TALKING POINTS

Matt Roberts

@MatthewsVA438

FLYING OUT OF THE BLOCKS

It was the perfect start as we raced into a two goal lead. Dover couldn’t handle our pace and level of pressing as soon as they got the ball. We forced Dover into silly mistakes and they resorted to hoofing it away when more time was available to them. For the first half hour, it looked like an embarrassingly lopsided spectacle and we arguably should’ve scored more. We’d carried over our momentum from pre-season into when it matters. We were keeping it on the ground and playing some exciting football. However, this enjoyment didn’t last long.

FOOT OFF THE PEDAL

The second goal was our high watermark. We switched off after then, maybe we thought the game was over? Who knows, but the game changed dramatically. All of sudden it seemed like we forgot how to play and what worked well for us in the opening half hour was abandoned. Mistakes started to creep in and we were losing possession cheaply against a Dover side that had been unable to offer much resistance early on. We paid the price for our lack of concentration with Dover getting one back before half time. To the uninitiated, you’d struggle to make out the full time team that’s just been relegated from the league above and the part-time team that escaped the drop last time by a whisker.

AIMLESS STUFF

No doubt the conditions played their part but as the game wore on, we abandoned our successful tactics of the opening half hour and engaged in a tedious exercise of either pumping it up from defence (which never worked), or chipping in lofted balls from midfield for Jarvis and Ash to run on to. The few times we did keep it on the ground and get the ball wide we managed to force some pressure. However, our play was beginning to be reminiscent of the dark days of last season.

SQUARE PEGS, ROUND HOLES

Like most supporters I think we’ve got a pretty strong squad at this point, Jenkins-Davies is an exciting prospect and he did well in the early parts of the game. However, he struggled being out wide and became gradually more ineffective as the game went on. If we were able to count on Stobbs on the wing with Jenkins-Davies in the middle instead, we’d have offered a lot more threat.

DEFENSIVE INEXPERIENCE?

Defence is still an area we need to strengthen as our back three of Craske, Tomlinson and Donnellan were picked apart or just outmuscled by a physical Dover side. Moxey’s return to provide some stability and calmness is much-needed as we’ll come up against far superior sides than Dover this season, who themselves arguably should have scored more goals than they did.