Christmas day, not a bad day is it? Nice dinner, family, presents etc. all comforting stuff but come the evening as the day winds down and having eaten to modest excess, my thoughts turn to the count-down to the boxing day KO.
Expectations, expectations, but as it happens, the slight indigestion of Xmas excess seemed to take hold of a good number of our players against an incredibly ordinary “going nowhere, look at my silly shirt” Colchester side. In the first half we passed the ball to death across the back line as we looked for players making themselves available in midfield: sadly that simply was just not happening. With the ball loose on either the ground or up in the air, our midfield has to be congratulated for their consistency in almost always avoiding that loose ball. Sadly that pattern of passing around the back, lack of urgency and midfield absence continued throughout a completely forgettable first half; surely the second half would improve with some wise words from our management team. Oh, hang on, let’s leave Paul Hart out of that as I am still bewildered by his hallucinatory-delusional post match Exeter press talk; doubt I will ever recover from listening to that one. We did start the second half with a touch more urgency; well at least for the first ten minutes but that was really not sustained and we again returned to the large “LTFC deserted spaces” of mid-field as we gave up whatever formation we choose to label our approach; diamond or whatever in favour of Mary Celesteism. After twenty minutes of the second half, I turned to my mate and said that I would genuinely settle for a point as we were just not getting anywhere. However, both Mullins and Hylton had chances to shame my lack of belief but true for the day, wasted good opportunities. In fact at one point it seemed that a touch of Boxing Day Pantomime had entered play when a Colchester’s Garvan in a glorious position just a few yards out from our goal line swung his foot at the ball and gloriously kicked the air as he completely failed to make any form of contact! We should have been a goal behind then! Moving onto the Colchester winner; a half-cleared ball came out from a Colchester corner to the edge of our area and the unchallenged Slater blasted the ball into the bottom corner of Walton’s net: note the word “unchallenged”. So really that was it, game over, no points and another stutter from the misfiring midfield engine room. The point I would have settled for would have probably been a fairer result but really, any side seriously looking to capture an automatic promotion place simply has to do better than against such mundane opposition as Colchester. Overall Impression: On the day we were beaten by an incredibly average second division side whose brightest display came from their silly yellow fluorescent kit. Sadly with acres of unchallenged space in midfield, at least deserted by Hatters players, where we lost about 80% of the loose/second ball, a victory under such circumstances was always going to be a tall order and in the end, we fall further behind the leading three in league 2. The Sunday rant of a Tuesday: I find it difficult to understand how a performance such as our last league game, away to Blackpool, where the midfield were totally on their game, can be followed by such a dismal midfield showing where the midfield were either showing massive gaps i.e. totally absent from that crucial area of the pitch. When they were not absent, simply static, not in the slightest attempting to make space to give the man in possession options to make an effective pass. Frustratingly, I have written so many times this season about our “gone missing midfield”, it’s not a new phenomenon so what have our management team been doing about it? What makes it more baffling is that in my opinion a goal scoring midfielder such as McGeehan and the skills of Gilliead would surely be automatic choices for any good L2 side and certainly most L1 sides. Frustratingly we have some real talent and quality available in midfield, players really capable of hurting the opposition: the same could be said about Pelly but for some reason, his development seems to have gone into winter hibernation: which Pelly will turn up, the one wearing footy boots or the sleepy one wearing flip flops? For a promotion chasing team we need to average over 2pts a game at home and over 1.5 pts away to seriously challenge for a top three place, we are just nowhere near that at home: we have 1.45 points per game average at home and a decent 1.72 away; four wins from 11 home games is just not really “escape the basement” form. We are ponderous, predictable at home yet a healthy promotion prospect away from home. Looking at the top three sides two of them have managed a fortress mentality at home averaging just short of 2.5pts per game yet both marginally behind our excellent away form. The weakest home form in the top three is Plymouth with just slightly under 2 points per game at home yet totally magnificent away form. Some Impression of the team units rather than simply on individual players: With those figures from the above rant in mind, let’s take a break from assessing individual performances in the usual way and look at the three units of the team; defence, midfield and our strikers. Defenders: with Cuthbert playing so confidently when the team contains a commanding keeper, Walton, yesterday's other defenders O’Donnell, Rea & Justin are to my mind at least adequate enough to be part of a top three side. I don’t feel the defence were really massively troubled yesterday apart from the pantomime swinging leg attempt at goal by a Colchester’s Garvan. Midfield: just where do they go? What are the tactics worked on so hard on the training ground? As I said earlier, surely goal scoring McGeehan and the talented Gilliead could walk into any of the top teams in this league. The others apart from an “awake Pelly” are fairly average and in truth, far too similar. Where is the alert and challenging Nicholls or Horton type? Moving onto the Strikers, again, as with the defence, the strikers used yesterday were surely adequate for a top three L2 side provided they are offered decent service from the midfield. Oh well, onto the home game against Barnet and hopefully we can pick up points to aid our play-off place chances.
1 Comment
South Herts hatter
12/27/2016 03:08:44 am
No comment on NJ's performance to date? A breath of fresh air when he arrive with the team playing with some urgency. Now? Tactics which have been shown not to work at home. Players seemingly baffled by what they are asked to do. Tactics not applicable to this league where you need to scrap to win, not play silky football. Substitutions fa too late to do anything. Pelly on with ten minutes to go. Everyone(!) knows he needs more than that to warm up and get a feel of the game.
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Hi there, welcome to my site where I chronicle various things about the Hatters, a team I have followed since the mid 60’sArchives
December 2017
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