After two wins on the bounce, against Carlisle at home and Bury away the Daggers were going into Saturday's home fixture with Tranmere Rovers with an ever increasing confidence. They were also looking to show off some of their deadline loan signings to the home faithful. Defender Joe Widdowson on loan from Bury was on the bench alongside debutant goalscorer against Bury, Watford starlet Alex Jakubiak. Patrick Agyemang the other deadline signing did however start up front with Jamie Cureton, this made our front two a combined age of 74.
The game itself was a bit of a dull affair, the visitors having the best chances in the first half, Cureton had the best chance for the Daggers in the first period scuffing a shot wide of the post. The second half was much of the same, again the visitors looked the most likely.
Sitting up in the gods of the TBS in the freezing cold I was beginning to except the game was going to end as a nil-niller unless something special happened, and in the 75th minute it did but unfortunately for me and the rest of the Daggers fans it came from the foot of a Tranmere player.
The Daggers defence were slow to react and Rovers striker and former Homer Simpson alias Max Power picked up the ball, turned and unleashed a powerful shot, that powered toward the goal, powerfully hit the post and powerfully, powered past the despairing dive of Daggers goalkeeper Mark Cousins into the back of the net. Cousins stood no chance as the power of Power's shot was just too powerful and hit with too much power for the daggers stopper to be able to cope. What a powerful shot it was, and to be fair it deserved to win the game.
 |
| Max Power. He's the man!! |
The Daggers tried to get back into the game, but if I'm honest I think they could have played on until next Christmas and they wouldn't have scored. The Rovers keeper didn't have a clear shot to save until deep into injury time.
Sometimes these things happen and teams have a bad day at the office, if you look at the positive side the Daggers could have been beaten by more goals if the away side had taken their chances but luckily for us their finishing was poor overall.
After the game I had a little look on the forum as I usually do and can't say I was too surprised by the smug comments of some of our supporters who seemed to be so pleased with themselves about being right about the fact that they knew that we wouldn't win 3 games in a row for the first time in 5 years, stating that the last two wins were just papering over the cracks. I wonder what these people will do if we do manage to get it together and go on a decent run, which I still think is a possibility for what it's worth. Maybe they will hang around or maybe with a bit of luck they will just fuck off and take their negativity back to Upton Park or White Hart Lane or wherever else they came from in the first place. I'm sorry but I just don't get the point of being right above all else, personally I wouldn't even bet against or predict a loss against my own team, but that's just me, maybe I am the strange one.
One thing I definitely didn't get is the amount of flack Patrick Agyemang is getting. As far as I am concerned for most of the game I thought he did exactly what he was put on the pitch to do which was to put himself about, hold the ball up and use his physicality to upset the opposition. At times in the first half they had to double up on him, it is just a shame that some of our other players weren't willing to back him up. He did this for about 70 minutes of the game until he started to fade, which again is understandable for a player who hasn't been playing regularly. It's very easy to make someone the scapegoat for a defeat just because you don't like them, but the people who had the snipers rifle pointed at Agyemang were way off target.
 |
| On loan Portsmouth striker Agyemang put in a good shift. |
I don't like to slag our own players off but they know as well as we know the performance wasn't good enough and unfortunately too many of the players were not up for it, maybe the week rest did more to hinder the preparation than actually help it. Certain players on Saturday like Brian Saah and Ashley Chambers looked so far off the pace it was ridiculous. Chambers in particular looked lethargic, he had a great chance to have a shot on goal after an unchallenged run but he didn't and just played a silly pass and gave the ball away. Maybe he needs a bit of competition in that number 10 position to keep him on his toes, maybe the returning Zavon Hines could be a player that could play that role and give Chambers a bit of a kick up the arse. On the other hand maybe he was just carrying a knock, so i want be too harsh on him.
Personally I just thought it was a an under par performance and as I said a bad day at the office and on another day we would have got away with a point, but Homer Simpsons wonder strike won the day.
I'm sure the future is positive and I think the addition of the loan players Wayne has brought in will be very important over the Christmas period. I managed to sit through the game on Saturday in the freezing cold and still stay positive, I would hope that others might as well.
 |
| On loan Watford striker Alex Jakubiak scores against Bury. |
Anyway it's on to the next one and another tough away game against a very good Plymouth Argyle side, lets hope we can knick a point and nip this little blip in the bud.
Come on you rip roaring goal-scoring Daggers!!
