I'll be interested to hear the views of fans who were there on their opinion of Davies. I personally have never been impressed with what I've seen of him in cameo appearances so far, but I'm prepared to listen to fans that have seen him start.My feeling is that because he came through the youth system people automatically thought he would be good. I hope to be convinced that he will be a regular for us.
I know sorry i was just venting but its so frustrating when we played so well on Saturday that the inconsistency continues. Sounds like we played quite well in the second half but i have to agree with Vinney i have never been impressed with Davies and in his last start against Brackley he was torn to pieces. I'm all for playing the youth but they have to up for the job.
Home from the game and not quite sure why people are slating Davies but I'll wait until alwaysright puts up the match thread before giving my view.
The talking point will be about Hewitt`s sending off.I listened to the game,and they said Hewitt handballed it.I hope Hewitt will learn from his sending off and not take one for the Team next time,as going to 10 men has cost us.Most Players score penaltys so not only did we go 1-0 down,we had to play around 70 minutes with 10 men.Then to go 2-0 down just eight minutes later makes it even harder to try and get back in it.They said Cody missed a great chance to equalise before,but hit his shot over the bar.What surprised me was we changed a winning Team that played really well for 60 minutes on Saturday.Barrett,and Harriman have played a lot of games this season,but it was a surprise not to see them play.Also once Hewitt went off I was surprised we never put Harriman on as his natural replacement.In the second half they said we played better and passed the ball about well.Cody grabbing a consolation to give us us a small chance,but conceding not long after killed any hopes of a draw.The win lose,win lose trend continues and we should have been looking at getting atleast a point last night.Carlisle away next which will be tough,and with the Sheffield Utd game postponed next Saturday the next three games are all away which is not good with our current away form.
I've put up a bit of a camel thread. I'm disappointed with the result - but not cross with the team ( as we were at Colchester ) - unfortunately the sending off ruined the game as a contest. Stevenage were made to look good all the time Smith was at right back. He probably should have been replaced by Harriman long before half time - by which time we had a mountain to climb ( without our man mountain, Bayo ) I was disappointed with Davies not being able to keep up with the Stevenage forward and preventing the delivery into our penalty area, leading to the shot that Hewitt handled. I do not share brb's opinion of Davies. Barrett may be too slow - but (despite the clumsy penalty v Brentford) he does have a better football brain than Davies. (can we perform surgery on them to exchange legs ?) We shouldn't be too despondent about the loss. We tried hard in the 2nd half to retrieve the situation. We just couldn't overcome the numbers & no Bayo. Sometimes you just have to write off a game - this was one of them. edit - for KFG Don't be too hard on Hewitt - whilst I understand your sentiment - YOU needed to be at the game to realise that Hewitt reacted instinctively to try to stop the ball. It came at him with a lot of pace. It was a 'natural' reflex reaction - there certainly wasn't ANY thinking time before the ball reached him. I'm certain ALL of us would have done exactly as he did (not just because there was almost no other choice - but because it happened 'naturally.)
As alwaysright has said Hewitt's handball was instinctive , he's on the line, packed box, ball at pace, it happened, straight red, no argument. Has soon has Davies made that one mistake I wanted to bury my head in my hands. But no, why should I. It happens, sadly as a result of this I can only assume it will be a typical manager and supporter reaction, I hope not but i stand by all the previous support i have given Davies. It feels like i have found myself a new friend on here. Our biggest and by furthest issue was at right back from there on in for the first half. Connor Smith got thrown in the deep end and quite simply his weakness was being exploited time and time again. Cody great goal tally and supporters favourite but I don't care what status the fans hold him in, last night he should have buried at least two and as strange has this may seem he needs to get stuck in more. A late scramble in the box and Connor Smith was himself unlucky not to score, heroic keeping/defending by Stevenage. Did we deserve to lose, well we conceded three but if eleven men had stayed on the pitch it would have been a totally different game. Same side again please, despite what others may say. I will stick by our young blood and so should PT. I don't want to see Barrett back next game but i can pretty much guess the predictable already.
This is the video from last night. As you can see, Davies was clearly ball watching when Smith got "done" and he didn't realise /look where Charles was and didn't start to react until Charles was heading home. Disappointing and I don't know if we should persevere with a player who seems not to concentrate, so unless he starts to perform better I think he'll go in the summer. http://www.thecomet.net/stevenage-fc/video_stevenage_3_gillingham_1_1_3285212
That second goal Legge pointed to the player in the centre of the box which indicated he knew he was there. I'm not sure why Davies is getting the blame. I noted after the goal Legge did not even look towards Davies for fault and Leon don't normally mess about with holding back on opinion. But Davies is easily going to be the target to blame, because of the early sending off, even though it cannot be contributed to him. We got caught out on the counter attack, Martin was already too far forward down the wing to get back but Davies attempted to give chase, do you really think Barrett's legs would have stopped them for the first goal, no, the only difference being Adam would have rugby tackled him.
brb - THAT is (an example of) what I meant about a football brain. Barrett would have realised that we were stretched and probably would have taken a yellow card long before the winger had even thought about crossing the ball. Davies probably thought that his young legs would get him in position. ( I've never actually thought of him as somebody with pace, a-la-Harriman.)
We all know what happened last time Barrett took a card. Maybe on the back of that Davies was trying to apply better logic. Whether you weigh up the Barrett way or the Davies way they both resulted in a penalty. But as players they can't win, I give Charlie Lee's spirit as an example of that and he gets criticism for applying the take em out attitude. The only difference being if it had not been for instinct and Cody burying chances, then no focus would have been on Callum, because we would have gone on and won the game, that i have no doubt.
I'll keep this brief, we lost again because we cannot defend away from home. And yes BRB is right, Cody missed an open goal and a further 1 on 1 so it could have been closer but you shouldn't have to score 3 or 4 to win a game.
Davies hasn't started in months so its no suprise that he made a mistake. He may be match fit but he's probably not match sharp yet. Leave him alone, Hewitt was the guy who got sent off so blame him
It's not Davies' fault, or Hewitt's (what he did was purer instinct and I was right behind it and it looked like a chest from where i was, the ref didn't have a clue either), our whole team can't defend!! Do people suddenly think Barrett is brilliant?! They must not go to many games if that's the case as I would say pretty much every game this season he has been found wanting. We were all calling for Davies to be given a shot which Taylor did, however i feel he was slightly stitched up given his last apperance was 5 minutes against Walsall (Or Orient, one of the 2) at the end of December, I can't even remember the last time he played before that. You could see he was rusty, he got out paced for the 1'st goal and very nearly gave a pen away himself prior to the cut back that ended in Hewitt's 'hand ball', but with 2 decent wingers, why did Taylor think it right to not back up our Right and left back with fit and sharp players considering all Boro have are 2 decent wingers. Why not read this and play ***an infront of Hewitt at right back in order to double up on Luke Freeman and tell Dack to track back on the left to support Joe from the other winger. I saw little or no tactics n Tuesday night, whereas they knew exactly what our plan was.
Only one way to sort this, in good old fashioned Harry Hill style...fight...http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/249276-Barrett-or-Davies
Hewitt was put in a no-win position. because Davies could not keep up with the Stevenage player & stop the cross, a shot on our goal was 'allowed' - the ball came at Hewitt at speed (brb even agrees) - and Hewitt 'automatically'/ instinctively tried to stop a goal attempt. It's all very well PT saying that Hewitt should have conceded the goal - but that is not in the psyche of defenders. I can understand that Davies may not be match 'sharp' - and for this reason (alone), I will not be too critical ( despite my thoughts that he didn't need to be match sharp to be able to have kept up with the Stevenage winger ) ( as already mentioned ), Taylor has made another tactical error. Surely he knew that Stevenage used pacey wingers - so why did he omit Harriman from the starting lineup - He certainly would have not got done by Freeman for the 2nd goal - and when Harriman did come on in the second half, their threat down his side of the pitch virtually dried up. Whilst I am confident that PT's style will keep us in L1 this season, some of his tactics leave me dumbfounded - especially as I thought PT was supposed to be more switched on than the rest of us. ( at least he can see that we should have started the season with the Bayo/ McDonald partnership.
