Maidstone v Dartford Tue 9 Jan 2024

[Matt85]

A nothing game which could have gone either way. Maidstone
were poor but ultimately took their chances.
If miller Rodney scores his chance at 1-0 it’s a different game.
Sam man of the match by a country mile.
The system doesn’t suit Alexander, feel he played his best football for us when he had a partner with him rather than the lone forward role.

[KentC]

You could say it could have gone either way, you could say we missed a great chance and you’re probably right.
But this is a common theme and we lose again.
I know you didn’t say it but let’s be clear it’s not bad luck.

I’m not going to go on about the board as I don’t believe they have done anything wrong with Dowse and I cant but believe they’ll be happy with him.
I do hope they make some kind of statement along the lines of we accept this is not where we want to be and we’re working hard to put it right as playoffs should be a minimum requirement.
Give Dowse a public kick up the arse just like he likes to criticise parts of the club publicly.

[Mark Sweet]

You could say it could have gone either way, you could say we missed a great chance and you’re probably right.
But this is a common theme and we lose again.
I know you didn’t say it but let’s be clear it’s not bad luck.

I’m not going to go on about the board as I don’t believe they have done anything wrong with Dowse and I cant but believe they’ll be happy with him.
I do hope they make some kind of statement along the lines of we accept this is not where we want to be and we’re working hard to put it right as playoffs should be a minimum requirement.
Give Dowse a public kick up the arse just like he likes to criticise parts of the club publicly.

Did they not already publicly back him a few months back? And since then absolutely nothing has changed on or off the pitch.

[KentC]

You could say it could have gone either way, you could say we missed a great chance and you’re probably right.
But this is a common theme and we lose again.
I know you didn’t say it but let’s be clear it’s not bad luck.

I’m not going to go on about the board as I don’t believe they have done anything wrong with Dowse and I cant but believe they’ll be happy with him.
I do hope they make some kind of statement along the lines of we accept this is not where we want to be and we’re working hard to put it right as playoffs should be a minimum requirement.
Give Dowse a public kick up the arse just like he likes to criticise parts of the club publicly.

Did they not already publicly back him a few months back? And since then absolutely nothing has changed on or off the pitch.

I think they have to give him that vote of confidence to hopefully motivate him to do better.
Hopefully it’s that dreaded vote of confidence though that managers get sometimes coz we all know what’s next.

Looking forward to his excuses to see if there’s any new ones.

[Jonty]

The players gave it everything, you can't ask for more or even fault them in the way they played tonight. In fact, we should have killed the game off with that golden chance midway through the second half. The turning point in the game was down to our new keeper, who had a solid game. He started time wasting and got booked for moving the ball from one side of the box to the other, needless to say it was a poor kick which resulted with the corner which our opponents scored from. After that we all knew what was coming but annoyingly, their second goal was scooped in with the use of a hand, but the officials were blind sided.

I'm not going to get annoyed, there is no point and I'm certainly not going to resort to a cheap shot at our manager. I think the kindest thing to do now is for the board to place him on gardening leave, along with his backroom staff. All we are doing is delaying the inevitable.

I would like to see TB, Skip & Tom Bonner at the helm till season close, then get a young manager on-board like Danny Scopes. His record is very impressive and even though he has lost all his best players, he still gets results.

It's now time for change.

[Taunton Dart]

Dowse and his management team's constant comments about the budget, players not trying, players not being good enough, the supporters, having to re-build the club should be enough to show that he won't take responsibility for anything to do with the current position the club is in.

[KentC]

The players gave it everything, you can't ask for more or even fault them in the way they played tonight. In fact, we should have killed the game off with that golden chance midway through the second half. The turning point in the game was down to our new keeper, who had a solid game. He started time wasting and got booked for moving the ball from one side of the box to the other, needless to say it was a poor kick which resulted with the corner which our opponents scored from. After that we all knew what was coming but annoyingly, their second goal was scooped in with the use of a hand, but the officials were blind sided.

I'm not going to get annoyed, there is no point and I'm certainly not going to resort to a cheap shot at our manager. I think the kindest thing to do now is for the board to place him on gardening leave, along with his backroom staff. All we are doing is delaying the inevitable.

I would like to see TB, Skip & Tom Bonner at the helm till season close, then get a young manager on-board like Danny Scopes. His record is very impressive and even though he has lost all his best players, he still gets results.

It's now time for change.

Resort to cheap shots?

How on earth are they cheap shots when he’s destroying our club in so many different ways. When does the criticism become fair then? What’s your barometer?

[Trevor B]

Totally agree with Park Life and Babylon

Well said Park life.........
Win or lose tonight we are in a right mess.
I.was one of many who welcomed our new management team in but.........
Far,far too many loans and chopping and changing
Our team is all over the shop and the fans are simply not bothering
I.wont criticise our directors apart from the fact that they have given this manager a 2 year contract.
Who knows where we will be when Dowsons contract expires .
65 years a Darts fan and I have never felt so deflated.

It's 70 years this season following the Darts and I have seen very few home games and none away it is so depressing
Visiting Maidstone definitely a non starter for the same reasons others have stated and but for the fact that I have a season ticket I doubt I would be at Princes Park for more poor home games.
The switching of players on contract or on loan totally confuses me and at my age with my memory it is saying something when only Sherringham and
Wall spring to mind and not because of anything that they have contributed this season and of course Chin injured at the moment but at least he will be back a.s.a.p.

[Dicky Dart]

Tom Bonner was there last night, but I notice this morning that Cray Wanderers had a game. Is Bonner not with Cray anymore?

[Park Life]

Tyler's post match interview:-

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dartford/s ... er-299800/


Dartford coach Martin Tyler admitted they had only themselves to blame after derby defeat at Maidstone on Tuesday night.

The Darts missed the chance to move into the top half of National League South after two goals in five second-half minutes proved decisive.

Luke Coulson’s penalty put Dartford ahead at the break but they were undone by two set-piece goals.

“A lot of good things from a Dartford point of view but what was decisive was an inability to defend two set-pieces which is pretty basic football,” bemoaned Tyler.

“We should be doing it better. A lot of the defending was good but you can’t switch off for crucial moments.

“The difference is that Maidstone, even though they made quite a few changes from their cup tie, they had that extra edge of discipline and they gave us very little in return.

“We have lost the game by our own shortcomings rather than being beaten by a football club that is obviously bubbling at the moment and congratulations to them on what they’ve done.

“We feel that we’ve thrown it away, we were in there with a good chance, we played well in the first half.”

Dartford twice led at Weston-super-Mare last Saturday before returning with a point after a last-gasp equaliser from the hosts.

Tyler admitted they can’t keep conceding two goals per game on the road.

“I feel that we had a chance to make a headline tonight as Maidstone have been in the news and to have beaten them would have been a nice statement,” he added.

“But it hasn’t happened. We’ve done okay but we need to get better and we’re not trying to disguise that. We can’t come away and concede two goals in every game, and that’s what we’ve been doing.

“To get three to win any match is tough, in an away match it’s even tougher. We have the opportunity to maybe strengthen the squad. The players put a lot in but they’ll be judged by the result, as we will be.

“I think we were in the game right to the end. George Elokobi (Maidstone manager) is a smashing guy but I don’t think he will feel that he’s won the game tonight in the sense that we have allowed those two goals. It is very frustrating.

“All the charts are drawn up before the game but things change in a game, substitutions happen and I think they made a couple of clever changes tactically as well so there’s a bit of discussion going on about who is fault. It’s an attitude that we’re just a little behind on that discipline that clicks into place.

“All coaches will say at any level that for all the good play, in the end set-pieces do matter and not just scoring from them, defending them as we found to our cost.

“But we can’t keep letting in two goals and that’s what we’ll be talking about on the way home and that’s what we’ll be addressing at training on Thursday and Saturday.”

Dartford are without a game on Saturday but return to action at Truro on Tuesday night.

Tyler, who is expecting to scout Truro when they host Worthing this Saturday, wants the squad to pay extra attention to detail.

“I hope the game is on because they share with Plymouth Parkway and hopefully the weather relents as the Plymouth game was called off on Tuesday,” said Tyler.

“We want to play it and get some reward for the effort, I don’t think anyone can’t fault the players for effort but the detail is the difference in football and we came up short in that respect.

“We’re frustrated and we share the disappointment with the fans. We ask them to bring their support. I hope they can accept that sometimes you have to feel the pain to get the gain and there is a bit of pain around at the moment but it’s not anything we’re going to suffer too much from.”

[M1 South]

Bout 150 x Darts there last night I would say (& the same amount of Stewards!) were in good voice though & gave the Maidscum Yoof as good as they got, fair play!!
I have to ask though, after being told & reminded at every opportunity (by both clubs) that it was online in advance tickets only for away fans with definitely no admission on the night, lo & behold upon turning up at the away end there was a separate turnstile open for cash & card sales ??? What’s all that about???
Onto the game, we started brightly & were definitely the better team for the first 60 x mins, but u just knew what was going to happen (albeit a free minutes earlier than usual)
I thought their winner was offside though, he was on the goaline when he put it in ffs, & a fair few nearer than me were adamant it was off his hand??
Sam had a good game & I thought the young keeper done well considering but would liked to have seen him or anyone in a white shirt get something/anything on the two crosses that came in for both their goals!!
Hey-ho, welcome to our Dfc world!!

[Matt85]

Tom Bonner was there last night, but I notice this morning that Cray Wanderers had a game. Is Bonner not with Cray anymore?

Suspended

[Ajaxman DFC]

So Mr. Tyler praises Maidstone's players for their discipline. And who's responsible for instilling that other than the coaching staff?
Also Maidstone made some clever substitutions
according to him. So basically their players are more disciplined than ours and our management team's not in the same league as theirs when it comes to tactical awareness.
Great. One could also be forgiven for thinking Tyler wasn't even part of the front line staff. He sounds so detached from anything to do with it as his post- match summaries increasingly sound like they've come straight from the commentary box.

[Undercover Elephant]

Tyler's post match interview:-

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dartford/s ... er-299800/

Same boring tosh from him!

[Babylon]

I have run into 3/4 Darts fans in the past 2 weeks and after talking to them the worst thing of all has crept in.....APATHY!
Regulars are losing interest.
Just saying.

[Spike]

I didn't go last night, I didn't even watch the game on NLTV. Okay, the fact that Maidstone is a horrible place to visit, where away fans consistently get treated like sh** and get pelted with coins, whilst simultaneously being goaded by aggressive police and neanderthal "stewards", doesn't help. Neither did last night's sub-zero temperatures, but the main reason is that I simply don't feel connected to Dowse's Darts, it's like I'm watching someone else's team which, given all the loanees, to a large extent, I am. I have no idea what Dowse is doing, players come and go, we don't know why, we don't know when and sometimes we don't even know who. We get no information, we turn up for games and find players we've never even heard of in the line-up, or players we thought were playing have gone home to their REAL clubs, it's depressing. Our squad is basically a 5-a-side team, padded out with a myriad of out of form or unfit loanees, here to get their match fitness back so they can return to their proper clubs, supplemented with a plethora of Factitious Disorder "sufferers" and Darent Valley stalwarts, topped off with the odd academy lad being played out of position. Our tactics are negative, ineffective and boring and we capitulate at every opportunity. It's a total shambles and I don't believe Dowse even believes he has a problem, let alone that he is capable of fixing it. He never stops whinging about budgets etc and I don't believe he has ever truly bought into our club's ethos. Even if Dowse won the next 6 games on the trot, I don't think there's any way back from this as he has lost the fans completely.

[Park Life]

Yep

[Undercover Elephant]

Next stop relegation!

Our will we get rid of the dinosaur and his merry band of men!

[Ajaxman DFC]

Dinosaurs no longer rule the Earth but they're still out there in various capacities.
Apathy is a word being used more and more now.
There's no leadership. Either no one knows what to do or the will to step up or step aside isn't there. Or maybe it's a bit of both.
We're in the bottom half of the table with two tough away games ahead of us. Followed by an allegedly must win game at home to Weymouth, who are well known for livening up second half of the season. And they fight like hell.
Eastbourne Borough have recently been pro-active and may now show signs of becoming the team many thought they would be.
While we find ourselves stuck in a U-bend not far above the relegation zone not knowing how to move one way of the other.
If it carries on it'll take more than 2 shares to get out of this. All that does is secure the preservation of the status quo.
The National League South is leaving us behind.

[Lars Resort]

I agree with your last remark Ajax. So we need to keep Dowse, apparently he's been successful in the Isthmian Premier. He's completely dragging us down with his ineptitude.