THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

THE CAZBAR BIG GAME PREVIEW – COLCHESTER UTD
Over 500 fans made their way to Crawley Town on Tuesday night, a few more possibly purchased an IFollow pass, and the rest probably tuned in to the dulcet tones of Luke & Toby, and they were treated to an absolute pile of rubbish, and that was later compounded with the M25 being shut and fans not getting home until the small hours.

I fully realise we have no divine right to walk into these places, knock the ball about a bit, and trot off shortly before 10pm with the points, but this performance was so poor it actually exceeded some of the dross we witnessed last season…. yes folks it was that bad.

You may want to mention that the Crawley record has vastly improved since January but that still didn’t stop them finishing just one place above dropping into the National League, and those last few wins at the tail end of last season just and so saved them as they looked destined for the dreaded drop.

A closer inspection of the Crawley squad will show you the bulk are made up of former National League players, and the rest are largely LG 2 hand me downs that nobody really wanted, and Crawley being on a budget far below us and just about everyone else had no other option but to sign them up and yet they still schooled us, and that scoreline of 2-1 flatters us, it wasn’t even close, we were never in it, and the last thing we looked like was winning, or drawing come to that.

I can only think now that result against Wrexham was a total fluke, probably because Wrexham themselves believed all the media hype, but more than likely the jet lag of their players, even a team as poor as us could get the better of players who had no clue whether it was 3pm or 3am.

As I left on Tuesday a stalwart supporter of this club since Day 1 said to me “the writing was on the wall following that 2nd half showing versus Tranmere”, and how true is that.

We had no game plan, no style, no identity, no anything really, we were shocking as we pursued hitting the ball long and high to two strikers that have barely outjumped a centre half in their lives, yet we continued like this for the 90 minutes plus…..if we the fans can see how futile this is, how come everyone that matters connected with the club can’t, this is largely the very reason we got relegated last season.

GA in my book is becoming very frustrating, he seems to be a man stuck in his ways of doing things, and just because we don’t have the players to carry out his plans, means he still won’t try a different approach, and that includes not bringing on subs to try and change things, despite us visibly struggling.

Until we get in some new players, and signing on the entire Crawley team might not be a bad idea, things will not be changing quickly, so I for one have no idea what is going to happen next.

Moving on then as it is far too depressing talking about Tuesday anymore, we travel to Colchester United on Saturday to face a team on zero points.

They have played just 2 league games (shown below), their first against Swindon Town called off owing to a waterlogged pitch, and they have lost the two games played, they have also like us been knocked out of the EFL Cup, drawing 2-2 with Cardiff, then went on to miss their first three pens in the shootout and were eliminated.

Colchester 0 AFC Wimbledon 2
Bradford 2 Colchester 1

Those results leave them in 24th place with a record of.

P 2, W 0, D 0, L 2, GF 1, GA 4, Pts 0.

Last season Colchester finished in 20th place in LG 2 winning just 12 of the 46 game schedule, and the 7 points gained in their last three games just edged them away from the drop zone.

In charge at Colchester is 43 year old Ben Garner, who came in to fill the void left by Matt Bloomfield who jumped ship to Wycombe to fill the vacancy left by leather clad aged rocker Gareth Ainsworth who had moved to QPR.

As far as our investigations have gone Garner has never played football at a level recorded and first came to notice in 2004 as a youth coach for Crystal Palace. In his three previous appointments prior to Colchester, he has not completed 12 months, being removed from office on each occasion.

He’s been at Colchester since March 2023 and his record with them is not that great winning just 3 games from the 14 played giving him a Win Ratio of 21%, but that does jump to 36% on his all-time stats, but that is largely down to his spell at Bristol Rovers, but as I’ve mentioned his luck ran out there and he was sacked.

Their top scorer last term was Noah Chilvers the No 10 who scored 9 goals and he remains in the ranks, but I would suggest their biggest danger is “Big John” Akinde who has scored 181 goals in 603 games.

At 34 his best days are behind him, and he has only broken into double figures once in the last 8 seasons, but on his day he can make life very uncomfortable for defenders.

Our record against Colchester is pretty good with the full details below, and there are some memorable games in the list, how many can you remember.

2004/05 – Colchester 0 MK Dons 1 (McLeod)
2004/05 – MK Dons 2 Colchester 0 (Harding, Small)
2005/06 – MK Dons 1 Colchester 1 (Wilbraham)
2005/06 – Colchester 2 MK Dons 0
2005/06 – MK Dons 1 Colchester 2 (LDV) (Mills)
2006/07 – MK Dons 1 Colchester 0 (LC) (McLeod)
2008/09 – Colchester 0 MK Dons 3 (S Baldock 2, Wilbraham)
2008/09 – MK Dons 1 Colchester 1 (Wilbraham)
2009/10 – MK Dons 2 Colchester 1 (Easter, Carrington)
2009/10 – Colchester 2 MK Dons 0
2010/11 – MK Dons 1 Colchester 1 (Balanta)
2010/11 – Colchester 1 MK Dons 3 (S Baldock 3)
2011/12 – Colchester 1 MK Dons 5 (MacDonald 2, Ibehre, Flanagan, Gleeson)
2011/12 – MK Dons 1 Colchester 0 (MacKenzie)
2012/13 – MK Dons 5 Colchester 1 (Chadwick 2, Lowe, S Williams, Otsemobor)
2012/13 – Colchester 0 MK Dons 2 (Powell, Bamford)
2013/14 – Colchester 3 MK Dons 1 (Spence)
2013/14 – MK Dons 0 Colchester 0
2014/15 – MK Dons 6 Colchester 0 (Afobe 3, Alli, Reeves, Hodson)
2014/15 – Colchester 0 MK Dons 1 (Alli)
2018/19 – MK Dons 0 Colchester 1
2018/19 – Colchester 2 MK Dons 0
TOTAL RECORD – P 22, W 12, D 4, L 6, GF 37, GA 19.

The betting shows us as narrow favourites for the third game running, but as I said in the Crawley preview the same, Colchester and indeed us based on the last game and a half are falsely priced, in honesty it is a game to avoid if you fancy a bet.

Colchester 9/5, Draw 23/10, MK Dons 13/8.

As for a prediction, well everything points at an away win, but it’s not as easy as that. Colchester are going to be desperate to get points on the board ASAP, and as for us…..well we are just playing desperate football, who has any idea what will happen next in any confidence, we are just as likely to play like we did against Wrexham or turn out something resembling Tuesday. Win and Tuesday will be largely forgotten, lose…. well, it might be an idea to avoid social media for a few days…weeks.

Safe travels and see you next time.

.

WD

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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight

I knew it, I just knew it. I was more or less on the same songsh*t until then.
(Dalek Voice) Optimism! REPORTED!

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment