressing the problems it currently has on the pitch. I know our players have the skill to be better than this (look at the brilliant second goal against Cambridge, it would have graced the Premier League), but for whatever reason they're not playing to their full potential for enough of the game. I honestly think the team is underperforming.
When this happenned with BT he came and stood on the terrace, I invite JE to do the same to get a different perspective.

Two of Diamonds wrote: (look at the brilliant second goal against Cambridge, it would have graced the Premier League),

A slight exaggeration I feel - their defender should have put the ball out of play before Charles won possession whilst Farrelll was unmarked to score with a very simple header.

More generally, this is a much changed squad from last season lacking the quality of players such as Byrne, Tomlin and Terry. I think the tean is doing ok in the circumstances.

Two of Diamonds wrote:The negativity comes from the fact that we seem to be standing still as a team on the pitch (in terms of performance) in my opinion. Ok we've lost better players in the summer than we have now, but this team (and I include the management in this) doesn't seem to be addressing the problems it currently has on the pitch. I know our players have the skill to be better than this (look at the brilliant second goal against Cambridge, it would have graced the Premier League), but for whatever reason they're not playing to their full potential for enough of the game. I honestly think the team is underperforming.
When this happenned with BT he came and stood on the terrace, I invite JE to do the same to get a different perspective.

I agree that there are some players who are underperforming and some who haven't been consistent enough recently, but a lot of them are young, inexperienced players whose form is always going to peak and trough at this stage in their careers. Ryan Charles is the perfect example of this, he has had some completely anonymous games this season where he simply didn't look good enough, but then there have been moments of brilliance from him i.e. the assist (shut up Alan! ;) :lol: ) for Faz's goal on Tuesday.

Think back to the start of the season, and where you expected us to be come the end of it. The vast majority of fans said they expected us to be top half/top 10, and would be delighted if we went into the last couple of months of the season still with a shout at making the play offs. Guess what, we are in the top half with 3 months to go, only 4 points of 6th place and 8 off the play offs, and with games in hand over the majority of teams above us. I think a bit of a reality check is needed for some supporters.

As for the BT thing, we all know he wasn't that great a manager, and I don't see what JE or PD will see standing on the terrace that they don't see countless times on the match videos that they watch and assess after each game.