The Dart(s) Board

Whichever way you look at this game it should be a tough one for the Darts. Oxford City have a decent striker, Josh Parker who starts his suspension next weekend so we need to be on it at the back. Hopefully we can stay solid and create enough to win, we have the players to do it! Here's the preview https://puredfc.co.uk/dartford-v-oxford-city-2

This will be one of our toughest games this season and we will need to be on it to get anything out of today's games. As others have mentioned Oxford are top of the form table and they will have their eyes on challenging for 2nd place so will be up for this.

Every game is a must win now if we want 2nd place. I can't see Havant slipping up again today.

I will be there, COYD!

I have always like the way Oxford try to play but sure they also fear us and we should do the business at home given our excellent home record so absolutely respect them as they are on a good run but we should be winning this!

50/50 winning number is 07433 £232

HT 0-0

Sub:-
Napa for Ogundere

Attendance 1018

Subs:-
Allen for Wynter
Fonkeu for Wall

FT 0-0

Goodness me! We often laud strikers when they come up with winning performances but that was all about a solid defence and, thankfully, some wasteful finishing from a very sharp Oxford side. One of the most impressive performances I’ve seen at the ‘other end’ of the pitch and it felt like a ‘win’ at the end. Deffo a point won rather than two lost. But what on earth is going on behind the scenes in regard to our strike force? Again we were clearly lacking in attack. I get that there are no ‘class acts’ available at this stage of the season but we deffo need at least one striker. I’d say two! We really need a force up front for the play-offs. Right now, I don’t think we’re anywhere near the best of the play offs bunch. Difficult choice of defender for MOTM - but I agree with the match sponsors, for once, and I hope Bonzo enjoys his bottle of Heineken! (That did make me laugh when someone said it behind me!)

We gave away possession so cheaply on so many occasions today we should be pleased we came out of the game with a draw.
Rarely troubled them and i can only remember one effort on goal in the first half and struggling to recall a decent attempt second half.

Oxford looked a good well organised side and controlled large parts of the game but as has been the case so many times this season our defence stood firm. We are still short on attacking options and could do with some reinforcements but i worry whether we will be able to add anyone to help us at this crucial time of the season.

MOTM has to be a defender as they earnt us the point today, i gave it to Jernade Meade as he put in another good performance.

I don’t like it when we play 1 up front , there seems to be to much emphasis on playing the ball up to Wall to hold it up . We then end up bypassing the 5 men in midfield and the ball ends up coming straight back at . I think we need another striker urgently with Charlie being injured so we can go back to a 442. We get the ball down and play a much better passing game in that formation.
Now to the Ref , I hate that c*nt with a passion! We know we are going to be playing against 12 men as soon as we see him . Wall could not go near the ball without him blowing his whistle , he gave them everything and ignored fouls on our players .
I will look at this as a point gained with H&W losing , onto Weymouth next week .

MOM Tom Bonner , leading by example.

That was a tough watch.

It's safe to say we didn't play well enough to say we deserved to win the game, Oxford were definitely the better team over the course of the game and will feel disappointed to only leave with a point. I thought last season they were one of the best teams we played against at Princes Park and they weren't far off that again today.

It's clear we are missing that firepower up top. We don't have that 20+ goals a season striker that we have had in previous seasons and I don't recall troubling the goalkeeper today -We barely had shots on goal. In addition there wasn't enough movement in attack to cause their defenders any real problems they just dealt with our long balls and we made it easy for them. Murtagh didn't have his best game in that number 10 role.

I also think our problem today was in midfield. We had both Wynter and Smith in the holding midfield positions and we were constantly losing the midfield battles and letting them play through us. I would've liked to see Allen brought on earlier.

We missed Samir today, his creativity and ability to hold onto the ball and create something out of seemingly nothing could've got us the 3 points today but we'll never know. Hopefully he's back next week.

Havant lost so it's a point gained rather than 2 dropped and we remain on this unbeaten run but we have to improve if we're even thinking about securing 2nd place.

I'm giving my MOTM to Essam. Could've gone either way between him and Bonner as both defended superbly.

IMO a very good interview from Dowse:-

Dowse and the posters have summed todays game as I saw it , my MOTM was Jermade Meade , Oxford played some slick pacy football but with some great defending couldnt finish so we got a good point especially with teams around drawng or losing

I was very impressed with the Oxford City Centre Back No19 [Carroll ] who was a class [ footballing] act and surely could/will play at a higher level !!!!

The Referee was useless and the players just did what they liked and he did f...k all about it !!!!!!!!!!

Dowse and the posters have summed todays game as I saw it , my MOTM was Jermade Meade , Oxford played some slick pacy football but with some great defending couldnt finish so we got a good point especially with teams around drawng or losing

I was very impressed with the Oxford City Centre Back No19 [Carroll ] who was a class [ footballing] act and surely could/will play at a higher level !!!!

The Referee was useless and the players just did what they liked and he did f...k all about it !!!!!!!!!!