Under 14s Reports Archive (January)

Sponsors of the Under 13s

Under 14s v. LINDFIELD (Result 1-1) League - 29/01/05

 

I am sure that many of us had forgotten what Homefield Park looked like.

Due to cancelled fixtures, and a string of away games, we had not played at our home ground since mid November. To say that we had not been playing well in recent matches would be a gross understatement. After a 'serious chat' at training last Tuesday, and a revised formation for the visit of Lindfield, the big question was, 'can we improve and regain some of our old form'? I am pleased to say that the answer was a big YES!

 

Lindfield were lying mid table, and two places above us in the league. The past encounters had often been quite close, and this was no exception. The match started fairly evenly and stayed that way for the first 10 minutes.

Then Lindfield broke with a defence splitting ball, run on to by one of their fastest players. Luckily, Gemma was also at full speed which enabled her to track back and catch the Lindfield forward before calmly putting in a strong, well timed challenge to snuff out the danger. In recent weeks we had suffered by not having the strength or numbers in midfield which left us open to constant attack, and made it difficult to get the ball up to our forwards. The revised formation seemed to help us a little, although there was still a slight tendency for some of our midfielders to come back and defend in the first half, rather than trust the defence to do their job. I was particularly pleased with the way our defenders worked together.

Special praise must go to Hannah who was slotted into the back four for the first time this season. Lindfield had tended, in the past, to attack down the middle and the right so I assumed that Hannah would not be too exposed during her first game at right back. As it happened, Lindfield had acquired a left footed player which meant a reasonable amount of traffic down their left wing, which Hannah coped with admirably. In midfield, we were passing the ball around fairly well and started to dominate the possession.

Lindfield were not able to get through that often although, to be fair, we also seemed unable to get too many accurate balls to our own forwards. The exceptions were a couple of long chips into the box from Steph who was pushing up well from her role at left back. Regrettably, our forwards were not there to meet them. They should really have anticipated the panic these balls caused, and rushed in to pounce on any mistakes. Then on 26 minutes Lindfield had their first serious attempt which resulted in a somewhat lucky goal. A ball sent high from the right, and vaguely towards the six yard box, held up in the slight breeze and then came down to hit our left upright, rebounding into the net with virtually no chance of stopping it.

For the last 9 minutes, Lindfield seemed to force us back a little too much and, although they never really threatened our goal again, they forced us to play too deep. We should have retained our belief a bit more and held our defensive line further up the field. By doing this earlier in the match, we had compressed the play into a smaller area, allowing us to play our preferred, short passing game. Our other main fault in the first half was a hesitation to try and win the balls from goal kicks. We were standing back and watching too much when we should have been trying to win possession but, nevertheless, it was all a big improvement on the recent past.

 

At half time we addressed these points and came out playing some good football. We were rewarded 10 minutes after the restart when Steph put a neat ball from the left through to Rachel, just in side the box. She in turn laid the ball off and Poppy chipped in to net her first of the season.

This was very just reward for her constant work and enthusiasm in midfield.

Our wingers, Susan and Katie T, were also starting to work well and did their job by winning us some corners and getting the odd cross in. Again, we seemed to dominate most of the possession and looked confident in defence when Lindfield managed to break. The only criticism here was the way we tended to clear balls from defence without too much thought about their distance. Far too many of the clearances, with the exception of those from Katie B, were hit well over our chasing attackers and the Lindfield goalie was often first to the ball. A slightly more delicate long ball would have given our forwards half a chance of reaching it before the keeper. This way, all we ended up doing was tiring our own players by expecting them to chase no-hopers. These are issues we can deal with fairly easily, and the main thing is the way we kept possession and passed the ball around in the middle of the field. It proves the old maxim that, 'if we keep the ball, the opposition cannot score'. In the second half especially, we played as a unit, tackled well, and put up a good fight against a team that were above us in the league and had the luxury of 2 substitutes.

 

Although Lindfield began to push us a little too deep again in the last 10 minutes, and threatened our goal a few times, the draw was a fair overall result. My 'Player of the Match' award is a shared one this week which goes to Poppy and Hannah. Poppy scored a good goal and gave 100% in terms of effort, both defensively in her tackling, and creatively in her distribution of the ball. Hannah slotted very well into a new position, covered well when other players were out of position, and really meant every tackle she went for. She chased back with determination, and did enough to block or prevent shots on more than one occasion. I even spotted a brave header in there as well. Anyone wanting to challenge Hannah for the right back position now will certainly have their work cut out. Let's hope we can continue to play with a rekindled belief in ourselves for the rest of the season, starting with a tough one next week against Littlehampton.

 

Under 14s v. EAST GRINSTEAD (Result 1-8) League - 09/01/05

 

An early start on Sunday saw us making the trip to East Grinstead to face the team currently sitting second in the league with 9 wins, 1 draw, and 2 defeats to their name. East Grinstead also seemed to have grown a bit since we last met, and they were not short of height then! Not an easy fixture but, in our favour, we had a full team plus a sub which made a pleasant change. Having established from our last two encounters with Grinstead that they like to run down the wings and cut balls in early, I decided to play four at the back with a sweeper just in front of defence. This effectively gave us a 5 man defence when needed, but should also help us to get balls up to the midfielders and front runners when we broke from the back. We had not been too lucky with the toss at recent games and this was no exception.

Once again, we found ourselves playing uphill and against the wind!

 

Grinstead found the net early and slightly against the initial run of play when a powerful short-range shot just crept under Amy's arms, despite her getting down very quickly. The next 15 minutes were quite even in terms of possession but Grinstead looked the more dangerous side, forcing 3 good saves from Amy in the Worthing goal. Her luck (and skill) didn't hold for much longer however, when on 19 minutes she jumped and tipped a powerful shot upwards and over - or so we hoped. In actual fact the shot hit the underside of the bar and cruelly ricocheted just over the line (0-2). These first 2 goals had been slightly lucky and, on the few occasions we had got anywhere near the Grinstead goal, our attacks lacked power and were easily dealt with by their keeper. Grinstead's 3rd goal, however, was well worked.

They broke past our retreating defenders and, when Amy came out and narrowed the angle, failed to get sucked into making the difficult shot.

Coolly they passed sideways for an easy tap in before our defence were fully back in position. Not a spectacular goal but a clever one (0-3). The last 10 minutes of the first half saw Grinstead put away two more goals.

The first was due wholly to defensive errors by us, and the next was from a nice cross and slot in, just before time. Our only real chance of this half was put just wide by Amy P on 31 minutes. The slope was certainly affecting us although we were playing some reasonable football at times in the middle of the field. We didn't really deserve to come in 5-0 down though despite some of our players not trying quite as hard as they could have done.

 

We started quite well in the second half and Amy P again almost found the net for us - but not quite. We started to push up a bit more and use the slope to our benefit, only to see Grinstead break when we were well up and add a sixth goal to their tally. The disadvantage of the sweeper system is the fact that you are always going to be a little outnumbered between he midfield and upfront. Thus was proving to be the case and we found difficulty getting the ball anywhere near the box. Poppy started to push up and combine well with Susan and Rachel, giving us a few more options down the wing, but we could have done with another attacking player on the left of midfield. Steph continued to provide a solid first line of defence and a lot of creativity going forward but her initial efforts were often wasted when her fellow players failed to take things further. A little more support was required for both Rachel and Steph but, unfortunately, this was patchy and spasmodic. Perhaps we were all a bit rusty after the holiday break. Hannah impressed, after coming on just before half time, and her new found commitment at training continued into the match environment. She got in some useful challenges, accurate passes, and was not afraid to take the ball forward herself when passing options were scarce.

 

When Grinstead added a seventh goal, 14 minutes into the second half, I began to think we were never going to find the net but, not for the first time this season, Rachel came to the rescue - and in style. Half way through the second period, Rachel took a corner from the right which didn't find the box first time and was laid back to her. She delicately chipped the ball (with height) back into the box and as it came down we could see that it might cause the keeper problems. Amazingly, the ball was still travelling slightly towards the goal line as it came down and squeezed itself into the near-side top corner, just beyond the keeper's reach. What a goal - even Rachel looked amazed that she had scored. What is it with this girl? She only seems to be able to score spectacular, improbable, world class goals this season. Although they have been great to watch, I am thinking of requesting double the number but without the flair - we could certainly do with them! Joking apart, Rachel never gives up and her efforts show just what can be done if you try for everything instead of holding back in case it doesn't come off. I thought we might be able to build on this as Susan was breaking through and getting near goal several times.

Regrettably, our chances failed to materialise; the Grinstead keeper doing well to prevent a couple. Even more upsetting was the fact that we conceded an eight goal minutes from time, again due to defensive errors. It could well have been 9-0 if Amy hadn't kept her wits about her to pull off yet another fine save at the very last knockings. This underlined her claim for 'Player of the Match' as I dread to think what the scoreline might have been if she had not been on form. The other good performances have already had mentions earlier in the report. So what can we take from this match?

The need to work harder for each other would be a start. When we go forward, we must all go forward, finding positions where we can receive passes without them being cut out by faster opponents. We must expect to retain possession and not play as though we are going to lose it any second. We can combat superior speed with intelligent thinking and do what the opposition don't expect. So we need to think ahead a little more and work together whilst showing that we are willing to fight for 50-50 balls and not just assume that our opponents will win them. Next week's training session will address these very points. They are areas I am determined to improve as, for starters, it makes our game far more enjoyable. On a more positive note, the game was played in good spirit and with sportsmanship.

As the referee commented after the game, "it may well have been a far closer scoreline had we had the slope in our favour from the start".

Under 14s v. LANCING RANGERS (Result 0-6) League - 23/01/05

 

Sunny, if somewhat chilly, weather was the order of the day for our short Sunday afternoon trip to Sompting Recreation Ground. Lancing Rangers were lying third in the table with some good results behind them. In the past, we had experienced several quite close matches with them, so we hoped that we could put an end to our recent run of big defeats. Lancing had other ideas however and, regrettably, we were unable to find the form we know we are capable of. Although we took 12 players with us, a couple of the girls had been suffering a bit with illness recently and this did seem to impact slightly on our game.

 

Lancing started very strongly and within 3 minutes had split our defence with a diagonal ball. We managed to force play to the right of goal but not quite far enough as a well taken shot into the left of our goal saw Amy C at full stretch. Despite her superb dive, and managing to get her finger tips to the ball, the shot was too strong to deflect far and sailed into the net. This was not the first time this season that we had conceded a very early goal. Lancing's second goal came about midway through the first half and, to be honest, was a lucky strike. Struck from just outside the box by a player at a precarious angle, the ball sailed up and over both Amy and our defence. Everybody assumed it was going out but, somehow, the spin on the ball caused it to dip more quickly as it neared the crossbar and ...

you've guessed it; when it crossed the goal line it was just under the bar.

For a while we then started to play some half respectable football, although we won just a couple of corners, and never really threatened the Lancing keeper. Poppy narrowly averted a third for Lancing on 30 minutes, when she covered well and cleared the line with Amy beaten. Coming in 0-2 down at the break, I was not too disappointed as I felt we could improve on the performance by shutting players down a little quicker and concentrating on keeping possession through the accuracy of our passing.

 

The ideas seemed to work for about the first 5 minutes of the second half.

Amy P had a ball plucked from her feet as she was just about to slot in Rachel's cross from Steph's incisive through pass. Then it all went wrong.

In hindsight I must, as manager, accept some of blame for this, as our tactical positioning backfired in a big way. Gemma had been struggling with her asthma and came off at half time. We had recently been playing with four backs and a sweeper, which seemed to work quite well against the very toughest teams where we knew we would be under constant defensive pressure.

With Gemma, our quickest defender, off we found Rachel kept having to come back on numerous occasions, leaving us with almost no midfield presence.

Lancing capitalised on this and monopolised the centre of the park where they were free to distribute balls to the left, right, or over our defence.

Our girls seemed to buckle under the pressure of the resulting onslaught.

Lancing grabbed a scrambled 3rd goal 14 minutes from the break and then proceeded to fire in a further 3 goals in the next 10 minutes. One of these was particularly good but a couple were very speculative shots hit from distance, which found the corner of the net. I am not taking anything away from the Lancing girls here as, when you are on top, you can take such chances and very often they will come off to spectacular effect. Even bringing our 'keeper onto the field didn't seem to make any difference. We were definitely beaten by the better team on the day but, I am disappointed in the level of commitment from many of our girls this week. Too often we were caught flat footed, ball watching, and lacking in creativity. We hardly challenged for a 50 -50 ball during much of the second half and it is very unlike us to just give up. Next week we will return to a 4-4-2 formation and strengthen our midfield, even if it means slightly weakening our defence, BUT, I want to see us working far harder and creating pressure rather than reacting to it. There are certain players who do try hard in every game but in this one, very few shone out. The 'Player of the Match'  award this week is shared between Poppy (who never gave up and saved us a couple of goals), and Katie B who made many vital challenges in the game, and kept a clean sheet as substitute goalie when Amy C came out into midfield.