Boys go to Town

A newly formed Staines Town team came to Hatton Road, full of a mixture of hope and fear, and left knowing their feelings were right on arrival.
I'd like to say it shows we are heading in the right direction, I told the boys that Staines would be there for the taking if they went about their job in the right manner. This wasn't because they were at all weak, but because we know how difficult it is to adjust to 9 a side.
We agreed we'd put them under pressure straight away and push them to make mistakes.

Our first 20 minute session went perfectly and we found ourselves 4 goals to the good.
The second third was slightly more experimental, and we tried Henry and Alfie alongside James at the back and they've all just come back off holiday, so they themselves haven't played much 9 aside football between them. We did give away some chances but it's most important that we all get minutes on the pitch to get used to the new format.

It's true that we could have kept our shape, played as we were and carried on to a big win, but theres a lot more to this game for us to find out so we tried to look into a few different options.

The third third was started with the boys picking their own formation. This done as an experiment to see who takes control of proceedings, who takes a step back. It's valuable to me to see our natural leaders and whos happy to be led. It was interesting and funny to see the boys with a new sense of control.

For the last 10 we went back to how I see us at our strongest and we scored another 2 goals. Along with one more which Yusuf had disallowed which the lino told me was over but he didn't want to damage his boys any further.

The discipline and maturity, the tactical knowledge is coming on just fine. I do think we could be sharper, hungrier defensively but that will come with time, in the same way we could be more composed in front of goal.

We worked today on starting off with pressure from the start and that was perfect.

Another big plus for us today was scoring with headers from corners. It's not easy to get kids heading the ball like that, it goes against all their instincts. So well done Frankie. We did well with second balls in the box, all basics but the basics win you football matches, and thats what happened today.

Luca and Aiden did really well in the middle, it was a position I was concerned about with us losing Kieran at the end of the season, but I'm happy to say my fears were unfounded. With Reece to come back we look strong in there, with Yusuf, Frankie and Joe all getting goals in preseason we are giving ourselves every opportunity to start the season well.
This next week holds much much tougher tests, but we can go into them with optimism. Performance will be more important than result in these next 3 games.