You can read this with the video embedded here.

G’day Red’s fans, I hope we all found something to enjoy in the game despite the disappointing loss. To my eye the game was unfortunately characterised by poor finishing, with shots often (but not always, of course) too close to Kurto and at a comfortable height for him. There’s still a lot of anxiety for fans when the Reds are defending far post crosses, and I’ll look at in examples of this below. On the plus side the position swaps between Goodwin, Dukuly, and Yull make for an entertaining game and looks dangerous in attack. I find it fun to pick out some moments that are interesting or informative from the game. Let’s start with our lad’s attacking movement.

       Have a watch of this nice series of passes that get’s the Reds a shot on goal. There are things that we can be critical of here, Yull’s shot in this instance is one example of shooting too close to Kurto. But, there’s more to enjoy. Watch how much room Goodwin and Yull get between The Bulls defensive and midfield lines. Crucially they keep responding to how the play around them, i.e. the positions of the opposition and team mates. It’s a subtle movement from Yull which keeps him behind his marker and with a line of sight to the ball enabling him to receive the pass and continue the move. Watch his head movement, then the little step away from the MacArthur midfielder.

       We see this awareness and responsiveness later in the move from Goodwin. Kitto starting wide cuts across in front of Goodwin, bringing the right back with him. You can see here the moment Goodwin perceives what’s happening. He changes his movement stepping back, meaning he’s then able to receive in space and play straight through where Kitto drew the defender from, back to the diagonal run from Kitto, who’s able to cut back to Yull who has again got room between MacArthur’s lines. Again it’s a subtle movement from Goodwin, but it’s enough to give him room to receive and play. It’s also worth going back and just watching Kitto’s runs. There’s a lot to enjoy in this move.

       video 1 here

       What I think caused some anxiety for fans, me at least, was failures to pick up far post runs. Here MacArthur’s left wing back Scott runs half the field without being tracked, leaving him to arrive unmarked and force a corner. Which they ultimately score from. Again to a far post cross. I’ve highlighted a couple of moments in the video where Dukuly notes Scott’s presence. You’ll see him tracking Scott between the moments where I’ve paused it as well. On the second or third it might have been best for him to try and mark Scott. There’s always options though, another possibility later in the move is for Pierias, rather than getting drawn from position, to leave Sawyer to Alagich. To my eye that would be much harder to pull off, and it would have been simpler for Dukuly just to come with Scott.

video 2 here

       Here’s a similar moment a few minutes later. Notice how, after the playing the switch for MacArthur, Ji takes up a dangerous position between our lines. Alagich here I think could do more to check where Ji is and decide if he wants to mark him or not. It’s difficult to know, of course, what players see from the outside, but it looks to me like he doesn’t really notice Ji’s position until the second pause, and by that point he’s left it up to the defenders. This, to my eye. is something that forces us into a 1v2 on Pierias at the far post the moment the cross comes in (note Vriends tracks Sawyer). We don’t concede this time, but I worry about leaving a defender out numbered anywhere on a cross. The last two seasons we’ve given up a lot of goals to far post crosses, regardless of personnel. From the outside this looks a place where we could get some defensive improvements.

       I don’t know what the best solution is here. Alagich does some ok defending after the cross bounces, had he been directly on a player he wouldn’t have been in position to do this. Another possibility to even things out would be for Vriends to let Kikianis take Sawyer when he attacks the near post – Kikianis does look back at the second pause so possibly he saw the overload coming. Like the above, I think it would be easier for Alagich to provide the extra player here, but I’m really not sure, it does depend on who’s available to pick up Scott outside the area as well, and of course we can’t see everyone from the camera. I do think we need to find a way to not leave Pierias with two players to compete against on these crosses.

       video 3 here

       It’s nice to finish on a positive, so enjoy this flick from Dukuly.

       video 4 here