Lessons to be learnt from 2004/05

[flecky76 0]

Decided to watch the 2004/05 Premiership DVD last night to remind myself of some of the things that happened that season. Things that really stand out for me for us to be sucessful (ie. 17th place or higher) as follows:

1) Work hard. Pretty obvious this and we did do it in 04/05. I have no doubt whatsoever this will be a mantra of the team for this season. In fact, I think our work rate will be far higher this coming season compared to 04/05. People like Svensson, Jonson, Helveg, Mulryne and Bentley didn''t work as much as I think our players in similar positions will do this coming year (think R Martin, Morison, Holt, Crofts.... even Hoolahan, who works harder than many people think).

2) Don''t dwell in defence! A number of times when we were under the cosh, we failed to put our foot through the ball and gave cheap goals away.

3) Take your chances when they come along. I lost count of the number of (very) good chances we had throughout the season that went begging. Huckerby and McKenzie were the biggest culprits, and I''m talking good one on ones, not just half chances.

4) Our Goalkeeper will be busy! I''m just concerned that, if we don''t get an experienced back-up and John Ruddy has a couple of difficult games, we won''t have an option to take him out of the firing line if required.

5) Defence is key. However, a regular defence of Drury, Doherty, Charlton, Fleming and Edworthy is possibly similar, if not slightly worse, than a defence of R Martin, Tierney, Barnett, Ward and Whitbread, de Laet... but we do lack experience which could prove crucial. Far too many time in 04/05 we were all over the place and completely exposed.

6) First half of the season, it was so noticable that Worthy put out quite cautious line ups. And attacking force of Huckerby behind Svensson and wingers of Bentley and Jonson didn''t exactlygive us outright attacking options, bearing in mind that Hucks was never an out and out striker, Svensson was often up on his own. We did far better in the latter part of the season once we "went for it" attacking wise and gave support to Ashton. I feel Lambert will look to attack and keep the ball in the oppositons half as often as possible.

7) Referee decisions - you need some of the 50/50s to go in your favour. We only seemed to get the 70/30s in our favour.

I could go on with more, but they were the obvious things that I noticed!

[Mister Chops 7]

Don''t sign Simon Charlton aka "The Norfolk Makalele"Don''t sign Gary Doherty as a StrikerDon''t sign Gary Doherty as a Centre BackMatthias Jonson doesn''t play on the wingDon''t go into your opening game with your first choice centre backs being shortarses.