Bad day at the office today. 0-4

Far, far more disappointed by the result than by the performance. Felt a draw would be much better reflection of an often cagey, scrappy contest. Too far away to see events surrounding our disallowed goal,  so  will rely on the wisdom and eyesight of others as to the correctness of the referee's decision.  Bath did pretty much a Weymouth on us... endless crosses, lots of corners endlessly mopped up by the immaculate Ellison and AAH. Most of our threat, certainly in the second half came through Freddie G marauding down the left and crossing dangerously. Thought he had an outstanding game, constantly flicking headers on to Ed Williams, in a bit of space. Thought Spokes looked, on today's showing, a more influential defensive midfielder than Russe.  Parselle kept his backline high up the pitch, compressed the midfield  forcing us to go over or through quite heavy traffic.  I'm pretty sure Gary, Matt and the players will be grieving about this one... and will be well up for next Monday.  Large crowd.   but remarkably quiet at both ends.  We managed a few desultory obscenities  but it all petered out.
This loss might have hurt even more if we hadn't picked up the 3 points at Maidstone.  Absolutely impossible to predict next Monday, except that Bath will know, if they didn't know already, they have a game on their hands and a good footballing side to beat.

Game plan seemed obvious from the start when 5 lining up at the back. Object seemed to be more not to lose than win. Played too cautiously for too long. Fasenmade heavily outnumbered anywhere the penalty area and going forward our play at times was too slow allowing Bath get their defence organised. I think  some of the crucial decisions went Bath's way which had a direct influence on the result. Having said all that don't think anyone had a bad game. No doubt just following the game plan.

They've got some cheek to be moaning about our ground. At Twerton Park there are bits of metal sticking up from the concrete and a lack of crush barriers. Then there's the toilets....

The big decisions didn't go our way today and that was the only difference between the teams in a finely balanced game. I would have preferred us to have been more ambitious in the first half, both in terms of style of play and formation, as Joiner stated we seemed to be set up not to lose. That said a draw would have been a fair and deserved result. Not sure why it was so quiet for long periods of time considering the size of crowd.

New Years Day at Twerton Park will be very different I am sure. COYB