MATCH: Kidderminster Harriers (A) 26/09/23

[Sloshed Joe]

Solihull (2nd) Bromley (5th) Rochdale (8th) Woking (9th) have all played away at Kidderminster this season. Only Solihull won. Only Solihull and Rochdale managed to score, just once. We scored twice. 
 

I’ll take the win and be pleased with it. 
 

Despite all our v.poor performances under Unsworth, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we hold on to win at Gateshead, put away early chances and win v Solihull, nick a win v Dorking with Kurt’s sitter. Get the late Fondop penalty v Halifax. Fine margins in this league. We could be 8 points better off.

 

Likewise, there’s an alternate universe where Chesterfield didn’t manage all their last minute winners. Could be battling it out with them in the top 3 without having played any differently. Confidence breeds wins and momentum. Let’s move!!!
 

 

[League one forever]

I understand being unhappy when you can’t win a game. 
 

I don’t understand being unhappy with 3 wins on the bounce. 
 

It’s a results business. 

[daniel]

Surprised not more mention of this, but Willoughby was excellent when he came on, covered every blade if grass in the 20 mins he was on. 
Hobson is unbelievable at this level. Class signing for us, and a real class above any centre half i’ve seen this season. Hogan was also excellent tonight, and they dealt with their long balls on the whole very well. Surprised how often we let them cross the ball. 
 

Lots of work still to do, but 3 in 3, can’t argue with that. 
 

Think I heard someone say the crowd was announced as 550 away fans, which is excellent. Decent noise at times as well. Hopefully 400+ travel down to Wealdstone now to try and make it 4 out of 4, although we’ll have to be much better. 

[daniel]

Anyone know what happened to their lad at FT? He was still receiving a lot of treatment as our lot went off, a good 5 mins after the whistle and I don’t recall a tackle happening before the FT whistle went. Hope he’s OK. 

[penrhyn]

Chesterfield will have a blip for sure . Think they have been very fortunate to win the number of games they have. They are a good side but not invicible . Still put them ahead of us at the moment,although there defence is their weakpoint. We still need a right back , and a ball playing midfielder . Lets just give Thomo the job and let him finish recruiting players.

[Littlemoor Lad]

8 hours ago, disjointed said:

After Saturday. 

Getting ahead of myself 

More wishful thinking 

[Littlemoor Lad]

1 hour ago, penrhyn said:

Chesterfield will have a blip for sure . Think they have been very fortunate to win the number of games they have. They are a good side but not invicible . Still put them ahead of us at the moment,although there defence is their weakpoint. We still need a right back , and a ball playing midfielder . Lets just give Thomo the job and let him finish recruiting players.

It's a good shout,

Player's happy and showing it

[deyres42]

8 hours ago, Guy Branston Pickle said:

Amazing what a difference having someone on the touchline who can actually read the game and make the right changes makes. That was an Unsworth style performance, but under him we'd have made no changes and inevitably lost.

 

Great subs from Thompson, both made a massive difference 

 

3 out of 3. Gerrin

Not sure the subs needed much imagination to be fair, they were obvious...

[disjointed]

40 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

Not sure the subs needed much imagination to be fair, they were obvious...

Not too all managers. 

[JoeP]

8 hours ago, doctor evil said:

The win is the most important thing, obviously, but I think the results have probably flattered the performances of the last 3 games. We deserved to win the first 2, but they were against poor opposition. And I don't think in either game we created enough clear chances despite the goals we scored. Tonight we probably didn't deserve a win, again against a team that is struggling. Its not negative to say that, it's being realistic. That level of performance won't see us continue winning. But we can improve, and will as this management team works with the squad (and when/if the next one comes in). There's so much we can do better and the fact we have won 3 on the trot with that being the case is a positive. But we have to continue to see those improvements if we want to be in the mix at the end of the season.

 

I'm pretty amazed by that line of thinking to be honest. We won and won well Thommo's first two. We soaked up pressure last night and hit them on the break. It wasn't even lucky. It was game management. 

 

I've been a negative son of a gun the last year - I even thought the post-Januuary "run" under Unsworth was shit. These last three have been a world away from even those games. 

 

Maybe @BPAS needs to revisit the psychology behind fan thinking because I can't see much reason for complaint right at this moment...

[True Tic]

8 hours ago, doctor evil said:

The win is the most important thing, obviously, but I think the results have probably flattered the performances of the last 3 games. We deserved to win the first 2, but they were against poor opposition. And I don't think in either game we created enough clear chances despite the goals we scored. Tonight we probably didn't deserve a win, again against a team that is struggling. Its not negative to say that, it's being realistic. That level of performance won't see us continue winning. But we can improve, and will as this management team works with the squad (and when/if the next one comes in). There's so much we can do better and the fact we have won 3 on the trot with that being the case is a positive. But we have to continue to see those improvements if we want to be in the mix at the end of the season.

I think we fully deserved our win last night , they were difficult opposition, struggling at the bottom with a load of goalless draws behind them. They were definitely the classic high ball specialists-get it high in the box, cause as much confusion as possible and hope it hits someone’s head . We did what we needed to do and we probably should have scored a couple more. There’ll be a good few more like that and we won’t win them all but it’s the change of attitude for me, definitely more resolve about us now and we’d have probably lost that last night under DU. 

[Pidge]

3 hours ago, penrhyn said:

Chesterfield will have a blip for sure . Think they have been very fortunate to win the number of games they have. They are a good side but not invicible . Still put them ahead of us at the moment,although there defence is their weakpoint. We still need a right back , and a ball playing midfielder . Lets just give Thomo the job and let him finish recruiting players.

I will agree with you on Thomo when he spots that Shelton is not ready to play. Twice now when he replaced Gardner, we have looked poor again in the middle.  When Thomo drops Shelton, I will feel better about him carrying on managing us.

[b0ndl1ne]

3 minutes ago, Pidge said:

I will agree with you on Thomo when he spots that Shelton is not ready to play. Twice now when he replaced Gardner, we have looked poor again in the middle.  When Thomo drops Shelton, I will feel better about him carrying on managing us.

See where you’re coming from and agree.

Think you won’t see him on the pitch again though assuming Lundstram plays at the weekend 

[AlanGrovesFanClub]

14 minutes ago, Pidge said:

I will agree with you on Thomo when he spots that Shelton is not ready to play. Twice now when he replaced Gardner, we have looked poor again in the middle.  When Thomo drops Shelton, I will feel better about him carrying on managing us.

I don’t think there’s much choice at present. Hopefully Lundstram and Ward playing soon. 

[Ackey]

49 minutes ago, JoeP said:

Maybe @BPAS needs to revisit the psychology behind fan thinking because I can't see much reason for complaint right at this moment...

You're still just coming down from your DU-departure orgasm. It'll wear off!  

[Careca9]

37 minutes ago, Pidge said:

I will agree with you on Thomo when he spots that Shelton is not ready to play. Twice now when he replaced Gardner, we have looked poor again in the middle.  When Thomo drops Shelton, I will feel better about him carrying on managing us.

we just didn’t get a grip of game as the two in middle offer very little. Don’t do box to box, don’t drive forward with the ball, passing terrible. Then front two don’t hold it and we can’t get any good play together. If we can sort centre mid out we’ll improve massively 

[ShireBlue]

The way Green made space for his goal by blasting the ball into the opponent’s face. Mwah!

[LightDN123]

Absolutely buzzing with that result last night. 
We need to sort this CM issue with Gardner now injured. Sheron and Shelton cannot play together and I think Tommo knows that, which caused the changed in shape and Dickinson coming into the middle. 
 

No idea how far off Lundstram is, but if he’s not available next week we need to go out and get a new CM. 
 

I think we should try Shelton at rb, it is clearly obvious he cannot play CM. A broken Gardner is far superior than him. Shelton is embarrassingly bad. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by LightDN123

[ceskylatic]

24 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Absolutely buzzing with that result last night. 
We need to sort this CM issue with Gardner now injured. Sheron and Shelton cannot play together and I think Tommo knows that, which caused the changed in shape and Dickinson coming into the middle. 
 

No idea how far off Lundstram is, but if he’s not available next week we need to go out and get a new CM. 
 

I think we should try Shelton at rb, it is clearly obvious he cannot play CM. A broken Gardner is far superior than him. Shelton is embarrassingly bad. 

I agree central midfield is an issue if Gardner and Lundstram aren’t available. Sheron proves his worth in there, but Shelton looks laboured as well as giving the ball away far too much. There must be a player in there somewhere, he was well thought of playing at a higher level.

Booing of Shelton again last night when he came on shows what deadheads we have in our fan base. Noticed Sheron signalled to the crowd with sarcasm in response.

[LightDN123]

13 minutes ago, ceskylatic said:

I agree central midfield is an issue if Gardner and Lundstram aren’t available. Sheron proves his worth in there, but Shelton looks laboured as well as giving the ball away far too much. There must be a player in there somewhere, he was well thought of playing at a higher level.

Booing of Shelton again last night when he came on shows what deadheads we have in our fan base. Noticed Sheron signalled to the crowd with sarcasm in response.

Heard no booing for Shelton, just encouragement from my position. 

[ceskylatic]

6 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Heard no booing for Shelton, just encouragement from my position. 

I was stood on the right hand side as you look onto the pitch and could hear it coming from the middle/left when he came on to replace Gardner.

[sjk2008]

10 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Heard no booing for Shelton, just encouragement from my position. 

I didn’t hear booing either. However the group with the drum were berating him at every opportunity.

[Harriers9]

9 hours ago, daniel said:

Anyone know what happened to their lad at FT? He was still receiving a lot of treatment as our lot went off, a good 5 mins after the whistle and I don’t recall a tackle happening before the FT whistle went. Hope he’s OK. 

 

That was Alex Penny. He's ok now though.

 

 

[LightDN123]

Just now, Harriers9 said:

 

That was Alex Penny. He's ok now though.

 

 

Good news. 
 

What was your assessment of the game ? 

[nzlatic]

Was a poor footballing performance but was a good scrappy win. The players kept fighting and we're always in with a chance of nicking a goal with the forward options we have.

 

One for @League one forever ... the formation change Thompson referred to in his interview I'm pretty certain was a move to 3-5-2!! Dickenson got called over after they scored and came back on with a truck load of instruction for everyone. He ended up central behind the front 2. Green and Kitching as wing backs.

 

Shelton looks devoid of any confidence. I feel sorry for him. The problem Thompson has (and Unsworth had) is who plays instead? He's been on the bench recently while it's been Gardner and Sheron but when Gardner comes off who else would go on?  When injuries clear up he needs a spell out of the team or maybe a different formation or players alongside him will help. There's clearly a player in there given the reviews from Hartlepool fans. Whoever is the manager just needs to work out how to get him back to that form.