The Days Between
English Southern League Cup draw sees us host Wroxham if we make it past Braintree. Yes, Wroxham, not Wrexham. Wroxham are near the east coast, northeast of Norwich. They are at the same level as us.
I also set up a U18 friendly against Farleigh’s youths so I could get some players more match sharpness, especially new-hire Chick Legg. I play everyone who didn’t start against Dartford. Everyone played exceptionally well with Legg coming in the lowest at an 8.1 rating. Rae got a hat trick on our way to a 9-1 slaughtering.
Well, Braintree’s squad report is not that much different from Dartford’s so we’ll probably lose. Sticking with 4-4-2 Standard as we are familiar with the position.
But before we get to that, it’s my favorite time of year! Youth Intake Day! In Ireland, not as good as in England. I send my three scouts there to look for kids 16 and under. Hopefully I find a couple.
Southern League Cup
at Braintree, 20 September 2017
Formation: 4-4-2 Standard
Starting XI: Webb,
Maguire,
Day,
Carroll,
Jefcoate,
Pearson,
Barlow,
Smith,
Duckett,
Macey,
O’Donnell
Subs: Legg,
Johnstone,
Clark,
Spearing,
Parker,
Jones,
Donaldson,
McAdam,
Martin,
Taylor,
Rae
For once I don’t blow the pre-match speech and everyone but Carroll and Webb “Seem motivated.” A counter-attack in 8’ led by O’Donnell gets us a goal off the foot of Barlow. YES!!! But 15 minutes later Braintree hoof one up the field and, Day and Carroll have a confab to determine who’s going to boot the ball out of the box so Braintree’s right striker takes matters into his own hands and embarrasses us all. After a two minute spell of hitting the bar three times, Macey finally puts one away off a deflection and we go into the half up one. At 63’ I have to sub out Maguire and Day cuz they’ve been horrible and Barlow cuz he’s getting exhausted. We still can’t score from set pieces but we manage to retain possession off of one in the 70th and Macey gets a goal in the box off a Smith pass. At 75’ Clark screws up and does a poor job of collecting a ball and it’s a one-goal game again.
Sports Interactive are not that good of a company. They spend each year adding something new to the game that is supposed to be all glitzy and glammy. But they never fix the broken code. Case in point, I have my GK instruction to roll out the ball to central defenders. And he keeps trying to send long passes up the field. I had this problem in FM14 also, and the brief time I played FM20.
But this time it results in a goal for us at 89:18 by Jones. Oh well. We see out the game and I thank the lads but give the defense some curt words as too many had poor games, most notably Maguire (6.2) and Day (6.1).
POM: Eddie Macey (2 goals, 2 key passes, 2 chances created)
