So Far, So Good

By: Daryl | May 27th, 2009

I was more than a little nervous abut this first game played under the new democratic regime.

A trip to Watford in the FA Cup 3rd Round looks easy on paper, but defeat would have been an absolute disaster.

But not to worry. It all turned out OK.

After the debate about starting lineup, here is the chosen XI:

(click to enlarge)

Debut for Knudsen, and tactics adapted to suit Sneijder’s criminal lack of pace (he was told to not make so many forward runs, to play through balls and to cross from deep).

The first half was frustrating. We piled on the pressure and had all the possession, but only had a bunch of long range shots to show for it. All of which were a bit tame. What I hadn’t counted on was that Sneijder’s lack of penetration down the left was made worse by Wijnaldum’s relative lack of pace down the right (he’s got 14s for acc. and pace). Watford were playing deep and we just weren’t getting in behind them.

I felt guilty cutting the Sneijder experiment short… until I spotted his condition. At HT he was at 79%, easily the lowest condition of all the players. So I changed things around to give us more penetration down the flanks.

Sneijder came off and young John Fleck (20 years old and now officially a “wonderkid”) came on in his place, with instructions to run at defenders. On the right I made the theoretically odd move of switching Wijnaldum with Diego. Diego’s not really a right mid (he’s “awkward” there) but I gambled that that wouldn’t matter vs Watford and his pace would be more important. So here’s how we went out for the second 45:

And it worked. In the 51st minute, Wijnaldum played Diego in behind the Watford defence, Diego’s shot was saved, but The Pog poked in the rebound 1-0.

A few subs as the game went on: Lien on for Camacho and later Dzagoev for Knudesn (who had done OK but looked tired). The Pog made sure when he headed home at close range after a Dzagoev flick on.

So all in all, pretty successful. Everyone got a run out and we’re through to the 4th Round of the FA Cup. Here are the final player stats:

Before we move on to the Man Utd game (next post), I want to get some feed back on loaning out players to affiliate clubs. I have Sheff Utd (struggling in Championship) and Hartlepool (struggling in League One) ready and willing to receive players.

So far I’ve sent young Albert Ingebrigsten on loan to Sheff Utd, but am wondering about sending some of my younger squad players out too (if they’ll go) to stop them rotting on the bench and/or reserves.

Here are the guys I think would benefit from some first team football (not to mention kick arse in the lower leagues) –

Rodney Sniejder
Georginio Wijnaldum
Lars Lien
Tomas Knudsen
Alan Dzagoev

They’ll get a handful of Prem games if they stay, but many more Championship/League One games if they go. And they can be recalled at any time. What do you think?