Sunday, April 20, 2008

All over but the pouting

Days like this happen............after coming off a 5-0 pasting at the hands of Shimizu, Verdy ventured to Chiba to meet their nemesis, a lackluster Kashiwa Reysol side. And like in many games of the past, they got their taint force fed to them.

Didn't see the game, but I imagine after playing a defensive 4-5-1, letting in goals means there is a flaw with the team as a whole. Maybe it's a case of meeting a tough matchup on a bad day and getting snowballed by a confluence of bad events. Or maybe the team is built in the mold of squads like Yokohama FC and Vissel Kobe, a collection of old players past their seel by date and young guys not quite ready to turn the corner sprinkled in with marginal talent who really shouldn't be in the league. Or maybe the team just needs a catalyst who can spur them to greater things on any given night.......like Hulk.

Whatever the case may be, Coach Hashiratani and crew need to straighten things out and quick because the gap between J1 squads in 2009 and those that won't be got a touch bigger yesterday and players like Doi, Hattori, Fukunishi, Ono, Tsuchiya, and Hiroyama aren't getting any younger.

And like clockwork, the schedule does no favors for teams that need it the most as a surprisingly resurgent Nagoya Grampus comes into town on Saturday to add insult to injury. Hulk will be serving game 3 of his suspension so I assume the donkey will be front and center for this nasty little affair. Personally, I think the team needs to go 3-5-2 with a Diego/Hiramoto pairing up top or 3-6-1 with Hiramoto as the point of the spear.

My vision


Hiramoto

Leandro Diego

Komano Fukunishi

Ono Hattori

Wada Nasu Tsuchiya

Doi

Against Nagoya, you need to load up the middle so they don't have room to operate......the layered 6 is going to clog things up and have people helping on the break. You also have Leandro and Diego filling the post so you can at least get a semblance of a counterattack. The pieces are slow but there's no helping that.

Tough day ahead next week. at least Albirex is coming up and a chance for some points.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was unlucky enough to see the full 90 minutes in the flesh....annihilation?? humiliation?? capitulation??CHIBAttered plain and simple!! (Ill copyright that one)!! All of the above and any negative -ation word you care to think of!! We were truly awful and deserved the thorough hiding we recieved. I mentioned recently that we had lost a lot but had been very much in the games. Not last night. As an attacking force we are as toothless as a baby crossbred with a worm, a packet of jelly and a 1000 year old guy with a severe calicium deficiency disorder. The defence hadn`t been too bad until this week.After the mess against Shimizu (I didnt see the game so have no idea what happened but on last nights evidence I can imagine pretty clearly), things went even more horribly wrong. First goal was an awful blunder from this moment on to be known as "Hi"Doi (Japanese version not as in "hello" sense). Reysol guy fired one in from MILES out low and hard, Doi manged to successfully push it out directly into the path of the oncoming Reysol striker and you can guess the rest. SOFT SOFT goal. Worse was to come when 10 minutes or so later, same nameless Reysol striker beat two defenders and HiDoi in the air to a long looping cross and nodded in. I said to the guy next to me game over, he agreed and it was. Still worse we were being ripped apart, stretched all over the place acres of space opened up each time they went forward, it was like we were playing 14 guys and 11 of them were forwards. Another one went in off the post after a simple 3 man move with no challenge coming from anywhere. 3-0 and 10 minutes to half time. After half time, were still crap, Alex lashed in a free kick which earned HiDoi his new name. Beaten at his near post without moving a muscle from a good way out.Think Alan Rough,(Scotland v Brazil 1982 World Cup) a carbon copy. We actually got one back with a really good strike from Sugawara. Thundered in 6 inches from the ground into the bottom left hand corner from a good 30 yards. Keeper didn`t see it coming at all. A small cheer was raised...only to be nullified when the clown got himself sent off about 30 seconds later. You honestly wouldnt credit it..wrestle/knee combination made sure the oncoming striker wasn`t gonna be coming any further.. Cue the finale of Reysol knocking in another and that was that. So to the analysis. Steve is spot on when he says the team is thin on the ground. You take Hulk out of the equation and we have the same forwards who were crap in J2. Funakoshi is the most defensive striker ive ever seen. He is "The Crab" of the J league always passes sideways, never takes anyone on. He looked crap in J2 but dear oh dear. He has now played the last 2 games and not had a shot. A forward for 180 minutes without a crack on goal or even miles wide!!He permanently plays with his back to goal. Im guessing the plan is for him to lay it off for others but this only works if youve others in numbers steaming past you. With him as the furthest forward, him laying it backwards just slows down the attack. A big difference last night was how Reysol were able to quickly get the ball from the back to the front. When we do that in this formation (4-5-1) when it gets to the front it just comes back again as there is nobody up with the Donkey. Reysol could commit so many players to the attack because they knew we had nothing to fight back with. The only players to emerge with anything last were Diego and Kowano. Diego made the goalie work with one effort tipped onto the bar and another top corner bound effort produced a full stretch one handed save from the Reysol keeper. (Can`t believe Diego hasn`t scored yet from open play).Kowano looked tricky but 2 players out of 11 performing is not enough. Especially when the opposition has 14 players and 11 strikers!! At the time when Ramos` head was being called for last season we were severely under the cosh but the we were playing at a very poor level given the players we had.This season though I don`t think the blame can be leveled at Hashiratani. The players we have just simply aren`t good enough. Without Hulk we struggle (change the record I know...) and we will be dead and buried if he isn`t on the pitch. Last season we were down lots of times but he can make something happen. When Funakoshi gets the ball can anyone say they get on the edge of their seat?? Fukunishi looked tired last night too. Still Hashiratani has a selection headache and a half this week!! What do you do when both of your goalies have let in 5 in two games?? Doi was truly shite last night and Im guessing Takagi wasn`t up to much against Shimizu.What the hell, Doi out, Takagi in I say!! Just for old times sake!! Wonder how the "Goalkeeper Fantastico" pink T shirts have been selling since hes been on the bench since the opening day....Nagoya who?? Never `eard of `em mate.
C`mom The Boys!!

Anonymous said...

ps Tomisawa not Sugawara was the doof who was first in the bath.

dokool said...

Reading nick's summary, I feel bad for you guys. Hated green scum or not nobody deserves to see such poor play from their home team.

Plus after seeing the clusterfuck that was the Niigata/Kyoto game, I want to see Albirex back in the relegation zone so you boys better step it up!

Barry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Barry said...

Was mildly surprised checking your result from The Nissan Stadium on Saturday night, but only mildly. Granted you didn't have a full strength team out against us midweek, but neither did we, and you were lucky to get away with only 5-0 in the end.

Nick sums it up pretty well - the team are just playing horrendously. How much of this is tactics etc and how much is just Verdy being an awful side remains to be seen. If nothing else, you're making some of us feel better about our terrible start to the season! :-D