Solihull Moors (THTS) The Minging to Winning Match Thread

[becbee]

I was afraid to read this thread as I was anticipating some over the top unpleasantness from certain quarters that would make me feel even more low, however overall the posts have been completely fair.

I thought Solihull's first goal was simply against the run of play and we'd come back. But we collapsed after their second. Why was that, we've gone 2-0 down before?

As for team selection, I think the team selected was ok on paper but suspect Stead was omitted with an eye to Wembley. But in that case, O'Donkor should have played. That's not a case of being wise after the event, it was obvious when seeing the team sheet that Kabamba alone up front was the wrong call.

I appreciate that P.O.s create lots of excitement, etc but it is hard to take that finishing second after 46 matches gets you nothing but one failure costs you the season. If only we'd lost any other match we'd have still finished 2nd!

I remember clearly the Play Off defeat at Shrewsbury, their fans on the pitch trampling over our players, everybody feeling gutted. 12 months later we were Champions. We should hold on to that. It can be done again.

After all DB had a target of 80 points for last season. His target this season was 90 points. Maybe his target next season will be 100 points? That should be enough for Champions!!!

[let_it_bee]

You missed out the FA Trophy semi final we had last year, and the playoff we had last year - it's not like we haven't had the chance to become accustomed.

And not forgetting the Trophy final in ‘72

[pletch99]

Looking at the teams confirmed for the league next year, it’s very winnable on paper. Have to go big this summer

This.

Big money coming into the club from 3rd party transfers. A 25 goal a season striker on a contract.

No big clubs coming up or down.

If we have money to spend a 25 goal a season striker is not the priority if we want to get better. We have one. Scoring goals was not the problem this season. We would be far better investing in upgrading the defense and midfield - both could do with an injection of pace and at least one more experienced head.

Given the way Brennan want to play we need to fix two critical flaws in the current team:
1. When we give the ball away around the halfway line we have to be able to recover better
2. We need to give teams less time to get organised when we build attacks

Adding another 25 goal a season striker wouldn't go amiss, but it will probably have the same end result unless we improve those two areas first. We had a 25 goal a season striker yesterday, but (a) utterly failed to support him (b) created minimal situations for him.

[DSM]

Their manager got it spot on when he said the team sheet boosted them as it looked like we were nervous, playint it too safe and lacked pace. Accepting the injuries DB referred to why didn’t GO’D start.

We looked void of ideas and got found out in a brutal way, our defensive frailties coming to the fore again. Only Idris looked up for it. The whole midfield got bullied, we will definitely look for first team additions in this area.

Horrible day but remember we won the title in 04/05,14/15 so do the math!! Our start to the season will be key and will in some ways define whether we rebound like a chesterfield or Woking

[let_it_bee]

Can’t be bothered to read the entire thread - too depressing (and sick of seeing the term ‘bottling’ - what does that even mean?). So I’m probably just reiterating comments already made. But I had a very uneasy feeling yesterday as soon as I saw the lineup. 3 centre backs and 3 deep lying midfielders really doesn’t leave you much in the way of attacking options does it? Cropper really doesn’t have the ability to go past his man, Freeman just didn’t get into the game at all, Kabamba left totally isolated up front, and Kanu hacked to pieces at every turn, with virtually no protection from the ref. It was never going to work. Should have made at least two changes at half time to give a clear statement of intent for the the second half but we just carried on where we left off.
Despite grinding out good results this season the thing we don’t seem capable of doing is quickly turning defence into attack and getting bodies forward quickly, which has been done to us a few times and is what the modern game is all about. But I was at least encouraged to see the anger from Brennan in the post-match interview and recognition of the need to rebuild. He has shown a real flair for recruitment, if not for tactical nouse, so hopefully we can look forward to something (even) better next season.

[Psycho]

Could have been beaten on penalties after having 25 shots at goal to Solihull's two but it's hard to feel anything but numb this morning.

All that effort, all that anticipation. Blown to bits in just half an hour.

Still got world snooker tickets at the Crucible, Sheffield on Tuesday but a trip to Wembley would have been memories to savour for life.

[letchbee94]

Credit to Solihull but that was bad from us, needed to bring our A game but instead we bought Z game.

Felt even at 2-0 down if we could get next goal it would lift everyone but in truth we never looked like scoring.

[Norfolk & Chance]

Can’t be bothered to read the entire thread - too depressing (and sick of seeing the term ‘bottling’ - what does that even mean?). So I’m probably just reiterating comments already made. But I had a very uneasy feeling yesterday as soon as I saw the lineup. 3 centre backs and 3 deep lying midfielders really doesn’t leave you much in the way of attacking options does it? Cropper really doesn’t have the ability to go past his man, Freeman just didn’t get into the game at all, Kabamba left totally isolated up front, and Kanu hacked to pieces at every turn, with virtually no protection from the ref. It was never going to work. Should have made at least two changes at half time to give a clear statement of intent for the the second half but we just carried on where we left off.
Despite grinding out good results this season the thing we don’t seem capable of doing is quickly turning defence into attack and getting bodies forward quickly, which has been done to us a few times and is what the modern game is all about. But I was at least encouraged to see the anger from Brennan in the post-match interview and recognition of the need to rebuild. He has shown a real flair for recruitment, if not for tactical nouse, so hopefully we can look forward to something (even) better next season.

From Google:

"If you say that someone has bottled it, you mean that they have lost their courage at the last moment and have not done something they intended to do."

[BeeArmy22]

Looking at the teams confirmed for the league next year, it’s very winnable on paper. Have to go big this summer

This.

Big money coming into the club from 3rd party transfers. A 25 goal a season striker on a contract.

No big clubs coming up or down.

If we have money to spend a 25 goal a season striker is not the priority if we want to get better. We have one. Scoring goals was not the problem this season. We would be far better investing in upgrading the defense and midfield - both could do with an injection of pace and at least one more experienced head.

Given the way Brennan want to play we need to fix two critical flaws in the current team:
1. When we give the ball away around the halfway line we have to be able to recover better
2. We need to give teams less time to get organised when we build attacks

Adding another 25 goal a season striker wouldn't go amiss, but it will probably have the same end result unless we improve those two areas first. We had a 25 goal a season striker yesterday, but (a) utterly failed to support him (b) created minimal situations for him.

I think he’s saying we’ve got money coming in and we’ve already got a 25 goal a season striker under contract (so we’re in a good place)

[BeeBoi1980]

I don't think its unfair to say we bottled it.
I don't think people are saying we bottled it (if they are, I haven't read the full thread) because we lost, it's more that we put in our worst performance of the season in our biggest game.
Losing is one thing, but we didn't really give it a go, there was no urgency, we seemed to freeze for some reason. In part it's reasonable to think there was an element of fear of failure involved in that. We have been great at home all season, for some reason we didn't compete yesterday.
How you respond is everything. You work harder, you learn from your mistakes, you use your failures as motivation to succeed.
I'm gutted, we were awful. I really believed this was our time. I hope this result isn't in vain and that it becomes the springboard to title number 4 next season.

[John Hunt]

Words I don't like to read on this forum or twitter etc.

(1) Tinpot - very demeaning and often ironic.

(2) Bottled - often is actually were outplayed or tactically out thought.

[CrawleyBee]

A lot of the mental side needs to be worked on. We just freezer in the big games, wood, chesterfield. Gateshead, Newport, Bromley in the trophy and yesterday. Something is seriously amiss to not take one of those opportunities. Don’t know what the answer is, but would anyone actually fancy us in the play offs next season? I know I wouldn’t. It doesn’t just seem to be this bunch, the 6th time I’ve seen us lose in the play offs now.

Been an incredible season, but ultimately been another season where we have just come up short. We need to win the League and avoid these pesky play offs. Solihull couldn’t have had it easier yesterday even if we had tried, absolute disaster. They played well and stuck to their plan, but barely had to get out of second gear. What a wasted opportunity in a poor league this season. My only comfort is that I feel we would have struggled in league 2, would have been nice to have the chance, but it’s nice to hopefully be at the right and of the table again in a league we usually do at least compete in.

[BeeBoi1980]

A lot of the mental side needs to be worked on. We just freezer in the big games, wood, chesterfield. Gateshead, Newport, Bromley in the trophy and yesterday. Something is seriously amiss to not take one of those opportunities. Don’t know what the answer is, but would anyone actually fancy us in the play offs next season? I know I wouldn’t. It doesn’t just seem to be this bunch, the 6th time I’ve seen us lose in the play offs now.

Been an incredible season, but ultimately been another season where we have just come up short. We need to win the League and avoid these pesky play offs. Solihull couldn’t have had it easier yesterday even if we had tried, absolute disaster. They played well and stuck to their plan, but barely had to get out of second gear. What a wasted opportunity in a poor league this season. My only comfort is that I feel we would have struggled in league 2, would have been nice to have the chance, but it’s nice to hopefully be at the right and of the table again in a league we usually do at least compete in.

There must be something mental in there. Under DB we have had three big one off games, Borehamwood, Gateshead and Solihull Moors. all three have been against teams lower than us in the league, two of the games have been at home, and we have gone 2-0, 3-0 and 4-0 down. And in our biggest league game of the DB era, Chesterfield away, we went 4-0 down.

No doubt there has been general progress over the past 3 years, that's easy to see with all the great wins this manager and team has given us and our progress up the table, but you can't go that far behind in the big games, you need to be energetic and clinical and stamp your authority on the game. Hopefully it's something we can improve on next year. As much as I'd like to go to Wembley with Barnet, I'd prefer another league title. There's work to be done!

[John Hunt]

For fear of contradicting myself Ollie working on the mental preparation of the players for big games with the use of a psychologist may help.

Players face issues off the pitch which may affect their ability to perform on it.

Is there a fan of our team in this field who could elaborate or help?

Maybe binge watching the highly enjoyable Ted Lasso has coloured my thinking here.

On Talksport this week I listened to the story about Steve Collins getting in Chris Eubanks's head about his use of a hypnotist actually making Eubank believe that Collins couldn't get cut.

Now a lot of that may be baloney but if it gives the opposition food for thought , distracting them from the task at hand it gives you an edge.

Likewise if it clears the mind from debris, allowing you to focus on the task at hand, why not give it a shot?

It cannot just be applied to the big games in the week of a big match. It needs to be a measured approach over a period to time to be able to succeed.

This could be expensive and out of our league.

[simmosenior]

Our major need this summer is an experienced coach who can actually improve the defence. I don't think the players we have are so bad, just that the shape, the body angles and the gap between the midfield and the defence are frequently wrong. Some pace in the middle of the park wouldn't go amiss. Finally, TK should tell Dean if he ever plays Nicke up front on his own again, we will look for a new manager.