A few people pointing out that yesterday was a great learning experience... for me, not so much. I think it was more a confirmation of a lot of stuff that we already knew
1. We struggle against a really good press - It happened a few times last season, Burton away, Barnsley away, to name a couple. Most teams can't do it for the whole game. Even Sunderland struggled after the first 20 minutes, and that extra split second allowed us to start playing. I think we'll improve on this as we get exposed to it more and more.
2. We are actually pretty good without the ball. I know people were saying that our defensive record was more to do with how little we allowed the oppo the ball last season, but actually, we have really good shape, work hard, and generally have good discipline. We don't need a major overhaul.
3. We are prone to losing the connection between the front three and the rest of the squad when we make those substitutions. Its happened many times, we take off the front 3, and then break the link. Definitely something to work on.
4. We are at our best, when we're trying to win games, we're a lot less good at trying not to lose them. Yesterday, we backed off once they went down to 10, thinking we could manage the game out, and we've done it a few times last season. We invite teams onto us, and then we get too deep and can't retain possession.
IN summary, yesterday's game encapsulated all that is good, and all that needs a bit of work with ITFC, but really it was a great away performance... we don't need to change much, but some of the weaknesses that we've had in the past were shown a bit brighter against a decent team. |  |
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