Witton team
Greg Smith, Donnelly, Scott, Pritchard, Coyne, Steve Smith, Settle, Ben Thornley, Hadland, Rod Thornley, Gaghan.
Subs: Pearson, Swartz, Hunt, Macdonald, Golbourne, Thacker, Willis.
Half Time Score: TRAFFORD FC 0 WITTON ALBION 0.
An entertaining first half with quite a few chances for both sides but goalless at the break. Witton knocking the ball around quite nicely at times, an improved performance on Saturday so far.
We need a goalscorer, how much would it cost to get Mike Moseley back?
WHS.
Latest Score: TRAFFORD FC 1 WITTON ALBION 0.
A good goal lobbed from outside the box giving Albion keeper Greg Smith no chance. Witton have made a couple of changes at half time.
Latest Score: TRAFFORD FC 2 WITTON ALBION 0.
Second goal coming following poor defensive play, a suspicion of offside also but the goal stood.
Friendly results don’t count!!!
Moseley would be available for a £50 mothercare voucher
Latest Score: TRAFFORD FC 3 WITTON ALBION 0.
Latest Score: TRAFFORD FC 3 WITTON ALBION 1.
Substitute Zane Golbourne pulls one back for the Albion with a header from Pritch’s cross.
Full Time Score: TRAFFORD FC 3 WITTON ALBION 1.
so where are we going wrong 
We are not going wrong. More positives tonight - come 16th August we will be ready.
WHS is right - we do seem to be lacking a goalscorer at the minute.
Keep the faith.
Well…atleast we scored a goal! :laugh:
whether u reckon friendly results matter or not losing 3 on the bounce to lesser teams is frightening. This aint looking good. We could seriously embarrass ourselves next season. Oh how we were 1 game away from things being so much different…Trafford fc??? 3-1 ??? Gutted!
…and we were unbeaten last pre-season in seven games only to go to Lincoln and lose 1-0.
Everyone need to remember that aside from a couple of these players the entire team is new and has never played together, not to mention the fact that many still need to get up to full match fitness.
It is far too early to start picking the team apart, Nige is looking at various players and the only way to assess them is by playing them (now rather than when the league starts). He already will have a good idea of the starting 11, however will not necessarily (and also due to a couple of injuries) be playing that said yet. We can get beat in every pre-season game as far as I am concerned providing we use the exercise to it’s full.
I am not blindly defending the result or performance, there is a long way to go, building a new squad will take months not just a couple of weeks (which is all we have had so far).
Let’s concentrate on the positives, seriously it will take till Christmas before we have a good idea of where we are up to. As we know from last season you can walk the league for 7 months and still win nothing. I will be over the moon if we keep mid table and put a late run together in February and March and sneak the 5th play-off spot.
Don’t underestimate the size of Nigel’s task.
The only other comment I would make is the more effort we put in by way of supporting the club and fundraising then the better the resources will be to help the building process.
Manchester Wittoner wrote:
Nothing like a bit of overreaction is there??
Does anyone know anything about the trialist’s Zane Golbourne and Swartz etc Where they have played before? etc etc
Can’t seem to find anything on the web.
Last pre-season the likes of Dillon and Crowe looked like world-beaters, and were therefore signed on contract…meaning money was paid out that we could hardly afford - and is a contributing factor to where we now stand finance-wise. I’d rather we find out now which players aren’t up to it and politely tell them ‘thanks, but no thanks’.
WHS wrote:
[quote]We need a goalscorer, how much would it cost to get Mike Moseley back?
WHS.[/quote]
Mike is currently out of action as he undergoes a hernia operation. It could be October b4 he gets fit enough to be reviewed for a transfer bid.
I understand Zane Goulborne is a former Man City Youth player and also played for Trafford’s Reserves.
The frustration we are feeling is due to the fact for 2 years we had a team good enough for the conference north, then 2 months later we barely had any players at all! All the players that have left have moved up a level, so its going to be difficult to instantly replace this quality of player. Especially after a well publicised mass exodus its difficult to convince good players the club is going forward.
Nige has a very tough job on his hands, its clear that some of the players at the moment aren’t good enough but that is understandable given the circumstances. If we can steer clear of the bottom 6 in the early part of the season, we can then build from there. Nige can then keep tinkering and improve the quality of the squad, hopefully we can then finish top half. The following season we then have something to build on and can look at playoffs etc.
I think we all need to just really get behind the team win, lose or draw this year and accept this is a season of consolidation and isn’t going to be a promotion push.
Yep, there will certainly be players who will be keeping an eye on developments at WP in the coming weeks who may consider joining us once we are on more of an even keel. I think it will be October before we really know how good our team is, the only problem with this is that we could be out of the cups by then!
We have the nucleus of a good first XI. If we can keep everybody fit and performing to a good level, then we should be ok.