I suppose it was always going to happen that we were going to run into choppy waters at different points this season, it appears that we are just entering some now. We're nowhere near in the gale force winds and six metre high waves territory just yet, but for sure you'd have no problem getting a kite up in the breeze. We've had a couple of iffy results, we've ran into a couple of players that are way beyond anything we've seen for a season of two at league level and it'd be easy to feel a bit sorry for ourselves.
Fortunately for us, this management team and this group of players look like they don't have the "let's sit in a corner and blub our eyes out" fallback in their DNA. Yes the result on Saturday hurt, the sendings off even more so, but it's important we don't dwell on the somewhat gloomy past. Our future is potentially brighter but more importantly careering towards us at a searing rate of knots.
By now, Johnny, Skivvers & DR will have analyzed the shite out our last couple of matches. Tom the stats guy will have rinsed OPTA for every bit of information they had, there won't have been a stone left unturned as they search for a solution. I hope they've broadly come to the same conclusion as me (because obviously I think I'm right), namely that we have become a little bit too easy to play against, make chances against, score against.
Now that's by no means solely the fault of the defence (or the defenders anyway). It's a collective thing, and as so often happens in football we are to a large extent victims of our own success. There's not a doubt in my mind that in these first seven games we have played the best football in any period of Johnny Jackson's time as manager. Some of it has been brilliant, I've applauded it and cheered it from the rooftops. We've kept the ball, we've opened teams up, created chances, got men into the box. It's been superb stuff, but inevitably there's been a slight drop off in our scrooge like defending as a result.
To my naked eye (I don't use heat maps) it appears that Miles Hippolite is significantly more advanced than any of our three midfielders have been in previous seasons. Ali Smith is pushing on too, sometimes even the captain. Not only that but they appear (to me) to be much more vertical in formation than the very horizontal set up we've become accustomed to. Neither of our fullbacks seem particularly comfortable coming into midfield, so the end result is that if the oppositions do, we are instantly outnumbered in the centre of the pitch.
The net result of all that waffle is that teams ,(better teams) are able to pass through us much more easily. Once in and around the edge of our box we look vulnerable to the little slid in through balls, one twos, all that malarkey. Our centre halves are better at defending against direct teams who launch it than they are tricky ones who get in and around our soft underbelly, they aren't the first.
So I'm here to tell you that despite banging the drum for "better football" for three seasons and despite applauding it loudly now, I feel it's likely the time to revert back to type a bit. I guess Omar will come in for Marcus Browne which would suit my thinking that a direct, less possession based smash & grab attack is where we ought to go. Crucially under those circumstances, we wouldn't be "going over the top" with the whole midfield either. We've got to (IMHO) get both Miles Hippolite and Jake Reeves to be much more defensive. In the latter's case, he simply must he attached to the back five with an almost umbilical restraint. And we have to get some width into the midfield, both by being less vertical and ensuring out full backs push on at the optimum moment. They oughtn't to just push on when attacking, they ought to do it at times when defending too.
In short, it's time to become a bit boring. After the week we've just had, a clean sheet would be handy, even a 0-0 draw or two not to be sniffed at. Our whole league one survival push depends upon us staying in games, keeping them close. Not easy to do that when you concede the number of opportunities and goals that we are just now. We CAN shore it up, we've done it before. Time to get below deck and do the grunt work, the boring stuff. The pretty, pleasing on the eye work can wait until a later date. COYD
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