Mick Horsfall says Fleetwood youth’s must be more creative and purposeful in attack after failing to score against Rochdale
by Sam GillilandMick Horsfall says Fleetwood youth’s must be more creative and purposeful in attack after failing to score against Rochdale.
The youth-team coach saw Town create only a small number of chances in their 2-0 defeat, and they have struggled to score in recent home games.
Horsfall, who takes charge of the pre-match training on match days, wants to see the young Cod Army use their own initiative more often.
“One of the things we have said in training is that the boys need to work out how to beat teams themselves, instead of us just telling them all the time,” he said.
“Rochdale played with an extra man in midfield, which we didn’t cope with at the start, so we changed the system around but never really created anything.
“It doesn’t matter how many men the opposition have in midfield, we just didn’t pick the right options going forwards. They tried to play it to feet when they should have gone long and vice versa.
“They didn’t realise how much room was actually behind the Rochdale defence. The only time we did go behind [Kurt] Willoughby could have scored.”
Town have scored 24 goals in 16 league matches so far this season – 1.5 goals a game on average – but only 11 of those have come at home, something which academy manager Steve Carlin also wants to improve upon.
Carlin said: We’re not taking what we do in training and putting it into practice on a match day.
“When the options are on, and someone makes a forward run, then the boys need to learn to start picking the man out.
“We don’t always need to find players feet. Sometimes it’s better to find the space for people to run into, but we haven’t done this against Rochdale.”
