Now here we are, after this match, with a record of 1 win in the last 11 and managerless. I’ll broach the sacking later.
Every match now is a must win to get ourselves back on track, keep the home crowds high and improve the mood of the regular fans. As Yeovil have an unexceptional record this season and are below us in the table in seemed like a good chance to achieve this. The Brentford home win was so awful that it did not really count.
The first ten minutes of this match were quiet although we did appear to be trying to play passing football from the back but the fizz just was not there. Arter then sent a great crossfield pass to Pugh who beat his man and sent over a nice cross which Thomas could only head wide. Cooper, playing in midfield, then picked up a Yeovil clearance and heeded the crowd’s urges for him to shoot and with the aid of a deflection produced a good save from Walker. The resultant corner saw Cook blast over. Yeovil were not offering much of a threat but they did hit the top of the bar when Williams got onto the end of an angled ball between our centre backs by Blizzard and lifted it over the on rushing, rather headless chicken style, Flahaven. Thomas was then put through by Arter but his attempt was too easily saved and then Cook produced a far better save when he met a corner with a firm header. Nil nil at halftime and despite not producing fluent football we were keeping Walker in the Yeovil goal busy.
Yeovil had the first chance of the second half when Flahaven got down quickly to save Williams’ effort after he had worked himself some space in our box. We continued our domination albeit in a rather disjointed fashion. On loan Zavon Hines then had his one true moment of class when he twisted past three defenders but his shot was saved by Walker. Hines is too similar to Thomas in his positioning and it will be interesting to see if he learns how to become a foil rather than a shadow. He was replaced by McDermott soon after and we reverted to 4 4 1 1 from 4 4 2 although Hines had been playing a little bit behind Wes or else he would have been wearing the same boots as per my previous comment. Pugh set up Malone who shot wide.
Gregory now came on for MacDonald which was a bit surprising as Shaun had been better than some home players but a change was needed and my option would have been Fogden for Arter. This actually followed seven minutes later. Yeovil’s D’Ath had a header cleared off the line by Cook in one of their rare forays forward. As the match drew to a close we had several chances to nick the win. Pugh’s cross was headed by Foggy back across goal to produce another fine save by Walker. He was busy again a bit later when he got down well to push a Malone freekick around the post and from the corner Thomas blazed wide. That was that and a goalless draw was the result. Statswise we had by far the better of the match but did not really do much to deserve the win.
In my opinion the sacking of Bradbury was only a matter of time. I wanted him to do well as I want the team to succeed but he had a hard act, Eddie, to follow and showed little sign of having the adaptability of his predecessor or indeed the capability to learn quickly. To quote Phil Henstridge ‘he showed all the failings of the training of coaches in this country’. This failing is down to what I perceive to be the stodginess of the tactical coaching it contains. As Howard Wilkinson, that well known purveyor of pleasing fast open attacking football, was instrumental in drawing up the manual it is not really surprising. It does not seem to give coaches the desire to experiment with formations and if 4 4 2 does not work and a variation does not achieve the desired effect then try 4 4 2 again appears to be the solution. The better managers have the ability to think above this and try different adventurous formations, Eddie being an example. You have to have the players to fit certain ones which at our level can be a problem but most teams no doubt have the ability to fit into one of the variants. My favourite is 3 4 1 2, as we played under O’Driscoll and Grant but you need special players for it.
Are other supporters as disappointed by the press conferences given by football managers in general. The number of times they state how well they thought their team played when the fans have just witnessed a hopeless display. There could be many reasons for this. It may be that they don’t want to upset the little darlings who play for them, they want to convince others that they are doing a good job (including themselves) or they just have low standards. Whichever of these, or any other reason, it is a sad indictment of the lack of honesty and realism within football at present. I much admire Ian Holloway for his present stance about the game. Before he took the Blackpool job he was out of work for a year and watched matches as a fan and realised just how awful defensive football was and that fans did not want managers blaming others or not accepting the reality of their team’s failings and talking honestly about them. Players earn so much that they have to be able to accept criticism but it does have to be objective.
Back to the match and AFCB. Our current woes appear to have started when Malone came back into the team and McDermott was signed. Before this the team had a natural balance but this was lost by the inclusion of these players, this is not an attack on either player just an observation. Including better players does not necessarily improve a team if they do not gel with the others or fit the style of play. This seems to have happened to us and Bradders’ inability to see this was another nail in his coffin. McDermott, for all his fancy touches, has very little end product as his passing is poor and for this reason he is not the ideal player to play off a striker. Also to play 4 4 1 1 you need the spearhead to be a target man and Thomas is certainly not one. So basically we were playing the wrong system with the wrong players.
My man of the match goes to Francis for his many surging runs forward down the right flank. The fact that I did not mention any of these in my report is the lack of end product but that has nothing to do with Francis who can cross with the best of them. The reason that there was no end result is that there were not enough bodies in the box and those that were do not attack the space or if they do they all (probably just both if we are lucky) go to the same post. This is further proved by the fact that Pugh has the highest number of crosses in the division but we are one of the lowest scorers as a team. Both he and Francis, plus whoever else toils on the wings, must find it soul destroying.
AFCB: Flahavan, Francis, Cook, Addison, Malone, Arter, MacDonald, Cooper, Pugh, Thomas, Hines
Subs: Jalal, Zubar, McDermott (for Hines, 59 mins), Gregory (for MacDonald, 67 mins), Fogden (for Arter, 76 mins)
Phil Nesbitt, Acocks Green