Five games have passed since we last examined the Daggers’ fortunes. We signed off last time with a 2-0 loss at Barnet which has actually signalled a bit of a downturn in form. Despite still picking up a decent amount of points, the level of performance hasn’t been quite the same as that which saw us leap into the automatic promotion places.
The abject defeat at Underhell made the following weekend’s trip to Hereford look decidedly more tricky. After their relegation last season, the Bulls continued where they left off, their early form pushing them towards the bottom of the table. This meant they reverted to Plan A, sign any available player on loan, which led to a victory over high-flying Bournemouth. A rather unfortunate time for the Daggers to visit but we held firm and came away with a point, Wes Thomas equalising minutes after a shot from range seemed to take Robbo by surprise for the opener. This game saw the debut of Abu Ogogo in place of Scott Doe, who couldn’t really expect anything else after his performance at Barnet. Perhaps the return of Spiller also contributed to a more hardy Daggers performance.
After two tough away tests, it was a welcome return to home soil against basement boys Darlington. Darlo are yet another club who have spent wildly beyond their means and find themselves suffering because of it (see our take, here). It was only last season they were vying with ourselves towards the top of the division, signing players like Liam Hatch on loan despite an impending financial disaster. This season they are totally different proposition, ie, frankly awful. In an entire 90 minutes they did not threaten the Daggers goal once. Two quickfire goals from Danny Green and Josh Scott, both rifled into the same bottom corner, meant the game was sewn up early. You can’t help but feel that a few weeks previously, we would’ve gone on to put 6 or 7 past the Quakers here. Maybe it is indicative of the edge starting to go from our attacking play, as despite lots of possession and territory, there were no further goals. Russell Hoult did make several fine saves, but really this game was there for a big confidence-building win which never came.
One bright point was the emergence of Tommy Tejan-Sie in this match. Whilst he has long been touted a potential star, he has been held back from the first team by John Still. Upon his introduction for the again injured Danny Spiller (every silver lining has a cloud), he showed plenty of good touches to hint at his ability. You can see why Still has been anxious to bring Tommy in too soon – he has been around the club for 3 years now yet is still probably too slight to survive regularly at just 5’6″ tall. However provided he continues to work hard and bide his time, there seems to be a very good chance that he can be the next player off the Victoria Road conveyor belt. I can almost hear Peterborough salivating.
Next up were Bradford, and perhaps the first time where the Daggers’ squad depth has been exposed. Tejan-Sie was pressed into his first league start, Nurse was drafted in for the injured Josh Scott, and the only player with any experience on the bench was Scott Doe. Even that is relative seeing as it is his first season at this level. Despite not looking great on paper, on the pitch the Daggers fought hard to secure a great three points courtesy of a goal from the superb Abu Ogogo. Abu’s performance was about as good as it gets and nobody deserved to score the winner more than he did. Before this came a typical Benson goal from about 2 yards, equalised by a controlled volley from 20 yards from Flynn. However, the main talking point was probably Benson’s awful penalty miss at 1-1, blazing the ball high and wide. Not even he could say why he took it – Benno may be a great finisher but he’s never had the purest shot on him! Arber, Gain, Thurgood are just 3 more obvious candidates. But three points is three points and this is just the kind of win which any side needs to keep pace at the top of the league.
The following week saw the rather disappointing departure of Scott Griffiths, and the trip to Macclesfield meant Scott Doe was employed as an emergency left-back. He was probably not looking forward to this prospect but he didn’t have to endure it for too long – just ten minutes had passed when Ogogo’s ugly looking tackle on Bencherif led to a red card for the Dagger and a stretcher for the Silkman. Talk about hero to villain in a week! To make matters worse, Mr Thurgood decided that a spot of wrestling was called for as he grappled with the neck of Tipton inside the box. The foulee duly dispatched the penalty. Macc laid siege to the Daggers’ goal for the majority of the game and hit the post an excruciating three times before Sappleton seemingly sealed it after running clear of the defence. However, a simple finish from Wes Thomas and a penalty from Mark Arber saw us escape with a 2-2 draw, a quite excellent comeback after the horrific start to the game. Arber almost stole all three points with a header at the death.
The final league match of this round up was at home to improving Port Vale. Missing Ogogo through suspension, a debut was handed to loan signing Matt Lockwood. It took us a very, very long time to get going in this game, Vale having most of the early chances with Richards causing problems in the air for Antwi and Arber. Wes Thomas continued up front after his goal at Macclesfield but in truth he was largely ineffectual here, meaning we couldn’t really get much of a foothold in the Vale half. With Jon Nurse having one of his anonymous days on the left, it didn’t look good when Dodds gave the visitors the lead.
Finally the introduction of Josh Scott brought us to life, and really there were more than enough chances to win the game. Josh himself somehow volleyed over from 5 yards on his unfavoured and really rather superfluous right foot, before Harlee Dean, on league debut, headed over the bar from a similar distance. Presumably the impending headlines temporarily blinded him. We’re not sure what Doe’s excuse will be as he failed to make significant contact with a corner kick that landed right on his nut. However Josh gave us all a blindingly obvious indication of his worth to the team when he expertly lifted the ball over Martin to grab a point at the death.
So a decent return of points over a set of games where we never really hit the heights, due in no small part to the effects of losing Taiwo and Griffiths, as well as various injuries to Spiller and Josh Scott. We will likely never be able to afford a bench loaded with talent but it is worth noting that we cannot let expectation run away with us when our bench consists of youth teamers like Demetriou and other kids Tejan-Sie, Bingham and Dean.
One final point we will raise is the slightly worrying loss of form of early-season hero Danny Green. His second half-performance after a good first-half against Bradford was quite poor, and his performance throughout the Vale match was pretty awful. Whilst he has very obvious ability, he needs to work hard in every game to assist his full-back, and he needs to do the basics well. Case in point against Vale – one minute left, Danny has the ball wide right with his back to goal. Rather than lay it back to Dean for a cross into the box, he attempts some kind of Cruyff turn – we lose the ball and our last chance at three points. His creativity definitely should not be stifled but there is a time and a place, and perhaps when things aren’t going so well for him he should try keeping it simple and cutting out the posing.
And so just like the last two round-ups, this one ends with defeat, albeit in the cup. We were unceremoniously dumped out by Huddersfield on Friday night, 6-1 at the Galpharm, and that is about all I can bring myself to say about it.
Wouldn’t disagree with your assessment over the past few weeks. However I think that we might be seeing the emergence of Montgomery as a force to be reckoned with and I thought that this might be worth a mention.
Good point Len, he has certainly started to show some spark over the last couple of games.