‘Raine’s Rant’ after the Magpies lose their Heed
The Fans’ Verdict on Maidenhead’s deflating weekend loss
Each week, we will get a Maidenhead
United supporter to reflect on the state of play with the Magpies. This week, Chris Raine reflects on the Magpies' deflating defeat to Gateshead.
After the previous week’s victory over Woking we were hoping for another gutsy performance against Gateshead on Saturday afternoon.
Mind you, as we discussed in Stripes, we have never beaten Gateshead at home and think we’ve picked up only one victory up in the North East.
When we saw the teamsheet I sighed as yet again there was no name of Sparkes or Barratt so we were without a natural left sided player in midfield and Acquah was left to plough a course though the centre.
No Adams in starting line up either so once again no quality anywhere on pitch to take free kicks and corners – something of a repeat occurrence lately.
We went behind to a quick break well executed and clinically finished in first half even though for first 20 minutes we had looked dangerous. Although, once again, the crossing was very poor and Acquah was often the only player in penalty area as our midfield was too slow to get in to support and when they did Reece mishit his
shot. I would say though that Acquah is a plus for me this season. The kid puts in a genuine shift and chases everything with very little support.
The substitutions at half time were strange and we went to two up top with McCoulsky, who can barely stand up without falling over when a defender blows on him and snatched at the one or two half chances he had, and Clifton who is now nowhere near the player he once was and still does not appear to be match fit anyway.
Well 4-4-2 did not work and we created very little in the second half.
Esan was brought on and once again showed he will struggle at this level of football unless he is able to get to the pace of the game at National League.
The team is crying out for a quality midfielder and striker but this is the problem at National League level – such players are not easily found unless you wish to throw wads of cash at them.
Back to pre-season against Farnborough, Sam Deering – at 31 years old – is clearly able to play at a higher standard so there must be players about if you look hard enough.
Dev has released some expensive players before the start of season (Blissett, Donnellan, Wells, and Kelly) and we have received a large fee for Josh Kelly so I am surprised that Dev does not seem to be using full playing budget available unless I am mistaken about some of the incoming players.
The gaffer has put his trust in one or two players though that one can only refer to as sick notes and unless we can get these players fit and game time on the pitch things will struggle to improve.
This would have been previously referred to in the past as ‘Raine's Rant’. W There are still spaces on the minicoach heading to Chesterfield this Saturday. The coach leaves York Road at 9.30am at a cost of £40. Contact Chris Raine on 07880972604 to book.