Have you ever had a dodgy knee? A dicky hip maybe? If you have you'll know that it effects the way you sit, the way you walk, everything. As sure as eggs is eggs before long your OTHER knee starts giving you jip too, your other hip. See the problem is that you over compensate for the dodgy bit, it isn't long until you feel you're falling apart at the seams.
Football teams are a bit like that. A well organized machine, a group of guys coached into a watertight unit can suddenly fall apart. Suddenly stuff which came naturally looks much more difficult, soon your "unit" looks like a disorganised rabble, so it was with AFC Wimbledon last night.
Quite what the "dodgy" bit which started it all off we could debate all day, but quite clearly something wasn't clicking at all. If you were looking for individual scapegoats you could point to Myles Hippolyte on the first goal, meekly letting the lad comes inside him without making a challenge. You might argue it was the young striker making his debut naively sticking his foot in (there's the over compensation) to give the free kick away. Maybe you'd say it was neither of those and point out that if Ally Smith had stood up straight & perhaps jumped three inches he'd have blocked it. On the second goal you could legitimately ask where Ryan Johnson was going before the cross came in, for the third you could ask where all of our midfield was to allow their fella a free shot. None of that stuff would be wrong in itself, but in my view none of those players (who have been brilliant for us) are the route cause of our difficulties. None of them are causes, all of them are in my opinion anyway symptoms.
Our form for quite a while now if you include last season has been extremely patchy (that's putting it mildly) and that isn't the result of individual errors, people "switching off" or any of that stuff, not in my mind anyway. No, we have a deeper problem which I'm afraid that unless we address it we are going to only occasionally play to our potential.
And what is it silly bollocks I hear you ask. Well for me the root cause of our issues is that we severely lack pace at the back. It's interesting that our downturn in form appears to me (I haven't checked it, I'm not a stats guy) to have coincided with Joe Lewis getting injured last season. He HAD pace when he played, and as always in football that particular attribute covers an absolute multitude of sins.
We've replaced big Joe with Dan Sweeney who in fairness has probably been our player of the season so far. He wins everything in the air & reads it well, but much like Jonno alongside him isn't the quickest by a long chalk. The follow on from that (particularly when you add in the pace or lack thereof the fullbacks) is that we have to defend 5-10 yards deeper. The follow on from THAT is that our midfield sits 5-10 yards deeper. If like last night we decide to press higher, if the opposition play through it we are left with a wide expanse of open space in the centre.
Our defence has a difficult choice to make then. Either shove in and allow any sort of channel ball or one over the top to cause nightmares, or sit out & have people running at you from all directions with the football.
BECAUSE we are sitting deeper, when we do get it forward our midfielders have got to bust a gut to get up & support them bust a gut again to get back. Before the game is very old our front men become isolated & it all kind of breaks down.
Solutions? Well firstly the usual caveat, I pull pints for a living not train football teams BUT, since you ask (I know nobody did but run with me here).
1. We have to get some pace into our defence. That means at least in the short term if we're going to play three centre backs (or indeed two), Jonno & Dan Sweeney probably shouldn't start together (unless it's a three & for example the Brighton kid is lightening). Similarly, I think Sessignon has to start, to the naked eye he looks like he can get across the ground. Once we have that, we must bite the bullet/take the risk & defend higher.
2. We have to have a holding midfielder. If we had one last night whoever it was had forgotten the first of their two word job description. Ali Smith is the obvious choice here, but as I say if that was what he was supposed to be doing last night then he has to do it a lot better. If we were to try & be more progressive in possession Olly Harrison would be ideal, but given our style Smith gets the nod from me.
3. To my mind we have to play Callum Maycock. If you are going to play a direct style and I think by now we can take it that we are, in order to make it work you need marathon men, Duracell bunny midfielders. We are asking our lads in the middle to chase like a dog in the park after an empty crisp packet, to get up and support when we go forward then sprint back and help when we go backwards. Callum wouldn't technically be our best, but he is MADE for that role. He'd be my first midfielder on the team sheet currently.
4. We have to have an alternative means of attack to Jayden Stockley. He's been excellent so far, great header last night, but he can't play every game and certainly not for 90 minutes. And his partner must be able to run continuously. I thought the young boy did well last night and he'll be a player for us, but unsurprisingly given he hasn't played much he looked leggy after ten minutes. I suppose like everyone else I'm itching to see Matty Stevens alongside Stockley as it looks like a marriage made in heaven, but until then we ought to try and vary our attack a little.
None of these points above are there to slag anyone off please understand. These players took us up and kept us up as did the manager, I love every one of em. It's clear though that unless we change a few things we are going to be very quickly in deep dooh-dah. Rather than just screaming "THIS IS FUCKING SHITE!" I thought I'd offer an opinion as to what we might do differently.
