Positives & Negatives – AFCB v Nottm Forest

Written by kirsikka

This week, the residents of Utsjoki in northern Finland saw their first ray of sunshine since November as the polar night ended. AFCB fans now know how they feel. We were hoping for a massive aurora from the crowd at the final whistle, but we threw away a good position on a breathless afternoon.

Yet more injuries (seriously Mr Foley… get it sorted!), and an air of desperation hung around when the line up was announced. Gary O’Neil seemingly making a last throw of the dice by making wholesale changes. I thought it might be the end of him, but the line between madness and genius is thin.

I’ve given GON a lot of stick in recent times so let’s turn our attention, for once, to the opposition dugout. Cooper absolutely dropped the ball this afternoon with some terrible management. You only have to go back to the last time Notts Forest visited here, and a well-circulated half-time team talk from Parker, to know then we felt we had the quality and didn’t want to let that be undone by allowing the match to descend into a basketball match.

Today, they were bang in form and we were the opposite, with a home crowd on the edge of turning hostile to our team in recent weeks. All they had to do was methodically take the sting out of the game and force us to chase a few shadows before the grumbles would have started and nerves crept in. Whereas we wanted a full-of-energy performance that got the crowd excited.

Cooper let them play like it was an FA Cup match from the 80s. Endlessly end to end, with no thought of slowing it down and trying to get a hold of things. Totally into our hands, and GON owes him a nice bottle of red for that. What a clanger.

Then, to return the favour, in the final quarter GON dropped a clanger of his own. For the third quarter, we had them on their toes by keeping pacey men pushed up and hitting them on the break. They had to chase the game but also had one eye over their shoulder. Then, with about 25 minutes to go, we suddenly started sitting deeper. It can only have been an instruction from the bench. With only Moore up near their defenders, and nobody worried about his pace, their line moved to 5 yards inside our half and we were pinned back with no outlet.

The equaliser, when it came, was a direct result of this. Sorry, but GON threw it away again. The brave choice would be to have at least kept one pacey player pushed up to keep them honest. The ‘safety first’ choice (which has failed us time and again in recent weeks) is to sit further back. It’s what GON chose. It failed.

Football can be strange in the way it can sometimes take a player years to win over a crowd. And yet, with another, you know within five minutes he’s going to be a cult hero. Welcome Dango Ouattara. Definitely not the finished article but he’s a live wire, he’s got pace, he can head, he looks up before putting a ball in (some work to do on the crosses/shots themselves) and he gets the crowd on their feet. More importantly, he offers a genuine threat down the right, something we’ve been begging for since Christie lost that initial burst of danger he had when he first arrived.

What did we get right? Numbers, numbers, numbers and numbers. After 60-65 minutes we were finally going forward not in the isolation of a north pole trek but with support and a multitude of runs off the ball. Underlaps overlaps… at times it was like a night in For Yours Eyes Only out there. The only way we’ll stay up is by scoring more, and for that, we need to create more and for that, we need more players in attack. It was a relief to finally see that.

Anthony was making really intelligent runs every time Dango got on the ball meaning Forest had difficulties covering us. It led to his goal, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. Surrounding Moore with pace and movement meant the Forest defence struggled to cope, rather than sitting comfortably against an isolated target man.

Danilo came on for them before half time, a much-lauded player in the South American leagues and recently arrived as Forest’s (possibly) 69th signing of the season. He was eaten alive out there by Lerma and Rothwell. Dinner for two, indeed.

So much good, but there’s a big but. And I don’t mean mine. That match was played like a Championship match even if Forest have changed almost their whole playing personnel. You can take the team out of the second tier, but you can’t take the second tier out of the team. I won’t be too excited until I see us try and attack a team that play like a PL team.

—– Positive Performances —–

Zemura – A menace going forward, unlucky not to get an assist, and much better defensively even when outnumbered and against their main outlet.

Ouattara – Faded badly in the second period but not a surprise, all things considered. There was enough there to get excited about the potential. The kind of player that can give the crowd a lift, which we’ve needed.

Anthony – Best performance in a long time. A surprise when reconnected with his buddy and with both told to attack? Not to anyone with sense. He stepped up and looked like a senior pro from which Dango can learn.

Rothwell – He wasn’t perfect, but definitely the best we’ve seen from him. Good on the transition and between the lines.

Neto – Solid, and unlucky to lose his clean sheet.

—– Room for improvement —–

Moore – It was much better in some ways but when you look at individual moments, he missed his free header when he should have scored and gave the ball away in a dangerous area for the equaliser. And he didn’t really bully his defender.

Christie – Given the freedom of the central role, there were times he impacted play but not enough to claim such a crucial position as his own. Anonymous in the second period and should have been subbed off earlier.

—– GON watch —–
If that performance had been weeks back I’d feel slightly encouraged that he wasn’t afraid to attack teams sometimes, but, instead, it felt like a desperate death throe. Even when it worked, he then reverted to type and tried to sit on the lead which cost us the win.

I wanted a better performance and we got that. With the caveat that it was a Championship type of match out there. We won’t have many teams who want to ding dong like that in this league.

It’s a point. It’s an improvement. In the context of making wholesale changes, it looks a little desperate. Is it enough to save him? Not for me. I’m starting to wonder if Foley has the balls to admit he made a mistake so publicly though. Sometimes the wealthy don’t want that and perhaps he thinks if he gives GON enough time it’ll get better. I’m not sure it will.

I suspect in years to come this period will be remembered in the same way we remember Groves. GON, but not forgotten.

Man of the match against Forest

Positives: attitude and desire. We looked full of energy in the first half. Closed down, pressured the opposition, looked attack-minded and created chances. The two missed headers we shockers and we should have been comfortably 3-0 up at half time. The new lad looks promising.
Cons: Kelly and Rothwell. Kelly looks shot of confidence. No aggression. Allowed players to get to the ball before him. No authority in the air and still dodgy passing. I’m not sure what Rothwell brings to the team and pretty anonymous throughout.
However, I lay the blame for throwing that away firmly at the feet of O’Neill. Around 65-70 minute mark they made 3 attacking subs and we were already looking tired at that point. Around 80 minutes we looked f@cked and had only made 1 substitution at that point. The game became scrappy. We were starting to lose positional shape. At that point, O’Neill should have managed that game out by using his substitutes. He still had four to make and could have brought a new sub on every couple of minutes to slow the game down and break any momentum that Forest were building. Instead, he brought Dembele on with 5 to go after they had equalised. He has no game management and was blindly hoping the knackered players would hold on. Poor from ONeill and cost us the three points.
Not sure how JZ for MOM. For me Lerma was huge today although a big shout out for Christie who worked his socks off.

Better performance. Nice to have pace up front on both sides. As a counter-attacking team it’s imperative and has been why we have looked so bad lately. Stick Tavernier and Solanke back in that mix and it will look more dynamic again without Moore and Christie who are championship huff and puff.

I thought Forest were really poor, I think it’s actually quite a poor league this year full stop. Had we won today and best Southampton which anyone but a PE teacher would do we’d be sat looking relatively ok which is extraordinary really considering how we’ve played.

First half we were much better than in recent weeks. How we’ve managed to avoid playing either JA or JZ together is one of this season’s many mysteries. I’m not saying they haven’t got their faults but it’s so critical to our threat level it beggars belief how rare it has been. Dango was bright, Rothwell I could finally see what he does and Christie better not in an advanced position.

The second half was poor. Forest were always going to push on but we just got deeper and deeper and forgot. I also think we looked unfit. Subs could have come on quicker for Christie and Dango in particular and Rothwell. In the end it was just a matter of whether a side with as little threat as Forest had shown could conjure a chance. They did and Surridge showed that booing doesn’t always cripple a player by ramming it back down our throats.

Positives:
1) Neto brilliant – made a world-class save. Excellent distribution and commanded his box well.
2) Rothwell – brilliant game, this was his best game for us by a mile, with some clever passes and good movement.
3) Our new signing – good in the air, a lot of pace, attack-minded, not afraid to have a go crossing and shooting, got an assist.
4) Nobody had a bad game.

Neutrals:
I thought Kelly and Moore had good games. Moore made that howler that cost us the game but I thought he was excellent at holding it up and slotting our wide players through. Kelly made some good tackles and I was pleased to see him embrace the fans at the end – the same couldn’t be said for O’Neil who clapped the East Stand but didn’t even look over to the North Stand. Lerma and Christie were quite good and Anthony played well.

Negatives:
The 2 songs when we were 1-0 up (We scored a goal & how sh!t must you be … we are winning at home) If we had pulled one back when we are getting hammered then fair enough, but not when we are playing well and winning.
We rode our luck too many times and got punished for it eventually. There were so many times when Johnson and MGW put low crosses in that just went through everybody in a packed box, unfortunately, Surridge was given 2 decent chances and got his tap in. We got away with 1 when Stephens almost passed the ball straight to MGW on our box, luckily he had switched off and let it roll across his feet
Bringing off Rothwell when he was looking good – I would have brought off the new player who had a quiet second half for Dembele and not changed things drastically when we were on top.

Massive improvement, nice to watch a competitive game of football again
UTC

In total agreement with the original post.

GON isn’t learning from his mistakes. The formation prevents us from holding leads. This team is just not suited to it. I had hoped he would have learned from the Leeds debacle. He obviously has not. I was willing to give him a shot, but today was it for me. Management needs to focus on bringing players in, so GON needs to remain in place for another week. Then he needs to go, even if it means going with an interim from inside the organisation. Not ideal, not my first choice, but GON just is not up to the job. Connell at least has been the head guy in charge at lower levels. Rather somebody with experience as a head coach/manager at the highest level, but I’ll take what I can get.

Thought Anthony played his best game as a senior player. Zemura and he need to always play together. That’s obvious. But…if GON is going to try to go into a defensive posture with the slightest lead are we resigned to hoping for a 0-0 draw into the 89th minute and nicking a goal at the last minute so GON’s tactical genius can’t screw it up?

Congrats on one of our own scoring for that other team. That’s all Sam does when given the opportunity, score. Shame we had no use for him here. – To join the conversation, click here.