"Two, two, the Lillywhite boys, clothed all in green i-o,
One is one and all alone, and ever more shall be so".
(Traditional song)
A quote given in the intro to the Grimsby Town thread bears repetition…
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
(Einstein)
We travel to Kent with (amazingly) a cushion of 2 points at the top of the table, with just 10 games left to play. It seems that the pressure in this “last lap” has affected not only ourselves but some of the chasing pack, none more so than the rampant Bradford City who managed to lose at Gillingham last weekend. The only winners in the top 7 were AFC Wimbledon, at the expense of Notts County, so we are still 8 points clear of the play-offs (for the moment).
So to Bromley, who are putting up a highly creditable performance in their first ever season in The Football League. Currently in 10th place on 51 points, they are certainly eyeing up a play-off place and will be no pushover. Their current form reveals 12 points from 6 games, against our less than satisfactory 8 points -
February 15th Fleetwood Town (H) Won 1-0
February 22nd Harrogate Town (H) Won 2-0
February 25th Bradford City (H) Lost 0-1
March 1st AFC Wimbledon (A) Won 0-1
March 4th Doncaster Rovers (H) Won 1-0
March 8th Tranmere Rovers (A) Lost 2-1
Our most obvious “Achilles heel” is that of keeping a clean sheet - so far this year we have played 14 League 2 games, and managed to stop the opposition from scoring only once. This is not title-winning form, and in the case of this match we simply have to nullify Bromley’s major threat which is Michael Cheek - he has scored 120 goals for Bromley in 229 appearances, and this season alone he’s on 17.
Connections between the two clubs include Simon Osborn, Levi Amantchi, Michael Ngoo and Ryan Stirk.
Mat Sadler’s team selection for this game will be of the greatest interest - surely he will have seen by now that certain players should be “rested” for their own good, and if he hasn’t personally seen it he should have been advised by his coaching colleagues that it would be advisable - in the interests of the team as well as those of the individual. He does have the numbers in his squad that would enable him to rotate players, and looking at our recent form the inclusion of some of the January signings couldn’t possibly produce worse performances than what has been seen in some recent encounters. Suggestions on team selection are already appearing as a tail piece to the Grimsby Town match thread, so feel free to trumpet them here!
Prediction? Bearing in mind all the above it would be satisfying to come away from Bromley with a point … say a 1-1 result, with DJ continuing to demonstrate his credentials as a striker?
UTS
