After reading the following article in the Sale & Altrincham Messenger, I thought I'd compare the first 21 Conference games of the 2005/06 season with our current league record:
NOT DEFENSIVE
"Graham Heathcote says he will not go defensive against Torquay on Sunday; they have scored 52 goals in 20 games this season whilst Alty have conceded the third highest total of goals in the league, 41. Graham said, "They are a strong side and are full of ambition. They want to get back on the Football League, so it's going to be very tough... We're going to have to go there and score if we're going to get anything from the game. People have acussed us of being negative at time this season but I've never been negative in my tactics. Sometimes we have to sit back if a good team forces us back but I would never send a team out just to defend. We have to set our stall out to combat the better teams in this league but we can't be naive like we were in the first season back in the Conference when we were on the end of some big defeats".
2007/08
Played: 21
Won: 3
Drawn: 6
Lost: 12
For: 24
Against: 41
Points: 15
League position: 21st out of 24.
2005/06:
Played: 21
Won: 5
Drawn: 6
Lost: 10
For: 14
Against: 34
Points: 21
Position: 17th out of 22.
So, despite a couple of 5-0 defeats in 2005/06, our defensive record was actually better then than it is at present, as we had conceded seven fewer goals.
Perhaps we need to become "naive" again!
It's strange that in 2005/06 we had scored 10 fewer goals.....but had accumulated six more points.
A comparison of clean sheets achieved reveals the following:
2007/08: 2
2005/06: 5.