This is so much more than just the beginning of a new season.
It’s a fresh start, a new era at the club emerging from the prolonged misery of the last 18 months. An underlying sense of tangible excitement mixed with nervous anticipation will greet this year’s curtain raiser, such are the mixed emotions towards this new-look, as yet unquantifiable Dagenham side. Peter Freund targets promotion, Peter Taylor targets the play-offs, but the fans are truly unsure of what to expect. We’re walking blindly into the unknown, driven by hope which will either guide or undo us. Is it possible for the first game of the season, the smallest hurdle of 46, to be a must win? Well, quite simply, we have to get off to a rapid start and our favourable run of fixtures in August are certainly conducive to that. An opening day victory would be so good for confidence, and the momentum generated would be massive ahead of seven more games in a very busy month. Of those, Chesterfield away will be the only one where we’d happily take a point before kick-off, so really we should be in and amongst the promotion challengers by the start of September. If we’re far adrift even by that early stage, then - going into a harder sequence of fixtures - we’ll already be playing catch up. We want to be in a healthy position, so a good start is massively vital. Failure to beat a team heavily fancied for relegation, whose primary aim is just to stay in the division, would create instant doubts. It’s a home game against a part-time, newly-promoted side with one of the league’s lowest budgets so, if we’re even thinking about a top-half finish, we’ve got to get off to a winning start. However, being a newly-promoted team, Woking are going to arrive at Victoria Road with confidence coursing through their veins. That, coupled with the sizable away following they’re expected to bring, means they’re going to be well up for it and therefore, we need to be absolutely firing on all cylinders ourselves. Looking at Woking’s team, they’ve not made too many improvements on the side that got them over the line last season. Their front two of Dave Tarpey and Jake Hyde will definitely trouble most teams in the division, providing they can stay fit. They also have two decent goalkeepers in Sam Howes and Craig Ross, either one of them capable of causing our strikers a few problems. Moussa Diarra is a good signing for the Cards and really caught the eye with Barrow a couple of years ago, but since then has struggled at the teams he’s been with. Left-back Josh Casey is the club captain and swooped many end-of-season awards for his side, and he’s joined in defence by Ben Gerring who was a virtual ever-present in 2018/19. The starting lineup for Woking’s final pre-season friendly against Portsmouth in midweek was predicted by many Cards supporters to be their likely XI against the Daggers: Howes; Cook, Casey, Parry, Gerring, Diarra; Ferdinand, Donnellan, Poku; Tarpey, Hyde. That’s a 5-3-2 for Dowson’s men with an imposing defensive unit and a nippy frontline, neither of which will be easy to undo. They’ve enjoyed a promising pre-season, notably beating Salford City 3-1 away from home. Aside from that, they’ve defeated Farnborough, drawn with Oxford United and Dunston UTS, and narrowly lost to Wycombe Wanderers while also tasting defeat to Portsmouth. Strikingly, they’ve played a lot of higher-calibre opposition and have impressed against them all. Our pre-season brought mixed feelings but our displays were fairly decent. Aside from the Charlton mismatch, we gave as good as we got in every friendly, with a particularly great display against Southend United. Generally, the team played some good football and look good enough to have a decent season, judging by the early signs. Given the mass influx of new signings over the summer, it could take a while for our new squad to properly integrate, even if they have seemingly gelled well together during pre-season. The first starting lineup of the season is completely unpredictable, with Elliot Justham perhaps the only guaranteed starter. Every other position is still up for debate as we have two similarly-matched players vying for it. It’s a difficult decision to choose between Will Wood and Liam Gordon, who both have contrasting yet valuable qualities. Leaving out one centre back out of of Luke Croll, Manny Onariase and Kenny Clark is similarly difficult. Fine margins will separate James Dobson and Alex McQueen, while Bagasan Graham and Joan Luque won’t be easy to choose from either. Only half of our four central midfielders, Mitch Brundle, Harold Odametey, Matt Robinson and Harry Phipps, will start. It’s a similar case in attack, where we have four very different strikers who all bring different things, but two will miss out. Given the pre-season combinations Peter Taylor has deployed, particularly in the latter stages of July, it’s likely that he’ll start with Joe Quigley and Reece Grant up front. He seemed to prefer Luque and Dobson over Graham and McQueen respectively, too. Defensively, there’s no way our captain won’t start and it’s difficult to see Manny missing out considering the extent we went to get him to the club. However, last season taught us that it’s impossible to get into Peter Taylor’s head. He could potentially evenl start Mitch Brundle at centre-back given his tendency to play him there during pre-season. Overall, my predicted lineup for the opening game of the season is this - Justham; Wood, Onariase, Clark, Eleftheriou; Luque, Brundle, Odametey, Dobson; Quigley, Grant We’re walking into the unknown, but how good does it feel to be back!? Waking up knowing it’s matchday is an incredible feeling and from the moment the clock strikes 3pm today, it’s non-stop for nine months. Football is back and if we have as good a season as the Dagenham hierarchy are expecting then a memorable campaign is in store. It’s a path that could take us anywhere, with countless possibilities but all that will become clearer in the coming months. For today, we just need to get off to a good start and overcome that first hurdle. Let the games begin - Up the Dags!
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Optimism will dissipate, dreams will be made and hopes will be shattered. There will be rapturous scenes of ecstasy, distraught tears of sheer pain and slammed fists of frustration but, at the end of it, two teams will soar into the promised land of the Football League. As the Vanarama National League season hurtles tantalisingly towards us, it promises to be as pulsating as ever with several more ambitious clubs joining a division already as strong as it has ever been, guaranteeing nine months of unpredictable, unrivalled drama. Pre-season has whet the appetite but now it's time for the main, showpiece event, so take your seat for an exhibition of excitement-inducing talent and brilliant goals. It won't all be pretty, though. |
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January 2024
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