IRON 1-5 Eastleigh

[ozbrit]

Us Braintree fans received an excellent christmas present with the win at Dartford with 270 Iron fans in attendance - good turnout.




Next up today the big spending Eastleigh with former Iron favourite Jai Reason in their ranks.

I guess we're all hoping to make it four wins on the bounce - lets make it happen!

[emirates]

Going today....good luck irons and hope, at the same time, my team beat the other ''Irons'' today

[kieros]

Interesting to see that the league see if fitting to appoint the referee for today's game as Colin Lymer......
Didn't think we would see this clown of a man at the Miles Smith again!!!

m.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk/news/11132180.Iron_chairman__shocked__by_dressing_room_vandalism/?ref=rss

[orangenblue]

Wow! He's got some front accepting the appointment. Am sure he'll receive a warm welcome!!. Would love to be a fly on the wall when he comes face to face with Lee.

[Stuart R]

Didn't he referee us at Woking last month? It was definitely recent.

[braintreeboy]

Omg we've actually just come back from going a goal behind!! Keep it up please!

[mjt]

Be interesting to read managers report on this one

[1672]

I feel that the match was far less one-sided than the scoreline suggests. At half-time and 1-1 I felt that either side could win, we were playing that well.

According to the BBC Eastleigh had 47% of possession and 13 shots on goal, 5 on target, yet we did better with 53% and 15 shots on goal, but only one on target.
It's our old problem of failure to score.

I have commented before on this forum that even in the warm-up period, when practicing shots on goal, we miss as many as we score. And this is without any opposition players leaning into you. I don't think that is good enough.

I read in today's Telegraph, in an interview with David Sullivan of West Ham, that at the end of last season, "we all agreed that we weren't scoring enough goals so we brought in a strikers' coach (Teddy Sheringham)"
Now I know we can't afford anyone of that standard but could the club fund (from our cup winnings, perhaps) the sending of our strikers for some intensive "target training" somewhere?
However, to finish on a positive note, it could have been worse: we only went down one place, are still 10 points clear of the relegation zone, and even if we had won, we would still have been 15th! Let's take 3 more points off Dartford in a few days and see how we stand then!

[dbbn]

Well I wasn't expecting that! Constable arrests the Iron's charge up the league with a second half hat-trick. As mentioned above; the return of the refereeing chav who behaved himself today; why is there never a policeman when you want one?
The early exchanges didn't offer much in the way of finesse or any hint of what would follow. The force of Constable fired 2 warning shots as the first half wore on, one glancing off the bar and behind, the other drilled wide. At this stage Eastleigh were looking the likelier to open the scoring and Stanley duly obliged with a shot through a crowded box. Close to half time and with Iron showing little threat up front, Akinola latched on to a punt but slipped and fell as he gathered the ball. He somehow managed to keep possession despite being on the ground and pressured by the centre half, got quickly to his feet and forced a trip from the lunging centre half to win a penalty. Mitch stepped up and sent the keeper went the wrong way.
First big chance of the second half fell to Braintree, Akinola shot left footed from 20 yards through a crowd of players; Flitney could only parry to the awaiting Sparkes, but recovered quickly as Dan tamely side-footed the ball back at him. Eastleigh went down the other end where Constable fired in from a tight angle across Nick. His second soon followed as a hoofed clearance was poorly dealt with by the last man back (Habergham) who's backwards header fell short of Nick and a gleeful Constable latched onto it smashing it into an unguarded net. As the Iron tried to raise their game; Midson beat Sam at the far post to head home.
Braintree tried in vain to get a second, but caught on the break, Constable fired home his third and was then subbed. Davis and Cox came on for Isaac and Marks and later Strutton replaced Akinola and despite the higher tempo, Braintree had no response to Eastleigh's lethal finishing.
No MOTM today, but Sam was very poor. Thakfully Dartford make a quick return and the chance to right this debacle.

[layon]

Agree with 1672 - it really was not a 5-1 game.
Also the match showed the fine margins between winning (maybe) and losing heavily.
At 1-1 just before half time if the shot from close range from Sparkes after Akinola's run into the box, had gone in instead of hitting the post; and then if the same player had buried the chance he had from Flitney's parry just after half time (which he should have done)Braintree would have been 3-1 up; and surely the result would hsve been different.

Apart from the Chesterfield game when is the last time we let in five. Hopefully it was just a bad blip, and we can get back on track against Dartford and Chester

[braintreeo]

Eastleigh have shelled out on some decent players, they have a good squad.

When you have a side that has 6 or 7 players with a fair amount of FL experience it shows when games are tight as this one was at half time, and that quality and experience comes to the fore. They had what it takes and we didn't. In the past we have played full time teams with bigger budgets and you would not have known who was the part timers today having a team with a bigger budget and experience at a higher level told against us. We could have had our foot on their throat didn't take our chances and they certainly did.

Need to put it behind us and beat Dartford on Thursday.

[ozbrit]

I were listening in to the BBC Radio Solent commentary - kicked off at 2am our time. When we went one down I knew it would be a long night. Have you noticed we don't have the where-with-all to come back in games. Sure we got what was described as a 'soft' penalty by the radio, but the fact remained that we hadn't got our noses in front by half time as we seem to require if we're going to win.

The game seemed fairly even on the commentary, the main difference being Constable as fellow Irons have already commented on. When their fourth went in, so the bedside radio got switched off.

Eastleigh are a big spending club, are full timers and goodness knows what they're paying Constance to play at this level?

All in all another wake up call, and as the commentary pairing said "Braintree are poor with the quality of supply and finishing" I think that's about it. Otherwise it was just one of those days when a striker was on fire seriously distorting the result.

Darts will come back on New Years day with new ideas as to how to beat us, again we're going to have to be ready for the challenge.

[braintreeboy]

If we had to choose between the win against Eastleigh or dartford it was the dartford win all day long for me as it keeps them down. Ud like to think we'll recover quickly n put things right on new yrs day. As long as we do that then this result will be quickly forgotten

[4whatitsworth]

Our usually reliable defence had an off day and that together with once again our forwards not taking their chances sums up the match for me.

Eastleigh were by no means 4 goals better than us, but as mentioned above their budget is probably 4 times ours and they took their chances when they came.

By my reckoning the last time we conceded 5 goals in the league was at home to Forest Green in our first season in the Conference.

[ontheterrace]

With my pedant's hat on: We wouldn't have been 3-1 up if those two chances had gone in as the game would have restarted with a centre after the first one and would have followed an entirely different pattern. But I take the point.

And we lost 5-1 at home to Wrexham just over two years ago.

Other than that, happy to agree with most of the above. Let's put it behind us and give Dartford a thrashing.

Don't suppose Eastleigh want to sell Constable for a modest fee, do they?

[layon]

I would normally agree with the sentiment of ontheterrace's comment about the game following a different pattern after a goal and the match being restarted with a kick-off. But in this case the first chance was so close to the half time whistle I think there would have been hardly any time for anything of significance to have happened (maybe). And there would have been no real reason for the second half kick-off and subsequent play leading up to the second chance to have followed any different pattern than it did.

Anyway it is obviously all hypothetical and none of the 'what ifs' actually happened. So lets move on to give Dartford a thrashing.

[ironmansimon]

As everyone has said so far the 5-1 scoreline is slightly flattering, but thats what happens when a team grabs the chances presented and has quality players to put the finishing touches on it. For me Eastleigh looked on of the best teams that we have played so far. Also thought a Mr Reason looked quality and outshone any of our midfield. Apart from Sams bad mistake I dont think individual faults were made , I dont really think anyone had a bad game just came up against a better team. I thought Chez looked tired and not surprised to see him subbed. Perhaps one criticism I have is that at 3-1 down I felt we had no plan B. The subs intoduced only replaced like for like players and why not change it up play 3 centre halves and adopt two wing backs and throw an extra forward up, if your gonna lose from a going behind position at least give it both barrels on the way down ? Oh well bring on Dartford who will be slightly more refreshed than us having had no game yesterday.
Team Ratings
Nik 5 Could not do anything else
Mitch- 7 Filled in for Ryan ok and put pen away confidently
Sam 5 - Poor back header for 3rd goal and looked fragile
Remy 6 Did ok
Alan 6 Good to see him captain and again did ok
James 7 Made some good direct runs at times
Matt 6 Played well and enjoyed tussle with Jai
Chez 5 Quite display
Dan S 5 That miss will haunt him for a while could of changed the game?
Sean 6 Played ok Couple of dodgy passes but expected.
Sim 7.5 MOTM Looks our biggest goalscoring threat at present and had a great run in 1st half

Subs

Jordan 5 Sean was better
Kenny 5 Beaten too easily by old foe
Charlie 5 Struggled with pace of game and lack of quality service

Hopefully just a blip today, but a timely reminder of who, where and what we are . Too good to go down not good enough to move further up. And again another season of lack of goals.

The 5-1 defeat to Wrexham was really a Boys V men game and this was not to be compared. COYI

[rustynail]

I was interested to see why this side promoted last season were flying high and from first viewing before a ball was kicked they looked a tall and muscular group of players.
Playing a 4 4 2 their two front players really looked the biz and Constable was paying back his alleged £2,000 per week wages.
The match reminder me a bit like the pummelling we got from Chesterfield in the cup but at least we gave more effort in this one.
It will be interesting to see how the Eastleigh project progresses or whether it all end in tears, Salisbury, et al style