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« on: November 24, 2021, 03:01:58 PM »
Whilst I'm very happy about last nights' result, I have a lot of reservations about the performance after 11 minutes of the game had elapsed, during which short period we had looked at the races (and credit to Duxbury for clearly being up for redeeming himself after Saturday).
I imagine there will be the usual clichés about the difficulties of playing against 10 men, but it doesn't help if you play into their hands for 79 minutes. Our build up was desperately ponderous and static, which gave the 10 men all the time in the world to get organised behind the ball (the same tactics, if they can be called that, that were unsuccessful against the 11 men of Stratford). We seemed to have absolutely no ambition to see the game off or to make up some of the deficit in our goal difference after those disastrous away results. I think I heard JMcD shout 'quicker' at one point, but without much conviction and I don't think he did it again, and I don't recall seeing CE call for a more urgent approach. At least Ayina tried to bring the ball forward from defence rather than just pass it sideways, which led to one or two chances in the 2nd half. And why, against 10 men, did we have 3 defenders marking one striker? I assumed this would be changed at half time, but it wasn't.
I wouldn't mind this negative approach so much if we had a squad of cloggers, but we don't. We have a number of fast and skilful players, but they are given little chance to show this. Why get them into the club if you're not going to play to their strengths? I have no confidence that our management team know their best team or organisation.
CE's reaction to our keeper being made man of the match (mocking disbelief, unless I've misread him, for those of you who were not sufficiently near the dug outs) says it all. The keeper made an excellent and crucial save when it was 1-0, and a series of others later in the game. For the keeper to be made, rightly, MOM after we played for 79 minutes against 10 men also says it all. If the management can't see this as an indictment of our performance, then we have a problem. Perhaps CE will say something different in interviews.
Am I being too critical? Periods of tedious football won't stop me from driving 50 miles each way to come to games, but I am worried that others less committed may not be encouraged to come as often as they might. I don't go in for calling for managers' heads, but I just wish we'd play with more confidence in our own attaching qualities - as we showed we can do in the first 10 minutes last night. I haven't seen us dominate another team this season for more than about 20 minutes at a time.
Rant over......