Harrogate is probably the worst opening day fixture we could possibly have hoped for.
Im not the only one that felt this when the fixtures were announced, but I was definitely in the minority.
Harrogate and the game was just about everything I thought it would be and dreaded and it was exactly the reason playing one of the promoted teams on the opening day of the season is always the worst possible time to play them.
In this instance it is even worse due to them preparing for and playing the playoffs so close to the start of the season.
Add to that our lack of preparation, late return to pre season, late appointment of a new manager, lack of challenging pre season games and threadbare squad, it was an absolute accident waiting to happen of the highest order.
Harrogate, buoyed by a play off win, come flying into the football league on a wave of enthusiasm and driven by an overdose of adrenalin, there was only one outcome.
We can blame the referee, we can dig out young players, we can completely contradict our own enthusiasm of just 7 days ago or we can be realistic and analyse the situation a bit more objectively?
No one can paper over the cracks and suggest all is well and it’ll be fine swinging from one extreme to the other based on two 90 mins of football is ridiculous.
Harrogate pressed us as high as is physically possible with more energy and organisation than any pre season game could possibly prepare you for. It was relentless and it was frightening how well prepared they were.
Id hope the players learned from it but I’d also hope that the management did too, because being brutally honest both players and staff looked as out of their depth as each other.....mainly through inexperience and naivety.
If a team comes at you with a press that intense and that aggressive you have to adapt quickly and do one of two things.
You either squeeze up, get players further up the pitch aim at areas and fire the ball 80 yards up the pitch until the opposition sit deeper to deal with it. But to do this you need players who can win and / or compete for the first ball AND then win and compete for the second ball.
If you choose to not do that the other option is to be brave (and good!) and continually try and break the press with passes that break lines and leave them out of position and outnumbered further up the pitch.
This is so hard. You have to work at it, you have to be patient and you have to be prepared to be caught out sometimes.
However if you can do it, the opposition will be unable to maintain the levels of fitness required to keep doing it, tire and eventually the chain breaks, someone stops pressing and you have them beat.
We lost faith in it and weren’t good enough at it after 20 mins. Until then we’d had some success, however too many players played a pass back once we’d almost beaten the press and allowed them another crack at it and too many players started to go missing and not want the ball.
Game over.
OBL is 100% correct. Hutchinson was too deep. He was often 20 yards behind Gard. He tried to be the one being brave on the ball but all he ended up doing was being given it in bad areas and was swamped by Harrogate players, had no one to give it too and ended up being caught on it.
The blame lies with everyone. The movement was poor. The passing was too slow. The options for the man on the ball were non existent and most importantly we didn’t learn and / or weren’t told from the bench to start spinning the ball in behind them and force our two forwards to start pulling their fingers out and start chasing some lost causes and fight to win us some free kicks, throw ins or some possession further up the pitch.
I’m not going to get into who did and who didn’t do well or who is and who isnt good enough.
There players who are good enough but who played poorly. There are also players who aren’t good enough who made it harder for those that are. We will all have differing opinions on that, which is fine and what makes football interesting. But we have to try and avoid abuse, personal or otherwise.
The test is not about the result of the first game, the test is how the players and management learn from it and how quickly. It’s how they adapt their game or their tactics before and during games. It’s how the players are allowed to grow and develop from that.
As I said, Harrogate was the worst possible game to kick off any season let alone this one.
Let’s not jump the gun. Last season Norwich beat Man City!
