QPR Ladies Reserves 3:5 Chinnor A
Not so long ago I was annoyed and disappointed with our performance, even though we won 5:1. In this cup match we lost and I went through a rollercoaster of emotions with the team but came away very proud and pleased with them. Football can be funny like that sometimes.
We started well and took the lead through a long-range effort from Jade Creighton. I wouldn’t say we were cruising but we were in control of the game at that point and had some spells where some of our football was really good.
Before the match I asked the players to concentrate on their shape, especially the depth of the defensive line, as well as asking the strikers to make sure that they repositioned themselves quickly after stretching the play to ensure we could maintain shape as much as possible throughout the match.
We did some of these basics quite well, but we made the bad error of doing most of the hard work and getting into decent enough positions and then switching right off. In the end, we conceded three really poor goals where players didn’t really understand what their responsibilities were in given situations. There was also a little bit of a lack of desire to take responsibility when it mattered.
Chloe Julien had to pull off some fantastic saves in the nets as we struggled to cope with two of the opposition players who linked well, were clearly very good and kept breaking through from simple through balls.
So we went in at half-time 3:1 down with only ourselves to blame. I was annoyed as was Adrian by the manner we conceded those goals, because we played some good football and I felt, the much better football too. We shouldn’t have been so far behind and really gave ourselves a mountain to climb.
At half-time we spoke about the positioning again, particularly our midfield players who were getting caught the wrong side of the ball. The solution was simple and I told them to get “touch-tight” to their opposing players whenever we didn’t have the ball and that helped us massively.
Defensively we gave certain players responsibilities and asked Melanie Randall to man-mark their striker who was giving us a bit of grief in the first-half.
We also asked our strikers to work in the hole a bit more, in order to pick up the ball if it dropped in there as we noticed plenty of space for us to get on the ball in that area.
And the second-half performances was a breath of fresh air because not only did we work hard, we played more good football and had a balance about our play that I hadn’t seen from us before. We looked organised (and we did at times in the first-half too) and it was a little bit like one-way traffic.
We actually went 4:1 down through a long-range strike against the run of play but our heads didn’t drop. We kept plugging away and working on it which I really admired. They showed great courage and character to keep going.
I stressed to the players that they had to go for it, as we had nothing to lose, and even if we couldn’t get back into the game that it was a chance for us to work on our performance and for some of the players to use it as a fitness exercise for the future.
Katie Smith scored to bring it to 4:2 and then Jade Creighton scored a magnificent goal from distance to make it 4:3 and suddenly it was game-on again and nothing more than we deserved.
Chinnor appeared to be hanging on by the end and we gave it a real good go and probably deserved to take the game into extra-time, but missed two glorious chances at the depth to equalise and got caught cold on the counter and conceded with practically the last kick of the game, much to their relief. It was a real cup-tie and a jolly good match to watch with both teams coming away with positives. Their finishing was very good and deserves a mention.
At the end of the match I told the players how much better their performance in the second half had been, but they realised this themselves and didn’t really need to be told. If we’d managed to produce that level for the majority of the game they may well have gone on to win, but more positively for me is if we play anything like that for long periods against other teams this season, we’re going to cause problems and we’ll do okay.
We were also better with taking and dealing with goal-kicks and we looked threatening from corners too. We need to work on our shape and positioning from defending throw-ins though as one or two of our new players were caught out of position on occasions.
We also saw some good performances out there. Chloe was excellent in goal, Anita did fantastic filling in at centre-back, I thought I saw glimpses of Jade Bowley’s best, if we can get Jade Creighton a little fitter and more on the ball, then she’s going to take some stopping and I thought Kesley was outstanding in midfield in both halves.
I felt like I saw big signs of progress, but there’s more work to be done and I’m confident we’re going to get better as the season continues.
