First blood
nerves
Some people are drawn from cool iron. Calmly facing every trial life throws at them. No worrying for them. No night sweats, 03:15 wake ups and staring at the ceiling. No wondering if this plan to clog the centre of the park with blockers and set the fullbacks to sweep forward down the flanks will actually work. No shameful rushes to the toilet because that breakfast was never going to last until the match.
Some people.
There's notebooks upon notebooks of possible tactics strewn across my office. That blackboard has dents and scrapes of circles with ever more enthusiastic arrows coming out of them drawn so hard into it that they won't erase. Alan insists that his 5-5-2 formation is the way to go. Coar demurs, insisting on a radical 2-3-3-2 first pioneered in the 1920's.
Regardless of the tactics, regardless of the mindgames and pressure, I just want to get this first game behind me.
Our first league game of the season is against AFC Telford. My scout tells me that they use a 442 on a narrow pitch and their creative central midfielder is a possible danger. I take a look at the players before kickoff and I don't really see much to worry too much about.
All during pre-season I've been training a 4-1-3-2 tactic. With Jamie Grieves in the holding defensive midfielder role and three central midfielders ahead of him. The idea is to play narrow and force play wide. This way my central defenders don't have to worry so much about clever short through balls and they can use their height to tidy up any crosses coming in.
Going forward, the fullbacks are given licence to roam up their wings and link the play with the forwards who should be roaming as much as possible.
Of course Jamie Grieves is injured so Andy Dunlop steps in as a makeshift (but still good) defensive midfielder.
I tell the lads to "just get out there and do what you've been doing for the last 2 months" (presented as the ever inspiring "You can win today!")
We conceded our first goal after just 20 minutes. They switched play to the right where they had 3 players against our one full back providing plenty of space for a well aimed cross into the box which was missed by our centre backs and eventually bundled across the goal line.
Turning to Alan I start to mouth a question to him and seeing him doodle idle pictures on the tactics notepad decide against it. Looking at my own notes I can see that the pass completion rate is way too low so we'll have to tighten up on... Christ Alan, you can't draw that sort of thing in public..
At half time I switch from my 4-1-3-2 which really isn't working to a bog standard 4-4-2. Their wingers and fullbacks were able to run at my fullbacks at will while my central midfielders were just hanging around in the middle of the park, wondering what was so exciting behind them that everyone was whizzing past them at speed to get there.
I made a few substitutions for fitness rather performance reasons, and set the passing to be short in the hope that my players will actually start to find each other.
I realised that all summer I had been telling the players to control the tempo of the game and choose their time to attack carefully and avoid unnecessary risks. This works fine against the glorified pub teams we were up against but against our supposed superiors in the league I think a more offensive approach makes sense. Especially as we're not in control, we're not dominating possession and we're not passing well. So I tell them to go out and try to be more offensive minded in their play.
Back at pitch side I glance at the watch. 30 minutes into the second half and we've already had more chances that the whole first half. Our passing's crisper and more accurate. Wright is making for a better right winger than a right back. He doesn't have any real subtlety, just run at the defender and his pure determination carries him through. Jon Turner on the other hand is making for a better right back than a central midfielder. He's not misplacing passes and has already made some good interceptions. Still though No goal.
Their forward, Peel is faffing about by our right corner flag which draws in both Wright and Turner. This opens up the space for their left winger to receive his rolled pass back down the line and again he swings in a perfect cross to be met by a header to score.
So much for the aerial dominance of our two centre backs to deal with crosses.
In the last 5 minutes or so, Wright races down the right flank and sends over a decent cross which Adams converts and so the game ends at 2-1
Post Mortem:
1)The 4-1-3-2 doesn't work for my team. The central midfielders just get bypassed and they aren't good enough to control play in the middle of the park. The fullbacks then get overloaded which means lots of crosses.
2)The two beanpole defenders aren't enough. I need to have a defender with more guile. Or failing that, someone who's some way more competent.
3)Wright is a winger, not a fullback. Turner is a fullback not a midfielder. Dunlop is not a defensive midfielder.
Regardless of the loss, I'm not too downhearted. I started with the wrong tactics in the wrong formation and we still played pretty well. Karl Jones was excellent in central midfield and seemed to work well with Ben Lyons. Plus we managed to score. I know we conceded but that can be fixed. As long as we can score, we can win.
Image from wikimedia commons
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