How do you defend a lead with 10 minutes to go?

[Jai]

It's all psychological. We've let in a few silly late goals and it plays on the players minds. As a consequence, they start to believe that conceding a goal is inevitable and they lose the confidence in their ability to do the simple things like clear their lines properly.

It's all well and good putting forward these ideas like 'attack more' and keep possession, but anyone who has played competitive football at any level will tell you it's a lot harder when you're out there. Only takes one player to make a mistake and you're in trouble.

I'm a firm believer that the South Upper crowd is like the opposition's 12th man in this situation. Any kind of possession on the edge of our box results in a collective howling sound like something you might hear in the Blair Witch Project. That lack of belief in the stands is easily transferred to the players. For heaven's sake people, stop panicking!

 

[londonblue]

Ultimately what a team does is a reflection of their manager, and most managers, it seems, are more risk averse than the crowd. It also depends on the score. If a team is only one or two goals up the approach will be more important than if a team is, say, 5-0 up.

It's also easy for us to say attack, but if we did and the opposition scored about half of the people would complain that what we did was suicide. If we sit back and concede then about (the other) half of the people would complain that what we did was suicide.

The most important thing is to hold onto the ball. It doesn't really matter if that is up front, at the back or in midfield. Obviously though, the higher up the pitch you hold onto the ball the further the opposition have to go to score.

However, staying as we are may well be a probem if the game is close. The opposition would more than likely sacrifice either a defender or a defensive midfielder for a striker or an attacking midfielder. If they do that and we do nothing then they will have a numeric advantage when they go forward. The question is, do you do something about it, or do you do nothing in the hope that you can catch them short at the back? As mentioned before, the answer depends on how risk averse you are.