February is upon us! A short month, but hopefully we can follow-up our good form from last time around!
The board are still chuffed with how we’re doing, enhanced last month with out last gasp win over Bath City, remember they were 3rd in the league at the time! The board confidence says our Dressing Room Atmosphere is really good, and the Squad Dynamics report agrees, albeit on the decline this month which I don’t fully understand as we’ve had no issues to cause it.
BOGNOR REGIS (22ND) VS TRURO CITY (7TH) – VANARAMA NATIONAL SOUTH
Just the one change for this one, Lewis Guy comes in for Jake Watkins up-front. Noah Keats is on the bench, if needed he will come on up-front to play as a Deep-Lying Forward, he wanted a chance and maybe he’ll get one. Billy Palfrey got us off to a flying start after just 2 minutes, connecting with a cross from the other flank to score. He was immense all game, everything good came through him on that right hand side. It was a very dull game, we created a lot more chances with less of the ball, but Tyler Harvey up-front was very poor, so he was hooked at half-time to give Noah Keats the chance he had been craving. Usually I would tell you that Noah Keats had done nothing, but he did do something, he missed a late penalty. It helped contribute to a 5.8 match rating, comfortably the worst of the game. He begged for a chance, he said all the right things, trained hard to learn a new role, and completely blew his chance. I feel bad for him, but I saw nothing to suggest that it’s an experiment worth sticking with.
Noah Keats has just shown that playing a player in a role he’s just learned can be a horrible decision, and it really has made me hesitant to try anything like it again, however, Ed Palmer had already been told to learn a role to get in the team, and he will be given his chance, especially as his transition was not as drastic, he just learnt to play as a ball winner slightly further up the pitch, as a CM rather than a DM.
I’ve also had Aaron Lamont come to me complaining about a lack of game time, but quite honestly I have no answer for him, and I certainly won’t be trying any drastic retraining, I just can’t see a role he could do in this team. I’ve told him I’ll try to get him out on loan, if he was non-contract I would just let him go. I think his contract is up at the end of the season anyway.
TRURO CITY (7TH) VS WEALDSTONE (10TH) – VANARAMA NATIONAL SOUTH
Chris Todd, Ed Palmer and Jake Watkins come into the team for this one, at the expense of Jamie Richards, River Allen and Tyler Harvey. Ed Palmer gets his chance to play as the ball winner, Allen hasn’t done anything wrong, but if Palmer can play well then it gives me a bit of depth and competition for him. The game started very evenly but was also very scrappy, few chances and very few highlights. 0-0 at half-time, and I was not happy, we were playing awfully. That didn’t change in the second half, but it did for Wealdstone, they pulled away from us in the second half and went ahead through a 68th minute penalty from Elliot Benyon. The game was put beyond doubt in the 95th minute with Tyrique Hyde scoring to make it 2-0, and a game completely void of any positives for us. We move on.
One of the things I really didn’t like in the last game was how disconnected our strikers were from the rest of our team, and how we struggled to get them any support. I’ve had a little tinker, and we’ll try this for a while, to see if it helps that.
I’m no tactical genius by any means, and this could be a complete bust, but for now I’m happy with it. The main change is the roles of Cooke and Harding, from Mezzala and CM-S to two CM-A roles. I never got too much from the Mezzala role, maybe it’s too complex for National South players to really do effectively, so we’re making the roles more basic to try to get more from Cooke and Harding, two very good players at this level. The only real change to instructions is the removal of the Exploit the Middle instruction, I had it set up to focus our play through the centre where we have two banks of 3 and a pair up-front, but I want to see us spread the play out wide, we get a lot of joy from our wing-backs, especially Palfrey on the right, so I don’t want to limit us to just one path down the middle of the pitch.
TRURO CITY (8TH) VS OXFORD CITY (21ST) – VANARAMA NATIONAL SOUTH
We come into this game with our new system, the only change in personnel from last time is Andrew Neal in for Lewis Guy up-front. We were trash here. For the second game in a row, we were absolutely toothless. Only one shot on target in the whole game, and our changes just did nothing to help fix the issues I had with how we play. A Keiran Sanders double, one in the first-half and a late penalty, saw us crash to another really disappointing defeat here.
Ten games without a goal, Lewis Guy is one of my most experienced players, and certainly in the striker department. At this level he should be doing better.
DARTFORD (16TH) VS TRURO CITY (8TH) – VANARAMA NATIONAL SOUTH
Another really disappointing game, the scoreline makes it look far closer than it was. We went behind early through an Alfie Pavey goal, but turned it around to lead 2-1 after 70 minutes, Jake Watkins and Andrew Neal scoring with our only 2 shots on target in the entire game. Dartford had far more of the game and their dominance told when they scored twice late on to complete the turnaround through Ryan Hayes and Andy Pugh. I’m pleased with how clinical we were with our chances, but very annoyed with how little we created. Three defeats in a row now, simply not good enough.
After the Dartford game I was recommended having a team meeting to try to boost morale. I toyed with getting aggressive to try to fire the team up but didn’t want to risk upsetting them, and besides, despite our poor form currently we’re massively ahead of our expectations. I went with a calm approach, reassured the boys that we were doing fine and could turn it around and they all seemed happy, so hopefully it can be the catalyst for some wins.
Oh hello. I always love a youth intake, developing players is my favourite aspect of the game. I’ve never had a golden generation though, and even if this initial optimism turns out to be misplaced, it’s still a nice message to see. Expect more on this bunch soon….
So that’s it for February, a really poor month, but a good team meeting and an interesting youth intake give me positives to take into March. Thanks for Reading.
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