A feeling I'm not used to.....

[Cricko]

What he said ^^^^^^^^.

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

It's not a nice feeling but the run had to come to an end sometime. I'd rather have lost now than in the final and I'd rather have lost this than the league.

The sign of how series our promotion credentials will now be how we respond to defeat.

12 league games unbeaten is still impressive.

 

[Cricko]

Actually the more I think about last nights game now the more annoyed I am that we threw away such a chance to get to Wembley.If we had a forward on in the first half to get on the end of a Ryan Hall cross instead of him having to go it alone we would of been in front easily.....Harris and Blair are not goal scoring forwards and generally play out wide..Mohsni should of been on the left of midfield and a goal threat... To play Prosser in a position he knows nothing about and stick Bilel (our biggest goal threat) back to where he hasn't played for ages was quiet frankly ridiculous....There was without doubt a terrible choice in team position selection and that ****s me off big time...

 

[Bluepen]

Actually the more I think about last nights game now the more annoyed I am that we threw away such a chance to get to Wembley.If we had a forward on in the first half to get on the end of a Ryan Hall cross instead of him having to go it alone we would of been in front easily.....Harris and Blair are not goal scoring forwards and generally play out wide..Mohsni should of been on the left of midfield and a goal threat... To play Prosser in a position he knows nothing about and stick Bilel (our biggest goal threat) back to where he hasn't played for ages was quiet frankly ridiculous....There was without doubt a terrible choice in team position selection and that ****s me off big time...

I am with you mate very disappointing it was ...

 

[united we stand]

Actually the more I think about last nights game now the more annoyed I am that we threw away such a chance to get to Wembley.If we had a forward on in the first half to get on the end of a Ryan Hall cross instead of him having to go it alone we would of been in front easily.....Harris and Blair are not goal scoring forwards and generally play out wide..Mohsni should of been on the left of midfield and a goal threat... To play Prosser in a position he knows nothing about and stick Bilel (our biggest goal threat) back to where he hasn't played for ages was quiet frankly ridiculous....There was without doubt a terrible choice in team position selection and that ****s me off big time...

agree with that so much . Guys at work are asking me about the match and the more I talk/think about it the more angry/upset I am getting. If we had played well, with the correct formation it would be much easier to take. If only one of the efforts that hit the bar/saved on to the bar had gone in ......

 

[Angell Delight]

Bit of a reality check here fellas, the JPT Final is on Sunday 25th MARCH 2012. That's 3 and a half months away and if we got there I would imagine there would be a strong possibility our league form would have been affected in the weeks prior to the event. On the other hand Liverpool would be on January 7th so if we manage to win at Oldham we won't have long to wait before our big day and then we could forget it and focus on the league. It's a cliche but the league is the be-all-and-end-all (infact it's the ONLY all). We've had a tremendous first half of the season and we don't want a relatively tin-pot trophy to bugger up our chances of getting out of this division. Sure if we'd have won last night then a chance to get to Wembley would have been great but I'd have still been concerned about it being on the players minds long before the big day (a point backed up by Sturrock's article in the Echo saying he has had to stamp down on the squad discussing Liverpool and tickets already this week). If we win at Oldham then great, a cracking trip to Anfield to look forward to which will be done and dusted relatively quickly allowing the boys to focus on picking up the remaining points we need for promotion. If we lose at Oldham then hopefully the lads will be determined to respond in the right way and we'll finish top 3. Either way if we go on and get ourselves out of this league then I'll be ecstatic with our achievements this season.

As someone else said above Wembley isn't going anywhere, the play-offs are held there every year and we will probably make another JPT Final at some point (hell it's not like we've done badly in this competition recently - 2 successive finals, an Area Final defeat and now an Area semi defeat in the last 7 years is proof of that). We'll get our Wembley day out sometime soon I'm sure, although hopefully not this season as I don't think anyone wants to go through the play-offs.

Chin up guys, let's stop being so negative and get behind Luggy and the team!!!

P.S. Barnet won't be a gimme for Swindon I'm sure anyway, even over 2 legs. You're forgetting they have knocked out Cheltenham (away!) and Brentford these past 2 rounds and seem really up for this competition. While Swindon will be favourites (as would we have been) it would have been disrespectful to dismiss the Area Final as a walkover.

 

[Bluesmanager]

Think the Beeb being ***** last night for me was a blessing in disguise. Had to refresh the suppose "live text, no refresh needed" page and saw that Barnet had beaten Brentford, so tbh I wasn't that fussed when I saw we'd lost too.

 

[galvatron1983]

It's not a nice feeling but the run had to come to an end sometime. I'd rather have lost now than in the final and I'd rather have lost this than the league.

The sign of how series our promotion credentials will now be how we respond to defeat.

12 league games unbeaten is still impressive.

I can understand that because after all, progression in the league is where long-term prosperity lies.

But I cant help feeling that Id rather have lost away on Saturday and won this game to progress to a winnable area final.

A league loss you can bounce back from in the next game, and as long as your form returns, the impact can be minimized. Lose a one-off cup game when your this close to a final and thats it, game over for another season and no second chances...

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

I can understand that because after all, progression in the league is where long-term prosperity lies.

But I cant help feeling that Id rather have lost away on Saturday and won this game to progress to a winnable area final.

A league loss you can bounce back from in the next game, and as long as your form returns, the impact can be minimized. Lose a one-off cup game when your this close to a final and thats it, game over for another season and no second chances...

Yes, I can see where you're coming from as well. It makes next Tuesday almost a must win game as a game at Anfield would be huge for our finances.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Sorry DWB, but this does not make me feel any better. Not one bit.

I'm a tad annoyed that we did not appear to take it a little more seriously.

How were we not taking it seriously?

Dickinson wasn't playing because Harris and Sturrock did better than him in the second half on Saturday. Otherwise that was our strongest line-up. Timlin and Phillips were suspended and even if you think Timlin deliberately got himself suspended (he definitely didn't in case the FA are reading) he couldn't have played anyway.

No disrespect, but Barnet in a 2 legged battle for a Wembley show down, is about as easy as you could hope for. We would of taken thousands to Barnet and the home game would of been pushing 9-10,000 I would of thought. Plenty of £££'s for the club. And that's not even counting the final itself, which would probably pull around 40-50,000 fans in. Huge amount of £££'s down the drain there as well. Swindon should sail through to Wembley now, with ease.

Just like Brentford thought they would. We struggled to get 4,000 last night, what makes you think we'd more than double it?

Massive, massive opportunity wasted and I'm not sure we'll ever get such an opportunity again. For a long, long time.

We've had similar opportunities to get to Wembley before, better ones even: penalties against Notts County, Martin Carruthers' miss against Brentford. The reason they are a bit old is because they played the finals at the Millennium Stadium for a while (and we went three times). There's no reason to think we won't get more opportunities to come.

We've been to a big final more times than we've won a league title.

But yes, IF we go up and IF we get to Anfield it will all be forgotten. But, that's the problem isn't it....IF...

The cracks have started to show now for several weeks. And perhaps our "luck" is now starting to turn. We need to strengthen in January. Especially up front and wide...

Using the same 13 or 14 players every week is now starting to take its toll. Let's hope the lads have enough about them to do the job, until fresh faces can come in.

We're relying on the same back 4 but we're using ten different midfielders/forwards (and that's not including Prosser or Johnson) which gives us plenty of options.

I know it doesn't apply to you Smiffy, but I'm sure there are several posters who are relieved that we lost as it means they feel less guilty about moaning the whole time.

 

[Norwichshrimper]

Actually the more I think about last nights game now the more annoyed I am that we threw away such a chance to get to Wembley.If we had a forward on in the first half to get on the end of a Ryan Hall cross instead of him having to go it alone we would of been in front easily.....Harris and Blair are not goal scoring forwards and generally play out wide..Mohsni should of been on the left of midfield and a goal threat... To play Prosser in a position he knows nothing about and stick Bilel (our biggest goal threat) back to where he hasn't played for ages was quiet frankly ridiculous....There was without doubt a terrible choice in team position selection and that ****s me off big time...

Agreed 100%...The team selection smacked of showing disrespect...not so much to the Competition or the Opposition, but more importantly to us Supporters.

 

[Somerset Ex-TTB]

As someone else said above Wembley isn't going anywhere, the play-offs are held there every year and we will probably make another JPT Final at some point (hell it's not like we've done badly in this competition recently - 2 successive finals, an Area Final defeat and now an Area semi defeat in the last 7 years is proof of that). We'll get our Wembley day out sometime soon I'm sure, although hopefully not this season as I don't think anyone wants to go through the play-offs.

Agree with a lot of your points, but I don't remember losing in an Area final since Brentford back in about 2001

2004 Final
2005 Final
2006 R1
2007 NA
2008 R1
2009 R1
2010 R2 (after a bye)
2011 QF
2012 SF

So since the 2 area finals, we have gone out at the first hurdle on 4 out of 6 seasons. So I disagree, the chance doens't come along too often.

 

[WightShrimper]

And it has only taken one loss before the 'in Luggy we trust' seems to have flown out of the window. We could also be arguing that with better refereeing, we should probably only been playing against 9 men for much of the match.
Onwards and upwards.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

I have to say this is one of the hardest defeats to take since we got relegated. We could be 180 minutes against an awful Barnet team away from 20,000 maybe more of our fans turning out at Wembley to see us try and win a competition. This was by far the biggest individual game of our season so far. Yes the league is important, but lose at Cheltenham and we've got another 20-something games to make amends.

Horrible horrible feeling losing tonight.

Do I detect the faintest whiff of arrogance on here? A win last night and a trip to Wembley was, for some, a forgone conclusion. After all, the only thing that would have stood in our way was that 'awful' Barnet side that, to date, has dispatched Colchester, Gillingham, Cheltenham and Brentford from this competition. If you thought it was bad losing to Swindon last night, just imagine how you would have felt after losing, in the Regional Final, to Barnet over two legs.

 

[Grayson]

Do I detect the faintest whiff of arrogance on here? A win last night and a trip to Wembley was, for some, a forgone conclusion. After all, the only thing that would have stood in our way was that 'awful' Barnet side that, to date, has dispatched Colchester, Gillingham, Cheltenham and Brentford from this competition. If you thought it was bad losing to Swindon last night, just imagine how you would have felt after losing, in the Regional Final, to Barnet over two legs.

He didn't say it was a foregone conclusion, but that we've blown a great opportunity to get to Wembley. That's not arrogant, it's true.

 

[united we stand]

And it has only taken one loss before the 'in Luggy we trust' seems to have flown out of the window.
.

I don't see that at all. Many of us are not happy about last night- a one off game. I don't see anyone doubting their faith in him for the league.

 

[southchurch]

Barnet have won 5 from 19 in the league . So you would have to fancy southend against them. Though I agree its a bit off calling them awful. There was only 4000 there last night. But the ones that were there like myself were desperate for a win as seen . As soon as we went 1 up and 'W e m b e r l y W e m b e r l y' went round the ground it felt oh so good. And later Oh sooo bad..Still hurting.

 

[the_forgotten_man]

We've beaten Barnet 5 times in a row, home and away. They're always floating around the bottom of the table, and if it weren't for Izale Mcleod's goals they'd be gearing up for another relegation battle. Indeed, they still might be.

We beat them 3-1 away earlier in the season, without breaking sweat by all accounts. Last season we beat them three times.

Barnet are not a good team. We would have been huge favourites to beat them, especially over 180 minutes, as opposed to a one off cup tie. The prize would have been Wembley with 20,000+ blues. We have never managed that. These are all indisputable, which whilst I'm delighted with our season so far, makes last night a really horrible defeat, and one that i'm surprised so many people are taking so lightly.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

We've beaten Barnet 5 times in a row, home and away. They're always floating around the bottom of the table, and if it weren't for Izale Mcleod's goals they'd be gearing up for another relegation battle. Indeed, they still might be.

We beat them 3-1 away earlier in the season, without breaking sweat by all accounts. Last season we beat them three times.

Barnet are not a good team. We would have been huge favourites to beat them, especially over 180 minutes, as opposed to a one off cup tie. The prize would have been Wembley with 20,000+ blues. We have never managed that. These are all indisputable, which whilst I'm delighted with our season so far, makes last night a really horrible defeat, and one that i'm surprised so many people are taking so lightly.

We got our easy win over them in October and Burton crushed them at Barnet a few days after. However, since then, during all November, they didn't lose a league game and got a notable away win down at Bristol Rovers, a week before they came to Roots Hall and got a point. Thus, they would not seem quite as bad as when we played them.
I think there is another point here, if we remember back to our 2003/4 season. Tilson had come in and dragged us away from the relegation zone.......we finished 17th that year..............I reckon Barnet may finish in a similar position. Thus they have nothing else to play for, the JPT IS the highlight of their season, as it was of ours back then. This year, hopefully and happily, we have other fish to fry. Whatever we may think about the team selection and formation last night, I'm sure that Luggy did what he thought best, in the context of the season and it would appear that the JPT is not his priority and that is a fact which, though it may be hard to swallow, we shall just have to live with.

 

[Smiffy]

We got our easy win over them in October and Burton crushed them at Barnet a few days after. However, since then, during all November, they didn't lose a league game and got a notable away win down at Bristol Rovers, a week before they came to Roots Hall and got a point. Thus, they would not seem quite as bad as when we played them.
I think there is another point here, if we remember back to our 2003/4 season. Tilson had come in and dragged us away from the relegation zone.......we finished 17th that year..............I reckon Barnet may finish in a similar position. Thus they have nothing else to play for, the JPT IS the highlight of their season, as it was of ours back then. This year, hopefully and happily, we have other fish to fry. Whatever we may think about the team selection and formation last night, I'm sure that Luggy did what he thought best, in the context of the season and it would appear that the JPT is not his priority and that is a fact which, though it may be hard to swallow, we shall just have to live with.

Well, lets hope we win at Oldham then. Or we'll have **** all chance of getting any fresh faces in...