Today I have been thinking about which approach we should take against Bolton? I came up with two ways to approach this game. Both are pretty self-explanatory, to be honest.
I have not seen Bolton play this season and don’t know how they play but, they probably have better players than Walsall. We have to rely on teamwork and hard work to get anything from this match. The keyword in putting in a solid display against a better team is teamwork. Our players could make them frustrated and turn them into making individual mistakes and use this opportunity to spearhead attacks against an unorganised defence. By making them frustrated, we can maybe make them turn against the ref. We can waste time on and off during the match, slow the pace down now and then to get their momentum out of track.
The first approach
In my opinion, we can approach the match against Bolton in two ways.
We could either drop back and soak up pressure and, when we win control of the ball, we use pace and make quick transitions via our wingers or wing-backs to get the ball quickly into the final third, cross the ball for our advancing forwards and midfielders.
That could result in the Bolton defence is caught on their back foot. Defending while running towards your own goal is more challenging than having all players back and organised.
A cross into the box when having both attacking players and defenders rushing towards the goal can result in corners, a goal-scoring opportunity, or even an own-goal. It can also result in a panic clearance by the defence where we win the second ball and pin them down in their half. That will give our defenders a chance to catch a breath. The important thing is to get the ball into the box and make sure it ends with a dead ball, for example, a goal, goal-kick or a corner. Then you can drop back and organise your defence to have men back defending when they’re attacking.
The second approach
The second option you can use is to push up your defensive line and put early pressure on their defenders and midfielders to win the ball high up in the field. This approach can sometimes be risky. In case the opponents have qualities to play around the pressing players, their playmakers have a chance to play balls into space behind the defensive line. That could put our defenders under immense pressure, causing our players into making individual mistakes instead.
One last thing
Oh, and one more thing. Brian Dutton has to prepare his players for this battle. They need to have a tactical Plan A and, maybe most important, a Plan B to fall back on if Plan A isn’t working.
If every team-member show as much effort as Liam Kinsella has done this season, I can’t see any reason why we can’t get at least one point from tomorrows match.