Life of Bryan

Throughout all of the first aid courses I’ve completed over the years, I’ve always been told that one of the feelings that a person can have whilst experiencing a heart attack can be that of their impending doom. Having documented the slowdown in our training and friendly performances over the festive periods here last week, why I didn’t experience that feeling during Saturday’s game is beyond me because it certainly felt like I was having a 90 minute heart attack watching our display.

Although the inclement weather can play a part in a team’s certain way of playing, it is the same for both teams and what it then comes down to is who wants it the most. On Saturday it was clear that Maybole wanted it the most, which for Arnie and me is extremely disappointing. The carrot of being able to pull further away at the top of the League was clearly not enough to motivate the players so we’ll need to look at others approaches.

Looking at the performance as a whole, the aspect that deflated me the most though was the poor technical ability that we showed whilst in possession of the ball. I continually preach to the players about getting the ball under control before they attempt to make it a pass. You’ll be reading this thinking that this is really basic stuff and that this should happen automatically but it will amaze you the amount of times that players, not just our players but all players except maybe at the top level, try to pass the ball without the having the proper set up in place. This is something I drone on and on about at training. The problem that I seem to have with achieving success with it though is that players who have been playing football for years, believe that they already know how to pass the ball so a lot of them default back to their norm, unless you’re on top of them all 100% of the time, and the norm for them is not what I’m after.

This isn’t something that you need to take my word for. In any game that you watch, look at the passing by each individual player both when they have time and space and when they are under a bit of pressure. When under pressure, whether it be from an opponent, the clock, the score line or even fatigue, a lot of players react negatively and either rush their passes which invariably destroys the accuracy or struggle to get the ball under control in the first place. This is easily evidenced by the amount of times they lose their team possession. The mark of a really good player is when, under any circumstance, they remain composed and their technique stays the same which allows them to make good passes and retain possession.

As an aside, whilst I’m discussing passing, another major indicator of a really good player has less to do with technique and more to do with awareness and speed of thought. Time and again, I watch players taking control of the ball with time and space and with the obvious pass right in front of them. From that point, there is then a clear delay between the realisation of that pass and the release of the pass which wastes valuable time. The upshot of this is that they either make the pass which puts their team mate under pressure or they then decided that the teammate is no longer available (due to their delay) which means they themselves are much more likely to be under pressure as they dwell on the ball and allow the opposition to close them down. The really good players see and make the pass almost automatically which allows their team to move the ball into open space more effectively. Again, this is something that you will be able to see when you watch a game but will be much more prevalent the further down the levels you go.

Although I’m pointing this out as something that we need to work on, this is an issue on a sliding scale for every football club whether they realise it or not, except maybe those who are operating at the very top level.

After a weekend of being massively disappointed yet also being thankful for having an electric oven, when we look at our league position in the cold light of day then we are still in a good place.

For all it was a particularly bad performance by us on Saturday, Arnie and I have again learned lessons from it which will help us going forward. We all just need to write this one off again as another bad day at the office and focus on being much better this coming Saturday.