Written by Hello friends, after the shocking results last month, i change my tactics from attacking back to standard and the tackling to become default. We seriously need to improve our form as our rivals are not dropping too many points as we are. The table is pretty tight so we need to win as many points as possible to prevent us from dropping out of the title race. Not too many games played in this month, 4 BSP matches and 1 FA trophy match. Lets take a look on the results.
Very good set of results there, besides the defeat on the FA trophy game, we actually won all of the BSP games. What a big contrast compared to last month. Most likely we don’t have the players who have the attributes to start a attacking strategy. I still can’t figure out why. Anyway this is the tactics that suit my team best so i will stick to it till the end of season.
First game of the month was against Kidderminster who is lying in mid-table. They were having a good run winning their last 3 games. Immediately after the start of whistle, there were plenty of action. Steven Leslie gave us the lead in the 3rd minute scoring in close range after a goalmouth scuffle. But straight after the kick-off they equalized though their player is suspicious of an offside position. They took the lead after my players lost possession in their penalty area, a swift counter attack saw their player scored from the edge of the 6 yards box. We had a injury when Troy Archibad-Henville had a clash in head and it was confirmed that he had a fracture skull and will be out for 2-3 months. I expect a better performance from my players in the second half and they didn’t disappoint me. Marc Richards took advantage of a mistake from their player to make things level in the 57th minute. A late penalty in the 83rd minute completed the comeback, the fans were totally delighted about it.
They were once our close rival last season but they had been struggling to recover the form shown last season. They seem to have difficulty in beating us, the last 3 meetings between saw us winning 2 and draw 1. This was a game that we dominate the possession again and were the better team. Steven Leslie fired himself into the record books being the fastest goal scored when he scored inside the first minute after the starting whistle. But we couldn’t keep the lead and conceded a goal just before half time. We came out in the second half determined to preserve our 100% record against them and my young Spanish defender Ignasi Miquel scored his first goal for the club from a corner. After our second goal, they never really try to come back into the game and we went home with 3 points in the bag.
Next up was a FA trophy match against our rivals Ebbsfleet. I gave a rest to several of my key players as my focus now is the BSP title. Nevertheless i believe the players whom were on the pitch definitely had the quality to win this game. But their players were having a good game, we conceded 1 goal in each half, though we managed to pull a goal back, we were unable to find the equalizer and went out of the FA trophy match. The fans were definitely not too happy about it as they hate losing to one of the rivals. But i had to do what is best for the club, to compensate their disappointment by gaining promotion to league 2.
Undoubtedly this is the biggest game of the month, we were hosting Cheltenham one of our title challenger in our Ship Lane stadium. I am wary of the quality they have in their players especially one regen player, a young striker loaned from Everton. He got amazing attributes and was good enough for any league 1 team. But the game went on with us controlling the game from start to the end. Izale Mcleod gave us a lead in 11th minute and the score stayed as it is until the final whistle. I was glad that their players were having a off day, with so much quality in their side, they only managed to create 4 chances with no shots on target. I was delighted with the win as it opened up the gap between them and us.
Last game of the month was against Barnet a team lying at the bottom of the table. Once again we were very strong at home and we control everything in this game, Izale Mcleod was in devastating form and he scored a hat-trick in this game. He wrote himself into the Thurrock record books by becoming the highest scorer in a season with these goals. Though they got a consolation goal but this doesn’t seems to affect the atmosphere in the stadium.
I was awarded my third manager of the month award with the results in this month. 4 wins in a row once again saw us climb to the top of the table having same points as York but with a better goal difference. Accrington is lying in 3rd place 2 points behind us and Cheltenham suffered a dip in form this month and dropped to 4th place with 6 points difference from us. I am glad that my players return to winning form this month, as long as there is no repeat of the performance in November, we should be in for a great chance laying hands on the title come April.
There will be 5 games to be played in the brand new year and 1 or 2 opposition will cause us some problems. The players need to keep the good form running and i hope to gain 9-12 points in January.
Dear friends, this is my latest update for my Thurrock story. Thank you for reading and i will see you in my next update Thurrock-January 2013 results.
Hello Lye
The changes you made tactically seem to have got you back on track and nice wins over Cheltenham and Barnet. It looks to be a three horse race for the title and good to see you are leading the field.
Well done !
Great to see the team have found their form again. Definitely appears that your mistake of keeping the attacking strategy was the problem.
Hopefully they can keep this up, and stretch the lead again.
.-= TheZiggy´s last blog ..April 2012 – All Aboard the Rollercoaster =-.
@Kevin
Thanks Kevin, it looks like a three horse race at the moment but Cheltenham certainly can’t be rule out yet as 1 or 2 poor games from the top 3 team, they will be back for the challenge again.
@TheZiggy
Thanks TheZiggy, what a big difference from starting from attacking and standard. Is it because my defenders are not fast enough thats why a lot of space for the opposition to exploit? If i have a better set of players, definitely would like to try on the attacking again.
Well done Lye, you’re back on track! If your defenders are not fast enough they can have lots of problems if the team pushes up the field. The problem is that you didn’t score much with the attacking setup, so I guess you should stick to the setup that yields the best results.
.-= Johnny Karp´s last blog ..Swindon Town: 2011 / 2012 Pre Season =-.
Thanks mate, i believe this should be the case. After switching to start in standard strategy, my players are showing the form in the previous month. I am relieved to get back to winning ways, the challenge now is to maintain the form and avoid the mistake that i made earlier.
You’re right, that if your defenders aren’t fast enough, or don’t read the game well enough, pushing up the field can expose you to counter attacks a lot. You have to remember that even the best defenders will sometimes get beaten when pushing up the field.
The problem with scoring when in attacking mode, is probably because you push the other team back, so that they’re defending deep, with lots of players behind the ball. That makes it very hard to find the spaces to provide the strikers with the final ball. It seems then that being able to provide a cross to the head of a target man becomes more important. I’ve seen this problem at times if I’ve set attacking, where we can keep possession with no problem, but finding a shooting opportunity is very difficult.
That’s the reason why sometimes in real life, a match with one of the top teams can become quite boring, if their opposition is getting behind the ball. Once they score that first goal, the match usually opens up, because that team has to think about trying to find a way back into the match. Sometimes even two top teams trying to push forward can end up producing a really dire midfield battle. Somewhere I remember an awful FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Liverpool I think it was, that was one of the worst matches I’d seen that year.
.-= TheZiggy´s last blog ..April 2012 – All Aboard the Rollercoaster =-.
Thats a very well taken point TheZiggy. I think most probably when you set to attacking, the tempo will be faster. With the current corp of players i have its quite difficult to retain possession. Decision and passing play a very important part, its much more easy to give the ball away to the opposition.
There is so much factors to consider when employing tactics and sometimes there is also some hidden attributes that we cannot see. Somehow we can’t have a foolproof plan, the only thing we can do is to choose the best plan among all.
Well done Lye, looks like your form has well and truly returned. If you keep picking up the points then you will have a great chance of going up! Good Luck for January.
.-= Laxeyman´s last blog ..Swindon Town: 2011 / 2012 Pre Season =-.
Thanks Laxeyman, i believe the players are more suited to the original tactic so they wouldn’t be any worse than November. I hope they could keep up the form in January and push for a direct promotion.
You also have to remember that players get used to playing in a particular way as well. So any changes have the potential to upset how comfortable they are. The better the quality of the players in terms of passing, off the ball, and decisions, the better able they should be to deal with upping the tempo.
.-= TheZiggy´s last blog ..April 2012 – All Aboard the Rollercoaster =-.
I think you are right. I have been using the same tactics for few season so in someway the players are used to how the ball is played. Low mental attributes definitely play a big part in how they adapt to a new strategy.