*** Match Thread*** Tuesday 28th Vs Dell FC 8pm COLM

Lovely Bloke

Cathal - In
Ciaran - Away
Damo - In
Darren - In
Derek -
Derek McL - In
Ed - In
Jules - In
Keith - In
SteK - In
SteMcd - In
Dave - In
Calvin - In
Kieran - In
Al - In
Dave O'toole - Out
Kenny - In


this is how we'll be lining up

Mousewar

ffs - wait till darren sees that. It's not like we need his head getting any bigger - although maybe it might make him finally able to head the ball...

In, btw.

mrDerek

I'm not a cm
In also

Looks like that nifty finish from murtagh has earned him his long sought chance up front

sReq | uTeK

in

SteMcD1

in

murtagh

I'm up front this week??
Fair enough, 1 chance, 1 touch, 1 goal this season so maybe the manager is hoping Derek can learn a thing or two from me :cool:

ChopperLambe

Kenny I'm in

helimachoptor

Kenny pm me your number and I'll add you to teamer

helimachoptor

Another decent squad out tonight, a loss and a win for Dell so far but their loss came against the team we played last week. I think with the grit we showed last week we should be well able to get the win

helimachoptor

3-2 loss after going 2-0 we got it back to 2-2.


They had a few chances, Ed made some good saves and they fluffed the others.

We had our own chances and on another day we would have scored 5 or 6 i think.

Mousewar

ffs...i had a bit of a mare. Sorry about the 2nd goal. Gotta shake that one off...

helimachoptor

Ball could have just as easily not ended up in the net Damo, how's the face?

Mousewar

helimachoptor wrote: »

how's the face?

Fat lip...but only slightly less beautiful

SteMcD1

helimachoptor wrote: »

We had our own chances and on another day we would have scored 5 or 6 i think.

i thought we had fewer chances today than we usually do. good to see calvin on the score sheet again but we really didn't have as many efforts on goal today as i'd have liked.

helimachoptor

Most of them were Derek's, but he can't score them all. The rest of team need to contribute, on a different night we get the rub of the green and we bang in a few tonight wasn't that night

in the tight games like tonight and last week we can't be expecting Derek to knock in 3 or 4, we need to keep the opposition out of our goal, offensively that makes our job a lot easier

mrDerek

had 3 chances tonight
The header from a good cross from keith not an easy finish hit straight down the middle

The one on one with the keeper their defender clipped me right before so was off balance should have scored though

The shot which hit the side of the net after i took it down and bustled by their CH

when im a bit sharper theyd all be buried, we need more penetration down the wings its becoming way too congested in the middle.

homerjay2005

i guess we cannot complain about the result, on another night a more cynical team could have had us well beaten or in other words, if those chances fell to our forwards i think wed have scored 6 or 7.

we were too open in the first 20 minutes and they cut us open, though the quick goal back settled us down and i was sure once we got to 2-2, the game was ours. instead, they kicked on and really apart from what i thought should have been a 2nd penalty, we didnt create much.

overall, its the busiest game ive ever had for boards, they really caused us alot of problems and there were many reasons for that - catching us on the break was the main one, leaving out back 3 sometimes 4 on 3 or 3 v 3 at best.

SteMcD1 wrote: »

i thought we had fewer chances today than we usually do. good to see calvin on the score sheet again but we really didn't have as many efforts on goal today as i'd have liked.

agreed, we didnt create much tonight but in saying that, we got to get back to winning games 1-0 or 2-1 like we were doing this time last year when we won the league.

Mousewar wrote: »

ffs...i had a bit of a mare. Sorry about the 2nd goal. Gotta shake that one off...

wouldnt worry about it, i think their striker would have put it in anyway if you werent there. 3 or 4 of us had chances to clear it, we didnt deal with the initial ball or clear the 2nd ball either and i either should have stayed on my line and left ye deal with it or got a stronger hand on the cross. eitherway, i wouldnt be getting beat up about it, i think it was just a bad team goal to concede as opposed to any one error.

FrankGrimes

They were a very good side but I feel we deserved something out of that game. Pity, but I think we're becoming a better team and we'll remain competitive if we keep upping our levels and once we get new players fully bedded in.

Thought our workrate was a bit sluggish for first 10mins, we let them play far too much ball out of defence - need to press up as a unit in that situation as when we push up individually it's very easy to get the ball played in triangles around you. And if you don't press as a unit, you're giving them a platform to launch attacks from.

But beyond that and a couple of cases of getting caught flat-footed when we should've been sharper, after that initial period we adapted well and were much more competitive.

Agree there was relatively few chances created though you did well for each of yours Derek, getting a glancing header like that on target is tricky so that's all that can be asked. I think we need to try get the ball into feet for the strikers just a bit more often. I agree we're not getting penetration on the wings enough, and it may seem counter-intuitive, but part of that is because we're going wide too early - we tend to go wide to the full-backs around the halfway mark. If we can get more balls into strikers feet, when they lay it off, it means we're now in the final third of the pitch and then when we go wide then, we're putting wingers into space to run onto balls that are in front of them. Very often, our wingers receive the ball straight up the line from full-back, that means they've back to goal and a man at their back. Not a bad thing as we can be patient and build attacks from the possession, but if we can bring the ball forward centrally a bit more (no mean feat given it's a congested area), it does have the advantage of when it comes off it can put wingers into more threatening positions when it goes wide. By no means can we or should we try do this 100% of the time, just mix things up a bit is all I'm saying. And this is not saying we go long to strikers, I'd challenge centre midfielders and wingers to get the head up more and to play those little 15-20yard balls in between opposition to strikers' feet - yeh they won't all come off, but we've got forwards who win a high % of ball, and when it comes off it leads to more incisive moves than shunting it sideways.

I know Des hates any rugby analogies, but it's the equivalent of shunting the ball sideways along the gain line in rugby - you keep possession and may break through with the straight running, but when you mix it up and break the gain line early those moments are few and fair between but they win games. If we can get the ball to strikers' feet just a little more often, we'll have more of those gain-line-breaking moments. I'll get my coat and head to the rugby forum now so?

We actually got the ball to the left a bit more frequently than we have done recently tonight - for anyone who's watched us from the sidelines at any point, it's unmistakeable that we're biased towards going right (regardless of who is playing on the left, same pattern emerges, e.g. Kings didn't get enough ball last season either). So, good to see people being conscious of it and trying to balance the play a little, and we do very well down the right in fairness so no harm with that, again the point here is just about ensuring we mix things up a bit more so our pattern of play doesn't become predictable to defend against.

kmcattack

Hey lads, Kieran here.

Pretty frustrating game tonight, they were a well organised side but we gave away some bad goals and could have been a lot worse had they taken more of their chances. Didn't have a great game myself and was turned way too easily by their strikers a couple of times, felt very sluggish tonight for some reason.

Having said that, I actually felt that they were the best side we have come up against so far. They were a lot more unpredictable up front in that they were able to vary it between winning balls in the air or laying it off to feet quickly or turning and running at us. Previous attackers we faced so far were much more one dimensional and predictable.

It was definitely noticeable that we were being caught out on the counter a lot more often than previous games from misplaced or intercepted passes. Not sure if this was just as a result of the opposition being much more compact and better organised or poor quality from ourselves, possibly a combination of both, but there were a few times when they had men over and should have scored had they used it better.

Definitely some positives to take out of it that we didn't put the heads down and got it back to 2-2 after a poor start. We also can defend much better than we did tonight if we are sharper and cut out the mistakes so once we get that sorted I think we should be ok

Mousewar

kmcattack wrote: »

Didn't have a great game myself and was turned way too easily by their strikers a couple of times, felt very sluggish tonight for some reason.

Not sure I can think of you putting a foot wrong since you joined the team. A great summer signing from the gaffer !

FrankGrimes

kmcattack wrote: »

Hey lads, Kieran here.

Pretty frustrating game tonight, they were a well organised side but we gave away some bad goals and could have been a lot worse had they taken more of their chances. Didn't have a great game myself and was turned way too easily by their strikers a couple of times, felt very sluggish tonight for some reason.

Having said that, I actually felt that they were the best side we have come up against so far. They were a lot more unpredictable up front in that they were able to vary it between winning balls in the air or laying it off to feet quickly or turning and running at us. Previous attackers we faced so far were much more one dimensional and predictable.

Was just saying to the lads afterwards that you've been very solid and really settled into the team upon joining. We can all look at things we need to improve and for me that personal accountability is a really positive trait as we can all only control the things that we personally could do differently so it's way more productive than pointing out what others should be doing as regardless of how right or wrong you might be, you can't control that. But at the same time, important to give yourself a bit of credit, you've been playing very well. Only thing I'd suggest is the more you settle into the team, the more vocal you need to become in organising the defence, telling people what you're seeing, when to press up, when to sit etc.

helimachoptor

yeah i'd echo pretty much what Jules has said.


I think another thing to call out is the spirit and togetherness displayed during the game especially @ 2 down.
Last season i think we'd all agree the likelihood of an implosion would have been high but we stuck with it and battled back, proper team spirit

mrDerek

I don't like all of this talk of last season this and last season that.. Sure last season we had our moments were we had a go at each other or dropped our heads but the way the talk has been it makes us look like we are a bunch of headcases that melted down at every opportunity whereas in actuality we were a team that could have won the league had we not conceded that last min penalty against cork that took the wind out of our sails.

yes there

One thing I have noticed is I think our team is very quiet, too quiet compared to other teams, especially when we are under pressure.

Only two other game weaknesses I see from last two games is getting caught out with the ball over the top and from kickouts the opponent gets a lot of free headers.


I have a problem with names as well. I know a fair few but during the game I get the names wrong. Anymore im just going to shout boards or something because its causing people on the ball not seeing me.

helimachoptor

Yeah we are way too quiet, appreciate we have a few new guys but everyone else should be more than able to communicate.

We say it a lot but probably dont do it enough, when we dont have the ball we need to be more compact i do feel we can get a little too stretched out across the back line

Again on both ours and opposition kick outs, we know where they are going, we need to putting players into the mixer to try and win those headers firstly and then win breaking ball

Lovely Bloke

yes there wrote: »

Anymore im just going to shout boards or something because its causing people on the ball not seeing me.

this is Ally right?

It's not that people don't see you, it's just that we never pass to the left.

dfx-

I thought it was a tight game, both teams with control and periods of dominance.

I think they handled losing a man much better than boards did having an extra man. Everything became more panicked and hurried when what got the equaliser and back in the game was solid, steady progress

helimachoptor

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

this is Ally right?

It's not that people don't see you, it's just that we never pass to the left.

Calvin