With injuries to a lot of my strikers, and us really threadbare there, I make a move to bring in someone on loan. There’s a young guy at Dundalk my Director of Football recommends, Eoin Kenny. He’s able to play on the wings and up front, and although not the best he’s a solid all rounder, so we put in an offer for him.
We have to agree to a £500 per month payment to get Dundalk to agree to drop his playing time and role to something we can manage. And hopefully my players stop their plague of injuries so we don’t need to use him, but he can do a job, much more than our own youth guy Eoin Hanley.
The first game since my last blog is against Ballyclare who we go up against quickly, two goals inside 15 minutes, and my worries about seeing out games rears its head. Giving managers a clear incentive to change up their tactics at half time is definitely a concern of mine, especially when we get a third goal just before the break.
Thankfully Ballyclare don’t have much about them. After a small scare in the 66th minute with them getting one back we finish well, taking a deserved three points from the match.
Against Stranraer my concerns from the Ballyclare game come up again but in a much tighter match. We go a goal up and things get a little hairy. They’re really putting us under pressure. I try dropping our mentality down to balanced — I’m not confident in any big change in tactics to see out the game — but they get one on us, definitely a justified goal with how the game is being played out, and we’re dropping points again.
HW Welders is a proper challenge. They get a smash and grab goal inside a minute, right as the match kicks off, and it’s a real test for us. It’s the first time we’ve gone down a goal in a league game and it asks questions about whether we have the resolve to come back into it.
We do manage two goals, inside the first half, and whether it’s from tiredness or frustration they get a man sent off in the 45+1 injury time. We have to see this out, now we’re a man up, and we do pile on the pressure. We win 4-2 in the end, after a lot of corners, but something I’m noticing is our short corner routine isn’t working too well. Maybe it’s the players I’m playing it with but we give the ball away too easily with the opposition’s man putting pressure on our guys.
It’s Kevin O’Connor who’s mainly involved in the short corners this match, and he’s been playing fine if not amazing, although with not too many starts, so I decide to give it a few more games to see if things bed in.
Then it’s onto our Ardbeg FA Cup match — the second round. We’re already out of the Kingspan Cup. The money can be decent in the FA Cup and I’d like a bit of cash to maybe boost our wage budget come the January transfer window; a nice run in this competition could really help us.
We draw against Bala and the game is sent to extra time. I don’t know if I’d prefer replays or not. Thankfully we have a week until our next game so the toll on the players shouldn’t be too catastrophic but I also know come the end of the season — with the size of our squad and the starters we have — every extra minute played could really hurt.
Thankfully the extra time isn’t for nothing and we get the win, without having to go to penalties. And there’s a nice £37.5k in the bank.
I rotate the team against Dergview, still aware of how many minutes are piling into players’ legs. Although it’s early in the season Dergview are in 17th in the league — relegation contenders — so we should put them aside in quick order. The second I see the pitch I know this is a mistake, though.
The surface is in a dire state and the actual pitch size is tiny. Dergview really crowd us out and come at us aggressively, something few teams have done so far this season. Our passes are getting misplaced. Hinds on the wing is having his second poor game for us — the man really runs hot and cold — and Duffy seems to have noticed that with no right back on the subs bench for him he can treat the game like a practice match.
We go down a goal and when we give away a penalty just before half time I know it’s over for us. I give them dog’s abuse during the break, hoping to get something out of the game, but we only get one goal back. This is a result that could really hurt us.
We were treated like a small team, with Dergview really getting in our faces and hitting us quickly on the counter. If we have many repeat performances like that we won’t be getting our promotion. Especially when the xG we’re generating isn’t converting into goals. It’s early in the season, though, and we have time to make it up. Especially with a massive game against Loughall who are third in the league — to our fourth place position — coming up next.
We do get some early chances against Loughall. We’re the ones setting the pace in this game compared to our Dergview game. We’re rewarded for it in the 12th minute when we get awarded a penalty. It was a bit of a ruck in the box — being honest I didn’t fully see what happened — but the ref is firm and definitively says it’s a penalty. Dylan Gavin smashes it away.
Then, in the 23rd minute, Jamar Hinds actually comes through for us by heading in a goal from a crossed ball from Gabriel Padilla. Padilla has done a superb job as a makeshift inside forward on the left wing. He’s right footed so can cut inside well, and his superior pace and finishing is making him really stand out.
The press ask me about his role there after our win against Loughall and they’re correct, it could now be considered a permanent change to have him there instead of some other options. I confirm this by getting him to actually train as an inside forward and I can only see good things in his future.
On a late night with a bottle of wine I dig into how our players have been performing according to the stats we have. Athlone don’t have huge resources for this, no performance analysts, not that I’d know how to utilise that information, but from what we do have I see Jarlath Jones, at left full back, has been absolutely superb for us.
It’s not just his overall performance, it’s also clear to see he’s creative and magicking up a lot of chances for our forwards. His expected assists stats are through the roof. He really is key to us, and despite what I said about Kevin O’Connor being a decent squad rotation option it’s pretty obvious we’re weaker when O’Connor plays. Not that O’Connor is actually bad — he’s just not as stand-out great as Jarlath Jones.
I get some info from our team that Annan are the best performing team defensively, which makes sense considering they’re first in the league. I still have to think ahead, though, and with our scouts only able to scout within our league I get them looking at Annan’s two main defenders. If they get promoted it won’t mean much. If they don’t, well…
We draw Barry in the Causeway Cup — the cup for the lower league teams. Barry are in our league so it’s not the easiest of ties. Barry must have us scouted because they’re another team who are aggressive against us from the off. I decide to try some things to see if I can counter this.
I drop our defensive line back a little and tell the team to play with a little more of a balanced mentality. We go down a goal but manage to get two back by 30 minutes.
By the 70th minute Barry are really coming at us and my fears are confirmed now, we can’t really handle when teams get the jump on us. Within two minutes they’ve got the goal back. My main hope is to see out the game now and maybe force penalties.
I do see an opportunity, in extra time, however. I notice they’re far more tired than us so I switch up our tactics by going to the Bloody Mary setup. It’s far more direct so hopefully the players can use bursts of energy when necessary instead of always being ‘on’ past 100 minutes of playtime.
It works. We win 4-2 in the end and don’t need the penalties to decide things, and the fourth goal actually was a penalty.
Against Queens University and Forfar we do really well, winning 6-0 and 4-0. We seem to do well against five at the back systems, although I don’t know why. Hopefully teams don’t figure us out.
However we have another injury to Candal. I really feel the guy has been unavailable more than he’s available, with two injuries so far. Maybe even a third. I don’t want to confirm how long he’s been out by asking the physios, let’s give him a chance to recover and play a bit more before any decisions are made.
Candal is a really great player, one of our best, but with the wages he’s on and the fact other teams seem to value him I am questioning whether we’d be better off with a slightly worse player who can actually play most of the time, along with the extra wad of cash. It’s something I’ll really have to think about when the next transfer window opens.
Thinking all that it does make me consider how we’re performing. We’re doing well enough. Not perfectly, but OK. We’re there or thereabouts, although our rivals do both have a game in hand, but for now we’re competitive and I don’t seem to be under threat in my manager’s role.
We’re not playing beautiful football. Sure it can be exciting, especially should any neutral be watching us, but it’s a bit helter skelter. That seems to be the nature of the game at this level. The better players simply outperform their opponents. It’s not with fancy intricate skill, or highly detailed tactics, it’s just about outmuscling and being better, in a raw way, than the other teams.
After our next home game we have Newtown away in the FA Cup third round, then we play them again a week later. These really are must win games. The top of the league is tight and any slip up now could see you struggling to claw back points on teams pulling away. And there’s the effect of losing on team morale — winning is a habit.
Still, I have confidence in us. Apart from Candal on the wing we have most of players back from their previous injuries now. And I have faith we’re in a strong position for a really memorable season!
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You can find the Celtic Nations’ League database edit on the Steam Workshop here (which has the database edit for the main January transfer update from Sports Interactive.)
Or you can get both the old and new file — for both database versions — and check out some videos from content creators about the Celtic Nations League on the Sports Interactive forums. As well as find me explaining a lot more about the league setup, with images of how it’s setup, as well as me talking with people and answering their questions.
Lump Kickers Anonymous 