Keeper--7--Didn't have much to do byt good penalty save and v confident--worried before the start of the season but this lad looks good

John 7 Solid
Mcnally 7 Solid
Parkes 5 -Struggled all game v Akinde and gave away pen

Tojapali 6 not as good as last week, conned by Braintree into his yellow card
Benn 6 - Some good runs, particularly when Braintree down to 10 men but delivery still needs work

Miley 6 , didnt do too much slows play down a lot when we square the ball to him, though thats often as he doesn't have options
Sheron 6 steady
Francis 7 - Looks useful wont last the season without some competent cover to give him a rest

Reid- 7 Looks strong and mobile--Good pen
Johnson 6 Did well for the og

Subs--Showed once again we have nothing worth looking at off the bench going fwd-though Daly will hopefully get sharper

Welcome 3 points and looking fwd to Tuesday against what will likely be the best side we have played so far....

Unofficial ratings

Cartwright- worth 7 for the penalty save alone, total confidence in the lad, cos he’s confident in himself.

McNally & John - 7 solid & steady

Parkes - 6 steady away, Akinde is a handful and will be for most if not all, defenders in this league, he’s a big unit with a decent turn of speed and he wins his share of headers. The applause from the home fans (in the main) wasn’t patronising the lad it was recognition of his effort and contribution.

Benn - 7 got forward well, agreed delivery needs work,
Topalloj - 7cool in possession and under pressure

Miley - 6 may be under the influence of feathers, we probably missed the likes of him today, somebody to put their foot on the ball, break it up a bit by slowing it down

Sheron - 6 might have been steady away, never really noticed however,

Something we have been missing for a long time….

Francis - 8 limitless energy, willing to get stuck in and creative as well. We’ll worth his MOM.

Reid - 7 looked as though he was trying too hard first half, lots of running off the ball but dragged himself away from dangerous, possibly goal scoring positions going looking for the ball, excellent pen after a bit of gamesmanship from Akinde.

Johnson - 7 got in good positions causing defender’s problems, would have liked to see him score today but will net when service improves, it’s game 2.

Subs - Kouogun looked strong and played his part, a valuable contribution. Daly and Walker both looked ring rusty, Walker thought or expected time on the ball and got caught out more than once.

What’s ’official’ about these ratings…it’s just your opinion…nothing else.

Parkes missed a sitter 1st half but was solid throughout that half with our keeper not having a shot to save.
Miley and Sheron were both very good at doing what they do, nothing flash but until we took our foot of the gas Braintree looked very poor as a result of their graft.
Importantly for us there wasn't any of them had a bad game. They could have been dead and buried by half time, Johnson had a good long range shot saved and Parkes sitter being a couple of obvious good opportunities.
We all see the same game, but differently.

We did what we were supposed to do.
Beat a shitter team which most teams with promotion talk are expected to do.

I expect the same next Saturday.
Be ecstatic with a draw at Alty.

Deffo need 2 quality loanies to get over the line and achieve the objective of finishing 7th.

So far so good.
UTP.

Show our Loyal a bit more respect.
He's the Bunkers Gary Lineker.

Well least we won our first home game something we have struggled to do down the years. Look a lot more organised and a lot more fight. Definitely look better keeper and defence wise. But we do look very powder puff up front, slightly worrying against the supposed rank outsiders that will certainly need addressing if we are to do anything. A good loan or two could change that

Altrincham will be a test, let's see how good this team is, when we are on the back foot and see if we can cope and still take points.

Fixtures get harder on paper from October.
Carlisle n York back to back.
Think we all know a quality Loanie needs to be sorted by then.

But I'm sure Larry won't write these fixtures off like silly old Leonard did last season.
UTP.

Don’t make it worse Kev..

thought we were good until the sending off and our penalty. for some unknown reason we stopped doing what we were doing and we looked the team with 10 men for the last 30 odd minutes. know the heat did not help but i was glad when the game was over and in the end we could have dropped a couple of points if they had scored the stupid pen we gave away.

whilst parkes did look solid and akinde did not get much of a touch my worry was when he lost out in a foot race with a 36 year old. the team need to make sure this is a one off situation and his lack of pace could be exploited.

Its div 5 football and defenders will always make mistakes, fortunately on the couple of occasions ours did the keeper did a good job.
I actually thought we coasted after going 2 up and against 10 men, and we could have stepped it up a gear or 2 if needed. Fitness levels looked much improved on past seasons and the energy shown by the likes of Francis, Benn, McNally, and John in the last 10 minutes was impressive by anyone's standards.
I also thought they were a well organised and drilled side, set up to frustrate us, masters of the dark arts in conning officials (Topolaj yellow card), shirt pulling, etc. I don't think they'll be the whipping boys some are predicting. Time will tell though.

Akinde is surprisingly quick over short distances for a big man. There were times yesterday when he caught others out too, not just Parkes.
It isn't the last time this season Parkes will get done for pace, but he's in the team for his positional play and strength in the air. At least Grayson has decent options from the bench at centre back.

Lack of pace has always been a shortcoming in Parkes game, he more than makes up with it with his overall reading and positioning in matches. Akinde is fast, strong, and clever with a decent touch and will worry most NL CBs this season.

Good performance imo. The fans gave them a good reception at the end.

And to be fair we've signed McNally and Cameron John to play alongside and both of them can shift, there's pace there now.
From what I've seen so far of McNally, he could be the signing of the summer, I'm massively impressed by him.

think our next few opponents at the vic will be very similar like many of these small town southern outfits seem to be.

the big worry is whats going to happen when any of that starting line up is injured. it showed when the subs were made it weakened the side. kougun did not look too bad and we know hunter can defend if needed but what of the rest.

I think we were just playing the game out when the subs were made, Grayson was probably already thinking ahead to Tuesday and Altrincham.
I also think we might see 1 or 2 new arrivals, possibly loanees once the EFL transfer window closes.
It's a decent start nothing more or less, but we've got the same points as title favourites York at the minute. Let's see where we are this time next month before jumping to conclusions.

If we had played those last 20 minutes against a good side we would of paid for it. Lessons hopefully learned we are nowhere near good enough to take the foot of the gas when we're coasting.

or even an average side if they have a player to take a good penalty kick.

Or maybe we wouldn't have taken our foot off the gas if they hadn't gone down to 10 or we hadn't got the second?
Let's not forget we were totally dominant for well over an hour. Our keeper never made a save or had a cross to deal with until the penalty.
Have the rules changed btw wrt the penalty and sending off, thought at the time it was a pen and a yellow?

Caught a whopper here like…

Yeh couple of loaners going fwd needed for sure
I still don’t like how slow we are going fwd at times, we get the ball out wide and play it backwards and inside to Miley slowing everything down too often.

I like the keeper (a lot) and defence so far but interested to see how we do v Alty, think Sheron will come more to the fore

The subs we have are abject, every play that comes on apart from the defender from Scunny is clearly a material downgrade from the player they replace
I hope for Daly it’s just fitness but he’s done nowt so far which is disappointing…and while Charman always puts a shift in he looks like worse centrally than out widen which takes some doing.

PS how does Monk justify the signing of Folarin ?

if he had got a yellow he,d have walked anyway as it was his second caution. not sure it should have been a straight red looking at the better view the highlights gave where the ball seemed destined for the keepers hands well infront of reid. bit brain dead for someone who was there captain a bit like waterfall in our first home game last season.

With you there, Bobby. McNally my choice for MOM

You’re no fisherman……