The difference between the 2 sides IMHO was that Folan up front for Chesterfield looked dangerous, our central defensive paring of El-Abd and Lynch played poorly and Chesterfield defended well. End of story really.
Rents was in for Mayo at left back, El-Abd for Santos at Centre Back, Hart at right back, Loft in at Left Midfield.
Chesterfield soon worked out that our back four was so flat that a ball over the top would have us in trouble. It soon did and Folan anticipated a ball headed over Lynchs head and tucked away the goal nicely.
Loft was subbed after about 25 minutes, he was out of his depth, and was replaced by Robinson to change the formation and shape of the team. Williams up front for us didn't do that much running about, but when needed he looped in an equalising header over the keeper caught in no mans land after the one and only time we passed the ball about and made a pass after looking up.
At 1-1 I thought, right at last, now we can push on with a bit of confidence, but we got worse. We then had the ball down in our own corner, hart lost the ball hoofing it out, Chippy just turned circles and didn't make the ball, then El-Abd and Lynch were caught too flat at the back again and the ball was passed between them and it was 2-1 to Chesterfield.
A neat finish, but our defense was sliced open so so easily.
All in all a depressing day at Withdean, still cant work out why Williams was taken off for Gatting. He looked as if he could score, left me baffled!
henderson - 6 couldn't do anything about the goals (regular comment at the moment)
Hart - 4 not a full back
Lynch - 4 poor match, lack of communication between him and El-Abd
El-Abd - 4 as above
Rents - 7 my MOTM, put in some great crosses, tackled back well
Carpenter - 3 out the game, should be out the team if only we had some experience
hammond - 4 not much better than chippy
Cox - 4 as above
Revell - 4 poor match by his standards
Williams - 5 nice goal, some good touches, not much service
Loft - 2 cant control the ball
Robinson (for Loft)- 3 very poor again IMHO
Gatting (for Williams)- 3 as above
Santos (for Chippy?) - 4 ran about for 10 minutes trying to confuse everyone up front.
Atmosphere 0
Entertainment -1
We will soon be getting under 5,000 home crowds if that is the level of entertainment we can expect. We have got used to more, sadly we are getting a lot less than acceptable levels of passing, controlling the ball, team work and nobody is getting behind the team from the stands, its a vicious circle we have got into at the moment.
My final tiny gripe, yes I think Frutos and Molango are off form, but why are they not even on the bench? Frutos has experience and goes from starting a couple of games to not even on the bench. Mayo the same, yes he has been poor, but why not on the bench. Chamberlain was on the bench and he has NO experience.
