Hampton and Richmond home February 8

[Tall dart]

Not quite at the races today. Hampton are good at what they do and their game plan worked. Until the sending off I thought we could draw the game and that would have been a fair result, however the ref in his wisdom decided otherwise, even though Eliot had struggled off a challenge from no. 12 just before his supposed dive. Game over by Hamptons 12th man. On to the next one lads.

May have been a small touch on Elliot but I think he made the most of it and with being on a yellow card was a silly dive.The ref was poor today was built like a wardrobe and moved like one.Bad day at the office move on to next week.

Personally thought he slipped on the ball (not a dive), but who can be sure. He got on the wrong side of the ref from early on and never won any sympathy for all the number 5s book of tricks.

[babylon]

An opponent with a game plan to spoil and Nick it
plus a referee who was weak and indecisive plus a Darts
Performance to forget and whilst Elliot was silly with his second yellow we lost our way and rarely troubled their keeper, in the end we did very little after our early goal
Oh well on to next week and hopefully 3 points.

[TonyH]

As I said on Twitter, Hamptons strategy was clear - get amongst us, stop us playing and once they’d got their second they made the game scrappy. We didn’t seem to cope with that at all well. Our midfield had an off game and that didn’t help.

[Tall dart]

Forgot to mention our 12th man today. Good vocal crowd that sang and cheered till the end! Shame our efforts weren't rewarded lol

[The 5th Searcher]

As soon as the referee gave Elliott his final warning he seemed to go quiet in the game and we seemed to fall apart a bit.

The referee was a disgrace today giving Elliott absolutely no protection whatsoever. Between Hamptons 5 & 12 they certainly did their job today of harassing & winding Elliott up and the ref just let them get away with it. Constantly pushing & shoving with 2 hands and not a word said. Elliott goes to ground after getting his ankle clipped and the ref sends him off, absolute joke.
You can’t blame the referee for the final score or for us losing but you can blame him for his piss poor decision making today. How their No 10 I think it was didn’t get a straight red card for that tackle on Ming I don’t know, it certainly looked like studs up and almost a stamp from behind the goal.
As for the 5 & 12 getting away with the goading and 2 handed shoves on Elliott I don’t know.
The referee was just a big attention seeking lump.

As for us up to the first 20 minutes it looked all us and a 2nd goal looked on the cards but some very poor defending and a keeping error let them back in to it to score 2 goals then their tactics really came in to action.

My MOTM goes to Luke who I thought looked excellent in the first half and was still quite dangerous in the 2nd half, they couldn’t handle his trickery.

We’ve had a great run of games and it had to end at some point just a shame it was today as we could’ve climbed again.

Still on to next week if it goes ahead where McNulty will be available again but Romain will be missing so will give either Nash or Sheringham their chance to hopefully shine.

[TonyH]

This game will be a belter. Can’t wait COYD

Oh god, wasn’t really was it!? Never was going to be - one team intent on scrapping, spoiling, diving, bleating....

[Ajaxman DFC]

The dreaded curse of the Manager of the Month award reared it's ugly head today. Maybe Mr. King should have refused to accept it by handing it back.
I thought the referee had it in for Elliott after brandishing the first soft yellow. And despite the booking, Elliott offered his hand to the no. 12, who'd got him booked in the first place, and the little shit refused it.
As for the number 9 he was a cheating disgrace.
We started off brilliantly today and could have been 2 or 3 up before their equaliser.
But they drew level through a soft goal and after they had taken the lead, took advantage of a referee who was out of his depth and did a job on us.

[babylon]

Some might disagree but I thought that we were lightweight
in the midfield today...3 creative players but no enforcers
S K has done a brilliant job but to me we need a ball winner in our midfield,someone to own the middle of the park.
Just saying!

[Nobby2]

i thought today game was hyde worse did not seem to want to scrap for the ball,i would of bought noble on about 70 minute mark to give them a battle and get the team fired up.
how they finished with eleven men on the pitch was amazing but then the cheats did because of the worst referee i have seen for a long time.
we had a good run going and no doubt we will again.

[tommytollbooth]

Too many of our team had an off day and yes our midfield did look lightweight, the new kid McGregor struggled to get into the game. They came with a Manager who had a bloody big gob and a plan to scrap and spoil and sadly it worked. Hampton also knew how to play a piss poor Referee. Elliot was always going to be skating on thin ice after his first yellow, perhaps Kingy should have considered replacing him with Sheringham before he got the inevitable second yellow. With Maidstone winning it was a bad game to lose and lets hope the Billericay rice paddy dries out so we can put it right next Saturday.