It is appropriate…

By: Tom B | June 9th, 2009

… in the week that Numbers Offside is released, that I play a game where the numbers well and truly lie. 0-0, the one set of numbers that matters, doesn’t reflect an open game. Their shooting stats (17 to 7) doesn’t reflect the fact that very few of these were from within 20 yards. Posession stats don’t show how much I just held the ball in midfield, with no option up front. However, I’m aware that technically the game is just a whole bunch of numbers punched into an algorithm, so I’m not in a position to complain.

My lopsided formation was dealt two early blows, with knocks to Nieto in the holding midfield and Gonzalez on the right wing. With my paper thin squad, I left them both out there, despite getting into a condition in the 60s. They endured, however Nieto picked up another knock, knocking his condition into the 30s and I felt I had to sub him.

LWB Gonzalez was only really overloaded down the left once, and a dangerous chance it was, but he generally held his own, at least his 6.80 rating (in the spirit of numbers) was good enough to earn him a regular role in this position.

Other point of note, Adolfo, my centre forward who is meant to win headers, CAN NOT WIN HEADERS. In this match, he was brutishly (not really, but it’ll help his self esteem if I say it) outmuscled to every single header he went for. He was 0 won out of 6 attempts, and I get the feeling if he was winning even 1/3 of these, we might have nicked a goal or two.

Garcia Ruiz is not good enough up front, and I think Alfonso, who is not as quick but a bit better technically will fill this niche for the minute. The press (and their great conspiracy) won’t like it, but so be it.

With the injuries mounting up, (losing Vasquez Garcia, Nieto and Jordi Gonzalez) I’m looking to raid my youth squad for the next fixture… Valdez (the piano playing AMC) is back possibly for the next fixture, possibly the one after… so maybe we can start playing football again. This match was a statement of intent, the flow of the game did not match the numbers coming out of it. Santa Eulalia is a team on the up… now all we need to do is find a regular route to goal.

Preview of next match:
My next match is against Sabadell, who are in 4th but are predicted to come 14th.

Despite the injury to Gonzalez (RAM) and a knackered Gonzalez (LWB) I’m going to stick with my lopsided outlook. In comes a youth player, Francisco, getting valuable game time after averaging 7.02 per game in the first few youth fixtures. Blooding youth is about my only option at the moment given my debt, and given my injury crisis, I can’t see why this shouldn’t be done now. He’s probably not a long term solution, but with game time, his passing might improve above one and

In terms of up front, I have a bit of a quandry. Do I stick with Mr 0 for 6 Adolfo, or do I put up a Centre Half (the one area of my team which has some depth, thanks to 15 year old penalty takers) to win the headers and hopefully not lumber around too much? I think I’m going to go with the centre half idea, with Manuel (II) stepping up to use his cool finishing (6) and off the ball runs (5). Garcia Martinez will slot in at right back.

With a bit of an injury crisis in midfield, and Tomas Fernandez not fit yet (condition 59) I’ve pushed Jose Ruiz (again, so many centre halves) into a defensive midfield role, with Diego Bleda coming in to the centre half position.

Player Profile: Francisco