Terry Skiverton take a bow. People like me can pontificate about formations, tactics. "Our best eleven" and such things all they like, if you don't do the ugly stuff properly you are going to lose lots of football matches. Recently many of us have argued about all the little "icing on the cake" things, meanwhile the players and coaches have been putting in the hard yards on the ugly stuff. That much was obvious from yesterday's display, it doesn't happen by accident. Skivvers I reckon is the leader on this stuff, he deserves huge credit for the defensive aspect of yesterday.
Aside from allowing Charlie Goode a free header from which he really ought to have scored, it was a foot perfect effort from the whole eleven. We were at it from minute one, snapping into challenges and denying a very good team the opportunity to dominate us. I know it isn't always pretty to watch, but it's the result of a collective effort that much like when a university boat race team gets it together, ought to be applauded.
It would be wrong also to imply that we didn't at least try to get things going in an attacking sense. In a Top Trumps scenario, Omar Bugiels skied volley would cancel out the aforementioned header from their ex Premier League centre half. We had a go, and in a game of very few chances (or excitement to be brutally honest) we provided as much of both commodities as they did. I probably disagree with Johnnie's "We were the dominant team" comment, but Sheesh Kebabs if you can't be at least a LITTLE one-eyed when you're the manager, when can you?
The thing I liked the most from an attacking perspective is that we clearly were trying to mix it up a little. Gone were the mind numbingly predictable barrage of consecutive diagonals, we tried to go through the thirds a bit and hit channel balls too. I totally agree with the manager that at times we lacked conviction around the edge of the penalty area*, but going forward it was a much more varied and encouraging display. We've scored one goal in our last four league games, so obviously this is an area which we need to improve on.
All in all though a good point. I heard someone saying as we were leaving "Surely our football can't get any more boring than THAT?". I didn't do it, but I was tempted to do a Mick McCarthy "IT CAN!". I'm afraid if you are expecting total football or some kind of Pep Guardiola derivative as we battle to stay in the league (because make no mistakes, that's what we're doing) then you are living in cloud cuckoo land. I'll moan along with the best of you, but realistically we'd better strap ourselves in for some functional football.
On other things....
Around this time of year people talk a lot about "Signings". My own perspective is that we urgently need a midfield player and a left back. Obviously he could never play for us, but Dan Kemp fits the bill exactly of what I'd like to see us get, Isaac Hutchinson, that type. We need a left back because Steve Seddon can't play every game (he just can't, although no doubt he will if you ask him). The squad is though I'm afraid very unbalanced. While Marcus Browne & Omar Bugiels toiled away against excellent defenders yesterday, I counted FOUR strikers warming up (Stevens, Sasu, Orsi & Hackford). Junior NKeng didn't make the bench or it would have been five, Josh Kelly being out on loan makes it six. To have that many attackers on our books (I make it eight, nine if you include the lad banned for betting) while having to playing Jake Reeves, Ali Smith & Steve Seddon practically every week is mad. That needs sorting one way or another.
*Perfect example of "conviction" was Aron Sasu yesterday. At one glorious moment he got fed, to his feet, one on one with the left back. Now I would have been needing nappies if I was in that defenders shoes, but our lad made it easy for him. Conviction for Aron in my eyes means coming inside, at pace, accross the box and hitting it, scoring the match winning goal. MAKE HIM DEFEND, ask him the question, make him decide quickly what he's gonna do. If he defends it properly, chop back & burn him for pace on the outside, if he doesn't, then HIT IT!
I'd be working Sas on that every day. Recieve it, set off across the box and hit it. If it's not on, chop out and cross it. Conviction in football is "I KNOW what I'm gonna do, what are YOU gonna do to stop it?". This.kid has so much ability that even if you KNOW what he's gonna do, stopping him from doing it is difficult. Mo Salah has made a career out of that (no I'm not comparing the two), Sas needs to get the "I KNOW what I'm gonna do" part sorted though, and sharpish.
Got to agree with most of that, Mick.
ReplyDeleteI said during close season, I struggled to see where goals were coming from, but the team surprised me, then come October, they did what I expected - stopped scoring goals.
With Matty back, will the goals start to flow again?
Not if he is left on the bench until 70 minutes have elapsed.