Like London Buses….

 

This was the blog that I was supposed to release this week, but a weekend of me internally moaning about the club in general, meant this got moved back. 

This blog is about four burning areas of concern or frustration I have at the moment. 

Playing short from goal kicks

This is not so much a moan about what we do, but the craze that has arrived since Pep Guardiola arrived in Manchester and got rid of Joe Hart, because he wasn’t any good with his feet. Goalkeepers need to be good with their feet so that they can move across the goals quicker and stop balls crossing the line, however now they need to be an extra person so that they can pass the ball up the field rather than the defenders taking any responsibility for doing it.

I was watching the 2nd Qualifying Round in the FA Cup game between Walton & Hersham vs Chatham Town on the BBC iPlayer this Saturday and W&H were playing it out from the back as if they were Manchester City. When it starts making its way down to Ryman South level, it shows how influential the English Premier League [EPL] is and how coaches want to copy it. 

When Wimbledon play it all it does for me is force the opposition team to high press and it creates a game of 5 vs 5 in our half as shown below. 

I am no football expert but I have watched the game for over 30 years and seen many styles, formations and tactics evolve during this period. I have seen this 5 vs 5 in every game this season at Plough Lane and it requires Maghoma to drop into a QB position and show in to feet to then find his way out of the press and get the ball to our wing backs, or break the press centrally and then we are on to the our next 5 vs 5 in the midfield areas. 

My frustration recently is it feels like Tzanev will receive a fine if he doesn’t play the ball short to Pearce on every goal kick which in my opinion, only invites a higher press and forces Pearce to go back to Tzanev when he has no choice but to kick long and the moans from the fans begin. Of course on some occasions Tzanev tries to thread balls into Maghoma, but he is a League Two goalkeeper and if he was able to thread these balls into players, he would be in a higher league or playing out on pitch himself. 

Recently there was an amusing video with Pearce and Brown playing keep ball and just playing it from side to side. I would love to say the video was doctored, but we all saw it with our own eyes. 

This is what I see on regular occasions when we go wide to Brown and the options he has available. It's the same if we go wide to Nightingale also. 

He has three options and the regular one is back to Tzanev, or the long diagonal ball to Gunter. 

Maghoma is a technically gifted player and we have done really well attracting him to a loan deal in League Two, but I want him higher up the pitch influencing the game in the opposition half, not trying to find ways out of a press that when we go long, we then have massive gaps between our defence, midfield and forwards.

It’s something I would like us to review, change or vary enough to not make us so predictable. 

We also saw with the Barrow game that when they scored early, they scrapped the high press and just allowed us to have possession knowing that we could pass all day and increase our ball possession stats , but we were not confident enough playing through the lines.

Where do we play Assal?

This is the million dollar question for all Wimbledon fans at the moment. 

Last season Ayoub had 2 goals in the first 9 league games and only opened his account for us this season at Carlisle, ironically from a long ball from Tzanev. 

Last season Mark Robinson (Robbo) played Ayoub in a wide right position alongside Rudoni and McCormick in the attacking formation with Ollie Palmer leading the line. It meant we could get the ball to Ayoub in space and he could come off the line if needed and join in with play there. I know that Robbo felt Ayoub could play in a forward position and influence the game there, but that was an option and not a regular position.

This season has seen us play Ayoub in a central forward position, sometimes having a free role and other times back to his wide right position. It just isn’t happening for Ayoub this season and it's really important for us to find a position where he can hurt teams and more importantly get amongst the goals as I would expect him to beat his 8 goals in all competitions from last season. 

Squad Depth

This one is probably more important to look at with the news that Nathan Young-Coombes (NYC) will be injured for a while and some suggestions this could be until Xmas. 

He joins another five players who are out for a month or longer:-

• Alex Woodyard - back in training 3-5 weeks 

• Paul Kalambayi - Four weeks 

• Dylan Adjei-Hersey - back in training 10-11 weeks

• David Fisher - back in training 10-11 weeks

• Nathan Broome - back in training 5-7 weeks 

We had over 20 players leave the club last season, including loan players and we have added 9 players with 4 of those on season loans.

We have supplemented these with academy graduates who normally we would look to send out on loan, and we have started doing that in recent weeks, but we are naturally being careful based on our injury situation. 

My biggest worry is in the attacking area, especially as before the second half goal from Assal on Saturday, we had gone eight consecutive half’s without scoring. Add to that we have Hudlin coming back from a groin strain and we have Bartley who is in his first professional season and is still filling out, which is unbelievable considering he is already towering over opposition players, but he will pick up niggling injuries as his body develops and he gets used to the higher intensity of professional football. 

The decision to loan out Zach Robinson and Aaron Cosgrave now adds further concern due to the injury list and it's unlikely that we can recall them any earlier than January. 

We looked short on depth before we lost NYC and we desperately need some good news from Alex Woodyard getting back to training and getting closer to full fitness. 

Add to that the constant Tuesday and Saturday games we have had and will continue to have, we desperately need some down time to get these players some rest as expecting players like Maghoma, Curry and Assal to play 40+ games this season is only risking them to injuries and fatigue. 

October/November fixtures

I only try to look five games ahead at any one time and the next five are an interesting challenge.

We go into Saturday's away fixture at Valley Parade with four consecutive defeats, or five defeats in the last six league games and Bradford City away was always going to be challenging whenever we played them. 

After that we have Colchester United at home who will have a new manager bounce - unbelievably three of the bottom four placed teams in the league have sacked their managers this season already - and it seems that teams are reacting to bad starts even quicker than the normal panic. 

We then go to Walsall and then follow that with a South London derby at home to Sutton United which is a fixture that Johnnie Jackson needs like a hole in the head if we are still searching for maximum points before they come to PL in mid-October. 

After that we have Rochdale (H), Crewe (A) and Harrogate (H)  in that order before we reach November and two away games sandwiched in-between a first and hopefully a second round fixture in this season's FA Cup. 

I guess by the time we play our FA cup game we will have a good idea of the strength of League Two and how good we are in it. 

I hope this has cheered you up like it has me….