Back to Basics

 

I love the end of the season playoffs, especially if we are not involved in them. The teams that qualify for the playoffs have played a full league programme to qualify for a cup competition just at the time when they are exhausted and ready for their summer holiday. This season I paid more attention to the League Two playoffs to gauge what sort of teams qualify for them. To be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed and the teams seemed to just do the basics, but do them well. 

Northampton, Port Vale, Swindon and Mansfield were involved in the League 2 playoffs with Port Vale winning the cup competition with a 3-0 win over Mansfield to gain promotion to League One. It's probably unfair to analyse Northampton due to them being totally deflated after Scunthorpe rolled over and had their bellies tickled away at Bristol Rovers, a 7-0 win enough for them to overtake Northampton on the last day of the season and go up on goals scored. The other three teams didn’t play fancy football at the back but, again, did the basics. 

The basics are:-

• Win 50/50’s

• Win second balls in the opposition half.

• Hit the channels.

• Gain yardage up the pitch from those channel balls to the box teams in.

• Defenders not allowing long balls to bounce

Yesterday Sutton United did all of those and did them well. The same when Barrow and Northampton visited Plough Lane and took the three points home with them. 

I always say football isn’t a difficult game, but it can be made over complicated, which is where we are at the moment. We started the season with a clear 3-5-2 formation with our wingbacks playing high up the pitch and looking to overload the wide areas, switching play when possible. Doing this meant that we would end up playing square passes, going backwards to allow the switch of play, but it needed tempo which we struggled with. That changed at Bradford when we went back to front quicker and got some early success. I can’t help thinking that it was more down to the surprise element than the change of passing style. 

I am fortunate to have an elevated seat and able to see very clearly the formation and how teams set up. Sutton were a no frills team and I mean that with the utmost respect. Set up as 4-4-2 with two banks of four and very little room between the lines. They won their 50/50’s in midfield, got the ball wide and with no more than two touches got the ball into the box. Their forwards knew the plan and got into the box to get on the end of them, anything we cleared was picked up by their midfielders and recycled. Their defenders knocked balls into the channels and if their forwards didn’t win the header, they made sure they caused a nuisance and got a throw or a free kick. 

Again, not rocket science, but so, so effective against us as the disadvantage for us playing wingback is that if they are not forcing their opposition players the other way, they get deeper and our wingbacks are built for speed and technical ability, not heading balls against 6ft plus players. 

You can’t get away from the reaction of the fans at full time or on social media for most of yesterday evening, but me being as sad as I am, I watched the extended highlights this morning to just confirm my thoughts that we started well, with a tempo and made it a competitive South London Derby. You could argue that we had the best chance to score of both teams early on when Josh Davison missed the target from a few yards. I am not trying to camouflage the results, but it was really the reaction to us going behind and the second half that concerns us all I imagine. 

I always go down to the fanzone around the 35 minute mark to get some food and see the end of the first half standing in the South-West corner. I decided to stay there for the second half as I really felt we would throw the kitchen sink at them and it would be a great place to be to celebrate and equaliser and hopefully a winner. Nothing I saw in the first half gave me any indication as to what I would witness in the second half. 

We just didn’t turn up!!!

I can live with losing, but when you are at home, the away team should walk back to the dressing room, knackered, exhausted mentally and relieved that they kept the maximum points. We allowed Sutton to see out the game with ease and they didn’t need to employ those dark arts of time wasting. They looked like they felt they could get the second to win comfortably. 

During the Pre-Match show yesterday, one of my long time mates, Andy, joined us for the Away Team feature. I was having a wind up with him about their Amber and Chocolate kit and that this was their cup final. It was all banter and I have nothing but respect for Sutton getting promoted into the league and finishing 8th last year and having an excellent season.

I always thought this fixture could be a season defining one because you can’t get away from the fact that we bypassed Sutton in the nine years that it took to get back into the league and we were playing Sunderland on some weeks when they were welcoming Kings Lynn Town to Gander Green Lane. Sutton were three levels below us when we gained promotion to League one, bearing in mind they were three levels above us in 2002. 

Note to football gods - Kings Lynn is a lovely place with a good football team, just in case you decide to give us an away tie against them in the FA Cup First Round at the start of November, with the draw live on TV tomorrow night. 

It got me thinking that maybe we as fans have got above our stations. Should we be expecting to turn over Sutton at home because they were a non-league team for the majority of their history and they were coming to our place and our lovely £32 million stadium. They celebrated enthusiastically in front of their 1200 fans yesterday and rightly so as this was their first away win of the season, their first win in six and they had won in their nosey neighbours back yard. 

I mentioned a few years ago that teams moving into new stadiums don’t have amazing first seasons as teams want to turn them over and they have the excitement  playing at a new ground and away fans turn up in their numbers. That happened to us in League One and I am sensing it happening again to us in League Two. Probably as this is a standout ground in League Two and it's a new ground for the majority of teams. It's something we need to overcome and we look as scared as playing at Plough Lane, as opposition teams are excited playing at our place. Sutton visited us on the back of five straight defeats, with one of them losing away to Gillingham 1-0, bearing in mind The Gills have only scored 5 goals this season in the League!!

I have no intention of dissecting yesterday's defeat to Sutton, except to say that I had no issue with their goal and it wasn’t a foul on the keeper. It was a great inswinging free kick from Milson that caused the mayhem. Tzanev had to come, knew he would clattered and it just happened to be Jack Currie, who I saw no exaggerated push on him to impact Tzanev. If Sutton had won by more, I don’t think we could have had any quarrels. 

I think it's an interesting week ahead for us and it's going to need some reflection from the players and management team ahead of our visit to Rochdale, who typically beat Barrow 2-1 at home yesterday, their first win at home in the league this season and have now won three out of their last 4 games. 

Anyways to cheer you all up, we enter the FA Cup now it’s reached the First Round proper stage and we are ball number 2. We all know we are going to get a potential cup upset tie and to give you some advance notice of some of the balls we need to avoid, they are (55) Curzon Ashton, (59) Alvechurch, (78) Chelmsford City and of course (51) Kings Lynn Town!