Progress at the valley

 After a week of reflection about the club structure, what a welcome relief that we had a game and more importantly, we saw so much progress in what was our 10th league game of the season. 

I have said my bit on the challenges I see off the pitch, that in turn are impacting the club, in my honest opinion, on the pitch. But for my own mental health, I need and want to enjoy what happens on the pitch over the 90 minutes, well 102 minutes that the referee played yesterday. Where did the referee find 6 minutes and played 7 minutes additional time in the second half!!

Most experts and fans say the league table starts to take shape after 10 games so it was great to see our best 45 minutes in the second half at Bradford in our 10th league game. 

What was the difference?

We just did the basics and did them well. 

I always feel that younger coaches and managers can make the game too complicated on occasions and any team on a bad run will go back to basics when results are needed. I would say that we have tried to play a modern game of using the goalkeeper as an extra player and try to play through the thirds and create overloads, recycle possession and sometimes score the perfect goal. 

Bradford showed me another way of modern football complicating things. Their goalkeeper never took goal kicks, instead a defender would play the goal kick to the goalkeeper in the centre of the six yard area and the majority of times would go long. 

There is no doubt some logic behind it, but I couldn’t see how this really impacted us and we continued to press high with three and Bradford went long. Possibly it was to go long into Andy Cook, but Nightingale and Towler dealt with him well and it meant we didn’t get turned too many times. 

One of my biggest concerns is the gaps between our lines (Defence, Midfield and Attack) in the majority of our first ten games. This was the closest those lines had been in recent times and it meant we won second balls in good areas 

Below I have mapped the average positions over the 90 minutes (provided by SofaScore) from Carlisle away and Bradford. 

Carlisle average positions are in Yellow. 

It’s noticeable from this that the players in general have shifted 5-10 yards higher up the pitch and more compact. It meant that Maghoma and Pell in central areas picked up possession in dangerous areas and were able to get around the Bradford midfield to sweep up and disrupt their flow. 

I thought Harry Pell was excellent and more for his leadership and know-how, than his equaliser. Whilst Lee Brown was handed the captains armband when Alex Pearce picked up an early knock and was replaced by Towler, Pell was constantly encouraging and driving on the team and during spells when we were under pressure, he happily kicked the ball into touch or as far up the pitch as possible. Again its basics, but it is something we haven’t done in previous games. 

Johnnie Jackson (JJ) rightly singled out Isaac Ogundere yesterday for special praise, making his league debut at Valley Parade. He just didn’t look out of place and has given JJ a really good selection dilemma for our home game against Colchester. Opposition managers have naturally seen that our big threat going forward is down our left flank with Jack Currie and they would rather us attack down our right as Chris Gunter is not a natural wing back, however the emergence of Ogundere gives us pace down the other side now. 

The hotspots from the game shows that Ogundere was up and down that flank all game and understandably Bradford felt that he would be a weakness due to him making his debut, but it also shows that Ogundere got forward and the red areas are more regular positions he took during the 90 minutes. Currie was able to see more of the ball due to Ogundere’s performance and Currie provided the cross into Davison, for Assal to shoot and Pell followed up the rebound for our equaliser. 

All in all I think this has to be a turning point in our season as we finally saw the individual ability of our players in this formation and collectively they more than earned a point at playoff contenders Bradford and judging by the celebrations on their equaliser, Bradford were more than happy to salvage a point. 

Ethan Chislett scored another excellent free-kick and he is starting to dominate our goal of the season contenders already. We have had many different combinations in the midfield area this season but for me if we can get Currie, Chislett and Assal in advanced areas in that left hand corridor, that triangle is our match winner and they key to getting results. 

Finally it was pleasing to see JJ smiling in his post match interview as no manager should feel under pressure after ten games, and it's over to him now to set us up to play Colchester in a week and that second half performance is now something we need to do consistently and that will see us all have enjoyable Saturday afternoons, especially at Plough Lane.