Wealdstone 1-3 Aldershot Town - Tuesday 25th March 2025 (MatchNight Thread)

[SteveyAsp]

Ellison for Laing, and maybe Henry should start.

But yes agree, don’t tinker too much!

You can't drop Ryan Jones

Agree. He’s performing very well. I didn’t say I’d drop him…

IMO Ryan Jones is the most improved player this season.

[Silasgoldeen]

few things:

not news but it probably does go down as another data point in the "winning without Theo" file.
Tommy gets a lot of flak but I don't know too many managers who'd have been prepared to entrust the entire defence to teenagers when staring at the relegation places. That's been a massive change
Equally, I think most people were surprised when he sent Keane Anderson out again today. He was rewarded with a really classy performance that showed off Keane's passing and an ability to shoot and tackle
This is championship form and it's happening with a massive injury list - he deserves a lot of credit for that too

A few of us didn't think the team was as bad as the table suggested and I'm sure it's reasonable to argue that it's not as good as recent form suggests, but just as the manager took a lot of grief when we weren't getting over the line, he deserves credit now.

The changes he's made I would suggest were enforced by injury or suspension...
Would he have dropped his son?
Would he have dropped Maghoma and Scott for Armitage, Woodhouse and Ellison who I think are our best back three and would be have brought Keane Anderson back from his loan?
Personally I think he should have sent Corbett out on loan and brought in another Striker as well.

all fair but he has dealt with the challenges I guess and made good decisions. The other point i think worth stressing is that you absolutely don't always get what you deserve in football, and we absolutely were due a bit of luck. I think I mentioned at the time, but goal difference *can* be a good predictor of how good teams are, and whatever our league position, our goal difference was always miles better than the teams around us, and usually when that happens the team will find its "true" level and rise up the league. The league table 100% does lie. So some of what we're seeing now is just the football gods balancing things out when they weren't earlier on in the season. (The National League seems to have sorted itself out on that front, but a good real time test of the theory will be Worthing in the South - I wouldn't be at all surprised if they drop down a bit. You shouldn't be winning the league with a GD of +12, which suggests to me that they've got lucky in a few close games this season and might be being found out as we speak!).

[SteveyAsp]

few things:

not news but it probably does go down as another data point in the "winning without Theo" file.
Tommy gets a lot of flak but I don't know too many managers who'd have been prepared to entrust the entire defence to teenagers when staring at the relegation places. That's been a massive change
Equally, I think most people were surprised when he sent Keane Anderson out again today. He was rewarded with a really classy performance that showed off Keane's passing and an ability to shoot and tackle
This is championship form and it's happening with a massive injury list - he deserves a lot of credit for that too

A few of us didn't think the team was as bad as the table suggested and I'm sure it's reasonable to argue that it's not as good as recent form suggests, but just as the manager took a lot of grief when we weren't getting over the line, he deserves credit now.

The changes he's made I would suggest were enforced by injury or suspension...
Would he have dropped his son?
Would he have dropped Maghoma and Scott for Armitage, Woodhouse and Ellison who I think are our best back three and would be have brought Keane Anderson back from his loan?
Personally I think he should have sent Corbett out on loan and brought in another Striker as well.

all fair but he has dealt with the challenges I guess and made good decisions. The other point i think worth stressing is that you absolutely don't always get what you deserve in football, and we absolutely were due a bit of luck. I think I mentioned at the time, but goal difference *can* be a good predictor of how good teams are, and whatever our league position, our goal difference was always miles better than the teams around us, and usually when that happens the team will find its "true" level and rise up the league. The league table 100% does lie. So some of what we're seeing now is just the football gods balancing things out when they weren't earlier on in the season. (The National League seems to have sorted itself out on that front, but a good real time test of the theory will be Worthing in the South - I wouldn't be at all surprised if they drop down a bit. You shouldn't be winning the league with a GD of +12, which suggests to me that they've got lucky in a few close games this season and might be being found out as we speak!).

You say "So some of what we're seeing now is just the football gods balancing things out when they weren't earlier on in the season"

I say when he was playing the same players that were losing us games and wouldn't change anything because of his stubbornness.

The Manager even admitted it was his coaching staff that persuaded him to field a weakened side against Leeds u21's.

He brought in Woodhouse and Armitage which I'll give him credit for but that should have happened sooner.

[Marcus ex W.Midlands Shot]

I think I would give Tommy credit for successfully identifying the problem - we were all blaming the midfield, but as others on here have said the midfield were being made to look worse when we were fielding a back three of players who were not great on the ball.

We would defend successfully, win the ball, welly it upfield and lose it without the midfield ever properly getting involved.

Not only are Woodhouse and Armitage better defenders than who they replaced but they are both comfortable with the ball at their feet and moving Olly Scott into the defence helped as well before he got injured.