RSL in the WSL Part 13
Pachuca
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RSL in the WSL Part 13
The bus rides south seem longer and longer. I’m not sure if it’s the losing streak, or if the mileage is really significantly different.
After 33 hours on the road we arrived, pumped up and ready to return to our winning ways.
Pachuca CF are in 8th place and are in excellent form. I feel like we’ve faced 5 excellent teams in a row now, and am wondering when the schedule makers will finally give us some respite.
Tactics
Rivera is a new name here – a young defensive midfielder that my Head of Youth Development recommended to me the other day. Cardozo is still around, of course – we just need to rotate as much as we can to deal with our heavy schedule.
As you can see, we’re still going with the 4-4-2 Diamond, no matter what the pundits say. I’ll go with this formation until I lose my job.
I did make a few adjustments to our corner routines, however. Up to this point I had simply allowed the game to default me into whatever worked. I’ve decided to go with a relatively simple corner routine in hopes of actually scoring for a change.
Football Manager doesn’t make it easy to explain what is going on with these. Basically, I took our best corner takers and set them up to give us in-swinging corner kicks. I had our tallest player mark the keeper, and arranged all the other tall players right around where the ball is designed to come, keeping a few back for defensive purposes.
It’s not exactly elegant, but it should get the job done. It would really be nice to see an updated corner set piece strategy system, though I’m guessing this is low on Sports Interactive’s list of priorities.
The Match
Yeah, this one was ugly – really ugly. Again.
We started it off as we always do, giving up a goal in the 28th minute.
I thought we could overcome the 1-0 deficit at halftime, but I suppose I was a bit too optimistic.
This second goal, in the 58th minute, was really painful. I’m not sure what happened to our defense. There’s nothing more demoralizing than giving up one like this.
We were called for a weak penalty in the 76th minute, which led to the third goal.
Tonin proved that he can still score, putting one away in the 78th minute. I’m still concerned about his lack of consistency – however, at least he can score goals, unlike our other strikers.
And then came the 4th – a completely ridiculous own goal that I don’t really want to talk about.
There you have it, another 4-1 road loss, and another long 33 hour bus ride home.
Analysis
It was a loss, that’s for sure.
I’ve noticed that we really aren’t bad at creating chances, and that we are good at holding onto possession. We do lack in striker finishing, though that will improve over time. We’ve got a lot of very young players at the moment, but we also have a really good training setup. We need patience, no matter how bad these games are.
And, look – there were three fluke goals for Pachuca in this one. The penalty call was ridiculous, in my opinion. That second goal, up and over the middle, is fortunately not the sort of goal that we usually give up. And Oliveria’s own goal at the end was what it was – a simple mistake in a tight spot.
As bad as the result was, there are reasons to be optimistic moving forward.
You know, this offensive scheme relies heavily on the wings – both the midfield wingers and the complete wingbacks on the right and left sides. When you see all four of those players having bad games, which is what you see here, you know you’ve lost. As much as I want to blame this on poor striker finishing, I really think the problem has to do with our wingers.
Schubert did have a number of good saves that I didn’t present as highlights – he’s as good as they told me. I think we’ve found our first-choice goalkeeper.
Yeah, this looks pretty bad.
Tonin did have a good game after being substituted on, however. We need to keep his spirits up.
More Criticism
I wish I had a button to tell these fans to shut up.
Yeah, Football Manager certainly knows how to rub it in. We do have a bad defense, though. This is partially because we are relying on our left and right backs to help generate some offense – we need players at those positions who are capable of playing both roles. It will get better, though.
Monthly Review
We’ve played through the first month of the season. 2 wins and 5 losses isn’t great, but it’s apparently good enough for the board.
My job security still shows up as “secure” on the Club Vision screen, so I think we’re good for the time being. I really don’t want to be relegated; however, I also think we’ve got enough potential here to avoid that fate. We just need some patience.
More fun graphs.
We’re creating offensive chances, but we’re not putting them away. We aren’t creating as many chances as we should.
And our defense is really hurting, obviously. “Below average” feels like an understatement.
Standings
Down we go, down the chart, with the worst goal differential in the league. We’re not to the bottom yet, however. A single win puts us back up near mid-table. It’s not too late to salvage the season, though we may need a transfer or two to put us over the top.
FA Cup
My next match for you will be our FA Cup Fifth Round draw against Almeria. More to come on that later.