Let’s have a small reality check. Yes, we should have won on Saturday, yes we had the chances to take all three points. But I wouldn’t echo the talk that we ‘played well’, against what on Saturday’s showing (perhaps they had an off day, I don’t know) was very limited opposition. We wasted another first-half with a formation which was unsuited to the job in hand, were behind at the break, possibly unluckily but when you don’t score there’s always that risk, and only really came alive when changes were made and we’d got back on level terms (and even then we couldn’t find the winner we craved). Yes, there were positives, but we still look like a work-in-progress.
There is one startling statistic/league table for the first 11 games. A table for first halves and second halves is pretty revealing - https://www.soccerstats.com/halftime.asp?league=england3#google_vignette).
It shows for the first half we sit in 20th place, just above the relegation zone on 10 points, with one solitary goal to show (against Bolton) for 495+ minutes of football. No other team has scored less than four. To be fair it has to be added that we’ve conceded only four first-half goals. Then switch to the second-half table and, heavens behold, we are top, with 23 points, having scored 10 goals, not the highest total but at least respectable. With this a quick word of warning, Saturday’s opponents Wrexham are top of the first-half league, scoring 13 of their 19 goals in the first period, but an indifferent 10th for the second. Suggests if we can be on level-pegging at the break the stats would be in our favour.
Now for sure there are many factors at work. Defensive discipline, especially away from home, hasn’t encouraged free-flowing football in the first periods, we’ve also had the ‘Aneke factor’ as Chuks is introduced around the hour. But surely there’s a message here, that we can’t go on wasting the first halves of games as an attacking force as, like on Saturday, it only takes one slip and you’re chasing the game, when so often scoring first has been crucial.
We are, with just about a quarter of the season gone, still very much a work in progress. We thought at the start with three straight wins and three clean sheets we’d jumped the gun on the others. If we did it was short-lived. In the eight games since we’ve amassed eight points, not much off relegation form. Now those games did include the excellent victory against Birmingham, when Jones got the tactics and line-up spot on. Just that too often we haven’t been set up either consistently or with nullifying the opposition’s strengths in mind.
In recent seasons we’ve often tried to play five at the back but haven’t had any natural wing-backs. Let’s not forget Blackett-Taylor’s efforts in that area. We now have wing-backs to spare. As long as we haven’t lost Ramsay for a lengthy spell, on his side we have Watson and as he showed on Saturday Edmonds-Green, even with Asiimwe out on loan. On the other flank the excellent Edwards is keeping out the exciting Small, with Edun not getting a look-in. And we’re not short of the central defenders required, with Mitchell and another two from Jones (assuming he too is available again soon), Gillesphie, Potts, Edmonds-Green, and Mitchell(Z).
By the same token, with the emphasis on wing-backs we’ve turned away from natural width in midfield, or a front three. With Jaiyesimi having left, along with Blackett-Taylor and Rak-Sakyi, we have just one natural wide player, Campbell(T), who we are told is now a central forward. So – in my view as we saw in the first half on Saturday – if we don’t play with wing-backs we have no threat down the flanks from the midfield. That might be fine when we are looking to strangle Birmingham, who enjoyed 65% possession, but left us looking pretty toothless ourselves against Stockport despite having that 65% of the ball.
In my book the teams which succeed, especially at this level, are those which have either the weapons to stick to a system and core line-up and simply prove better than the other teams (aka Sir Chris’ team that won the league), or those which out of necessity adopt a flexible approach and change it around, taking in the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses. We are not in the former camp, at least not yet, so if it’s the latter surely the fact that formation and personnel choice did the job against Birmingham was no recipe for a home game against much poorer opposition – even if it is acknowledged that we lost Kanu, Coventry and Jones through injury and suspension.
It’s too easy to blame forwards when we’re not scoring enough goals. But we haven’t yet worked out our best alternatives, either in general or for selected games. I did comment at the start of the season that I didn’t feel we were well covered up front given that Aneke would only play part of games, Leaburn would be coming back from a long lay-off, Kanu is still progressing, Campbell is still working out how to play centrally, while Ahadme and Godden were new faces. If you look at things now Ahadme has struggled so far, Godden has until recently been not getting game time, Leaburn is still quite rightly being nursed back, while Aneke is (also quite rightly) kept in cotton wool. Add in Kanu picking up a knock and the problem is compounded. That Mbick and Dixon were added to the squad on Saturday was exciting (and Dixon looked, like Jones said, like a firework), but it did reflect the unavailability of three forwards.
Personally I think Godden’s a real asset, intelligent in the box, and with the service will score a good number of goals. If we are looking for the ‘big guy’ to work with him, if Leaburn is ready and we have a replacement (Aneke or Ahadme) on the bench, then starting these two together might make sense, using Campbell as a winger if we go with 4-4-2 or with him and Kanu as options.
I’m not paid to come up with answers and for sure have no idea how things look on the training ground. Most of the time I don’t really know much at all about the opposition, unless they contain former players. But I do know that if we continue to almost treat the first half of games as a softening-up exercise, during which we play no more than lip-service to striving to take the lead, we will come up short too often and be chasing too many games. As for personnel choices, I love it that Taylor has given Jones a real headache when it comes to him or Coventry; I’d love it more if he could show Coventry just how he manages to deliver a wicked ball into the box from a set piece.
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