Having struggled in the last few games Rangers entered into the initial league cup fixture against Windsor Owls with a little trepidation. As we are seeing in the first division, It was a physical encounter, which left a a number of the players nursing knocks. Windsor took the game to Wokingham with an early lead within the first ten minutes and increased their lead shortly after, when a striving run down down the left hand side, saw the winger beat Ben and drive down line, before cutting in and firing a speculative shot, which saw an uncharacteristic slip by Charlie with the ball bobbling under his arm.
Despite being 2-0 down there where pockets of decent play, with the midfield, particularly Harvey and Ellis, combining to receive the ball from defense, though we weren't moving off the ball and communicating enough to find enough time and space to play forward. The play was often a little too condensed with 5 / 10 yard passes rather than 15 / 20 yards which meant we were not making sufficient progress up the pitch. We did find ourselves progressing on occasion, though the ball into Jacob and Will didn't seem to stick enough and with both strikers coming short, we didn't vary and stretch the opposition enough, lacking runs in behind.
Rangers found a little joy though, when Tom put a lofted ball forward which saw the keeper dragged out of position, the half clearance found Harvey, who calmly side footed the ball into the vacant net to send Rangers into the half 2-1 down.
Windsor rallied second half and Rangers struggled to prevent a series of crosses coming into dangerous areas and it wasn't long before Windsor extended their lead to make it 3-1.
Rangers, with their best move of the game, started the move with a searching direct pass from a goal kick from Vinny, this found Jacobs feet who dropped the ball back into the oncoming Ellis, a deft over the top ball then saw Will react first and he managed to beat the keeper with an excellent lob to make it 3-2. A classic, direct, up back and through from goal kick to goal in less than five passes, definitely an area which needs more focus during these difficult times.
Windsor continued to press and Wokingham struggled to come to terms. With less than 10 minutes to go and in the midst of trying organize a shuffle round to allow us push forward, we were sucker punched, a Windsor free kick just outside the area resulted in a goal to make it 4-2. As heads dropped and focus went, Windsor further capitalized to end the game 5-2.
The Rangers players will need to dig deep over the next few weeks to try and turn these fixtures into results. We are only gonna achieve this through a combination of teamwork, communication and hard graft, which starts at training. As a squad we need to recognize the areas we need to improve, be committed and stop blaming. Each player needs to improve their desire to compete and be an option for the player with the ball. Only then will we see improvements...oh and the coaching... that needs to improve too, particularly my observation of the silent coaching weekend, this definitely needs some work...