Old Seds IV 2 - 1 Old Whitgiftian Reserves
Saturday, 15 September 2007)
MATCH REPORT
by Nixie
With the cancellation of the 1st XI friendly, I feared that once again I would be taking another large squad of players to an away fixture... it peaked at 22 but by Saturday had reduced to 18 - still too many to be able to plan a functional and cohesive team - but at least workable. On closer inspection we only appeared to have about three 1st XI players and with players still coming back, it appears that this biggest job for me with the reserve team is going to be keeping everybody happy.
After last week's defeat against Shortland's, I had sent an email to the players on Wednesday pointing out what we needed to put right before the season started and that this game against my old team Old Sedcopians IV would be the perfect game to end our preparations with. It would be competitive but fair, against a few players we already know at a Club we get on well with.
The response to the email was exactly what I wanted and the lads in the majority turned up with plenty of time to spare, ensuring that we were able to warm up properly and have a good team-talk. I also used this opportunity to inform the team that Chris Stafford-Hill had been appointed team captain for the season... a decision that seemed to have the wholesale approval of the squad.
We continued with the 4-4-2 system from the previous week, but with a bit more in the way of instruction about how I wanted us to take the game to Seds. There were a number of changes to the starting line-up from last week, starting with the welcome sight of Tim Hillier in goal... a proper goalie!... which meant I could mothball my gloves until we are really desperate again. It was also the first chance I'd had to see Chris Frank and Simon Santos in action outside of training and they started at right and left back respectively. Joe Burns moved inside to his more natural central defensive position to partner Mike Tarlton.
Chris Stafford-Hill moved back into his preferred position in the heart of midfield and Kris Kenyon (returning from celebrating the birth of his baby girl the previous weekend) was asked to step up to the challenge of partnering him there. Jacob Denison started on the right of midfiled and Richard Sturdy dropped into his favoured position on the left and thereby correcting one of the many positional mistakes I had made last week.
The forward line saw a major change in that Robin Tegg, previously an out-and-out midfield player was now playing up front, where it was hoped his aerial ability would prove too difficult for the Seds defence to deal with, while his ball-holding would do more to slow down the manic pace of last week... and also allowing support from the midfield to catch up with play. Partnering him was Vien Phan, eager to take his fitness to another level before the season started.
| 1st HALF LINE-UP |
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HILLIER FRANK - BURNS - TARLTON - SANTOS DENISON J - STAFFORD-HILL (Capt) - KENYON - STURDY TEGG - PHAN |
We started off extremely brightly and for the first 10 minutes I thought we were really going to tonk a Seds team that just couldn't seem to get out of the starting blocks. We controlled the early play so much, that they hardly had a touch and when they did they could not build up any momentum, as we quickly closed them down and forcing them to rush their decisions and make mistakes. Chris Stafford-Hill barked out orders and lavished praise in equal measure to all players, yet voices could be heard in all departments. We played the ball backwards and forwards, made good runs off the ball when we had possession, measured our passes and worked extremely hard for each other.
The first real incident of note came in the 8th minute when Robin Tegg won the ball off a Seds defender just inside their penalty area and with his back to goal. He was about to lay the ball back to midfield, when the defender bundled him over. The referee didn't hesitate and blowing his whistle, pointed to the spot.
Up stepped Richard Sturdy, who after placing the ball then had to wait what felt a lifetime as the Seds goalkeeper performed a little bit of gamesmanship (to be fair, I would have done the same). His tactics worked as Richard had too much time to think about what he was going to do... and hit it at a nice height for their keeper to make a comfortable save.
It was the first time (as far as I know) that Robin Tegg and Vien Phan had partnered each other up front. From the start, it looked extremely promising, as the Sed's defence struggled to contain them both. Robin won a high percentage of flick-ons and we only need to get in tune with our follow-up to really capitalise on this. If I have one criticism though, it is that we over-relied on his aerial prowess and in doing so, our play became that bit too one-dimensional and after a while Seds got used to dealing with it.
Vien also started to show why he's such a nuisance to play against, making a number of those darting runs which he has made his trademark. The pick of these was just after the penalty, when a through ball from Richard Sturdy found him and he was able to run at the central defender. As he reached him, he appeared to slow up, but then deceptively accelerated past to be through on goal... only for the pace of his shot let him down.
This proved to be the turning point of the game, as a goal at this time would probably have given us the confidence to go on and score more... and even at this early stage might have left Seds with too much to do to get back into a game they'd seen so little of thus far.
... but there are a lot of "if only"s in the world. What is certain is that we steadily stopped doing a lot of the good work we'd started the game with.
As Seds found their rythmn, we started to back off more and this gave them the space to express themselves. An example of this was a Chris Frank challenge where he did well to win the header, but it came off the back of his head and started rolling towards our goal-line. There wasn't a Seds player in sight, whereas we had players free who could have cut it off and prevented it going out for a corner. We didn't and thereby gave Seds an unnecessary chance... which they nearly converted, as it bounced around the box before we finally managed to scramble it away.
On 23 minutes we came close again, when Chris Frank took a throw-in inside the oppo's half, which he sent to Robin's feet. Robin deftly turned the defender leaving him for dead as he ran at the goal-line, before cutting it back across the box to the penalty spot. Unfortunately, Richard Sturdy - who'd done well to read the pass - was unable to keep it down as his shot spooned over the crossbar.
Seds first chance came on 28 minutes, when one of their forwards was judged by the referee to have been shoved in the back while challenging for a header. The resulting free-kick was taken on the right hand edge of our penalty area and looked to be heading straight for the top left corner, before being athletically tipped away for a corner by Tim Hillier. The resulting corner was easily defended by the team.
But... it all went wrong on 32 minutes, when we allowed the ball to bounce between midfield and defence and then lost possession. The ball was threaded through to their left side of midfield to be collected by one of their forwards, who then hit a rather tame shot at goal for what would normally be a bread-and-butter save for someone of Tim's calibre. For once he misjudged his dive and the ball bobbled agonisingly over his hand. Against the run of play, Seds had scored and we were 1-0 down.
We proceeded to probe, looking for an opening, but Seds were now organised and had a lead to protect. It wasn't until the 44th minute that we had our next chance when Jacob Denison collected the ball and ran at one, two and then three defenders. The only problem was that he was running inside and as he lacked a left foot of the footballing kind, he was reluctant to shoot until eventually he was crowded out and tackled.
... and that is how the half ended.
| 2nd HALF LINE-UP |
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| HILLIER AVDIU - BURNS - HIGGINS - DENISON C MOSS - STAFFORD-HILL (Capt) - FERGUSON M - STURDY FERGUSON R - BLADES |
At half time, the team talked about where they were going wrong. Changes were made to the line-up and the team took to the field.
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The original line-up was not from my plan 'A', but had instead been forced upon me by 3 players caught up in traffic (not bad out of a total of 19) and having to field a team in order to kick off in time. The reason for saying this is that the squad has a relatively large numer of young and / or inexperienced players and I had wanted to get the blend right for both halves. The team that started the 2nd half was therefore not as balanced as it should have been and these younger and inexperienced players were now playing too close together for the senior heads to have any chance of bringing them into the game. To their credit, the players who played this half gave it their all right to the end.
This second half was also a lot more akin to tennis, with the ball now being pinged from end to end, yet without much reward for either side as each back four defended resolutely.
The first chance of the 2nd half fell to Seds on the 60th minute when we played an uphill ball out of defence only to see it immediately batted back. It then bounced in midfield, finding its way through to a Seds forward , who took it wide into a space left vacant by our right back. Turning, he cut inside and hit a shot across goal with pace. Luckily Tim kept his eye on the ball and smothered it well.
On 65 minutes we won a throw on our left hand side near the halfway line. I made a quick note to demonstrate how much the balance of the team had been upset, as we now had all but 2 players hugging this side of the field.
In the 67th minute, we suffered a bit of de-ja-vu as once again the ball was kicked diagonally across the pitch by Seds's right back, this time landing at the feet of their left midfielder. Seeing that our right back had again been dragged out of position he ran towards goal and would probably have scored had Jon Higgins not raced across in time to put him off and instead he scuffed it wide of Tim's right hand post.
Then it really went wrong... in the 70th minute and for the second week running we gave away a very unnecessary free kick, when a bad tackle (nay assault) on the edge of the box presented Seds with a free kick right in front of goal. Sed's forward shot and Tim saved... only for the rebound to run to their youngest player to blast home from 2 yards.
2 mistakes had cost us 2 goals. But as I said last week, better to get them out of the way now...
Seds now started to look a little tired, or maybe they thought they'd done enough as the last 20 minutes or so belonged to us. With that said, although our possession and chances increased, we were unable to break through their determined defence until the very end. We came quite close on 74 minutes when Chris Stafford-Hill won a lovely flick-on in their box, but our forwards were too far away from him to pounce on it.
Our consolation goal arrived in the 84th minute when Andy Blades dropped deep to collect the ball, then turned and ran at goal. He shot low and hard - and the keeper was able to palm it away - but only as far as Richard Ferguson, who unleashed a furious shot that had "goal" written all over it... that was before being deliberately hand-balled on the line by one of their defenders. Had this been a league game, I cannot see how the referee could have possibly let the player stay on, but as this was a friendy, the referee made the right decision to just have a quiet word and award the penalty.
This time, Andy Blades demanded the right to take it ... and despite their keeper once again going through his pre-penalty repetoire... Andy concentrated enough to bury it low to the keeper's right. 2-1, but with little time left to get the equaliser.
The game then closed out to a finish. Seds had put away their chances and we had failed to convert ours. On balance then, the correct result. The really good thing that came from this performance for me; is that I learned an awful lot more about the team, especially its strengths and weaknesses, than I did previously. There is still some fine-tuning to do and it is a pity we have run out of time... but the season is upon us.
So... no more excuses... roll-on the season.
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