***Match Thread*** TUE MAY 7TH 19:15 WES1 Boards.ie Grant Thornton

Lovely Bloke

We need to pick up the heads after last week, get into this game from the start.

These are a good side, who we've played many times, always giving us a good game.

Derek - out
Cathal - in
Ciaran
Collie - in
Damian - in
Darren - in
Dave - in
Gar - in
Jules - in
Keith - in
Neill - in
Stephen -
Wes - in
Derek Mr - in
Craig - in
Liam - in
Paddy - in
Marsen -
Dermo -

helimachoptor

In

mrDerek

count me in*

sReq | uTeK

in.

helimachoptor

Again lads try to be there on time, it is tough with the early games but allows a warm up.
We need to start at 100% against these guys, it will be a tough game and we need to bounce back after last week.

Lovely Bloke

Derek - out
Cathal - in
Ciaran - in
Collie - in
Damian - in
Darren - work
Dave - in
Gar - in
Jules - in
Keith - in
Neill - in
Wes - in
Derek Mr - in
Craig - work
Liam - in
Paddy - in
Marsen - in
Dermo - work

helimachoptor

0-0 draw.
We could have won it but also could have conceded on a couple of their attacks.

Looking at the table we are still on top by a point (or GD depending on one result)
However we have 4 very tough games coming up

Lovely Bloke

by a point.

sReq | uTeK

Sitting on the sidelines was actually beneficial you get the see the game in it's entirety.

My 2 cents, the midfield gets bypassed too much, there was a time I looked up and Jules and Collie were in acres of space only for a long ball to be hoofed up the channel. Defenders need to be more composed when they have time and try and pick out the midfield, long balls on that surface does not work.

Balls into the forwards feet is all good and well but when it's one man up top turning into 4 defenders when he gets it......then it needs to be varied, the wide men were not utilized half as much and the few times the ball went wide it gave the midfielders time to get into the box and we looked threatening when balls were whipped in.

We slow the game down WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY to much, they've just finished an attack have 8-9 men in our half, both our full backs are free, get them the ball, they should be SCREAMING for it, one pass and it's into the forwards feet where they can continue for support, what we are doing is just giving every single team time to get their shape back.

we play a rough 4-5-1. it's utterly pointless to be kicking it out 100% of the time, you're hoping that a flick on from midfield finds the one forward we have who you expect then to get on the end of it and hold it up to bring the midfield into it who will probably be too far back to do anything. Not to mention the fact we play on a hockey pitch, it's not proper Astro and the ball doesn't stick. 2 things to rectify this, we either push the 3rd midfielder into the forward line on goal kicks, or we go short.

another things why do we have designated throwers, about 4-5 times easy balls were on into Jules, Collie and Ciaran + our wingers, only for us to wait 5-10 seconds for Keith or Gar to run half way up the pitch to throw the ball, if it's on just throw the thing when someone calls for it, again you are slowing momentum down and letting everyone get back into position.

on the last attack of that game we actually had a chance to score, Gar was out the left, Wes ahead of him with no-one on him and Dave up front with one defender on him, effectively a potential 3v1, we waited about 30 seconds, took a goal kick and their team actually used one of their players as a ladder climbed on his back and won the header.

It was an improvement from last week, they are unbeaten, but we still need to up it. Clean sheet was a bonus.

So in summary, lets be smarter and quicker about what we do whilst also having that little bit of composure that will enable us to out play our opponents, everyone likes to play football, I'd rather lose 100% of the time whilst playing good smart ball than draw games and put in performances like last night. If you give the ball away whilst trying the right thing, who cares?

helimachoptor

Quick throw ins happen a lot more than you think, there was at least 5/6 on my side last night.
If its on its on, in some cases it may go to take quickly but nothing is on and the attempt stops and the full back takes it as by that time the FB is practically at the action line.

also no one is advocating kicking it out 100% of the time.
Ok we probably need to vary it a bit more but yesterday was a prime example of where they had 2 strikers pushed up and it cut out a lot of chances.

Liam is very consistent in his kicks, they were going over me and we had Dave/Ciaran/Collie in the area to win them. Anything knocked back would come towards me. I think we have some of the best headers of the ball and if we know where its going there should be no reason why we arent winning more 1st and 2nd ball after each long kick out

Finally I'd prefer to play ugly and win as would most i'd wager.
Its great to play beautiful football but i'm pretty sure your attitude would change if we were bottom of the league while playing artistic football.

As a general observation, we were very quiet last night i though (specifically in defense), something to definitely work on

Mousewar

Didn't think we did too badly. A few more shots would be good. Wes had a go when he came on which I think was needed.

Best of luck for the next two games - won't be there.