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Stromson — Afan Lido: Season’s end already?
Wait, what’s that now? Is this a news article about Afan Lido winning games!? Why yes guys and gals, I do believe it is. Welcome back to our Afan Lido tale, and for once, I have good news to share with you.
As you’re no doubt aware, it’s been a bit of a rough ride in our first season of Welsh Premier action. We jumped off to a thrilling start, and have been on a downhill slide ever since. I’ve had to make a few emergency signings here and there, and even convinced the board to give me a modest transfer budget to try and bring some January help on board. Unfortunately none of this had really helped change our results, and I was starting to get pretty frustrated (mercifully my board was quite supportive, and my job security never dipped below stable).
I was scraping the bottom of the barrel, and was nearly out of ideas when I received the advice I needed from a most unlikely source. Following another gut-wrenching close loss, I received a note in my inbox from our supporter’s representative Scott Powell. He said that while they were pleased the team was managing to avoid the relegation zone (barely), they were concerned that I hadn’t tried to mix up my formations.
I couldn’t believe it. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, and I’d even been prepping two backup formations all season long! With cheeks rosy red, I moseyed over to the training facility and quietly informed my assistant manager that we’d be changing things around for the next game. We would be departing from our now standard 4-5-1 and switching over to a more ambitious 4-2-4 (ZeroSea’s 4-2-4 to be exact). The players seemed excited by the change, and were eager to try out the new strategies.
I was completely floored by the turnaround. I swear to you the only thing I changed was my tactic. This run of wins was preceeded by two 2-2 draws, from which we took off and never looked back. We were obviously too far gone to move out of the lower six, and thus were drawn into the relegation group once the league split in half come February. This gave us an unexpected windfall, and were to play nothing but lower table teams for the remainder of the season (an ideal opportunity to refine our new formation and build for next season).
I’m now completely convinced that I was the only thing standing between this team and success. Darren’s 4-5-1, while excellent, really doesn’t perform exceptionally well a league of Wales’ calibre. That tactic relies on having a very gifted striker up front (aka Fredy Montero), and there is no such thing in the Welsh Premier League (at least not yet). That said, there was one other critical signing during January that I firmly believe was a major contribution to our sudden rise in form:
Shane Sutton replaced a gaping hole in our back four, and we saw a marked defensive boost after he joined up with us. Combined with our other spring signing in Robert Frame (who you’ll see in the accompaning video), and the new tactical formation, we were able to continue our good form. We did drop a few points along the way, but we continued to perform well during the latter stages of the season:
The Airbus and Prestatyn results highlighted the short-comings of our new strategy: a weaker defense. Fortunately, with my team now able to score 2-5 goals a game, that didn’t matter as much anymore. The May 2nd match against Prestatyn solidified our place at the top of the relegation group and we secured ourselves a 7th place finish. I was quite please with this result after spending nearly half the season stuck in 11th, and we even ended up with a winning record! At this point I thought my season was done, but it turned out we qualified for the Europa Playoffs (this is a special playoff in the Welsh League where 5 teams enter a playoff for Wales’ final Europa position.
I was pleasantly optimistic, but we were easily handled by Port Talbot. I suppose I’d become overly confident after playing weaker teams since January, and Talbot were quick to remind us of where we stood in the Welsh heierarchy. We were rising, but we weren’t there yet. As our season closed, I received another startling piece of news in my inbox:
Oh my! Apparently our 7th place finish was impressive enough to warrent the adolation of others. I hardly feel worthy of the honor, especially when you consider my tactical blundering in the early going, but I’ll go ahead and take it all the same! My board, ever supportive and understanding, saw fit to offer me a contract extension for my efforts:
I graciously accepted the offer, and immediately set to work preparing for next season. Meanwhile, the final tabled looks as thus:
A mid-table finish won’t be good enough next year, and we need to be making a serious title challenge for me to be satisfied. We have some decent players already onboard, but we’ll need to bring in some extra talent if we want to break into the Championship group on a regular basis. For the time being, our best eleven:
And for whatever reason, you lot seem to like hearing me say stupid things into a microphone, so I have another video for your viewing pleasure (it’s about 15 minutes long and can be considered optional):
Closing Thoughts:
I think I’m going to experiment with my format in the next few updates. I’d like to turn this into more of a «story» than a progress report, and so I’d ask for your patience and thoughts as events unfold. As always, thank you all for your continued support!