It Was Just One Of Those Things……..

By Neil Ravenscroft
September 15 2002

….. but no trip to the moon on gossamer wings (sorry, showing my age!). However, after 24 hours reflection, perhaps we ought to be thinking about what the real meaning of yesterday was.

It was strange listening to comments at the game yesterday and reading of the other web sites today. Was Jorge pulled off wrongly for Junior? Was Zdrilic very lively or useless? Were Aranalde and Bazeley our best attacking options or the problem with their poor crossing? Did we play well without any luck or looked sluggish with no passion? (During the first half, people round me were talking in terms of us giving someone a spanking on of these days!), I’ve heard all those views expressed.

Personally I thought Zdrilic looked very promising, putting in an awful lot of work to make space for Jorge. I thought Leitao looked very sluggish and lacking confidence and thought the substitution was the right one. I thought both Aranalde and Bazeley looked dangerous, although the crossing could have been better. I also thought that it was one of those days when nothing was going to go right. Trouble is, you can cope with those normally, but not when you have lost your previous two league games.

All in all, I thought we played well and, if any of the three stone cold penalties had been given (the foul on Bazeley in the first half and the pushes on Leitao and by Uhlenbeek on Junior in the second, we’d have won the game comfortably. (Interestingly enough, that seems to be the Bradford Manager’s point of view, too!).

I hate to say it (especially as I was talking about it last week too!), but I think the problem revolves around the changes of formation to try and fit Corica into the side. The 4 3 2 1 formation we played yesterday depends totally on the creativity supplied by him playing in “the hole”. When, like yesterday, he has a dip in form or is carrying an injury (I think the latter), the creativity disappears completely, having two “holding” midfielders in O’Connor and Sonner. Granted, the return of Fitzroy Simpson (sign him up, please!) would help in this, as he is more creative than the other two (and would certainly help with our terrible set piece delivery), but we can’t carry on being completely dependant on one player for creating anything around the opposition box.

I’ve already made my views plain, that 3 4 1 2 is the answer, but failing that, we must go back to 4 4 2 with wingers and width. We just did not get behind the defence enough yesterday and it is always difficult to break down defenses at this level if you can’t.

The other (unmentionable) option? Drop Corica.