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Author Topic: My thoughts so far....  (Read 1726 times)
Briggany

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« on: Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 10:26:21 »

I didn't go last night, or to any of the away games, and I missed one home game due to illness. Although I have listened to/watched on iFollow every game I haven't been to.

My Analysis:

Players

We have some real quality players: Dotyle, Yates, Anderson, Isgrove, Hunt, Doughty, Grant, Buadry and Conroy, Lyden. I will even chuck LMC in there as well because bar one or two mistakes he's been let down by mistakes in defence. These players form a really good spine of a team. That new CB Zucchini also seems to be rather decent.

We have some semi decent players that are really good at one thing but lack in certain areas:
-Rose (Calm head, semi decent passer, reads the game vs Lack of pace, sometimes passes short)
-Fryers (Very attack minded, quick, good in the air, strong defensively v Always gets skinned when playing full back, sometimes gets lost upfront due to going too far forward)
-Iandolo (Good going forward, finding his confidence taking on his man, always tries to get his cross in vs lacks the final shot, defensively frail when he has no cover)
- Woolery (has pace for days, on his day has the calm head to take 1v1's, has a really decent shot when on target vs not on target enough, crosses when he should shoot and shoots when he should cross, indecisive, really poor at judging passes) I will caveat that Woolery for a player that has to run onto balls gets shocking service and always gets balls to feet or behind him.

We also have some crap in there: May, Tyler Reid (His rocket of a right foot can't save him), Broadbent (ended the season well but has lost all confidence and common sense)

There are of course other players but none worth a mention. We have yet to see what JM can do due to injury but I am hoping he is at least 75% as good as Isgrove as having two out and out wingers that are diminutive and unpredictable will be a blessing. I would be interested in Toums getting a game or two as we are paying him a big chunk apparently so makes sense to use him.

Mentality

At the start of the season we seemed to be building that winning mentality, we were all going to games expecting us to score rather than hoping that we score (Very much like the PdC era). We didn't seem to have that mentality of being hopeless when being a goal or two behind, in fact we seemed to be motivated by that and upped our game to get back into it. W were creating Fortress Country Ground!

We were calm and composed on the ball, each player had the confidence to knock off a one touch pass or hold it up and deal with pressure. We also had a lot of confidence to take the opposition on. We pressed amazingly and forced so many mistakes. I think the best way to sum up our confidence was that long driven passes on the ground were reaching their targets, and each pass had the conviction that it was going to reach its man.

The turning point for me was when I noticed that as soon as a key player went out during the game the entire mentality changed and we seemed to let our heads drop, but we seemed to recover for the next game. However that's changed now and the mentality is drifting across games. We don't seem to have that confidence on the ball to hold off a defender or put that one touch pass into the right area. When we pass the ball its always too short or not powerful enough/behind the run, and our defence now seem to hoof it forward rather than calmly find the best pass. We also seem to have forgotten how to press properly and with the right intensity, allowing the opposition to press as they please.


Now we seem to be in a mental rut, and we need a win against Plymuff backed up by a another win to pull ourselves back. We need to stop letting teams get under our skin when they are playing dirty, and we need to put ourselves out there in challenges with a bit of heart. Mainly we need to stop getting so frustrated when things don't go our way.

Injuries

I am not sure what it is or how this always happens but it seems that every season we only ever get injuries to key players, and often they are serious, long term, injuries. Could it be training? could it be that we are going in to strong? It's a been a constant theme for the last two seasons now.

Either Way we always seem to be bogged down and hampered by serious injuries. And as they start to mount up my optimism is disappearing.

Tactics

When we play with confidence we play really well, our passing is crisp and all the right runs are made. Doyle and Yates can pull the defence around like a puppet on strings, allowing the midfield to get involved and provide decent service. We press really well and more often than not cause force the opposition into an error. Our defence looked tidy and well drilled, yes we seem to fail at dealing with crosses and set plays but generally the defence didn't give away in threatening areas. It was attractive and entertaining giving us the feeling that every time we went forward we would create something to get us excited.

I get that some teams will park the bus but we appeared to have found a way around that by sticking to our principles and turning up the pressure. I did always worry about strong physical sides that would bully and wind you up.

What we are witnessing atm is not what we are capable of, we are letting the frustration creep in, we are letting the pressure push us into panicked clearances and all that crisp play, that meant we created chances, has been replaced with the hopeful punt up to the strikers which aren't suited to that style.


Mistakes

As we know every season for the last 5 years individual mistakes seem to be the defining factor in the majority of our games. And I know we can say "everyone makes mistakes" but its happening with enough consistency for it to be considered an issue now. And the mistakes always come when things appear to be going our way or we have just scored.

I haven't got an answer other than we need the players to remain switched on and composed. We can't keep conceding goals to incredibly frustrating and simple to avoid mistakes. Rose is particularly bad for selling his men short when passing.

Overall

I have really enjoyed the football we have started playing, it has restored confidence and optimism in most of the fan base. Its given us genuine hope that we could get out of this league in a decent manner. We are in a rut at the moment and we need to quickly sort out that mentality and get a few solid performances under our belts to get back on the right track. Every team will have a bad run of form and I believe this is ours. I would rather have it at the start of the season than have it during the run in to the final game.

I really rate Wellens and find it refreshing with how honest he is. He has a lot to learn but so far he has made few mistakes and has given me reason to believe he will stay long enough to get us up and give Swindon a brand of football we will stick to. My only criticism would be some of his subs, they haven't made absolute sense, but then I do understand we don't see what happens in training.

The next few weeks are going to be a real test to see if we can take setbacks and unwanted surprises on the chin and bounce back, or if we let them define how we play. 

 Bye
« Last Edit: Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 10:38:36 by Briggany » Logged
THE FLASH

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« Reply #1 on: Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 11:12:41 »

I'm more buzzing than most seasons.

Hopefully we will bounce back.
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« Reply #2 on: Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 11:47:31 »

Happy enough so far, though recent matches have caused a bit of concern.

Teams were always going to suss out how to play against us (close down, don't let midfield play). Its up to us to find away round that, and I'm sure it won't be a lack of trying that stops us.
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Briggany

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« Reply #3 on: Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 12:43:38 »


Teams were always going to suss out how to play against us (close down, don't let midfield play). Its up to us to find away round that, and I'm sure it won't be a lack of trying that stops us.


I think this is exactly it, and teams that do this will have to forfeit tactics in another area of the pitch in order to do so. What we need to do is learn to exploit those area's.

So if for example they press us, we need to find a way of bypassing the press and getting the ball straight to midfield so the pressing players are taken out of the game.

what worries me about this is that teams have susseed us out... why haven't we sussed anyone else out? We could have beaten Newport if we passed it around better as their big lumps up front would have used all their energy chasing the ball.
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