In the first Ashes test in Perth, at one point England led by 100 second innings runs and they had lost one wicket. The opportunity to bat Australia out of the match was in their grasp, but it slipped through their fingers like sandy BazBall through a tennis racket. Older readers will remember Jean Claude Van Der Velde, leading the open by two shots going up the 18th at Carnoustie. He mystified the world by not just playing safe with an iron but smashing his drive miles right. He ended up in a farcical ditch situation and his race was run in a never to be forgotten shoes and socks-off skit.
My point? Well it's that failure to adapt to the in game situation is not a sporting recipe for success. Sure it's great to have a game-plan, but the most effective sports people and teams adapt, change, modify and evolve as the picture in front of them alters. There are no doubt many reasons for our current poor form, I want in this piece of drivel to waffle on about this particular aspect.
Firstly an admission, I don't do stats. XG & all that stuff bores and baffles me in equal measure. All of my opinions are formed by watching with my eyes, taking only mental notes, kind of going "old school" on it. The result of that is there is a very significant chance here that I'm talking utter bollocks. There is every chance that Arash or Plough Lane by Numbers will completely take apart and factually disprove my thoughts, but it's never stopped me before so here goes.
Firstly, why has our form fallen off so dramatically? The obvious if slightly boring answer is that the players aren't playing as well anymore (and they aren't), but why is that? Well, it's my hunch that there has been a subtle yet significant change in the way that teams are setting up against us. As of yet, if we HAVE made modifications to counter it (I don't think we have but anyway), then those adjustments need to in my opinion be more marked.
So how are they lining up different then? (Silly bollocks) I hear you ask. Well the most obvious alteration that teams have made is that they've stopped pressing us high anywhere near so much. When we first came into the league many people thought we were going to be cannon fodder, me amongst them, and teams felt that they had to smash us 4-0 not just beat us. They swarmed all over us feeling confident they could kill us off quickly, but they were wrong. We handled the high press very well, confounded our "They can only play one way" critics and played our best football under Johnnie Jackson. We played through teams, around teams and created many chances. Our opposition paid a heavy price for not giving us the respect that we deserved, and for a time we were solid playoff contenders. The trouble with professional sport though is the other team get chance to watch video, make new plans, and that's what's tripped us up.
Teams now sit off us. They're happy to let our possession stat percentage be largely made up of us rolling it around at the back between the defence and the goalkeeper. They know that they haven't got to go and get the ball back, if they wait, either Joe Lewis or Ryan Johnson will launch it to them on the diagonal. Obviously for them there is a risk in allowing us to drop the ball onto the corner of their penalty box, but they can comfort themselves with a couple of points. Firstly, unless Omar Bugiel is on the pitch we are very unlikely to win the header. Even if we DO win the header, because we don't get many bodies around the contact area we are a heavy underdog to win the knockdown in any case. So what tends to happen is we spend thirty or forty seconds manoeuvring the football into the correct diagonal launchpad spot, then concede possession once the ball gets bazookered forward. It makes the "How long did you have the ball" numbers look alright, but it doesn't do your chances of winning football matches any favours.
From there teams have worked out that if you come out with a bit of pace, you have a good shot of playing through our midfield and getting at the back five. Back there, even our best defenders are beginning to look shaky as the threats come at them from all angles.
The good thing is that our "underestimated" period saw us rack up a good few points, so I should think that any AFC Wimbledon fan would have bitten your arm off at the shoulder joint to be where we are today. Ask last seasons League Two Champions or the team that finished second (Port Vale and Doncaster are bottom and second bottom respectively) if you don't believe me. To be where we are has been an incredible effort by the players and management group, they deserve huge credit.
Given we've picked up two points out of the last seven matches though, obviously we need to arrest the slide sharpish. I'm fairly convinced that teams are going to continue to let us smash it forward from 50 yards away, this is what I'd like to see us doing a little bit more of going forward.
1. Encourage the centre halves to bring it forward occasionally. They are ALL easily good enough footballers to do it, if they did it would open the game up a bit and ask a question of the opposing team. Yes it carries an element of risk with it, but there is significant potential reward too.
2. Encourage the central midfielders to drop in and take it on the half turn occasionally, commonly referred to as "playing through the thirds" or "playing through midfield". I've lost count of the number of times we have the opportunity to go forwards yet take the safe option and go back. Too often we aren't just passing the football, we're passing the responsibility too.
3. Occasionally play it earlier and rather than ALWAYS going on the diagonal, have the full backs bend it into the channel and work from there. It's a bit old fashioned this one, but the ball into a channel into a willing runner will outlive all of us as a legitimate football tactic.
I think if we do these three things, as well as obviously keeping the long diagonal occasionally, we will be much more difficult to play against. We'll keep the football in meaningful areas for much longer periods of time, we'll decrease the amount of defending that we have to do.
I'm convinced we'd get more points, and that's the crux of it really.
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