RPL Athletic - Dressing Room

[Big Gus]

[hereticboy]

Predictably, my internet's smooth as fuck now .

[SaintM]

It didn't work for several reasons really.

Not having a human in the middle or the sides meant that the any's had to cover those positions as well as the CB, which just didn't work.

Any attack down the sides had no-one to press them, other than an any who would then be missing from the middle to protect against the cross coming in.

Any attack down the middle had no-one to break it down and give protection to the back 4. (Craig was essentially out of the game due to lag).

Having two anys at the back has seen us through a season with very patchy attendance, but it does require that they have sufficent cover in front of them. Without that, it just won't work against any opponent.

We needed some of you front lads to put in a duty at the back I reckon. Although it's good to have some attacking options, with no CM to pass/hold the ball up and start things off, you were wasted.

Easily the worst Athletic performance this season. I thought we played better against Rovers when we lost twice at the start of the season. We got the tactics wrong, given the personnel available and paid the price.

The title is now out of reach, but 2nd place is still there. We need good results against United and DVDF to get it though.

[hereticboy]

We're not talking about last night, Mike. It didn't happen .

[SaintM]

I shall say no more on the matter then!

[hereticboy]

Haha, PM me about it if you fancy man. I reckon the lack of numbers did us in more than anything though. That and the lag!!!

[SaintM]

No need, I've said where I thought we went wrong.

[Chris303]

Was a bit rubbish. Lack of playered and the lag, shame though, because I thought we started where we left off until that first goal went in.

[nathan]

and my unbelieveable form in front of goal

the first game i got a hattrick (and btw the lagg went both ways...)

2 in the second when there was no lagg

i was trying to do a Baring

[SaintM]

*pin drops*

[hereticboy]

Have some patience. It's only Tuesday. Anyway, as sent out in PMs about a minute ago:

"Alright, lads.

Doodles for practice and matches against United. Fill them in please .

Cheers

Craig ."

[hereticboy]

I added Wednesday onto the Practice poll. Please edit your entries lads .

[Petey]

So is anything happening between now and 10?

I haven't been on the box so no idea if anyone is around but I will be on at 10

[hereticboy]

Sorry, I won't be on tonight. Faff amongst yourselves if you want, though .

[SaintM]

Given the response to the doodle, I'm guessing practice isn't happening tonight.

[hereticboy]

I doubt we'll be having proper practice, no. I'm about tonight, so we can have a fuck about if needs must. Might have some 2v2 games to get done, so I might be in and out for a bit.

Never mind practice, the match might not be happening at this rate!

[Billy Brown]

I'm in Edinburgh for work tomorrow and my flight home doesn't land until 21:15. I only live half an hour's drive from Gatwick, so if kick off is at 22:15 there's a tiny chance I can make it back in time for the first game. I would plan to be without me though, as I'm clearly going to be cutting it extremely fine. I'll have been up since 4am too, so don't expect my reactions to be too hot if I do make it back on time. Sorry guys!

[Chris303]

I'll be there...

[LittleJoe]

Just six again?

[hereticboy]

Indeed. We're going to have a fixed defensive midfielder this time round, to make it slightly easier to defend.

[SaintM]

Didn't we do that for the second game last week?

[hereticboy]

Do you remember the first game last week? When we had nobody there?

[SaintM]

The 4-1 loss as opposed to the 3-0 loss when we did have someone there, yeah?

[hereticboy]

Whatever, man. I'm not sure what you suggest we do with 6 players and no defence, though.

[SaintM]

Do you really think the second game went a lot better than the first?

[SaintM]

I'd suggest we look at why it went wrong week and try not to repeat the same mistake again this week.

[hereticboy]

It worked fine against Town and Rovers. We just came across City playing decent and us playing awful last week. Anyway, as for why it went wrong:

Not having a human in the middle or the sides meant that the any's had to cover those positions as well as the CB, which just didn't work.

Any attack down the sides had no-one to press them, other than an any who would then be missing from the middle to protect against the cross coming in.

Any attack down the middle had no-one to break it down and give protection to the back 4.

Having two anys at the back has seen us through a season with very patchy attendance, but it does require that they have sufficent cover in front of them. Without that, it just won't work against any opponent.

We needed some of you front lads to put in a duty at the back I reckon. Although it's good to have some attacking options, with no CM to pass/hold the ball up and start things off, you were wasted.

I can't see why you're arguing with me about covering the defence a little bit.

[SaintM]

I was not aware that we were arguing.

[hereticboy]

Well not 'arguing' then, but questioning something you were screaming for last week. I don't have a lot of choice on this unless we want to go fucking mental for the rest of the season.

Edit - Playing two proper (hopefully) CDMs, by the way. One of them might even attack! We can't defend properly without a proper defence, really.

[SaintM]

I don't have an issue us two as any dealing with defence and someone in the middle as DCM, but if the other 3 players are gonna be out of the picture up field then it'll still be problematic (as shown in the 2nd game last week).

The times it worked we have had two people in the DCM positions.