Tonight's game v ICT

[lady-isobel-barnett]

47 minutes ago, exiledjag said:

Still some old failings evident. Too many long balls out of defence coming straight back at us. We need to retain possession and 'work' the ball better!  ICT were allowed too much possession in the second half and our midfield unit though not overrun has to do better.

Sorry for the selective quoting. I agree entirely that the long ball out of defence is counter productive and a dangerous way to protect a lead. We've improved on ball retention and certainly move the ball about faster and to more purpose this season. Still got room for improvement.

What I'm assuming didn't come across on TV/screen was the possession factor. Certainly when on occasion we lumped the ball forward we gave away possession needlessly. But I'm fairly sure we often deliberately ceded possession in the middle section of the pitch. Put another way we preferred to have more players behind the ball than immediately challenging for it. High balls we still challenged for but we were happy enough to let ICT have more control in the middle of the park. This ploy (if it was indeed a ploy) worked, as time and time again ICT ran out of ideas or lost control of their passing. Normally I'd be critical of ceding possession but it appeared to work well. We never looked like losing a goal from open play and our counter attacking mostly looked impressive. 

Edited August 22, 2022 by lady-isobel-barnett

[exiledjag]

5 hours ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Sorry for the selective quoting. I agree entirely that the long ball out of defence is counter productive and a dangerous way to protect a lead. We've improved on ball retention and certainly move the ball about faster and to more purpose this season. Still got room for improvement.

What I'm assuming didn't come across on TV/screen was the possession factor. Certainly when on occasion we lumped the ball forward we gave away possession needlessly. But I'm fairly sure we often deliberately ceded possession in the middle section of the pitch. Put another way we preferred to have more players behind the ball than immediately challenging for it. High balls we still challenged for but we were happy enough to let ICT have more control in the middle of the park. This ploy (if it was indeed a ploy) worked, as time and time again ICT ran out of ideas or lost control of their passing. Normally I'd be critical of ceding possession but it appeared to work well. We never looked like losing a goal from open play and our counter attacking mostly looked impressive. 

Agree with your comments.

When I saw the team formation  3-5-1 my first thoughts were we are set up to deny ICT space in the middle of the park and to attack and defend (if necessary) on both flanks. This worked a treat even to the point of Tiffoney, when needed,  doing a lot of defending to support Milne.

The pace we now have in the team allows  IMC  the option of giving ground and possession in the middle of the park  knowing that when we get the ball we can counter attack with pace. ICT got beyond our back line 3 times in the game and one of those occasions was a break of the ball.

Around the 6 minute mark I really enjoyed watching Milne give Samuels a yard of a start  overtake him and regain possession of the ball. I was surprised Samuels wasn't substituted as he got absolutely nothing out of Milne.

However against better teams the long ball out of defence may cause us problems. But as you say we are getting better at working the ball and we did play some really good stuff at times. Just need to do more of this and fewer of the long stuff excepting of course a long one for our pacey players to run onto!

Credit to IMC for recruitment, team selection and tactics. I am and remain an  advocate of Turner in central midfield and I am unsure of Mitchell over Sneddon. Otherwise happy. 

IMCs next big challenge is to achieve consistency of performance. But new players bedding in and still early in the season.