This is the downside to the way we play. When it's on we're absolutely flying, the football is quick, the passing direct and we're full of flair. Solihull, Eastleigh, Rochdale, Barnet were all like this and, even though we lost, the Chesterfield game was similar. Unfortunately when it isn't working, it really isn't. In the last few seasons exactly the same thing has happened. We suddenly lose the magic of it and I'm sure many of us have seen Saturday's performance before over the last 3 seasons. Frustrating, flat and unsure of ourselves. We seem completely incapable of creating anything, there's no way through, we're slow, we give the ball away and we begin to leak goals with no reply. You can tell it's happening because we start to play increasingly speculative long balls and through balls than nobody is getting near signalling that the team has lost faith and confidence in themselves to get the system working.
The question is how do we get out of this rut and get back into the groove of the Parkinson 4-2-3-1? Is it tiredness? We looked exhausted with 30 mins to go on Saturday. Is it confidence? As mentioned above we shrunk away from that yesterday. The players absolutely did not believe we could get back into it the body language said it all.
I think it might be a mix of the two and I think that there is a real element of us overplaying and overthinking it as well. The play is not natural at the moment, it's forced. By that I mean, for example, the flicks that are going nowhere. CCC was guilty of this on Sat and many others...overplaying and forced. The movement is static and we're too rigid in playing the system waiting and waiting in the form of of playing it around the back 4 until the "perfect" opportunity to set up an attack comes. Back and forth over and over again but the attack opportunity isn't coming so we play those long balls out of frustration and try to switch the play. The risk/reward factor increases and we inevitably lose out. It's a vicious cycle because when the team lose faith in the system it collapses and there's no Plan B, so we try to match the opposition and obviously we can't play what they've been playing all season as well as they can.
Now, I'll concede that the pitch is terrible so there's an element of going long to avoid that which is valid and I understand it. There's also an element of resting and mixing the team up to keep things fresh, which I understand as well but the problem runs deeper than that. Take Gould for instance. He hasn't suddenly become poor or performed terribly, it's a consequence of the way the team is playing. He was calm, assured and commanding against Eastleigh, Rochdale, Solihull etc but then against Aldershot and Hartlepool especially he didn't look like that at all. That's down to the confidence in the side as a whole, it's down to the pressure the back 4 is under and it's down to the frequency we're now giving the ball away and not valuing the possession like we had been previously. Mistakes then happen (Kosylo for the first goal against Hartlepool, giving it away carelessly)
In my opinion Phil and Neil need to strip everything back again and almost start from scratch. If we can get back to the fundamentals of the system and focus on outcome instead of the process then it might all switch back into place. Perhaps we need to start getting it into the final third at any cost and get into those phases of play near the by-line where we can hurt teams and get it cut back towards the penalty spot. Be slightly more direct and go through the middle to reach those positions if needed rather than the intricate build up play that proceeds it until we reach a level of flow and confidence where we can be more assured at doing that.
We're more than capable and to finish on a positive I've never seen us be so overwhelming at playing this way until this season. We have the players to do it and until this year I haven't seen us be so dominant in the National League either. It works, we just need to regain confidence and slip back into the flow of playing it effectively.
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Maidenhead Match Thread
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