Today we travelled to Birmingham City's training ground in our first away league fixture and came back with our first draw
The game was played on 4G which although gave a good surface to pass on, also made the game very slow and so naturally defenders came out on top. The first half was controlled by us, we played some good football but never penetrated their defence. This was due to poor final balls and sloppy play. The pleasing thing was our work rate, winning the ball back quickly in the opponents half on numerous occasions but again creating very little. The half finished with no real goalmouth action.
The half time team talk was easy, an extra 5-10% from everyone around the pitch and the game would become comfortable for us! unfortunately it went the other way. Birmingham had the better of the second half as our sloppy passing continued. Our defence stood firm with Joe Davies and Chris May performing extremely well with our young 15yr old keeper James Aurelius vocal behind them. Even though we were under pressure for most of the second half we kept them at bay enough that James only had 1 decent save to make. The match finished in a 'bore all' draw!
After the game I asked why there was so much difference from the first half to the second, the answer was easy. Our full backs in the first period played 7/8 balls in behind to stretch the game which allowed our midfielders to get on the ball when their defence started to drop. Neither full back played one of these balls in the second half, alone with the midfielders and centre halves. We are a passing team, but you can only pass the ball when you have the space to play and to get the space you need to push the defenders back. In the second half the Birmingham defenders held a line 5-10 yards in their half and still we tried to find the strikers feet, a simple ball over the top a willing runner would immediately push that line back 5 yards, the next ball over them would create another 10 yards and so you now have the space to pass the ball. We have worked on this in training, but we have to do it more in games.
I have learnt a lot of how I manage from my time under Graham Turner. When I played under him we were a passing team but the strikers had to work hard in the channels for those first 10 minutes to allow us to play. Willing runners in Steve Guinan, DCB and the loved and missed Adam Stansfield to name a few, were needed to play passing football, and at the level we are at we will need to continue that trend.
Aside from that a draw away at a strong Blues side is a good result, especially when it comes with a clean sheet. Plenty to work to do next week when we entertain Exeter City at home, I'm confident we can improve on today and I am proud of the boys. A note aswell for James Aurelius and Harry Needmore. Both under 15s got game time today and did themselves no harm against 18/19 year olds!
Team: James Aurelius, Liam Taylor, Chris May, Joe Davies, Simon Morgan, Lewis Fletcher, Tom Jenkins, Alex Lilwall, Matty Owen, Robbie Trumper, Tom Gameson
Subs: Harry Needmore, Benn Pugh