Daggers back to winning ways.

The last update about the Daggers had finished with a thrilling 6-6 draw and penalty kick exit in the League cup.  The Daggers then traveled to high flying Burton Albion to try and get their season up and running with a positive result.  Although Jamie Cureton put the visitors ahead in the first half with his first league goal for the club and they held a one nil lead with only 6 minutes remaining in the game, amazingly the Daggers came away with nothing.

Jamie Cureton celebrates his first Daggers League Goal

Then came another dubious penalty decision, Luke Howell was convinced he won the ball  but I can fully understand why the ref gave it as from the angle he was at it looked a pen.  Billy Kee put away the spot kick for the brewers and then in the last minute some poor defending under pressure led to a Burton winner, the ball was on the the right of our box and for some reason captain Abu Ogogo threw himself at an attackers feet head first, the player cooly walked passed the Daggers skipper and passed the ball to Kee in the area who was allowed to turn and fire past O'Brien to complete the smash and grab and leave Dagenham and Redbridge at the foot of the table with no points.

The games come quick and fast in league 2 and on Tuesday it was another away game this time a midweek trip from East London all the way up to Hartlepool,  the football leagues fixture list department certainly gave a lot of thought to this fixture.  Fair play to the 70 Daggers fans that made the trip up there.

Daggers new signing Christian Doidge apparently injured himself slightly in the warm up and as consequence was an unused substitute in this game.

The Daggers started the game on the front foot and were ahead within five minutes, Luke Howell scoring his first goal of the season.  From what I heard of the game it seemed to me that daggers put in a pretty good display and held firm at the back when called upon, it seemed that Pools dangerman Luke James wasn't causing us many problems.  The 3 points were virtually assured in the 64th minute when Abu Ogogo popped up to score his first of the season.  If any blame was attached to Howell and Ogogo for the defeat against Burton, the two goals from them would go a long way toward appeasing that.

Goalscorers Abs and Luke show off the Daggers new shiny away kit

So the Daggers got their first 3 points of the season and their first clean sheet.

The Daggers next game was a home game against Mansfield.  Now Mansfield are a big team with a few players in their side who like to throw themselves about to get freekicks and soft fouls, and as soon as the game started almost any contact from a Dagger player on a Mansfield man resulted in firstly a loud girly scream and then inevitably a soft freekick.  

The Home team had started this game very quickly and at times were playing some very good and very pleasing on the eye stuff, being a Dagenham supporter though you know that it is all well and good playing pretty football and creating chances but if you don't score then you normally get bitten on the arse.  Luckily this wasn't to be the case on Saturday as our penetration and all round good play finally paid off.  On the stroke of half time after a very nice intricate move Jamie Cureton was played in wide in the box, he got there just in time to keep the ball in and fizzed a cross in for Luke Howell to poke home his second goal in two games.

Daggers were deservedly ahead at half time.

The second half was much the same and the football at times was great to watch from the home side, the new Daggers side is starting to gel and this game could have ended 3 or 4 nil.  Mansfield were having great trouble dealing with the pace and attacking prowess of the home side and in the 60th minute the Daggers doubled their lead when another decent passing move ended with skipper Ogogo also scoring his second goal in two games.  Four goals scored and none conceded in two games and it looks like the Daggers are finally getting it together.  Some fans think we are not that good in defence, those 2 clean sheets included a game against Hartlepool were we faced 17 corners and didn't concede. In the league we have conceded 5 goals so far, 2 have been penalties, 1 was a direct freekick and another was a breakaway goal when 2-0 down.  I'll leave you to make your own mind up.

 Sometimes I get really annoyed with my fellow fans, no matter how well your team plays there is always someone moaning about something.  Sometimes it is about a miss hit passed or our goalkeeper kicking the ball straight out for a throw.  This week however it was the amount of abuse that our left back Jack Connors got, I shit you not after he slipped in the first half I heard someone shout out "get him off".  It's disgraceful, Jack Connors is a 19 year old kid who burst on to the scene last season and he is only going to get better and better as a player.  On Saturday he was up against some big players but he was getting cat calls everytime he didn't jump for a challenge with one of these lumps, as far as I could see he was doing the right thing he stayed on his feet anticipated what the player was going to do and didn't get done challenging for a ball he was never going to win, sometimes when your up against a big team it's not about winning the first ball it's all about winning the second ball, something I thought we did extremely well as a team all through the game.

19 year old Jack Connors!!

It looks as though this new team of Wayne Burnett's is starting to click and I for one am looking forward to what could be a very exciting season, there will be disappointment when we lose a game at home we should never have lost, but there will be surprising wins against teams we shouldn't be beating, and I wouldn't be surprised with the attacking way we play if we see a few big wins.   The future looks bright.

Come on you Daggers!!!