Match Thread 5th Feb vs. Trinity 21:30 St. Columbas

homerjay2005

LeixlipRed wrote: »

While I agree the getting stuck in thing has been lacking lads, it's not as simple as that. Some players on the pitch either have no clue whatsoever what they're meant to be doing (relate this to lack of communication) or cannot play in the position they're being asked to. Getting stuck in only gets you so far. We had the ball plenty of times tonight yet did nothing with it.

What's lacking imo in a post match discussion of what the **** went wrong or right in a game. The lads who discuss things on here are generally agreeing with each other about whats going wrong. There's no actuall progress being made. It's frustrating tbh.

we made massive progress up to 2 weeks ago when we had won 5 out of 5, scoring goals for fun and keeping 3 clean sheets in a row. what has changed? our game is lacking bite. simple as that. this is astro lads ffs, its very easy to win games, we have alot of good players, bu if you prance around on the pitch, then teams will beat us. fred west ham are a better team than us, yet we hammered them off the park, why so, cos we said before the game that we were going to get stuck in and beat them. the passing and goals came with that.

martin, sitting here talking about it on a forum is not the place to do it, its on the field between the white lines. we talk about it too much already besides just getting in with the game. kick somebody next week (opposition preferibly), you will feel alot better.

kaizersoze1980

homerjay2005 wrote: »

kick somebody next week (opposition preferibly), you will feel alot better.

I wholeheartedly agree with Ed's statement

LoBo

so what was the scoreline lads?

Savman

Lost 1-0. Credit to our opposition, deserved the win.

homerjay2005

LoBo wrote: »

so what was the scoreline lads?

Lost 1-0 with the goal coming with about 7 or 8 minutes left.

homerjay2005

lads, i just want to add a few things.First off, all this negativity about defending. true our defence was all over the place at times for the last 2 games, but, where is the first place that suffers when we are missing players? defence. we seemed to have a settled 6-8 players for the 6 attacking positions, but our back 4 is always changing, i dont think we have had the same back 4 for 2 games this year. simon, darran, cathal, martin, dan have all played at right full, lepo, mikie, martin, darran, geoff have all played at left full. we need to have a consistent back 4 in our team. i know players are missing, but i think the back 4 is the most important part of the team, but its the one that gets messed around the most. generally, when our back 4 plays well, we win, its simple really. and what i ahve found, is that alot of our goals, have come from individual mistakes. i would say 10 of the 20 goals have been individual errors, this can be cut out with consistency and building an understading.

there was a few comments passed both at the game and on here about our defence. we are the 4th best defensive team in the league, which ties in with our league position. in fact, fred west have only 3 goals less and ss 4. we have the second highest amount of clean sheets.

we have forgot the fact that we have not scored in the last 2 games. if you told me before both games that we would only conceded one in each,then i would have expected to win each by 3 or 4-1 so we should be beating these teams by that scoreline.


remember lads,we are the only team to beat fred west ham and they are perhaps going to win the league. we played them off the park that night, what has happend in the last 3 weeks? we need to stop looking for excuses blaming this and blaming that and moaning and fighting with the opposition. lets go out next week, get stuck into ss rovers and do what we did to fred west ham. i hope to be playing the next night and i guarantee ye, ill be heard on that pitch cos we are away to quite all over it:p

last thing, i have said this time and time again, we are giving away silly frees and getting involved in petty arguments. i can think of 3 incidents the last night where 3 of us got involved and we ended up looking like clowns. if we are going to give away frees, make them earn them, leave nothing for us to complain about, leave the opposition get wound up, not us. our motto should be, take the ball and the man!

thats all we are missing lately, is a bit of drive, some of us are getting knocked off the ball too easily.

Savman

Fair points Ed but unless lads are willing to listen and/or chime in the you're just blowing hot air and wasting your time. FWIW, I agree with this:

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Getting stuck in only gets you so far.

Look at all the match threads, it's the same 4 or 5 people doing the ranting all the time, I dunno what happens to the other 15 or so in between games but suffice to say it's not gonna sort itself out.

I'm off on hols so missing next 2 games and only 1 game left after that (Dunbar), here's hoping there's a better attitude nxt week.

homerjay2005

no, as far as we are concerned, getting stuck in make the world of the difference. face it, we are better than everybody below us, we clearly are, yet, we have dropped 8 points in 3 games. why? cos the attitue and drive is not there. we have bags of skill and some excellent players, but when teams with lesser ability play us, we cant handle it, cos they work harder than us. im convinced, that our best 11 is as good as the 3 teams above us, when we are all playing to our ability.

we are not playing to our abilit the last 3 weeks, cos we are expecting others to make it happen for us.

LeixlipRed

I think most of our problems the last 3 weeks have stemmed from the back 4. Too many individual errors. Full backs not attacking at all. No communication, etc. Depending on who's playing at the back, it can certainly be considered the weakest area of the team. There's a number of reasons for that. The main one being what Ed talked about, a lack of a understanding because of the amount of different players playing in there. Granted, injury has really dictated who can play there most weeks so it's not particularly anyone's fault. But for next season we should be looking to get in some players so that when we do have injuries back there, there's more depth and understanding

_blank_

It's very hard to pick a settled back four, when there are injuries and players not being there, for whatever reason.

If I can't pick a settled team, there's nothing can be done.

I don't have a gun, or healing hands. I can't force people to arrive, or make them not injured.

I don't know how many times I asked on Tuesday for

1. At least names to be called at the back. Once or twice was all I heard. If I can't hear it on the sideline, it didn't happen. Whispered names mean nothing.

2. The defence to push up. Kept on falling back, every time. We lost the midfield because of it.

homerjay2005

DesF wrote: »

I don't have a gun, or healing hands..

hmm, maybe theres an idea, anything left in the kitty??:D

look, we aint become a bad team over the space of 3 weeks. we have the chance to prove this next week against a team that can win the league. lets just go out and beat them and do our talking where it matters, on the pitch.

LeixlipRed

I dunno how many times I called for the defence to push up in the first half. I'd say atleast a dozen times. And it never happened.

LeixlipRed

homerjay2005 wrote: »

hmm, maybe theres an idea, anything left in the kitty??:D

look, we aint become a bad team over the space of 3 weeks. we have the chance to prove this next week against a team that can win the league. lets just go out and beat them and do our talking where it matters, on the pitch.

Tbh Ed, i think we've reached our level with the current players we have. The run of victories and what have you was great. But we've been brought back down to earth the last few weeks. Attacking wise we have some brilliant players. there's no doubting that. But elsewhere we need vast improvement

homerjay2005

LeixlipRed wrote: »

I dunno how many times I called for the defence to push up in the first half. I'd say atleast a dozen times. And it never happened.

martin, just lay the blame game ok???:mad: :) the game is over and done with, im only talking about the importance of have a settled defence and to b honest, i think we all see that. and that fact that we are blaming the defence, looking for excuses. remember martin, YOU are part of that defence too.

now lets move on and start getting tuned in for next week cos unless we put up a good performance, we are going backwards and will ruin our 6 games unbeaten.

LeixlipRed

homerjay2005 wrote: »

remember martin, YOU are part of that defence too.

Cheers for pointing that out to me Ed. I'd only been talking about everyone else. Clearly I'm above criticism myself

Savman

homerjay2005 wrote: »

look, we aint become a bad team over the space of 3 weeks. we have the chance to prove this next week against a team that can win the league.

Prove what exactly? That we're probably the most inconsistent team in the division? Who really cares if we trash them 10-0? We've lost against Trinity, Coffin Dodgers and IFG amongst others. It's a classic case of when we're losing we underrate ourselves due to lack of self belief and when we're winning we overrate ourselves due to inflated egos. That's why we are where we are.

homerjay2005 wrote:

do our talking where it matters, on the pitch.

I wish it was that simple but unless you have 11 people on the same page then you're pretty much in a self-defeating circle. Yes, I believe we beat ourselves most of the time. I definitely think we have found our level with this side and its no use the defence blaming the strikers who are blaming the midfield who are blaming the manager. A bit of fecking responsibility wouldn't go astray.

The simple fact is that like I said to someone after the game, some of our better players didn't show up, I have absolutely no idea why that is but compared to recent games some of us were totally anonymous figures. I don't think singling out individuals for criticism will help anything.

I'll say one thing, that Trinity side were very physical, I got fouled and pushed more times in that game than any other this season, but I'm a big boy and can take the rough with the smooth. So "getting stuck in" is simply about standing your own ground. I also noticed it was a dirtier affair than we've been used to, hence the petty squabbles and sending off etc. Some players love the handbags, others don't like the physical side of the game, IMHO we were a bad mix of the two. If a player starts kicking me or starts with the cynical off the ball **** you can be sure he'll be getting an extra hard kick in the nads next time a 50/50 comes around. Some of our own players shy away from the confrontation and, in no uncertain terms, wuss out. You actually increase the risk of injuring yourself by going half hearted into challenges. They simply shoved us off the ball and controlled the game with a few decent passages of play.

So getting stuck in is only the start of it, that's to stop you getting psyched out of the game, once you have the ball you still have to have a clue what you're at. 50 yard cross field Beckham pass are a total waste of time unless you're one of the rare players who can pick a pass from miles away.

Total crap the last few games, how anyone can rationalise we're any better than our position suggests really needs some reality pills. We've lost 6 from 15.

emc2

lads, I agree with most of the stuff said above. We didn't play up to the level that we are capable of. As bad as it sounds the league table never lies and the fact that we are currently in 4th is probably about right. The way it stands we can still finish as low as 6th I think that this would be a poor reflection on our season but we need to work together to make sure this doesn't happen.

LeixlipRed

Who was sent of Sav? Des took me off if that's what you're talking about

Savman

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Who was sent of Sav? Des took me off if that's what you're talking about

No yer man off Trinity got sin binned just before half time IIRC
Nearly sure he did anyway, twas around the time of those handbags and gladrags

bugs90

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Who was sent of Sav? Des took me off if that's what you're talking about

The guy you were fronting up to went for someone else straight after you came off and he got a card.

Watching a lot of Tuesdays match from the side, the most obvious thing I saw was that the vast majority of the game was played in our half - whichever team had the ball. When they had it, this meant they had players quite far up the field to help support the attack and when we had it we managed about 3 passes before trying for the strikers from around the half way line (this has been the same in the last few games). This meant it would have needed something pretty special from Sav or Jules to grab a goal.

I know we think we're great when we win a few but it does build confidence and when the confidence is there everyone plays better and is supportive of attacks, more likely to push up & a bit stronger going into challanges!


We all know the problems: communication, inconsistant lineups, confidence(?), communication etc...

Draupnir

Sack the manager!

_blank_

Draupnir wrote: »

Sack the manager!

oh my god.

You're alive.

what the hell happened to you?

Draupnir

It all started with a sailing incident in Galway which f*cked up my old knee injury. Then by the time that got better again the summer season was over, Boardeaux were winning winter games and I had gotten all lazy(er) and fat(ter).

Seems like this season has been going great until a recent dip in form, hard not to notice that the dip coincides with a trend of low numbers though so its not all doom and gloom.

Any squad places available for the Summer season?

homerjay2005

we need a center half or 2 keith, i have been out for the last 4 weeks, could have done with ya, though thinking bout it, ur a lazy ****e!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D:D:D

Des, is there room for him?

FrankGrimes

Have been away since the match, interested to see some discussion, though agree we need input from more players. I feel players that feel a little insecure about their status in the squad are reluctant to speak up - we need to ensure everyone knows their opinion is valued. Before the next match I plan on asking every player to give their view on where we're at and how we should improve.

I type very fast so the below is another epic, but the bits in bold are the main points I wanted to make, particularly the last paragraph.

Just like we shouldn't overreact in victory, we shouldn't overreact in defeat. I simply don't believe we won those 6 games in a row by playing above ourselves - I reckon we're good for at least where we're at now cos inconsistency is our problem - for me you've found your level when you're consistently performing at that level.

No need for being defensive here lads - nobody should be making personal attacks (and haven't been), so when you read a comment on here assume it was meant in the most constructive way possible.

We do defo need to get a consistent defence line up for a few games, but as has been pointed out, the manager's hands are tied on that cos it really has been the area most affected by injuries, holidays, and no shows.

Here's how I see it: every football squad has a set amount of talent and potential. You maximise that potential by taking the best possible mental approach to the game. That falls under 2 categories:

1. Mental approach while the ball is in play: this is the getting stuck in Ed talks about. Getting stuck in is actually a mental thing, not a physical thing - we need players to decide in their head before each challenge that losing is not an option. Take that approach and you naturally go in physically stronger.

2. Setup while the ball is out of play: this is a key indicator of mentality. Are you focusing on defence and not getting caught out, or are you trying to catch out the opposition? To maximise the potential of this particular squad, we need to have a more attacking mentality. Fullbacks should be looking to overlap, centre-halves pushing them on (as happens naturally when Ed is playing). I played left full for 10 years and a manager told me to regard myself as our first attacker - that's what we need.

This second point is massively important - while waiting for their throw-in, we should be pushing up to squeeze the middle as much as possible. We didn't do it this week and it meant our midfielders were where our defence should've been, and our strikers had to come deep. Take the bold step and push up = our midfield will win more 2nd balls and will be closer to the strikers to set them up when they do get it. I started asking at the start of last season 'how many goals have we lost to offside hatchers or us having pushed up too far?' - since then I count about 3 goals, so pushing up is clearly profitable - forget what could go wrong and focus on what will go right.

I totally agree with Ed - our defensive unit has actually been very solid, and many goals were due to individual error, only mentioning that to highlight the confidence we should have in the system cos it has been working. So, our defence has been defending well, but when we have been at our best, the root cause has been the way our defence took responsibility to be our first form of attack and pushed up to press the opposition back so we play the game in their half which gives our excellent attacking unit more ball in the right part of the pitch.

_blank_

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Des, is there room for him?

Draupnir wrote: »

I had gotten ... fat(ter).

Doubt it

Savman

FrankGrimes wrote: »

1. Mental approach while the ball is in play: this is the getting stuck in Ed talks about. Getting stuck in is actually a mental thing, not a physical thing - we need players to decide in their head before each challenge that losing is not an option. Take that approach and you naturally go in physically stronger.

Yep, definitely a psychological thing. It's more about asserting yourself in general to the game itself rather than kicking lumps out of someone. Although that helps sometimes.:D

2. Setup while the ball is out of play:

This is where the game is won and lost IMO, when the ball is out of play you should be constantly looking around you and taking mental pictures of where everything is. So when the 50/50 ball drops for you, you'll already know where it's going. That's why you see the top players instinctively on the same wavelength, they do their thinking before the ball comes to them so by the time they receive it all they have to do is execute the pass. The really good players are always 2 steps ahead.

I think it's clear that when the ball is out of play we are switching off, I've personally been seeing fellas turning their backs on the ball and walking away with head down or whatever. An absolute no-no in this game is to turn your back on play, this is just a bad habit that some guys need to shake. Good teams do all their damage while your back is turned.

bugs90 wrote:

Watching a lot of Tuesdays match from the side, the most obvious thing I saw was that the vast majority of the game was played in our half - whichever team had the ball.

Agreed, we couldn't get out of our own half without resorting to long balls or 'hit n hope' but that was down to us playing so deep. I think that has been noted by Ed, Jules et al. and I'd expect it to be addressed next week.

LeixlipRed wrote:

I dunno how many times I called for the defence to push up in the first half. I'd say atleast a dozen times. And it never happened.

Well you need to single players out and make sure you get their attention. If a player ignores you or doesn't listen or whatever then you have every right to bring it up because that attitude won't wash. We can't afford to be carrying anyone who doesn't want to dig their heels in when the going gets tough and we're not winning by three or four clear goals. Some games, like Tuesday, are gonna be tight scrappy affairs that will be settled by a single goal, if you show enough adventure and attitude then you get your just reward eventually. If you lack any desire off the ball or composure on it, you get nothing.

Savman

Ok I'll go into exact detail in case some of the lurkers are thinking this tactical talk is too pie-in the-sky. I'm talking specifically about the game on Tuesday. For starters, meself and Jules got sweet FA up front. He gave me a great ball in the 2nd min that I had to take with me left foot and keeper saved, but my #1 rule when shooting with bad foot is to get it on target rather than try do something fancy and look like a tit. Then we went out of the game for a long long spell, Trinity just passed it around and, like last time, nobody stepped forward from Midfield to pick up that Number 6 guy who liked sitting deep and pulling the strings for them. I shouted this til I was blue in the face but it ended up Jules dropping deep to mark him, leaving me up there with some rough handling from 3-4 defenders. This all happened because our 2 CM's got sucked back, when quite honestly Dan would've kept that #6 quiet if he didn't have to do somebody else's job.

There was another incident first half from a long ball IIRC, I managed to knock the ball around the keeper and shot wide - again, in that split second you have a 50/50 decision "cross or shoot". There's no keeper so you would always tend to go for goal but just couldnt get my foot around it enough. Dunno if a cross would've been any better tbh. After that a mini scuffle broke out, I think yer man off Trinity was lunging in all over the place and needed to be put in his place but I don't like seeing our players get involved in that malarkey. You don't need to raise your arms or start shoving people around and squaring up to anyone, just give him some of the same treatment, I guarantee he won't like it.

We had a good spell mid-2nd half when we pushed up as a unit, one good passage of play I remember was I layed it off to Jules, he put Art thru and I was screaming for the ball across the box for a tap in, but he knocked it straight at the keeper with his right foot when the angle was all wrong, its not a criticism of Art but in reality it should've been a left footer where he was and we probably would've been one up. Same scenario as my "hitting with the bad foot dilemma" above. I am struggling to think of any other times we caused them serious trouble, which is disappointing.

They scored their goal a few mins from the end and it was a well worked move and a very good finish. In truth that was coming for a long time, I think we had accepted that we'd be happy with a draw, knowing our performance was under par.

All I remember about the game was seeing Kenny and Dan in CM but they were these tiny figures miles off in the distance, the once or twice we pushed up the field we looked threatening.

Back 4 didn't do a whole lot wrong in fairness and the lads reading this thread will feel hard done by because they've been singled out, I think they did well and won a lot of balls, the only thing missing was communication (there's that word again) with those in front of you. So for next game(s) just remember that you have one more responsibility and that's to get the man directly in front of you to push right up. Get them the hell out of your area, or face your wrath. If a CM looks to his right and sees a Centre Half, he'll think to himself "bollox I'm wayyyyy to deep better get outta here" because inside his head he'll revert back to the 4-4-2 syndrome and automatically know he should be 10-15 yards in front of you. It's a schoolboy thing.

Full backs - how many times did you cross the halfway line? If the answer is less than 10, you know what to do next week. Don't worry about marking your man for the entire game, when you go roaming upfield you force him to make a decision, follow you or let you go. Most fellas will be too lazy to chase you up the line, but even if they do you're still making them work. It's a win/win situation. Your CB should be egging you forward when the time is right.

I'll had over the conch to someone else now.

LeixlipRed

Savman wrote: »

Well you need to single players out and make sure you get their attention. If a player ignores you or doesn't listen or whatever then you have every right to bring it up because that attitude won't wash.

I singled players out numerous times. You know how I am on the pitch, constantly talking. I'm not going to single players out on here because that's unfair and bar me and Ed, none of the lads back there contribute on here. A few have you have mentioned how solid the defence have been this season. I totally disagree guys. We're always a few individual errors away from conceding four or five goals to me. We've been very lucky in a lot of games to not concede more goals. That's jut my opinion of course and I also play back there so some of the blame falls on me of course but I think some people have a fantastical view of how solid our defence is

homerjay2005

LeixlipRed wrote: »

I singled players out numerous times. You know how I am on the pitch, constantly talking. I'm not going to single players out on here because that's unfair and bar me and Ed, none of the lads back there contribute on here. A few have you have mentioned how solid the defence have been this season. I totally disagree guys. We're always a few individual errors away from conceding four or five goals to me. We've been very lucky in a lot of games to not concede more goals. That's jut my opinion of course and I also play back there so some of the blame falls on me of course but I think some people have a fantastical view of how solid our defence is

your way off the mark martin im sorry. moaning about our defence is just nonsense. please move on and change the record!

.This is astro, you cant sliding tackle and theres no offside. we have conceded 20 goals in 15 games, last year at this stage we had 42 conceded, as we kept 3 clean sheets in a row in the last 3 games. that is massive progress and i think the main reason why we have gone from the wipping boys of the league to up to 2 weeks ago, a team that could have finished second. your only making excuses for failings in other parts of the team. you are entitled to your opinion, but we defend as 11 players, not 4 of the field. i would say that 10 of those 20 goals have been mistakes by individuals, these are unfortunate, but everybpdy makes them and im sure you have made them too, we all have. i would rather have a player on the team that puts in a real effort and makes an mistake here and there, than somebody that swans around the field and plays safe.

likewise, we have also scored about 10 ****ty goals that can be directly attributed to the oppostion making errors. thesee things happen and our defence, when we have our bet 4 defenders playing, is the strongest line of our team, thats a fact.