Thai League 4 West. Hua Hin City FC 1:3 IPE Samut Sakhon

We have a new Thai head coach, who comes complete with very high qualifications. Today, he decided to experiment – a decision that backfired on him, big time. He played a goalkeeper in goal, but examples of the rest of the team:

• Left Back was the Left Winger.

• Right Back was Right Midfield.

• Left Winger was the Right Winger.

• Right Wing was Centre Forward.

• Centre Forward was on the Bench.

• The best defender (certainly at T4 level) in the league was on the Bench.

• Attacking Midfield was somewhere in Defence (couldn’t pin him down to a position).

• I could go on, but as you can guess, it was a complete and utter shambles. As far as I know, every player was available, and at full fitness.

This was a huge mistake, and maybe should have been thoroughly tested on the training ground. With the greatest respect, 45 minutes against Chiva Som team, which produced a single goal should have been warning enough. There is no logical excuse for playing so many out of position, when so many players were available. Somebody suggested before KO that if this worked, he’d be classed as a genius. The scoreline tells us the truth.

About the only outfield player in his regular position was the play maker, but he was well off his game.

As you can imagine, the first half was awful, and we soon found ourselves behind. The question was, how soon would things be changed - he’d got it terribly wrong? Right on half time he brought on Arnon, and a couple of players were able to return to their regular positions. This steadied the ship a little, but it was still riding the rapids.

After about an hour Nicolas was brought on. This allowed the shape to reform to almost normal, but everything was still going through the off-form play maker. At last Hua Hin were starting to threaten.

Unfortunately, Hua Hin fell for a sucker punch, and conceded No.2. This is a move I’ve seen many times in this league. The opposition have a player about 10 yards offside but not interfering with play. The attacker and defender come to a virtual standstill because the attacker has nowhere to go. Meanwhile a new attacker runs down the blindside of the defender, and receives the ball, still onside, with defenders just watching. Invariably, this move results in a goal.

Desperate to get back into the game, and with time running out, a 3rd was conceded. It was at this point that the play maker was replaced by Tossapon and Hua Hin looked really dangerous for the last 10 minutes (we now had what should have been the starting 11 on the pitch). The attacking trio of Maraba, Feli and Nicolas (now playing in their natural positions) all coming very close to grabbing a goal after starting to get the service they needed from the new play maker.

Hua Hin’s consolation came right on full time with a well taken strike into the bottom left corner by leading scorer Maraba from the edge of the penalty area.

It is still early enough for Hua Hin to recover from this unnecessary set back, but the coach has to play to his strengths, and not play people where they want to play. He is a coach for a professional football team. He should be playing his best side every match. I hope it’s a lesson learned.

#2018 #Match #T4