Frickley Updates

[Johnny Bud]

Full time: Halesowen 1 - Frickley 1

[rubens]

At any level the keeper should anticipate a ball being whipped in not touching anyone , so therefore have it covered , saying that , should we be giving so many free kicks away every game , especially in the 90th minute , our strikers were not as sharp as they have been , but on a positive Halesowen have not lost in their last 13 games , the win in this league is just round the corner then we can kick on . One final point , well done Green for MOM but ASA and Ford ran a close second .

[andy]

As we haven't played any of the 'fancied' teams yet i think this may be a bigger step up than i thought. Again we were the better team first half without really creating that much attempts wise. As on Tuesday second half we never came out of the dressing room and a very average Frickley got on top quite easily. Once we did come into it i thought we would hang on but yet another soft, soft goal costs us. We are certainly not going to get as many chances at this level so are going to have to be clinical and we must cut out the silly errors. That said it's early days, we're unbeaten and Trevor hasn't had a heart attack yet.
Oh, and the ref was awful....

[juanillo]

Disappointing end to the game and a soft goal. Although Frickley had more of the play in the 2nd half they weren't particularly threatening. As they got a relegation reprieve last season, one can imagine they're not the strongest in this league but we didn't really convince overall, although I think we still had one or two good chances.

I don't think the referee was especially bad. The officials are always an easy target but players and the coaching staff don't always help by overreacting to fouls or to the officials' decisions.

[piearce9]

I'm usually pretty quick to come on here and give the refs some credit, especially when the usual suspects are pinning the result on their performance. But today's was bad. Very bad. Some of those decisions were plain ridiculous!

[piearce9]

And another thing!....

How blue was the air in the shed today?

Certificate 18, some of that stuff.

[JohnC]

Frickley came with one intention. Get free kicks and corners in our half and use their two tall centre forwards who other than those chances seemed useless. Other than the greedy sod no. 9 who moved quick enough in the Grove bar and had two helpings of the after match grub.

It is clear we need to create more chances and score more goals. One does not appear enough.
Good to see we continued to try and play our own game as we could have easily been drawn into the Frickley Bully Boy tactics tug shirts, arms around necks, arms etc - see the pics if you don't believe me.

The ref I am afraid could not see passed the end of his arm. But I think that will be the case this season and we need to score more to allow for their failings.

I can only assume Macca is injured and not starting as I think he is a play maker.

We knew it would be tough at this level and I would say last season was not easy.
We are good enough to compete at this level and our first win will come soon.
Keep believing.

[gingeryeltz]

today's ref was bad. Very bad. Some of those decisions were plain ridiculous!

The ref did miss a lot of fouls which encouraged Frickley to be physical - the Northern League has this reputation so we have better get used to it or hope for stronger refs.
On the plus point he and the other officials missed Forde kick out at their player and should have sent him off - Forde was very lucky not falling into their apparent plans of being wound up and sent off.
I like Forde as a player as he gives some bite in midfield but he has to learn as we sure need 11 players on the pitch in this league.

[RobYeltz]

Much referee bashing on here I see, and not without due reason. He was very poor indeed. However, for three consecutive games now we've moaned about the officials and the truth is, we need to try and manage the games better. I honestly think we're too nice at times and we need to smarten up, or else we'll be left behind and teams will use that to their advantage. I'm not suggesting we turn into a team of kickers, divers, shirt pullers and intimidating the referee as I hate that, but we have to try and be a bit more streetwise in our approach at times. I'm sure that John and his management team are fully aware of that and as the players play more games they'll get it too. We've said previously that many of the players were making a step up last season and obviously are again. They learnt very quickly last season and the learning curve is merely continuing.

The game itself yesterday was a good game, and as poor as many were expecting Fickley to be, we saw that they we're well organised, big, strong and cunning when needed. They played on the referee's inadequacy and we didn't quite have enough to get a second goal which would have seen us home with the three points. We have to realise that unlike last season there will be spells in games were the opposition are on top and we have to ride the storm, that rarely happened last season but it will this year against better opposition.

401 was a good crowd again, shame we couldn't have got closer to 500 though. Maybe when the holidays are over a few fans will come back to The Grove.