**Match Thread*** Tue 12/7 19:15 WES2 -v- FC Vaughans

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Clay - in
Conor - in
Keith - in
Gav - in
Jules - in
Ciaran - susp
Martin - inj
Gary - work
Eamon - inj
Kenny - in
Cathal - in
Eoin - inj
Collie - in
Joe - in
Dave - in
Wes - in

FrankGrimes

I'm in

Mall10357

I'm In

helimachoptor

Gonna be a tough tough game tonight. We need to be up for this from the whistle!!

LeixlipRed

Good luck lads. Gonna be more than likely out for rest of the season as I can't afford the physio I need until I get a refund on my medical insurance from last year. Win this one and who knows, maybe SMH will slip up!

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4-0 win, excellent result and performance lads.

helimachoptor

Great performance and a great energy and spirit out there today.
Well done to Wes, he put in a great shift up front aswell.

With SMH getting a draw tonight things are looking interesting on the run in.

SMH play the Monks next week so a win or a draw for the Monks ultimately means the title will be in our hands.

Mall10357

Have To Agree It Was A Great Team Performance From Back To Front.
But Great Perfromance By Wes And Jules They Both Put Themselves About Very Well And Read Each Others Game Very Well.
I Taught The Back Four Were Outstanding Fair Played To Conor At Left Full He Had An Excellent Game And I Taught Kenny Read The Game Very Well And The Talking Between Himself And Cathal Was Very Good.

Spiritofthekop

Real shame the Monks lost last night 1 - 0 to Boxmasters, wanted to keep them in the hunt for the title too.

Hopefully they will play at 100% against SMH next week.

I suppose all we can do is concentrate on winning all our reamining games at this stage & see what happens.

LeixlipRed

Super stuff lads, deserve that win as even though we lost against them last time we really were a better team. Exciting run in now!!

FrankGrimes

Yeh well played lads, excellent football. Some very good performances around the park but I always think when someone plays in a new position and does very well they deserve a call out and Conor was really top notch at left full.

We're starting to play the ball into the strikers' feet that little bit earlier, and if we manage to turn and get go-forward ball in the final third, that's when you get the opposition on the back foot. We're actually pretty clinical when we get 'in behind' the opposition, it's just that until recently we opt to play around them too much rather than look for that bit of penetration earlier.

I've been thinking about it a fair bit and think I've seen the difference in the pattern: the hardest thing in football is to get the opposition turned or in behind them - by that I mean that we've played the ball beyond at least one opposition man that should still be goalside of it: e.g. their strikers don't count but if our striker takes it in, draws a centre-half, and lays it off to an onrunning midfielder who is then goalside of his own marker, that's what I mean by 'in behind'. It means that every defender is then prone to being drawn out of position as we have go forward ball (which in itself is difficult to get) and we have them on the back foot - their next man either has to come out of position to the runner and leave space where he would otherwise be, or he just gives the runner a free run. As I said, we're clinical at pulling defences apart when we have those situations - the key is to identify when we have them and also to keep giving ourselves more chances to get into those situations.

Our predominant pattern has tended to focus on keeping possession rather than seeking penetration. Playing it early from centre-mid to fullbacks or wingers is by far our dominant preference - while that looks good and means we string passes together it is effectively playing around the opposition rather than getting in behind - i.e. our tendency to play it sideways early and build from there gives the opposition time to shift sideways which makes it very hard to then get in behind.

The recent difference has been to get it early to a centrally placed striker (or advanced centre-midfielder) just inside their half and from there it can be released to either an onrunning centre-mid or a winger - that means the winger is getting more balls to run onto in behind the opposition than the playing it around the side approach (winger receives with both opposition winger and full back in front of him and often with back to goal).

I appreciate that's a lengthy description and I'll repeat it at next week's match but as a number of the squad do read these threads I wanted to get people thinking about it as I think it's an important difference in our approach.