WHO CARES ????

Subs

• P.Barber for Halloran
• Halloran for Askey

As usual I have waited 24 hours to write this so that it gives a fair reflection of the performance and not a gut reaction if I had written it yesterday.  Unfortunately, the results are not any different as I am still finding very few positives to come out of the game.

From the 1st whistle you would have thought that we were playing Ulverley again.  It was one-way traffic and we never looked like clearing the danger or having a spell of pressure in the Hanbury half.  Don’t get me wrong, Hanbury are a top side and they beat 2nd placed Knowle Robins 4-1 just last week.  We could all see that they had 1 or 2 very good players who stood out during the game.  There is nothing you can do about that other than give your all.  What disappoints me is I don’t think 8 or 9 of the 12 we had did.

Basics and Common Sense

• On a muddy day do not try and pass the ball around in your own area.  Mark and CJ were both very guilty of this at times.
• Do not play the ball across your own box.  Matt Barber did this twice in the 1st half alone.
• If you are a playing in midfield, mark midfielders of the opposing team. Do not come back into defence and mark forwards that are already being dealt with.  Do your own job and not the defences.
• On goal kicks if you have already seen that Mark isn’t getting it as far as usual, come closer to the ball.  Don’t go and stand somewhere that you know the ball will mot land.
• If you are a forward you should always be within reaching distance of a long pass.  It is pointless standard 50 yards away from the ball if nobody on our team can kick it that far.
• When defending free kicks or a corner, you have all been given “a guide” of where you should be.  So if there are 3 or 4 Hanbury players standing somewhere else unmarked, go and mark them.  You cannot say, “Steve told me to stand here”.  You are not robots.  If you see a player unmarked go and mark him.
• Communicate – on so many occasions I will see a player with 2 or 3 men to mark.  Tell somebody to help you.  Dean and CJ were out numbered on several occasions.  SHOUT, SCREAM…remember, if you are marking 2 players, that means somebody else on our team isn’t marking anybody.

That is just the tip of the iceberg.  I hope that you have read and understood that.  And if you haven’t understood it, come and ask.

Now I am moving onto the most frustrating thing of all.

Concentration and More Common Sense

If you are given a job to do.  Whether it be a corner, goal kick or when you are going on as a sub to play a position. You are expected to do that job until you are told otherwise.  Not, just for the first 5 minutes and then to carry on and do your own thing. 

Examples. 

• Mike Halloran and Dylan both standing on the opposite wing to the one they were playing on. 

• Graham, continually standing too far away from the play so we cannot even reach him with a pass. 

• The midfield standing too far away on goal kicks when it is clear that they are not going that far. 

• Everybody standing at the back post on corners when the first to or 3 of the game have gone to the near post.

To the goals.  I remember the 1st goal was as a result of over playing in defence.  The 2nd was extremely poor marking at the back post on a free kick. I think Dean and Matt were marking 5 men between the 2 of them. The 4th was CJ being caught out of position and I cant really remember the 3rd.

The good thing is that we are not being torn apart and that the goals we are conceding are a result of errors.  The bad thing is that we are making far too many mistakes and they need to be erased right now.

We are playing like the season is almost over when we actually have 9 games to go.  I know we are in a tough division but we have already shown we can compete and beat the top teams.  5 of our remaining games are against the top 6 so we need to raise our game or I could be writing a lot more reports like this 1.  Next week is Halesowen and trust me when I say they are a very good side.  Better than Hanbury.

I am not demanding or even asking you to win these games.  But I am demanding performances, commitment and effort.

I am going to finish this report with the few positives to come out of the past few weeks.  Ryan’s performance saved real embarrassment yesterday.  Scott once again ran himself into the ground, even in the 60th minute when most had given up after 10.

The last 15 minutes of the game seemed to wake us up a little.  We had all 3 of our chances and played some decent stuff.  CJ and Henry had started to win tackles and the midfield were starting to play in the right areas of the pitch.

So that’s it…. 2 paragraphs of positives after 2 pages of negatives. 

Think about what I said at the full time whistle.  Do you really want to play football?  IF so, do you really want to play in a team who demands effort and concentration for 2 hours a week?  If that is too much to ask then we will go our separate ways with no hard feelings.  But if you want to be a part of it then it starts at 7pm tomorrow and from Sunday we move forward.

It’s over to you.

Steve