QuoteJust not at the races tonight, didn't trouble them enough.
Bray on friday. I still don't think their position is reflective of how they actually are, I'm just waiting for their bubble to burst. Hopefully it's us who burst it
Big one again tonight, a team similar to us I feel. Home form has been good , a win tonight and we are fringes of playoffs, although cant see us being in the mix for that.
Just not at the races tonight, didn't trouble them enough.
Bray on friday. I still don't think their position is reflective of how they actually are, I'm just waiting for their bubble to burst. Hopefully it's us who burst it
Very very flat performance on Saturday, maybe 3 games in 9 days catching up especially given we made so few changes from game to game (squad depth a major issue).
Bray are flying, maybe I judged them too quickly on the opening night when I thought they looked bang average, this will be a better indication of where both sides are.
Our biggest problem is in the final third, without Morris we have absolutely no goal threat up there.
Young Murtagh running his socks off but feeding off even less than crumbs.
Couldn't make it to the game nor stream it. But sounds like I didn't miss much. We did not burst their bubble as I had hoped. 3 games in a row now where we've been decisively beaten in different ways. Concerning after it felt like things were looking up with the treaty win.
Athlone on Monday, they have to be looking at our form and thinking there's 3 points for grabs there
Just copped from FAI Connect, cuz I was curious who was in the dugout for Athlone last night after Costello left. It was Robbie Rock, who was managing our u20s last season. I didn't even realised he had left us
Seems like a poor start to the season.. A loss against Athlone will probably confirm another shocking season for LTFC
Not that I have even seen a minute of LTFC this year bar highlights, if I am going to look at a Dublin team I might as well look at one of the decent ones! Hopefully I'll get a look at some stage anyway, but don't expect much tbh..
I was looking at our current U20 team. This team should be flying as its the 17s from 3 years ago where we won our first underage national league title playing top class football - best underage team the club has had IMO. Now there is a total of 1 player on the 20s from that team lol.. what an absolute waste of time but very interesting to see what is happening - this is supposed to be our reserve team.
Any proper manager says that the first team is all built on the academy, Duffer has said it recently. LTFC must be one of the only clubs in world football that the academy and first team do not train in the same location. How is a young talent from the midlands, say 16/17, expected to travel up and down to Dublin for training with first team, its a farce. These local players are being let down and just leave. Proper clubs have youth players training with the first team and bleeding them in, also making them better players and improving the academy. LTFC seems to be more a social club than a football club atm. IMO the league table speaks for itself, and it's a poor reflection on the chairman, the academy, the committee, the club media, etc. Was LTFC set up over 100 years ago to benefit people from Dublin? I doubt it... I accept that this is basically what happened during our glory years, however this was a completely different time for LOI.
No strikers, pity we didn't keep Elding and in so doing young Owen Elding, current top scorer in premier with the Sligo. Most promising talent in LOI, because he has been trained by the best coach in the country. Will probably be sold for a few million the way things are going. That cash would have come in handy no doubt for the club, so the club have literally made a decision there that is likely to cost them millions lol and all we hear is how the club has no money sob story. So yes not keeping Elding the worst decision made by a mile. Shur there are multiple Longford players playing for Sligo underage, they and their parents know where to go. There is top talent in the midlands that will not play for LTFC academy because of the quality/results and zero interaction with First Team, and personally I wouldn't blame them one bit. We have lost Guilly too, another top talent that could potentially be sold for good money too. Many other local players gone from our 17s that would be walking into the first team squad if there was proper structures in place, however they have just left - many left when Anthony Elding left and followed him to Sligo which speaks for itself.
Maybe I'll get a bit of abuse again but I just can't stop remembering that I have a LOI medal as a coach in my back pocket so I'll say my piece and if people don't agree they should check their own back pocket for a medal before hounding me lol .
Time to get successful football people into LTFC, and recognise that the current set up is laughable. I can basically guarantee Anthony Elding would be successful, but I feel some turkeys will never vote for Christmas no matter how awful the club is performing once they maintain their involvement. For now we will have to put up with some nobody coaches that will get us nowhere. Any LTFC manager that keeps this training in Dublin is not a manager at all, because once they are training in Dublin the academy is one big waste of time and money. It made me sick to hear the current manager Groves say last year that young players need to be ready before getting into first team, how would they be ready when ye train in Dublin and all the young players are from the midlands. Longford is the most disadvantaged place in the country, why are we not supporting our own and instead supporting all these Dubliners from the most advantaged place in the country - doesn't make sense to me!
Very strange game we actually played very well in the first half, created loads of changes but we are really missing a proven goal scorer.
We started the game like the UCD game very flat and passive and conceded a stupid goal as a result but that woke us up and we dominated until Andy Spain had a Gerrard like slip and they made it 2-0.
Again, we dominated up to half time but couldn't put ball In net. Boudiaf, who was out best player by far, missed a sitter from a few yards out. We needed a goal going into the break but couldn't get it over the line.
Second half is inexcusable, flat, second to every ball and wide open at the back, there can be no excuses made for it.
HUGE response needed on Monday. Also, very disappointing to see how town fans were treated in bray even older supporters at the game said they had never been treated so poorly at an away ground.
excellent post Keen2win. I too have being the victim of abuse and havent attended games this season due to personal reasons. The club has sadly lost its way. Im not going to say anything any more as I was reported on a previous post here for telling the truth. I will only go to matches when it suits me.Originally Posted by Keen2win
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
An undeserved point in my opinion. Couldn't string 2 passes together most of the 2nd half. But the lads rallied together the last 10 and stole a point. I'd love to see Manny James upfront with murtagh cuz I'm slowly coming round to him, but think he needs help up top. He's often left doing it all for nothing by himself.
Slater could be a big boost as well coming back. Glad to have stopped the rot of 3 losses in a row. But that away form really needs to pick up. In a few months if it stays as is we'll be saying we've only 1 away win across 24 months which is grim.
Dundalk on Saturday. They're not world beaters. Well able to give them a shock of some sort
As bad as we were for the first 30 mins of the second half, and by god we were bad, I actually think we deserved a point out of it. We should have been ahead at HT, Campbell missing a sitter amongst other decent chances/opportunities that we didn't make the most of. Athlone were desperate too, but I still think on the overall balance of play we didn't deserve to lose. Delighted to get the equaliser in the end, a lovely goal it was too.
But christ, that first half an hour of the second half was as bad as I've seen in a long, long time.
Would agree that LWS on the right brings a bit of extra quality. Be great if he could stay fit now and if we could get Norris back on the left too. Be much more threat with those two fit and firing. Anyone know when he's due back from injury?
Norris not that far away fwiu, second half yesterday was as bad a performance as I've seen from any Town team, had two athlone players not fallen over each other it was game over. I don't think anyone was under any illusions after that we got out of jail and have to improve and quickly. My worry is how we've gone from being hard to play against to looking so wide open in midfield and defence in last two matches. LWS made a huge impact yesterday, if we can get him and Norris back hopefully Murtagh can get more service as he's proven he's our best striker. Manny James isn't making enough impact off the bench to push for a start, barely touched it after coming on yesterday.
BetweenTheStripes.net - Home of Between the Stripes LOI podcast.
I'm not close enough to it in recent years to know the ins and outs of who decided what and when, and so these are genuine questions. What kind of team would we able to put out based on our current budget if we were training in Longford? And are the facilities at the ground away from the main pitch sufficiently up to scratch to be training on at night a few times a week? If they're being used for the first team where do the academy teams train?
Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.
I wouldn't know the inside and outs of budgets but I know what the likes of Dundalk are paying players and we are lightyears away from it. Hard to know with the likes of Bray they clearly spent big last season but lost a lot of those players and have a mods youthful team now. Wexford and Harps both youthful but still have some experienced PD players on their books. Cobh spent massive. Even Kerry are now housing players so we definitely appear to have one of if not the smallest budget.
The back pitch doesn't have floodlights and astro only 7 aside size so pretty much a NR for first team training.
I do think we'll see the club attempting to do more in the community in the not too distant future. You only have to look at the events being run this weekend in honour of the late Cian Nearl and Cian's Kennels to see the club want to reach out more and support causes like this which can only be a positive.
Last edited by outspoken; 23/04/2025 at 10:46 PM.
That's good news about Norris. Would definitely help us to have a threat on both wings for sure.
With regards the budget, we're surely the smallest in the FD by a long way?
I don't know the full details or licencing requirements regarding underage and women's teams, but wasn't there something brought in a few years ago where they (underage/women's) were made a requirement for licencing purposes, rather than a nice-to-have/optional extra? Each of these teams costs a nice whack to run each year I'm sure.
From the outside looking in (and I could be completely wrong on this, open to correction), it just seems our whole club budget of €X per year has probably stayed in or around the same as it has been for years, but we now have to run 6 (I think) teams from the budget, rather than the 1 or 2 we used to have to run. This has then had a knock-on affect on our ability to sign players for our first team.
Again, that's my guess on things looking from the outside, could be miles off the truth there.
Yeah it's definitely a licencing requirement to have underage LOI teams on the men's side of things. Not sure on the women's but wouldn't surprise me. It's hard to see a long term future in the LOI the way things are going to be honest, and that's not a criticism of those keeping the show on the road.
Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.
The third tier could be a good jolt for us to wake ourselves up from this slumber we've been in the last few seasons or it could effectively be the end of us, difficult to know.
Again I feel like I need to say I'm not close to how things are operating day to day but it's hard to see where more money comes from. The town is a struggling town, and the wider county isn't exactly booming either. So I imagine there's no big queue of sponsors knocking on the door. I've no interest in any fly by night "investors" coming in and taking control either, so it's hard to see how things improve.
Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.
I've a genuine fear that the club won't be around in 10 years. Maybe I'm overthinking it. But like you say it's hard to see investment coming in anytime soon. The 3rd tier is on the way and we've been dancing around those bottom places recently since we still haven't really seen the same boom that other clubs have had since covid.
I'd expect attendances to drop even firther in 3rd tier cuz that's what people are like in this county. JH can't keep the show going forever either, we're blessed to have him even now when we're struggling.
I hate being negative that way, but it's very worrying to me what the future holds for the club
I'd sadly agree.
The Cian Neary stuff that was done tonight was a nice touch, and I'm happy that the effort was put in there as stuff like this is what fans would like to see more of.
6 games now without a win though. After that Treaty win I thought we'd be a bit better off by this point, but most games have been decisive losses. Kinda gave Dundalk something to think about at least in the first half but offered SFA in the second.
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