Post by Boony on Oct 25, 2006 9:19:01 GMT
January 2007
The dawn of a new year. The dawn of a new era. I'd had enough of our failings, and thought it was about time we did something drastic about it. It had been hinted at for a while now, that the fans were unhappy with our tactical failings, with my reluctance to change from a 4-4-2 formation. Instead of partying all night and getting obscenely drunk over New Year (oh, hang on, this is a game isn't it... scrub that - I did this while waiting for my dinner to cook last night), I sat at my drawing board with a list of all our contracted players, and slowly but surely worked out a solid 5-3-2 formation with players who not only had some technical ability, but also had the mental and physical wherewithall to cut it at this level.
The idea is to play with a flat back 5, 3 in central midfield, and two up front. Nothing complicated, just a basic 5-3-2. This gives us flexibility when chasing a game - we can throw on two wingers for the fullbacks, and throw on Daniels to play in the hole in place of one of the conventional midfielders, but it also gives us a solid base at the back where we really have been leaking too many goals. Coming into the side for their first appearances in the season were defenders Mike Ford (40 year old player/coach, and our new captain) and Matt Childs (22 year old 6'1" with decent stats - strangely overlooked so far), as well as Ben Farrell in midfield.
Now, I knew it would take a few games to get the team used to the situation, and I was happy to give it a go for a few games without worrying too much about the result, but things could not have got off to a worse start in our home fixture against Eastbourne. 45 seconds in, our goalkeeper Beckford-Qualiey somehow put the ball into his own net. 1-0. Then, in the third minute, we allowed a free header from a cross to cross the line into the onion bag, and there was no way back. Two more goals rounded off a 4-0 revenge victory for the team I stuffed 4-0 earlier in the season. What a long time ago that seems to me right now.
Our next game was at Bishop's Stortford, and it saw our first clean sheet since August. There were quite a few goalmouth scrambles, but we somehow managed to prevent them from scoring. We didn't score either, but a point is a point! Cambridge City came to Bedford, scored early from a freekick where our rightback LUke Brown was found marking their striker in the middle of the penalty area - 1-0. At half time I told our players that we can play better than this, singling out striker James Cole to go out there and prove a point. He hadn't scored in 11 hours of football, but within 45 seconds of the restart, he had the ball in the back of the net after pouncing on an error by their keeper 35 years out (!) and scoring into an open goal. The commentators went slightly overboard, saying this was a contender for the goal of the season, but I was happy with the response from my players. Things were even better when our other striker for the day, Ian Draycott, scored from a long pass from Matt Childs to make it 2-1. Yep, we were winning. I pulled everyone back, their keeper started going up for corners, but we held on. The commentators credited me for pulling things round at half time, which was nice. 3 points! Yeah!
Good things continued happening. I'd had an advert for a scout in the job centre since August, with no interest whatsoever. I kept the advert in there more in hope than expectation. Then, this month, 13 blokes came knocking on our door. There must have been a factory close down or Asda might have sacked a load of kids or something. Anyway, I offered a contract to Ross Schofield at £20 a week, which he gladly accepted and we now have someone who can scout our next opposition and do deeper scouting missions on potential prospects. Hurrah!
We finished off the month with the traditional two losses, 1-0 against Hayes and 2-1 at Basingstoke. Against Hayes we perhaps had the better of the game, but conceded early in the second half. Against Basingstoke, we perhaps had the better of the game, but conceded early in the second half. This time, however, Cole pulled an equaliser out of the bag before we let Basingstoke score again. We went to attack mode with wingers Woolf and Hatton replacing fullbacks Brown and Bevan, and Daniels coming into the hole to replace a woeful Stupple (match rating 4/10). It nearly worked, too, as Hatton swung a beautiful cross onto Woolf's head and he put it away with aplomb to equalise. Except the linesman had his flag up. Offside. Bugger. Cole missed a header in the last minute, and then Daniels had a shot saved, and we were unlucky to finish on the wrong side of a 2-1 scoreline. Now, our captain/coach Mike Ford reckoned that Woolf had been onside, and I should take a second look. Also, the press came knocking on my door asking for my reaction on this controversial goal. I did take a second look, in slo-mo, at the incident, and two things struck me. First, there should be a slider like in realplayer or quicktime where you can move the action backwards and forwards, rather than just replaying the incident again and again. And, secondly, Woolf was slightly offside when Hatton struck the pass. I told the press, grudgingly, that the decision may have been right, and that's the end of the month.
If you ignore the 4-0 loss at the start, I think things were looking slightly better. In the two games we did lose after that, we looked like the better side, not the worse side. The league situation is looking shaky, as we're now eleven points off safety with just 15 games left to play this year. Last year, 42 points landed you in the bottom three, so I think we need to aim for 45. So just 25 points in those 15 games, please. Please? We're still to play the other teams in the bottom 5, but overall we're looking at top-six form, and I don't think we'll quite manage that. There's still the sweepstake on when I'm going to get sacked, don't forget.
League record: P5 W1 D1 L3 F3 A8 Pts4
![](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/james.boon7/img/League%2020070131.png)
The dawn of a new year. The dawn of a new era. I'd had enough of our failings, and thought it was about time we did something drastic about it. It had been hinted at for a while now, that the fans were unhappy with our tactical failings, with my reluctance to change from a 4-4-2 formation. Instead of partying all night and getting obscenely drunk over New Year (oh, hang on, this is a game isn't it... scrub that - I did this while waiting for my dinner to cook last night), I sat at my drawing board with a list of all our contracted players, and slowly but surely worked out a solid 5-3-2 formation with players who not only had some technical ability, but also had the mental and physical wherewithall to cut it at this level.
The idea is to play with a flat back 5, 3 in central midfield, and two up front. Nothing complicated, just a basic 5-3-2. This gives us flexibility when chasing a game - we can throw on two wingers for the fullbacks, and throw on Daniels to play in the hole in place of one of the conventional midfielders, but it also gives us a solid base at the back where we really have been leaking too many goals. Coming into the side for their first appearances in the season were defenders Mike Ford (40 year old player/coach, and our new captain) and Matt Childs (22 year old 6'1" with decent stats - strangely overlooked so far), as well as Ben Farrell in midfield.
Now, I knew it would take a few games to get the team used to the situation, and I was happy to give it a go for a few games without worrying too much about the result, but things could not have got off to a worse start in our home fixture against Eastbourne. 45 seconds in, our goalkeeper Beckford-Qualiey somehow put the ball into his own net. 1-0. Then, in the third minute, we allowed a free header from a cross to cross the line into the onion bag, and there was no way back. Two more goals rounded off a 4-0 revenge victory for the team I stuffed 4-0 earlier in the season. What a long time ago that seems to me right now.
Our next game was at Bishop's Stortford, and it saw our first clean sheet since August. There were quite a few goalmouth scrambles, but we somehow managed to prevent them from scoring. We didn't score either, but a point is a point! Cambridge City came to Bedford, scored early from a freekick where our rightback LUke Brown was found marking their striker in the middle of the penalty area - 1-0. At half time I told our players that we can play better than this, singling out striker James Cole to go out there and prove a point. He hadn't scored in 11 hours of football, but within 45 seconds of the restart, he had the ball in the back of the net after pouncing on an error by their keeper 35 years out (!) and scoring into an open goal. The commentators went slightly overboard, saying this was a contender for the goal of the season, but I was happy with the response from my players. Things were even better when our other striker for the day, Ian Draycott, scored from a long pass from Matt Childs to make it 2-1. Yep, we were winning. I pulled everyone back, their keeper started going up for corners, but we held on. The commentators credited me for pulling things round at half time, which was nice. 3 points! Yeah!
Good things continued happening. I'd had an advert for a scout in the job centre since August, with no interest whatsoever. I kept the advert in there more in hope than expectation. Then, this month, 13 blokes came knocking on our door. There must have been a factory close down or Asda might have sacked a load of kids or something. Anyway, I offered a contract to Ross Schofield at £20 a week, which he gladly accepted and we now have someone who can scout our next opposition and do deeper scouting missions on potential prospects. Hurrah!
We finished off the month with the traditional two losses, 1-0 against Hayes and 2-1 at Basingstoke. Against Hayes we perhaps had the better of the game, but conceded early in the second half. Against Basingstoke, we perhaps had the better of the game, but conceded early in the second half. This time, however, Cole pulled an equaliser out of the bag before we let Basingstoke score again. We went to attack mode with wingers Woolf and Hatton replacing fullbacks Brown and Bevan, and Daniels coming into the hole to replace a woeful Stupple (match rating 4/10). It nearly worked, too, as Hatton swung a beautiful cross onto Woolf's head and he put it away with aplomb to equalise. Except the linesman had his flag up. Offside. Bugger. Cole missed a header in the last minute, and then Daniels had a shot saved, and we were unlucky to finish on the wrong side of a 2-1 scoreline. Now, our captain/coach Mike Ford reckoned that Woolf had been onside, and I should take a second look. Also, the press came knocking on my door asking for my reaction on this controversial goal. I did take a second look, in slo-mo, at the incident, and two things struck me. First, there should be a slider like in realplayer or quicktime where you can move the action backwards and forwards, rather than just replaying the incident again and again. And, secondly, Woolf was slightly offside when Hatton struck the pass. I told the press, grudgingly, that the decision may have been right, and that's the end of the month.
If you ignore the 4-0 loss at the start, I think things were looking slightly better. In the two games we did lose after that, we looked like the better side, not the worse side. The league situation is looking shaky, as we're now eleven points off safety with just 15 games left to play this year. Last year, 42 points landed you in the bottom three, so I think we need to aim for 45. So just 25 points in those 15 games, please. Please? We're still to play the other teams in the bottom 5, but overall we're looking at top-six form, and I don't think we'll quite manage that. There's still the sweepstake on when I'm going to get sacked, don't forget.
League record: P5 W1 D1 L3 F3 A8 Pts4
![](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/james.boon7/img/League%2020070131.png)