Ajax of Amsterdam have always had a much admired youth development programme. The club which, above any other I’d say, brought us “Total Football”. This is the concept whereby, ideally, the aim is to have all outfield players equally comfortable in any position on the pitch and, to that end, the Dutch club would move their youth players around to give them experience of what is was like to, for example, play in the position of a player who, ordinarily, would be marking them.
It’s an approach I’ve heard British coaches endorse from time to time – including one at City a few years back if my memory serves me right..
You can certainly see the potential benefits from such an approach because it gives an insight into how the other side thinks so to speak. However, I’ve never heard of a method whereby.a whole team is drastically changed as everyone operates in a position they’re not familiar with, so you end up with a team that is operating under a self inflicted disadvantage I suppose in the name of youth development.
It would be a big exaggeration to say that Cardiff City did that today when were defeated 2-0 by Ipswich at Leckwith, but when I saw the side picked for Darren Purse’s first game in charge since being brought in as Steve Morison’s replacement, it seemed that there were elements of a similar type of thinking.
Before today, it did seem to me that our under 23 side’s second half of the season might well be substantially different from their all conquering (barring one game at Millwall anyway) first half. Players such as Isaak Davies, Kieron Evans, Sam Bowen and Mark McGuinness who all were in early season Development teams, are now probably more likely to be seen in first team squads than second team ones and the departure of top scorer Chanka Zimba and captain James Connolly to Northampton and Bristol Rovers respectively until the end of the season (both featured in their new club’s matches on Saturday) all adds to the feeling of change which does not just apply to the new man in charge.
Therefore, it’s unrealistic to expect things to carry on just as they were, but it did seem that City we’re putting themselves at a disadvantage with a very odd, unbalanced looking team selection.
It was impossible to guess what formation City were going to play when looking at the team sheet, but, whatever it was they decided to go with, it did seem certain that James Crole, the one naturally attacking player in the side was going to be spending a lot of the match battling away on his own with little in the way of help from team mates.
I say that because, besides goalkeeper George Ratcliffe, Crole’s nine outfield team mates were a mixture of defenders and central midfielders, none of whom were best suited to operating in advanced positions.
Eli King, Keenan Patten, Tavio D’Almeida and Sam Bowen (making a welcome return after more than three months out with an injury he sustained just as he was looking like establishing himself in the first team) are all best suited to deeper lying roles in my opinion and, behind them, we had the normal three centrebacks and a pair of wing backs who fell squarely into the category of being more full backs than wingers.
In the event, an understandably rusty Bowen and Patten were assigned as the two to give Crole some support, but, in practice this was nothing like a 3-4-3, it was more akin to 5-4-1 with the one very much in isolation.
To make a success in attacking terms of a virtual 5-4-1 formation, I’d say you’d need full backs who were willing to get forward more often than our wing backs were today and midfielders with the pace and mobility to make runs beyond the striker – as mentioned earlier, that’s not really how any of today’s midfield four play (especially when you consider one of them is not match fit).
City had no one who was a natural “ball carrier” (to use a rugby term) – that is someone who is comfortable and effective when running at opponents while operating “between the lines” and, in truth, the actuality turned out to be exactly what many pretty seasoned City age group team watchers would have predicted when they saw the team.
I can understand the absence of players like Evans and Tom Sang because of their time on the pitch in Sunday’s first team game, but where, for example, were Jai Semenyo, a genuine wing back who has been a regular for the under 23s all season and Cian Ashford who, from the little I’ve seen of him, is a lot better suited to the natural number ten, ball carrier role than any of the four central midfielders we saw today?
Maybe Ashford and Semenyo were injured (Lord knows what’s happened to the once very promising Taz Mayembe in the last two seasons), but the overall effect was a team that an efficient and bright Ipswich team would surely have liked the look of when they saw it.
Not surprisingly, City ended up failing to use the flanks effectively as much of their passing became bogged down through the middle and, in truth, the only worthwhile opportunities they had were presented to them by their opponents getting into trouble with their play out from the back approach.
Bowen had one chance when a rare effective City press of the kind we saw so much of before Christmas found him with the ball at his feet twenty yards out and the goalkeeper some way off his line, but the midfielder, who certainly has the skill set to score from such a position seven or eight times out of ten, saw his chip clear the bar by a couple of feet – Bowen was withdrawn at half time as this was very much a case of easing himself back after a long time out. The other chance fell to Crole who benefitted from what might be called a one man press to be presented with a one on one with the keeper similar to the one Isaak Davies missed on Sunday – Crole came closer than Davies did as his shot came back off the post, but I’m sure he’ll be thinking he should have scored.
Ipswich we’re deserving winners as they scored the very important first goal in such a tight contest with a crisply struck twenty two yard effort by Cameron Humphreys around the hour mark and then Bailey Clements slotted home a coolly taken second ten minutes from time after they had missed some decent chances as City’s challenge wilted.
It was all pretty disappointing from a City point of view, but there were some good individual performances. Ratcliffe made a fine low save early in the second half and his judgement was faultless when playing as a “sweeper keeper” as he snuffed out a couple of dangerous attacks and, despite that miss I mentioned, Crole proved a handful for the Ipswich central defenders at times with some neat touches and clever movement – he also should have earned his side a penalty, but the referee ignored what was a clear foul and waved played on.
Best player for me though was Keenan Patten by some distance. The commentator on the club website stream mentioned City’s lack of dynamism as a team, but, correctly, applied that word to Patten as an individual – he did his best in an unfamiliar role and there was also some very nice sleight of foot (something you don’t really associate with him) at times. Patten is unlucky in that while so many of the team he grew up playing with have now made their first team bows, he’s still waiting, despite him having been named as a substitute around ten times now – despite this, I still rate him as up there with the best of the generation that has broken through this season, I hope he gets his first team chance soon, he deserves it..
