I wonder if perhaps you’ve noticed this trend.
It’s something that we almost demonstrated against Preston on Saturday, only for the linesman to rule the goal out for offside.
Speaking to BCFC.com after the game, Clotet spoke about how the Blues were able to control the game in the first half, and then go on the attack in the second.
“I think we avoided them from playing too comfortably in the first-half and they had to go long to try to hurt us – and we were comfortable defending those long balls. We put in a good job and I think Preston did as well. In the second-half our team went forward more and more and finished very strongly. We managed to find more spaces to play more – to get Maxime Colin and Kristian Pedersen higher up and attack the box from different angles, but unfortunately not enough to get the equaliser. All the players who came on as a sub did a good job and helped us to go forward.”
Whilst not all of it is within our control, I do have a concern with us starting slowly during games. If you take a look at our fixtures so far this season, we’ve only scored one goal in the opening half, in our first game away at Brentford. We can’t simply be relying on teams being weary in the second half and pouncing on them. There are going to be games this year where we have to come out of the blocks firing if we are to be successful.
Whilst Clotet might talk about how impressed he is with the defence in games, that can really only be matched by our firepower upfront, which is certainly lacking and as I have said before, could do with some improvement in January
What about you? Do you think that the fact we struggle during the first half of games is going to come back and haunt us? Or do you think that so long as we get results (this game aside), it doesn’t really matter if we don’t start off on the front foot?
