Corby Updates

[HalesowenHarry]

Corby down to 10 for a stamp!

1st class?

[RaidenYeltz]

It was the old cliche of a game of two halves, wasn't it? I thought first half we were poor. I get the feeling we were still hungover from Saturday's poor display and result. We looked very flat and lacked energy. But we looked excellent the second half, and maybe should've won it.

It did take me a while to try and work out what formation and system we were playing. I think the players looked lost in it. I think we were playing a 352? Someone told me it was apparently a 433, if it was it certainly didn't look like it.

For the first 35 minutes or so, we looked shakey at the back, un-organised and couldn't hold the ball up, hence it was constantly coming back at us. It was like the players didn't know what position they were supposed to playing or who they were playing with.

I do like the 352, when you have the adequate players to select from. The key to it being an effective formation is having two excellent full backs who are just as good going forward as they are at defending, and who are capable of running up and down the flank all match. I just don't think we have that.

Anderson certainly isn't a full back capable of playing in a 352, and was wasted playing there. (Griff is, who played well second half). I just felt going with a system (or appearing to go with a system) that realistically requires 5 organised defenders, when you're threadbare on defenders was baffling, if I'm honest. Just felt we went with the wrong formation last night.

It's worrying that were playing Anderson as a wing back, it's just a lost talent. Surely we had better options than that? I'd play Melvin or Brags over Anderson as a make shift right back.

I thought going 442 would've been a better option. With Morrison, Silva, Asa and Griff as the flat back four. Anyway, we're all managers, aren't we?

The second half was much improved. We seemed to press Corby higher and 'get into them' more. We played the ball on the floor a lot more and looked to get the ball out wide. Clarke and Delaney look a handful, hopefully they'll get better with each game they play together. I thought Denny was back to his best, too.

I genuinely believe we've got a very good set of players at the moment, who are more than capable of getting results. If we play like we did second half, we'll give Blyth a good game.

One thing I'd like to see from us, is for us to be a bit more nasty to teams. I think we're too nice and get bullied out of games at times. Certainly first half it looked like we were intimidated by Corby's physicality.

Really pleased with the character already shown this season, in bouncing back after the Buxton loss and fighting back after going 1-0 down in our first home game.

Some negatives to iron out, but a few positives to build on too.

[RobYeltz]

With Haynes unavailable, Brad Lewis injured, Rio injured, Parsons-Smith injured it is inevitable we'll have a degree of square pegs in round holes. The new lad coming into a back three looked a good decision in my eyes and Kaiman took one for the team in taking up an unfamiliar RWB position. I thought he did ever so well too. I agree, it's clearly not the best use of his talents but it isn't about Kaiman but the team. As the game went on we got better we were unfortunate to not nick it in the end. A lot was said about how we were better second half, however we didn't score in our better half - funny game eh?
Blyth up next, a good side but we tend to do better against sides seemingly better than us so fingers crossed.

[lutleyyeltz]

Not relevant to the game itself but a comment was made to me by a visiting supporter who asked me; "has there been a water shortage in Halesowen, because your pitch looks bad for the first match of the season."
Hmmm!

[CRHTheTog]

Photos from last nights game are now available:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/halesowen ... 2581504455

I will post a thread on the main discussion and on here called "Match Day Photos" where I will post the link to all the pics. Enjoy!

CRH