Painful Day All Around

I figured I better wait until the next day to write this report. Both teams played poorly yesterday - pretty well not much else to say. I realise that both teams had key players missing  and both teams played without a true 9 which hurts structurally, yet there should be enough depth to cover.
Simply, we were out defended by both 14 and U18 Heidelberg. Defensively, our teams struggled to keep pace with the quick diagonal balls through gaps and both defenses played too flat. They found it easy to pierce our back four however we struggled to pierce their back four.
I guess what hurts is that I know we are better than both teams - we just did not bring our game yesterday.
In the 14s and 18s we made some real howling mistakes. Falling over at crucial points, missing the ball at other crucial points, misreading the bounce of the ball or just not having the speed to keep up with an opponent nor the endurance to run out a whole game. Players looked tired and this creates simple mistakes based on pressure from the opposition.
This is one thing we have learned lately. When a team puts loads of continuous pressure on us we can't handle it. We need to address this at training.

U14s - we need to start again and build from the back. We are too poorly skilled and are rarely in the correct position to execute our game plan. Not one player can run out a full game. We miss training, come late to games, don't follow simple instructions and even more sadly, many of us lack that competitive desire that is necessary to play at NPL level. There is no communication at all! It is absolutely clear that most of us need strength, conditioning and speed development NOW!

U18s - the small pitch was obviously easier for Heidelberg to defend our spread offense and it allowed them to defend tightly and close all gaps. Yet we had three or 4 chances in the first half that we should have buried. In defense, we made some poor reads on the bouncing ball and played too flat and were punished. They had 5 or 6 entries into our defensive half and scored 3 times. Our lack of pace was clearly evident. Even though we have some fast players there are 12 from 20 that need to do strength, speed and conditioning.
So with a 3-0 deficit, I reiterated exactly what I said before the game. Keep possession, stop long balling on this little pitch and keep structure down back with a cushion. Move the ball laterally and quickly. We did this and started to control the game. They plugged 8 in the box and defended stoutly. We earned 1 goal and then missed a few easy chances. We scored a second and all of a sudden we were 3-2 down. We easily could have been 3-3 but we missed open goals from metres out. In fact we could have wrestled the lead back. They were getting tired and falling apart in shape. But for some inexplicable reason we abandoned the lateral game and started to long ball it again. They countered a few times and could have hurt us more if it wasn't for great work by Lewis but he can only protect the goal 1 v 1 a limited amount of times and they scored again to make it 4-2. Four defenders were repeatedly beaten by 1 or 2 players because we were trying to force the equaliser and gave it away, and they countered rapidly. And, on each occasion, we had no cushion - we left a defender 1v1 and we were done!
So let's hope both teams have learned about their shortcomings and are willing to apply themselves to correct the situations. We will see Wednesday I guess.