[FrogMan]

July 29, 2006
Friendly #5, home vs Ajax
We play the 3-4-3 again, and I start Lee Morris at left striker and Kevin Foley at right defensive middie. I want to see if their bad games were just flukes or if they're really uncomfortable playing this formation...
With two friendlies left, some players are starting to show as match fit, a good sign that the season is coming up.

One bad thing though is that my two most important defensive middies, Paul Evans and Richard Johnson, are dinged up and not playing right now. Johnson is still hampered by a groin strain, while Evans suffered a broken nose in training. They should be available for the last friendly, but their lack of playing time could make things tougher in the start of the season, adn I'm not sure we'll be able to afford a bad start if we want to avoid relegation.

We lose the game 1-3. Our scorer is Marc Bridge-Wilkinson.

Morris gets a 7, as does Foley, so things are sort of better now.

For now, I kind of like the 3-4-3. We get reasonable possession numbers, a bit high on our end, but we control the ball and are not letting in an outrageous amount of goals. The 3 centrebacks seem to be doing a good job of cleaning the front of the goal.

FM

edit: I had put the date of the friendly as July 31st, but it's actually July 29. Our last friendly is played on the 31st and will be reported below...