The Vale met Washford Lions Res in the cup today. And lost again. Up against some Vale old boys the game finished 3-1 to the visitors...there were some positives to take from the game, and annoyingly a fair few negatives too...
The Vale made one change from last week, with Dirky replacing the injured manager Dave Delivers. Dirky went up front and Gaylo dropped back to centre defence to partner Gerry.
For the first 30 minutes the Vale dominated, Washford created no chances and the Vale created quite a few decent(ish) opportunities. However we were undone by the simplest of goals, the Washford keeper hoofing one down the middle, Gaylo trying to head the ball under pressure simply flicked it to the oppo striker who was clean through the middle and finished well. Got to defend better than that. The Vale struck back fairly quickly though, with Lukey getting the ball around the edge of the box, beating a player and slotting it very cooly into the net. The first rule when you score is to concentrate straight after and make no mistakes....and we certainly didn't do that. Nearly straight from kickoff Washford regained their lead with a decent goal...can't really remember it, but the entire side should take the blame for not switching on. So the halftime whistle is blaarted out by the ref and the boys trudge off, 2-1 down.
The manager imparted his wisdom onto the team, gave them the kind of rousing speech that goes down in the annals of history and sent the boys back out. Having played really well for the first half an hour of the first half, the manager was hoping they'd do the same in the second. We didn't. The second half we were poor. Really poor. Didn't get the ball down and play, and allowed Washford to start playing themselves. We conceeded a third when Vale old-boy Jum scored an absolute worldy...an effort that he couldn't do again if he tried! Subs were made, the manager screamed shit from the sidelines, but nothing really changed. A few half chances, a few corners, but no big final push as the game petered out to its conclusion.
Several players got the same rating so I picked man of the match, and I picked Cookie. Played well, and was the only player to play simple passes into the feet of his teammates....something which, if the rest of the side copied, would mean we'd be sitting here with a couple of wins under our belts already this season.
I had a moan after the tap house game (i think) about our lack of willingness to go into 50/50s and put pressure on people etc. A few people spoke to me and said I was a bit harsh, simply because as a side we don't have many big, physical players which is maybe fair enough....However what we do have is a bunch of guys who are all technically good, some better than others yes, but with nobody that's really poor on the ball...so why the hell can't we play simple passes to each other. If we want to win games we have to play as a team, we have to use our brains, and we have to play to our strengths. The team shape got worse and worse as the game moved on, we had clumps of players in the middle, no options for the man on the ball and we were easy to defend against.
Again the lack of movement was part of our undoing. When a teammate has the ball, you should always be looking to make a 3 or 4 yard move into space to be able to get the ball....not standing still next to a defender, or making a 30 yard sprint, just a small movement. If we all start doing that, the player on the ball has more options, the ball gets played more quickly and we start to create more space to play in.
And yet again there was no talk on the pitch. You've all got mouths, start bloody using them! Pretty please!
Thus ends my moan.
...I wish I drunk alcohol, cause I'd get completely rat-arsed right about now...
Well played Laan, Jum and the rest of the Washford boys. Good luck in the next round guys.
