Without wishing to speak on the behalf of others I suspect that many of those who attended the match on Friday evening (and plenty of those who didn’t) will now believe that we haven’t quite got what it takes to stay up.
To my mind the whole match represented in a microcosm why we will go down this season, indeed their winner in isolation puts an even finer point on the matter. Despite us having a free kick in a threatening position one slightly heavy touch just seconds later from O’Neill and before we know it we’re behind and have lost the game. From the mistake to the inevitably cool Claire finish only between 10-15 seconds could have elapsed. One mistake, even an innocuous one, anywhere on the pitch can be the difference between winning and losing in this division and unfortunately we seem to have neither the capacity to avoid these mistakes, rectify them or cancel them out by putting the ball in the opposition net.
In Chalmers, Lawton, Bushell and Owen I believe we have four decent central midfielders, nevertheless strong as it may seem on paper this set-up will not provide enough chances for the strikers. In short the midfield quartet that started against Burton had a distinctly one dimensional feel to it. The majority of our attempted attacks came in the form of balls through the middle for O’Neill to hold up or Little to latch on to, however this tactic only ever looked like working if the excellent Burton centre backs made a mistake. Mistakes unfortunately appear to be our domain rather than that of the opposition. Ironically our goal did come from a mistake by their right-back, he failed to clear the ball and Lewis cut inside another defender and finished well. Nevertheless despite the obvious weakness down the left flank, and the right to a lesser extent, we were not in a position to exploit this due to the personnel in our midfield.
What we needed and what we have needed for almost all of this season is a winger or at least a presence in the midfield that will give us width. I realise that practically every team in the division and elsewhere is in need of a good winger but we have to realise that four central midfielders will not see us stay up. In the absence of a £500 a week winger we have to look within the squad to solve this problem. I would very much advocate playing Thornley on the wing; he’s creative with a little bit of pace and can actually put a decent cross in. Other options would include playing either Peyton or Little on the wing. The former seems not to be an option because Andy Scott is not up to the task and the latter I would not be in favour of as I believe it would be a misuse of our most valuable asset.
The lack of goals from Little has been highlighted by many as one of the reasons for our predicament, and I would agree with this. I’m sure that Colin would also agree that he has not been on top form and his finishing has not been as accurate as he would wish. Nevertheless how much of this is due to the lack of opportunities being created by the midfield? If Colin knows that he is going to only get one chance to score the pressure to take the chance when it comes along suddenly becomes immense and will inevitably make the taking of the chance that much harder. This would probably explain why in recent weeks he has been more inclined to beat the same man over and over again; he’s trying to create a gilt edged chance because he can’t be sure that the midfield will provide him with one. Let’s stick with Little and O’Neill up front but let us also pick players that may also be able to provide for them, it is unfair to castigate strikers for not scoring enough goals when they are presented with a paltry amount of chances. Nevertheless at the same time with so few games left we must be wary of being too generous to both Little and O’Neill when it comes to time on the pitch, in Senior, McFadden and Thornley we have three very able ‘impact’ players and we should not be coy about using them. But please, we need to give them enough time to make an impact.
A further problem that has hindered us throughout the season is our seeming inability to keep hold of the ball, much of this problem appears to stem from defence. I like Band and his effort and determination cannot be questioned, his distribution however can. The centre back pairing of Rose and Munroe is the most effective one we have and one that has not been used enough. Both are decent enough with the ball at their feet and should have the confidence to find a midfielder. Defensively there isn’t much between this pairing and one that contains Band but if we want to keep hold of the ball we must play Rose and Munroe at the back. This would also take pressure of Aspinal as hopefully he would not be the sole outlet for the defence and it would also make our attacks less predictable. If we could couple this with a wide man, we might, just might, be able to do something.
I actually thought we did alright at Burton and couldn’t fault the performance of any of the personnel on the pitch however if we continue to play as we did on Friday evening we will go down. I don’t think we’re too far from being able to stay up but we’re not quite there on our current showing. Changes need to be made (we have only won two games since the 22nd October) for us to stay up. They will by no means guarantee it but I see no harm in giving it a little go.
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Nearly, but not quite
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