I am a big fan of Danny's. As a relative newcomer to Welling and the teams we play I was struck by how many knowledgeable Welling fans who really know their football and this league were asking for him to be appointed as manager before he took the post. When we had the development launch I had a really long talk with Danny so I could make my own mind up on him, and get an idea of why fans are so keen on him. As part of my homework on Danny I had a look at the Eastbourne fans forum to see what they thought of him, and every single fan was sad that the new owners had decided to move on from Danny. Football is a very bitchy world, everybody thinking they are better than everyone else, so for Danny to have such universal appreciation was really unusual. But being independent minded I wanted to make my own mind up, and that long talk was really helpful, and I could see why teh fans and our board are so impressed with Danny.
However football doesnt stand still, it is so competitive one is only as good as ones recent results, and any complacency quickly gets punished in football. I know Danny is very tactful and diplomatic, so to save feelings wont always say what he thinks. But it worried me a lot to read Mark's Chippenham match report, and Danny's comment, "Perhaps were lacking a bit of quality in the final third, perhaps we need to address that.
There are no "perhaps" about it, all season long so far we have had goal droughts caused by players shooting off target or straight at the keeper. So it wasnt "perhaps" a problem just in this match it has been going on all season long. We all tend to jog from match to match, and not look at the bigger picture, but the big picture is we have been misfiring all season long. So we need to change, and train, train, train to shoot on target, placing the ball out of reach of the keeper. The solution is as simple as that.
We have made the excuse we didnt have an experienced striker, and have signed Tristan, who is real quality, he knows how to stand on the shoulder of the last defender, so when he gets a pass he just has to step ahead of that defender and his is through on goal with just the keeper to beat. But our players arent giving him those passes for him to run onto. Look at recent match highlights and you will see him frustrated after running into great positions, only for our heavily marked player on the ball to pass wide, or have a shot that goes wide or over, instead of passing to Tristan who will be through on goal unmarked if someone just passes to him. So it is no longer the excuse we dont have a proper striker, we now do, it is that our players arent being coached into passing to him. Strikers are only as good as their supply, and he hardly gets any supply. This has to improve. I remember last season Stefan and Ade talking about how they had explained to the other players what sort of ball they wanted delivered to them, and it is clear Tristan just wants balls delivered in front of him he can run onto, so the team need to learn to give him those passes.
I am preparing my son to join his first football team, so playing tons of football with him to teach him how to play effectively. I had an open goal and missed, and then missed another open goal. To be successful in football one has to aim for continuous improvement, and this is my problem with Welling's shooting, nobody seems actively improving accuracy, just game after game of hitting posts and shooting wide or straight at the keeper, and not working out how to be more accurate. I realised when I was shooting I had my head down, looking at the ball to make sure I was hitting it with a great connection, but was missing as I had lost sight of where the goal was. So once I realised that, I looked at the target and scored. And that comes from not being complacent and keeping making the same mistakes, but from wanting to analyse my mistakes to get better. I have lost sight of how many shots from outside the box Antony has had, but apart from his free kicks he isnt scoring, with the free kicks he is carefully looking at the goal, but in open play he is head down and is shooting wide as he isnt clear where the goal is. Is anyone working with him to work out how to improve his accuracy from distance? Same with Lewis, he shoots straight at the keeper in the middle of the goal, is anyone telling him to place it to the corners? And the rest of the team, it is not "perhaps" we need to improve the quality in attack, it is obvious we urgently need to do that.
I am really impressed with our defence, if one overlooks those two mad games where we let in 5 goals each time, we have then just let in 13 goals in 12 league games, which is a fantastic team effort, and shows how effective the defensive coaching has been. With all that in place, focus needs to go on improving the attack, midfield learning to make penetrating forward passes, not sideways ones, placing the ball out of the keepers' reach.
And of course the question why are we only playing with one in attack when we are playing lower teams, Slough offer nothing in attack, yet we will doubtless only play one up front, yet what exactly are we worried about in their attack that we need to have so many players back in defence?
Having a holding midfielder has led to lots of clear sheets recently, as it is an extra layer of defence between defence and midfield. We also need to take that same approach in midfield, having a guy playing just behind our striker, linking up midfield and attack, as Tristan increasingly makes me think of last season with Ade being isolated in attack and us not scoring as it was so easy to spot who our attacking danger was and heavily mark him.
Last weekend's Chippenham game was a (belated) real eye opener for me. I had seen their recent match highlights, which showed they have no pace and create few chances, while we are the opposite in these respects, so I predicted a 2 - 0 or 3 - 0 win for us.
In the match we didnt use our pace advantage to any great effect, getting sucked into scrapping away with them, and our shooting was poor. And ever since that game I have been thinking it all over. And it strikes me, for the first time, we are no better in attack than we were 5 months ago in our two month pre-season build up games. Back then it was obvious we were lightweight in attack, hardly socring, three months into the league season we haven't progressed as an attacking force, relegation form of 12 goals in 14 games makes us the lowest scorers in the league. This is a total contrast to us defending, where we have conceded 23, which isnt great, but if you take away the two freak games where we conceded 5 goals, it is 13 conceded in 12 games, which is top of the table level of defending. So we have this weird scenario of really great defensively, very poor in attack.
Earlier on it became clear that we needed experience in attack, as our two young strikers didnt really know enough about holding position in attack to be a focal point, and we needed someone who understood all that. We have since got Tristan, and he is a really impressive striker, he has played at a higher level, and is a step above our players in his thinking, as he is a player who hangs on the shoulder of the last defender, so he just needs the ball passed in front of him and he can run onto it and be ahead of the defender wwith just the keeper to beat. But our players at teh moment clearly havent the awareness of the passes he needs, and he keeps getting understandably frustrated at making great runs that his team mates dont see. So the whole team desperately need to do training on passing balls for strikers to run onto. I remember with Alex MacAllister, he did tons of running preseason but never really had any supply, so had few shots so it was hard to tell if he was any good as a striker or not. Now that Tristan is having the same lack of supply issues, and also isnt scoring as a result, it is clearer that the issue is the lack of forward passes to the forward players. We have midfielders like James Vaughan who nearly always look for sideways passes, and there are hardly any miffielders regularly making forward passes to players ahead of them. Football is often most effective when it is kept soimple for players, so if the team is told to always aim to pass forwards whenever possible that turns us into an attacking team, instead of the slow aimless sideways passing team we were against Chippenham and so many other teams so far this season.
Then the second cause of our low scoring is we are not learning from our striking mistakes, so keep making them, with the same unsuccessful outcome that mostof our shots miss or are saved. Football is about having an eye for detail, doing things and then seeing from them working out what to do and what not to do. I have lost track of how many shots Antony has had from outside the box, around 15 I guess, maybe more. Nearly all of them are wide, over the bar, or straight at the keeper. So he and the coaching set up should be working out what he is doing wrong and fixing it, instead of him always making poor shots from distance. That is because there is not the necessary commitment to improve, in him, in the whole team, as there has been no improvement in attack for 5 months. Lewis is a really good player, but he goes on great runs, that end with him shooting straight at the keeper in the middle of the goal. Like all the other players, he needs to be coached to take time to pick a spot low and to the corner of the goal, preferably across the keeper to the far corner. I have no idea who does the striking coaching, but it needs to be reviewed, as our performances show when through on goal we dont know where to put the ball, and no one is doing anything to improve this, so it keeps happening. So it is not a question solved by bringing in new strikers, as they will have the same lack of supply problems David, Alex and Tristan have had, it is all answered from within the team, of the players and coaches realising our attack is way below the standard of our defending, and we need to get better in attack by looking for forward passes to make, running into attacking positions, and shooting with more accuracy and less haste low into the corners, preferably across the keeper t the opposite corner of the goal. It has been too complacent, everyone just saying we need to improve in attack, but we have been saying that for 5 months now, and no one is using their football intelligence to work out why this is happening and what we need to change and improve.
The third repeat problem we have is we are just to cautiously laid out. We were at home, against a hopeless Chippenham team, and, as ever, we only played one guy in attack. David and Tristan are both strikers, so will understand the sort of ball each other would like in attack, so can give each other the supply our midfield arent able to see at the moment. So playing David in a role behind Tristan, David linking midfield and attack in the same way playing Ammadou as a holding midfielder has given us a now solid link between midfield and defence. Most of the time Tristan reminds me of Ade last season, a striker half a pitch away from the rest of his team, so no one around to give him supply.
When I did some coaching in the Charlton set up I saw Darren Bent having a training session, and had a careful look, as at the time he was in the frame for playing for England, so I wanted to see the secret of his success. It was amazing to watch, as he was so skilful, he was doing a shooting practice session, and was scoring from any angle, he was in such form. And that is what our guys need to do, just practice shooting over and over until they have got their angles right, low, and in corners, preferably low across the keeper to the far corner. In attack there is nothing in the last 5 months to show we will not be relegated as it is all so complacent. That is why the Chippenham game finally struck me I have seen this all season long so far, lots of hit posts, missed shots, saved shots right at the middle of the goal for the keeper to easily save, no improvement, no change in eye for detail, and there needs to be or we will be relegated, as we have a 5 point gap from safety after 14 games, unless we improve our accuracy it will inevitably be 10 points from safety after 28 games.
November has given us a run of easier games, so let's commit more players forward, 2 strikers, or a striker with a player just behind him, and increase the focus on us scoring, rather than focusing on just having everyone back in defence and midfield to try to stop the other side scoring, which is silly when their results show they don't score much, so one doesn't need to play too defensively, so can play more in attack, and so not waste great chances like the Chippenham game, which we should have easily won, but didnt because all our unaddressed problems held us back once again.
Look, on my way out of the ground after Chippenham I heard one of our loyal fans saying behind me to a player something along the lines of "don't worry, we will get there". And that made me start to think, for the first time, about the things I wrote in great detail above, as I realised everyone, including myself, was complacent about things, but the unsuccessful things kept repeating, and nothing visible was happening to change them, and that unless there are changes made in the striking coaching and resulting players' accuracy we will drop further and further behind.
I re-read one of my posts under my former name fairly recently, and blimey, looking at it I can now see why a wall of text isnt popular here, as I'd written it, but I found it hard going to read now, as these days this post is my usual length. But the reason the above two posts went into such detail was that I was really shocked by how we wasted the opportunity to really go for 3 points against a poor team like Chippenham, and these are the sort of matches we need to get 3 points from to close the 5 point gap that we are supposed to be trying to close. And how our inaccurate shooting was no different to so many previous games this season. There are still 3 quarters of the season left to go, so loads of time to fix the striking problems, but saying we have striking problems is not the same as actually doing the training changes that need to improve the shooting accuracy, practicing doing it over and over and over until one gets it right.
We quickly need to start learning from our mistakes in attacks, not continually repeating them. That is it in a nutshell.
Jimmie. Im sorry but I find a lot of the content from your above posts quite patronising. A lot of us on here have played, watched and are still watching a lot of football. You appear to think we are unaware of the reasons we are floating about in the relegation zone. Sorry fella but I am aware. We dont score enough goals. You find it necessary to go into a ramble to say just that. I should imagine Danny Bloor who has managed at this level before is fully aware of the problem and is putting the effort in to rectify it. If he reads the forum he must feel insulted that you seem to think he doesnt understand the problem and is incapable of rectifying it without you pointing it out to him. I get you are very passionate about what you post but please dont preach to us like we need things explained all the time. We are not idiots. You make reference to your coaching experience all the time. I remind you Jody Brown a previous Welling manager is a fully qualified FA coach who coached us to 10 defeats on the trot. So qualified coach or not doesnt make you an expert on how to score goals or win football matches.
-- Edited by Riverstown on Saturday 4th of November 2023 08:03:59 AM
That sort of response, ignoring the problems and not looking for solutions from within the squad, is why we are in this mess.
Unless you're part of Danny's team or willing to put a lot of money into the club then how exactly are you going to solve anything,? You're a fan like the rest of us. None of us are ignoring the problems because we see the good and bad at matches. And this is the match report thread not the shared musings of no one in particular thread
Courtjester, I entirely agree with you, I am just a fan like all other other fans, and am happy being like that as it is nice to have the freedom and independence to say whatever I want to say, which understandably can't be the case for those playing or working for the club. I was responding to the Chippenham match in both the long posts above, making the point that the issues in that match have been going on for months in other games too, and that a fresh view needs to be taken when mistakes happen, rather than just shrugging ones shoulders and saying that's the way it goes, which is by and large what has happened so far, from me as well as others, but I am now thinking a more constructive approach is due. Danny is a proven manager, his three top 8 finishes in a row will have been achieved with dips and recoveries, so I am fully confident he will work out how to fix things.
Riverstown, a couple of times I have met people who incorrectly guess I am a school teacher. I wondered what gave them that impression, maybe it is because I am all about bouncing ideas around to better understand things. As a relative recent new fan it would be silly of me to think I know better about Welling than the far longer established fans and club officials, but I have views I can throw into the general mix. And when I do I tend to add on details to show where my thinking comes from, so it is more clearly based on experience rather than impractical pie in the sky I have made up out of thin air. Coaching qualifications are overrated, as the problem is they teach everyone to think the same, so coaches risk following what ever the latest football tactical fashion is. Qualifications teach one how to organise training drills, set out different team formations, but they dont teach one how to fix a teams' poor striking accuracy, or individual man management.
I am a bit like Alan, in really liking stability in manager and players. So defensively it is a no brainer, keep our current squad for next season as we are so good defensively. But attackwise, we are way short of the standards we need to meet, so a big rebuild would be needed on that side. So I am hoping we fix the striking accuracy issue, as we create so many chances, just are getting them wrong when shooting, and it is bizarre, as we are getting the difficult part right, creating the chances, then falling down on the easier bit of just getting it on target. We have 31 games to close a 4 point gap, the way I look at it is we have given the teams above a 4 point headstart, now need to close that gap. But there is plenty of season left, and if the players and coaches go into the tank to work out what to improve, rather than just repeating what has been shown not to work in attack, then we should be fine.
Jimmie I am sure your posts are pertinent, informative and express your views on on football and Welling United in particular. However, after the first paragraph I lose the will to live, if you want people to take on board your views on the way ahead and give due recognition to your obvious support for our team, please please cut down on the verbage and get your points over in a short and succinct way. 9
__________________
In three words I can sum up everything i've learnt in life; it goes on.
Ron, your complaints about the length of my post are well out of date, as you overlook these days I usually limit my posts to three paragraphs of around 4 lines each. So if that is too much for someone to read I guess I will just have to learn to live with the loss and disappointment of not having that reader. A few times there are important complicated things that take longer to write.
This whole striking accuracy issue highlighted by the Chippenham game is a bit more complicated to fix in the short term than I had originally realised. We still need to fix it in training, but these days we train twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so if we have a Tuesday match I assume we only train on Thursdays, so then only have that one day to fit in everything - tactical preparation for the next Saturday match, review of the Tuesday match, general training. But for the next 5 weeks we have a midweek match, so hardly any training time to dedicate to improving striking accuracy by shooting low into corners.
Our set peice/crossing also needs looking at. We had around 20 crosses, free kicks, corners and never looked like scoring from any of them. That needs to be worked on.
-- Edited by Wallop on Sunday 5th of November 2023 10:56:34 AM
