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So I kept playing but stopped writing things up b/c I felt I was just giving away every game due to shitty stick skills. I was constantly turning it over in the midfield, like literally sometimes for 60 game minutes in a row doing nothing but giving it away with a bad pass in the midfield and then defending, poorly. So I stopped writing things up and decided to just play and see how long it took to improve.
Things got better pretty much immediately. I've played into Mid-October now and am playing much better. Not great, mind you, but well enough that I'm not looking to be the last place team. I can actually make a few plays here and there, but am not above doing something boneheaded.
Stuff I figured out:
-- I've gotten a bit better at fluid offensive play. Not always, but I'm at least capable of a nice through ball or stringing together a couple passes to generate a shot.
-- My defense is improving. I was constantly overrunning players and leaving wide open holes in my defense. My positioning even on slower players is drastically improved.
-- Choosing which player to defend with is getting better. I'm staying better at keeping my back line in tact and defending outside the box with my two midfielders, or at least using my fullbacks. Less wide open holes for attackers to get into just because I am stupid.
-- I still give the ball away WAY more than I win it, but I do get the occasional tackle in the midfield and counterattack.
Lately I've actually found myself with leads a fair bit, and I'm struggling to close them out. This actually feels a bit realistic though. We're a bad team, and if the other team pushes WAY forward, we crumble sometimes. I'm ok with this.
Matches to date since the last one I wrote up:
August 23rd: Northampton 2 : 0 Exeter
August 26th: Cambridge 2 : 3 Exeter - Johnstone's Paint Trophy
August 30th: Exeter 2 : 1 Accrington
September 6th: Shrewsbury 1 : 1 Exeter
September 13th: Exeter 1 : 5 Bury
September 16th: Portsmouth 1 : 2 Exeter
September 20th: Exeter 1 : 2 Oxford
September 27th: Morecombe 2 : 2 Exeter
October 4th: Exeter 2 : 0 Stevenage
October 7th: Coventry 3 : 2 Exeter - Johnstone's Paint Trophy
October 11th: Plymouth 2 : 2 Exeter
So we've only been shut out once in this stretch. We imploded against Bury, we pitched a nice 2-nil shutout against Stevenage, and the rest have been competitive. We led Coventry 2-1 but they got two very late goals. We led Plymouth 2-1 and they got a last minute goal.
My loanee ST Adam Armstrong leads the team with 4 goals.
ST Graham Cummins has 3.
Speedy Left Fullback Bradley Garmston has 2 goals, both of them on through balls as he raced down the left side and i happened to spot him. Garmston hit the post in the 85th minute against Plymouth on a similar play, coulda given us a 3-1 lead and sealed that win.
2 goals from midfielder Matt Oakley
1 goal each from CM Liam Sercombe and backup ST Tom Nichols.
Looking at assists, ST Cummins leads us with 3. He has been pretty decent at hitting midfielders making runs by him when he gets a pass and holds the ball up.
CM Matthew Grimes, a backup rated in the low 50s, has 2 assists, both in the same match I believe. RM David Wheeler has 2. Garmston, Sercombe, and RB Christian Ribiero each have 1.
-- I thought early on there were huge problems with the game tracking assists, but this seems on target. We have only 1 fewer assist than goals, and Sercombe did score on a rebound (he shot it, keeper blocked it, he got to it first and ran it into the net) where an assist wouldn't have been given. So I'm good with that.
-- The one legit problem are saves. I remember one game where the opponent was only credited with 4 shots, 2 on target, but GK Pym had 7 saves and earned man of the match. So we're going to just pretend that doesn't happen. If Pym gets a stupid rating in goal b/c of that, we'll be ignoring it.
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