Darlington v Chorley Match Thread

[Darlofan97]

The second half last night was the best defensive performance that I have seen from a Darlington side over the previous 4 years.

Chorley were certainly the best side that we have faced so far. They had plenty of possession but we limited them to pot shots.

[theoriginalfatcat]

They had plenty of possession but we limited them to pot shots.

Pot shots !! They missed some absolute sitters.

Chorley played well and let us off the hook with their inept finishing. I thought we kept our composure and discipline well, and I'm sure that this team has a lot more to give once they get bedded in a bit better.

And ................. we're top of the league

[Darlofan97]

They had plenty of possession but we limited them to pot shots.

Pot shots !! They missed some absolute sitters.

Chorley played well and let us off the hook with their inept finishing. I thought we kept our composure and discipline well, and I'm sure that this team has a lot more to give once they get bedded in a bit better.

And ................. we're top of the league

I was talking about the second half.

The only real chance they had in the second half was where the ball was squared to their lad 8 yards out which looked to zip across the surface. Even then we had Brown and Burgess on the line, Burgess himself had the shot covered.

[m62exile]

Chorley were decent but only in 2/3rds of the pitch. They were awful around our box. Partly because of our resolute defending, it has to be said.

From the moment we went 2-0 up I never thought for a moment we wouldn't win.

[theoriginalfatcat]

I really enjoyed last nights match. It was very entertaining, and better quality than numerous matches I remember from the Feethams era.

Jameson needs to get sorted - it can't give the defenders much confidence when he's punching instead of catching and not moving well.

[Robbie Painter]

Jameson, kicking issue aside, was excellent for me last night. Good punching under pressure, judged well when to come off his line, handling was immaculate & his save in second half (although was then flagged offside) was superb.

[MikeinBlack2]

I really enjoyed last nights match. It was very entertaining, and better quality than numerous matches I remember from the Feethams era.

Jameson needs to get sorted - it can't give the defenders much confidence when he's punching instead of catching and not moving well.

MG must think that Jameson is sound (maybe he's carrying an injury so punching not catching?), either that or he really doesn't think that Bell is quite good enough for this level?

[BaronsCourtQuaker]

First game of the season for me and after the start we had I went with pretty high expectations. I left feeling a bit confused.

I think during and immediately post game I felt we got away with it last night and Chorley will be wondering how they didn’t win that or even had it won by half time.

First Half and I appreciate Jameson was really struggling (was told he did it early in the game kicking a ball) but we defended very deep and invited them on to us. As a team they were very comfortable with the ball at feet and always looking to play out from the back, our forwards couldn’t get close to apply any pressure and they seemed to be just cutting their way through us time after time. I was stood towards the open end first half and didn’t see much of the ball as they kicked towards the tin shed. They hit the bar and seemed to spurn a few very good chances. I was very close to the penalty incident and honestly didn’t feel that their defender touched Hardy. Likewise I don’t think it was a dive, with Hardy expecting the tackle and getting out of the way. I was happy we were given the decision but I would make a case against if I were Chorley. Saying that the lad penalised didn’t make much argument.

Second half we scored early and from a well worked corner (makes it sound better than it may look) long ball in to the back stick all our players rushing to the front leaving Terry open to tap home. I guess Beck will draw the attention so wise to avoid him from time to time. I hoped that may be the kick start we needed but the game quickly fell back into the pattern of the first half. Chorley with all the ball (though less penetration) whilst when we did get it, it was quickly turned over as we went long or hitting channels. I was worried until about 10 mins from time as Chorley started to look out of ideas we looked to break up play . The second half started to drag on lots of niggling fouls, ball being whacked out of play, substitutions. Was a bit gutted when 5 mins added time went up as I was ready for the off as the game had petered out

So walking out of the ground I thought Chorley were a good side, always looking to get it down and get the game back into play quickly. Darlo played long and on more occasions than others hopeful. Hoping it went near Beck to flick it on and hoping that Hardy / Cartman could feed off it but seldom did it happen. It was a bit of a tough watch.

So the confusion, well waking up this morning you could flip the above on its head. Yes Chorley were a good team and they did want to play, they started strong so Darlo sensibly went defensive to keep them out and settle into the game, we nicked a goal against the run of play and then with an injured goalkeeper dropped deep to compensate for that and invited them on in confidence that we could keep them out, we ran our luck at times first half. Second half started superb 2-0 and again let’s see if they can break us down which they couldn’t and they became more frustrated . If I’m being positive perhaps it was all part of the plan.

7 : Jameson : made some important saves despite seemingly being stuck to his line
5 : Marrs : didn’t notice much of him, though in his defence he was the furthest player from me most of the game
8 : Galbraith : another 2 goals for a left back MoM though surprised to see him on the end of the corner for a change.
7 : Burgess : had to defend for most of the game and did it well
7 : Brown : as above
6 : Turnbull : didn’t notice much of him last night, normally the mad to keep the ball for us but last night we didn’t seem to.
6 : Portas : felt he grafted really hard and towards the end of the second half some big tackles, little going forward.
6 : Scott : typical Scott performance, grafted hard.
7 : Beck : won more than his fair share of headers and looks comfortable with the ball at his feet, is going to cause problems for the oppo, though worried he makes us very focused on him.
6 : Hardy : grafted hard, chased lost causes, unfortunately through no fault of his own there was a lot of lost causes.
6: Gillies : looks promising, and very good with the ball at his feet, at times I felt he needed to release it a second or so earlier.

6 : Thommo, Cartman, Hunter : little time for impact.

Looking forward to Saturday and the season ahead, there are clearly going to be some good side in this division and I felt the standard was a step up on what we have seen previous season . There is more to come from our team I’m sure and we are top we don’t normally started this well I’m sure.

[Darlofan97]

Normally we do press a lot higher than we did last night, and I think that Chorley saw a lot more of the ball due to our formation. We set-up in a 4-3-1-2 to match Chorley in the middle and sat quite deep, understandable really due to Jameson's injury meaning he was limited in rushing out, an excellent feature of his game.

Normally we play quite a high defensive line in a 4-4-2, meaning that there is always 2 centre forwards on their centre-halfs and 2 wingers on their full-backs. Last night Chorley got a lot of joy playing it out from the back due to our narrow formation.

It sometimes can be frustrating to watch with us not pressing the opposition defence and then letting teams come at us but they had a 6'5 centre forward and brought on Jason Walker who has excellent movement in and around the box. So horses for courses.

[Spyman]

Can't be long before we are saying goodbye to Nightingale- never made the bench again, Gray obviously doesn't fancy him after all - this season's Rob Youhill.

Possibly a victim of the Gillies signing - it strikes me they're similar players and Nightingale was probably brought in to fill that role, but when Gillies became available Gray may have thought it was too good an opportunity to turn down.

[BaronsCourtQuaker]

Can't be long before we are saying goodbye to Nightingale- never made the bench again, Gray obviously doesn't fancy him after all - this season's Rob Youhill.

Is this the chap with long blonde hair warming up pre-game?

[m62exile]

Jameson, kicking issue aside, was excellent for me last night. Good punching under pressure, judged well when to come off his line, handling was immaculate & his save in second half (although was then flagged offside) was superb.

Sorry Robbie, I rarely disagree with you and am not a Jameson critic at all but I don't think he was any where near his usual level of performance, clearly related to his injury.

He was hesitant coming off his line, aside from the one occasion in the second half which also was not claimed clearly, only being saved by a horrific Gonzalez miss. He missed the opportunity to catch a number of crosses electing to punch under little pressure, he was not at all keen on receiving back passes meaning we often surrendered possession, he couldn't take a goal kick affecting our defensive shape and kicks out of his hands were lobbed forwards about twenty yards short of usual with not a single directed piece of distribution.

I like Pete Jameson a lot and think he's a good keeper but I can't see how he could be described as having an excellent performance last night. He was on one leg after all.

It's a rumbling leg injury that needs to be fixed so he can get back to his confident best for the rest of the season.

[Robbie Painter]

Jameson, kicking issue aside, was excellent for me last night. Good punching under pressure, judged well when to come off his line, handling was immaculate & his save in second half (although was then flagged offside) was superb.

Sorry Robbie, I rarely disagree with you and am not a Jameson critic at all but I don't think he was any where near his usual level of performance, clearly related to his injury.

He was hesitant coming off his line, aside from the one occasion in the second half which also was not claimed clearly, only being saved by a horrific Gonzalez miss. He missed the opportunity to catch a number of crosses electing to punch under little pressure, he was not at all keen on receiving back passes meaning we often surrendered possession, he couldn't take a goal kick affecting our defensive shape and kicks out of his hands were lobbed forwards about twenty yards short of usual with not a single directed piece of distribution.

I like Pete Jameson a lot and think he's a good keeper but I can't see how he could be described as having an excellent performance last night. He was on one leg after all.

It's a rumbling leg injury that needs to be fixed so he can get back to his confident best for the rest of the season.

The kicking issue is up to MG. Its an injury that he's carried for last 3 games at least but MG has still gone with him over Bell - can't blame Jameson for continuing to play when picked.

The rest I disagree with, the leg didn't seem to affect the rest of his game. He came off his line to good effect 2/3 times and punched well under pressure for me.

[joejaques]

Is Amar injured? Wasn't even on the bench either last night or the weekend.

[joejaques]

Is Amar injured? Wasn't even on the bench either last night or the weekend.

By the way, what have the BEEB got against us? Fylde v Salford on Tuesday, the league table was updated within an hour of the final whistle. We go top on Wednesday, and it still wasn't updated when I left the house at 10:30 am today. Oh, I forgot, they're not doing a tv series about us.

[Darlofan97]

Is Amar injured? Wasn't even on the bench either last night or the weekend.

He was warming up with Watson, Mitchell and Nightingale before the match. Can only presume dropped as Cartman must be viewed as a better option.

[HarryCharltonsCat]

Jameson, kicking issue aside, was excellent for me last night. Good punching under pressure, judged well when to come off his line, handling was immaculate & his save in second half (although was then flagged offside) was superb.

Sorry Robbie, I rarely disagree with you and am not a Jameson critic at all but I don't think he was any where near his usual level of performance, clearly related to his injury.

He was hesitant coming off his line, aside from the one occasion in the second half which also was not claimed clearly, only being saved by a horrific Gonzalez miss. He missed the opportunity to catch a number of crosses electing to punch under little pressure, he was not at all keen on receiving back passes meaning we often surrendered possession, he couldn't take a goal kick affecting our defensive shape and kicks out of his hands were lobbed forwards about twenty yards short of usual with not a single directed piece of distribution.

I like Pete Jameson a lot and think he's a good keeper but I can't see how he could be described as having an excellent performance last night. He was on one leg after all.

It's a rumbling leg injury that needs to be fixed so he can get back to his confident best for the rest of the season.

The kicking issue is up to MG. Its an injury that he's carried for last 3 games at least but MG has still gone with him over Bell - can't blame Jameson for continuing to play when picked.

The rest I disagree with, the leg didn't seem to affect the rest of his game. He came off his line to good effect 2/3 times and punched well under pressure for me.

Trouble was he was punching when not under pressure.

[princes town]

Think you'd class us as a dour side. Not pretty to watch but effective at what we do, which is make the most of set pieces. Don't think BedaleDarlo will approve. Certainly wouldn't suit Chris Moore.

Pretty close to my assessment. A brutally hard team to beat with an effective route 1 system. Personally, I think we play more football with Cartman on the pitch. Saying that there are no rules to playing football. We have a different style that will be hard to counter similar to the old crazy gang Wimbledon. The first goal was, however, extremely well worked and brilliantly simple with a brilliant diagonal from Marrs who I think defensively is the best fullback we have had at the club in the last 5 years.

[theoriginalfatcat]

Jameson, kicking issue aside, was excellent for me last night. Good punching under pressure, judged well when to come off his line, handling was immaculate & his save in second half (although was then flagged offside) was superb.

Sorry Robbie, I rarely disagree with you and am not a Jameson critic at all but I don't think he was any where near his usual level of performance, clearly related to his injury.

He was hesitant coming off his line, aside from the one occasion in the second half which also was not claimed clearly, only being saved by a horrific Gonzalez miss. He missed the opportunity to catch a number of crosses electing to punch under little pressure, he was not at all keen on receiving back passes meaning we often surrendered possession, he couldn't take a goal kick affecting our defensive shape and kicks out of his hands were lobbed forwards about twenty yards short of usual with not a single directed piece of distribution.

I like Pete Jameson a lot and think he's a good keeper but I can't see how he could be described as having an excellent performance last night. He was on one leg after all.

It's a rumbling leg injury that needs to be fixed so he can get back to his confident best for the rest of the season.

The kicking issue is up to MG. Its an injury that he's carried for last 3 games at least but MG has still gone with him over Bell - can't blame Jameson for continuing to play when picked.

The rest I disagree with, the leg didn't seem to affect the rest of his game. He came off his line to good effect 2/3 times and punched well under pressure for me.

Trouble was he was punching when not under pressure.

I would agree with that - weak punches too.

[stayhigh13]

I think we changed formation to match Chorely. Likewise, with change to our normal pressing. Pressing against 3 centre halves who are comfortable with the ball (as chorley had) would allow gaps higher up pitch that passes to wing backs or midfielders could exploit.

We are normally very direct but it suited us even more so yesterday as early diagonals or channel balls will give u joy against 3 centre halves.

Overall, although they had a lot of ball we looked solid as you like. MG made some very clever tactical choices.....darlo steamroller goes on.

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[super_les_mcjannet]

....darlo steamroller goes on.

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You require a prize I believe for the first mention this season of the steamroller, well done

I agree though we do seem more direct this year, possibly down to Beck playing, I am comfortable that we will play more football as and when we get settled without totally moving away from Gray's very effective style.

Curzon were very good at passing but not effective up front, Chorley very similar.

[en passant]

Is Amar injured? Wasn't even on the bench either last night or the weekend.

By the way, what have the BEEB got against us? Fylde v Salford on Tuesday, the league table was updated within an hour of the final whistle. We go top on Wednesday, and it still wasn't updated when I left the house at 10:30 am today. Oh, I forgot, they're not doing a tv series about us.

Agree that they have been very slow to update last night's result into the league table (at the time of writing still not changed) but I don't think they have been a whole lot better with the Fylde v Salford game as they appear to have only recorded the result as a 1-1 draw, although the game finished 3-3. I don't think it's just our results that they are less than scrupulous about but rather their approach to the whole league. I noticed after a recent set of fixtures that the National League South had their results quickly updated into the table, whereas the North section took considerably longer. Maybe the carrier pigeon takes a bit longer to get to Beeb HQ from way up North.

[lo36789]

BBC wait on data from Press Association for their tables. I am not convinced that the BBC employee who is then keying in the changes to the BBCs table will give a toss who Salford City or Darlington are.

[poppyfield]

The Chorley match report;

http://www.chorleyfc.com/index.php/stat ... 24-08-2016

[LoidLucan]

If they show that level of commitment, organisation and energy for the rest of the season Chorley will cause plenty of problems for many teams in this division.