4 for the price of 1

By: Tom B | July 15th, 2009

Well I got a little excited and played four games in a row.

They panned out as so:

So two wins and two losses: which puts me into 12th, 3 points from safety and, interestingly, only 8 points from the promotion playoff spots.

Sant Andreu
With two fit again left backs, but without my right wing back Garcia Martinez, so I went in with Borja Villa as my RWB and David Gonzalez at LWB, however, Vila offered far less going forward than Gonzalez and as such I switched the instruction so Gonzalez would bomb on down the left and Vila holding the fort on the right. Also, with Nieto out injured for a long time, and Hector in good form, I drafted in Hector Blanco to play the holding role, while Hector advanced to the mixed position and Vasquez Garcia in the more advanced CM role.

We, however, did not play like lions, we played like mice. They battered us, both in shots, possession and field position. They scored one, they scored two (A Manuel (II) own goal) before half time. I then switched things up to an attacking 4-4-1-1 using high width and tempo. I pulled a goal back in the 80th minute, and then threw the kitchen sink at them, but to no avail, as they scored a sealer on the break in the 2nd minute of injury time.

Gramenet
Gramenet were a strong side, using a 4-2-3-1 formation. As such, I dropped my defensive minded central midfielder (Hector Blanco) to defensive midfield, and had him man mark their AMC. I then had my LWB mark their RAM and my RWB mark their LAM. I also had Garcia Martinez back at RWB, which allowed me to shift Borja Vila to LWB and switch the adventurous role back to Garcia Martinez.

This game went almost exactly according ot plan. I went into the lead through Aimar Valdez scoring a scorcher of a volley from 15 yards. I then controlled play throughout the first half. Garcia Martinez, however, went off injured in the 45th minute, replaced by David Gonzalez. I could have scored a couple more by half time, but given my underdog status I was happy with the one-nil lead. On 84 minutes I decided to shut up shop playing my narrow, slow 4-3-1-2 with Adolfo as target man holding up the ball. They only really created one good chance, which was scuffed, which meant I clung on to a 1 goal win. Unfortunately, Alfonso, who had been in cracking form, was sent off in the 93rd minute for yelling at the ref. I fined him one week’s and he got a little pissy with me, but the man has a big enough heart (determination 12) and I see him bouncing back.