Spurious Logic

And we're rolling

Alan, when were you going to mention him to me? It's not like he's not noticeable.  I mean, at 6'7" why haven't I spotted him before? Does he spend the whole time I'm around sitting down or something? I nearly had a heart attack when he loped onto the training pitch. You know when I say "I'd really like to get a good tall target man to allow us to vary our play" did you not think to mention him to me?

Karl Lyons would you please stand up. He had played an undistinguished role as a winger in pre-season and I'd just dropped him down to the reserves. I just happen to open up his profile and spotted the obvious role for him. At 6'7" with decent jumping ability and ability to play as a centre forward I think I've found my plan B.

For our second game against Southport I've decided to keep going with the 4-4-2 which was more successful than the 4-1-3-2 and I've told the team to play a direct counter attacking style. The new signing John Henderson steps in straight away up front, hoping to pick up knock downs from Lyons. He's not fit so he won't last the whole match so I've got the speedy Leo Brown ready to come in as a sub.

My scouts tell me that their danger man is Matty Anderson who's got a temperamental personality so I made an off the cuff remark to unsettle him. Unfortunately my own team don't appreciate me talking about the opposition at all so I don't know how that will play out on the pitch.

We're deadlocked at 0-0 for the first 20 minutes. A number of long passes to our right flank results in head tennis and a few long ranged shots for them so I tell the team to tighten up on their left back and their passing midfielder. Those same players with the new instructions put Henderson through for a début goal on 35 mins.

Turning to Coar and Davies on the bench all I can hear is then loudly arguing over every tactical recommendation.

From the start of the second half they go at us and we push our luck with a goal line clearance and a rattled crossbar in the first 10 minutes. I make a few substituions and try to set up as a counter attacking side. They finally break through when Leo Brown (on for Henderson) loses the ball in midfield and they pass up to the box. Ramm fumbles the initial shot and ties to scramble to the ball but Eyre puts it away. Despite going for an all out attack and pushing up the game ends at 1-1. Brown is injured towards the end of the game and plays like a less skillful, latter day Michael Owen. Despite my disappointment the fans are happy with result.

Following on from that draw I decide I need a left winger and find a fantastic amateur Kiwi left winger who's willing to sign for £475 a week. This would put me above my wage limit so I piss off the players still in the reserves by marking them as "not needed" and they all eagerly accept mutual termination. All  I need now is for him to sign on the dotted line.

Our third match is against Redditch. I spotted that they have one very tall defender at 6'5" and fantastic jumping. This means Karl Lyons probably won't win his aerial battle so from the start I set the team up as a 4411 with Lyons playing as an attacking behind Henderson.  He'll be trying to nod on the balls from the back.

As the game kicks off he seems to be working quite well as an attacking forward even though he's not actually heading the ball at all but rather passing which is not his strong suit. After about 20 minutes the opposition are marking him more closely and he's become a liability, losing possession regularly. The half drifts to a dull end with not noteworthy chances.

At half time Lyons comes of for a proper attacking midfielder in the form of Tim McManus and the team is told to go on the offensive. After just 5 minutes Henderson wiggles his way past a number of defenders in the box to fire in good goal. There are a couple of chances later for both sides but it stays 1-0. On 75 minutes I make some condition enforced substitutions and set the team to counter attack. Yates runs from the half way line to the 6 yard box with the ball, and gets off a shot which is save. Potter follows in and picks up the rebound to score with the last action of the game.

Game Stats

I had started this series with the intention of providing more detail and more writing on the progress of the team and I was taking notes on each and every match. I'm going to have 4~5 matches covered per post from here on out, basically because (a) I have only certain windows in which to play the game and holding that up because I haven't written a post on a previous game is frustrating, (b) I'm not such a good writer that I can make individual game reports that interesting and (c) it's a lot of work to write them up and I don't have that amount of free time.

So from now, posts will cover a longer period of time, possibly broken up by notable on/off pitch events. Like an important game/goal or new signing.

For a good match review of the real Blyth Spartans check this out

Image from flickr user robpatrick