Subject: [NT] England Team Newsdesk

I wonder if you had thought of number 1 before the election? ;)

No - I read some posts by you suggesting it would be good if Managers were sent a mail if a player got injured. It appears good common sense to me to do that - so no Manager get's left with a player short due to unknown NT injury.

Team to face France

1 Ahmed Leggett
2 Stuart Goater
3 Ryan Blunsden
4 Dale Watcham
5 Dylan Brazier
6 Shawn Brocksopp
7 Del Bradridge
8 Terry Bensted
9 Gregory Hempsall
10 Cory Stroud
11 Jon Workman

12 Max Crittall
13 Julian Flux
14 Bobby Stroud
15 Gabriel Field
16 Tristan Norrish

Good luck!

Thanks - I think I'm going to need a big slice of it today

England 1 - 5 France, so we start off with a thumping defeat, which is what I feared

Still - I will look at the tactics & try again (any constructive comments would be welcome)

Early sending off didn't help - but to be fair we were totally out played from the 1st whistle

The tactics looked a bit over defensive and still let in 5 goals, maybe push some more players up for more outlets in attack.

Yep - we were too defensive. I have looked at the French formation, & they had an attacking midfield player to support the strikers

Thanks for your comments - I will try & improve things for the next match

Squad was divided in two pieces with all defs (mid too) and winger to get the ball.
When winger got the ball he had no player to suggest the pass, often he cross to the att even if he was surrounded by defs.

In defensive phase there wasn't good defensive moves, for example wingback has to be more external on 3/4 of your pitch.

Your idea of defense had to be as that one (I think):


With defs that will run to the battle :P
(edited)

The covering of the winger needs looking at, specifically why the widest defender seemed to tuck in so much and leave their winger with space, and secondly throw ins.

I've based this on the first 20 minutes before the sending off, though I don't think Stroud's positioning meant he was of much use with the 2 other mids being defensive aswell.

unlucky with the loss mate, maybe if we hadn't got that sending off we'd have stood a better chance. i've not yet had time to watch the game, but i think it looks like a standard national team tactic.
from looking at it, i'd say that maybe our winger could be a little wider to try and get more space from the full backs. our full backs a bit wider.
also no substitutions? subs can make a big difference in the key areas. a fresh pair of legs upfront or in central midfield after 60 or 70 mins can really help. the only other thing is the use of a second tactic? maybe we could have gone more attacking if we were losing at half time, or after 60 mins...

I will look at the full backs & throw in's - thanks for your comments

Yep - winger wider will be done, & move the full backs wider

I don't think the sending off would have made a huge difference - as we were under pressure anyway. Perhaps we would not have conceeded 5, but who knows

The orders were all used covering red cards or slight injuries. I left orders to last in sorting things out this week - so I'll have a long look at subs before our next match

I never had a second tactic ready - but it did show in this match that a more attacking option after going 3 - 1 down would have been good to try. Again I will work on a second tactic for the next match.

Thanks for your comments Tom

Good points - thank you. I will re-look at the back 5, & especially the full backs. Not sure about the defenders running forwards - may need to watch other NT games to see that in action.

Thanks for your comments imann

You should see yesterday match Argentina - Italia, Italy used a similar kind of defensive line.

Some basic stuff to change in the future:
- Your throw-in cover in the defensive sectors was quite bad.
- The 3 mids played too low, you should let them go higher and not go so much down and so close to your own area, if you have 8 players inside the area it dosn't mean you are covering your opponent strikers, it's just gives your opponent mids (and winger) more space to send the ball to the striker and in NT level with divine passers you will get crushed..
- Back to the defensive line, taking them down inside your own area so fast is also bad, it's better they will go forward or play a low-running high defensive line and not play it so deep and so static, you are just giving your opponent a chance after chance this way.

An example here:



Of course there are more styles and ways to play it, like a more aggresive defense line that goes higher, closer what Imann showed, just the idea of it...

- The red card didn't change much at all.. it was just a matter of how many goals they will score even before that, just too many chances for them and fixing your way of defending in this levels will sure help that..
;-)

Good luck in the future matches mate
:-)