Vs Saga Tosu (home) 13/9/24 J League match 30

Kawasaki Frontale 3 - 2 Sagan Tosu

I had mixed feelings after this game. It was an absolutely crucial win for us in a relegation six pointer. So obviously that means that I should be delighted, right? Unfortunately for me it came against probably the one team in the league I really don’t want to go down. Sagan Tosu is always my favourite away trip and given how their squad always gets picked apart by other teams, including us now, it felt a bit like kicking someone when they were down. Maybe in a normal season I wouldn’t be worrying so much about potentially ruining another club’s chances of survival. But the fact is, we’ve been shit all year and we weren’t that good again in this game and we got away with it, which for me all comes with some feelings of guilt. Presumably people will hail this as us getting back on track just in time for the ACL and demonstrating quite how great Oniki Frontale are. I think it’s another demonstration of how we can’t really beat anyone without a big dose of luck. We’ve lost to all of the bottom three. We got knocked out of the Emperor’s Cup by a team who aren’t doing very well in J2. We just about scraped past another bottom half J2 team in the Levain cup with our first shot on target in the 93rd minute. Whilst the atmosphere at the end of the game was quite rocking in the stadium after this match, it felt a bit like we were ecstatically cheering a Michelin starred chef for managing to make cheese on toast without cutting off more than just the one fingertip. So far have expectations fallen that a late fluky winner in a game at home against the team bottom in the league is celebrated like we’ve won the World Cup. But the points are the important thing, so let’s just move on to the next game and get this blog post out of the way with minimal fuss.

- Somewhat surprisingly there was some rotation from Oniki in this game. Utterly predictably the rotation ended with exactly the same midfield and with Tachibanada playing at full back. This time he was on the left, and naturally Sagan Tosu immediately targeted that side. It’s strange that when he was switched to right back their attacks seemed to switch to that side. Funny that, eh? But of course our Swiss Army Knife also had a go in midfield before the game was over. I don’t think he had a terrible game, but he’s not a full back, and Oniki’s determination to play his favourite players wherever he can fit them in to his favourite (and only) formation in pursuit of the goal of playing a full eleven of midfielders isn’t helping him or us. It was a bit of a surprise to see Erison start. It was no surprise to see him only get 45 minutes before being changed for Yamada. As usual, Oniki’s favourites get at least a 75 minute chance before perhaps being changed but anyone who doesn’t sit on his table at lunchtime has to prove themselves in the very rare and brief opportunities they are provided with. Yamada has done well this year, but he he’s had a lot more of these opportunities than other players. Perhaps Oniki is worried that he’ll do a Miyashiro, who last year was effectively our top scorer (if you remove penalties from the equation) from nowhere near as many minutes as his teammates. I was quite pissed off with Yamada at one point in this game when we broke through on goal and he had numerous opportunities to pass to a teammate who was free and would have probably scored, but instead tried to bulldoze his way through a couple of defenders before basically trying to kick the ball through their legs. And when I say through their legs I don’t mean a nutmeg, I mean trying to make the ball pass through a solid object in defiance of the laws of physics. As Wakizaka did this in a previous game and I lost my rag, I thought it only appropriate that I should give Yamada the same treatment.
 

- Perhaps Oniki is slowly starting to notice the fact this his way isn’t working. It’s only taken him three years, but perhaps he has a slight feeling that maybe using the same tactics and players might not suddenly start being the key to massive success. Wakizaka, once unsubbable is now getting changed in games. I guess the fact that he keeps starting games shows that Oniki is keeping any doubts he might have well under control, but maybe he’s started to notice he’s not playing very well. Miura didn’t start this game, which was a good decision. But of course he was one of the first players to be brought on. In his relatively short time on the pitch he made a really stupid foul when we were about to get a corner and handballed to give away a penalty. To be fair to him he did make a great pass for the winning goal though. I’m pretty sure he’s not as good as people think he is. At least not yet. He’s still kind of young and he’s definitely a decent player, but I don’t think he’s as good as Sasaki, especially when it comes to defending. He doesn’t seem to have completely settled in yet. He puts some really nice crosses in but everyone knows we almost never do this, so more often than not there’s no one there to get on the end of them. Perhaps we’ll see the best of him next year. Perhaps a different approach would suit him better. Perhaps he’d be better as a left winger instead of a left back. We’ll see I guess. Oniki’s flickers of awareness are almost certainly too little too late though. It’s probably significant that he came over to the fans after this game and that his name was sung after the final whistle. I’ve said in the past that I wish he’d come over to face the music when we’ve done awfully and he never does, so maybe it’s not a surprise that the one time he comes over is when we’d won an important game. Superficially, it seems that the reason for him coming over was to encourage us to support them in the soon to begin ACL campaign. I wonder if it also might have something to do with a possible announcement of him leaving at the end of the season which could come in the near future. It was all quite unusual anyway, so something’s definitely going on.
 

- I guess I’ve written all of this and not really mentioned much about the game. Business as usual for us in 2024 is a ridiculous amount of passing and not really many chances. We did a bit better in this game but I think that was more by luck than judgement and might say something about how wrecked Tosu have been by years of having their players plundered. Of course we dominated possession and in this game we managed a shot before the 43rd minute which is a big improvement. And unlike against Kofu we managed to hit the target on a few occasions. Tachibanada’s goal was a cracker. The second goal was quite nice too with a quickly taken free kick. Quite out of character for us to do something other than pass the ball backwards to a player a metre away or blast the ball over the bar from a set piece. But probably there is some significance in the fact that the goal came about from some quick thinking, rather than our master manager’s plan of attack. The winner came from a Tosu player basically chipping his own keeper for the assist, so we can't really claim any credit for that. So don’t get any ideas about us being a free scoring force. We’d done pretty well up until our first goal. After that, for the rest of the half I think the only shot we had was for the disallowed goal and we were really hanging on. I don’t know if part of the plan was to get a goal and then defend the slim lead, but it seemed that it might be and to be honest it was one we weren’t very good at. The second half was pretty ragged and looked like a game where both teams were desperately trying to score but at the same time seemed to be playing a sport they were not particularly familiar with. It felt like a real relegation scrap… which I guess it was so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by that. This probably all contributed to my feeling that we were a bit lucky to win and Sagan Tosu were unlucky to lose.
 

- A few words about the opposition and the officials. Well actually, I guess I’ve said a lot about Tosu already, but maybe one last mention that they are a team who are like a bucket which has been patched up so many times with gaffer tape that it’s now more gaffer tape than plastic. It’s not difficult to feel sorry for a team with comparatively few resources who basically have to rebuild at the start of every year but who this year had the extra death blow of losing half of their starting eleven mid-season. I’m sorry Tosu. If you go down, I will miss you and hope you can come straight up, (presumably after having all of your remaining players snatched at the end of the year). The ref was Nagamine, a new one to me. And he did relatively little to linger in the memory which is high praise. We had a few interminably long VAR checks, but that’s nothing to do with him. I hope he remains an unremarkable ref in the future given that as far as I am concerned, that is exactly what a ref is supposed to be.

So next up, the ACL and it’s..., let me check..., although obviously no-one ever needs to check, because of course we’re going to play Ulsan. We’ve been awful all year and naturally they are top of their league so it looks like it’s not going to be easy. Last year we didn’t mess up this fixture quite as much as we previously have, but there is the massive caveat that we are utterly trash right now. Might be one to watch through your fingers. After that we have recent pantomime villains Nagoya away, obviously not in Nagoya but instead in a stadium about an hour from Nagoya. For some reason this year they’ve messed up and scheduled the game to be at a time that it is possible to get back home from. They must be furious with themselves for the oversight.

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 9. ERISON
FW 17. TONO Daiya

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 2. TAKAI Kota (on for OSHIMA 69')
DF 13. MIURA Sota (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 60')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for SASAKI 90+9')
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 46')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for WAKIZAKA 69')

FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for TONO 81')

Goals

TACHIBANADA (Frontale) 11' 1-0
KUBO (Tosu) 51' 1-1
IENAGA (Frontale) 61' 2-1
KIYOTAKE (Tosu) 90+1' PEN 2-2
YAMADA (Frontale) 90+10' 3-2 

Highlights

Vs Ventforet Kofu (away) 8/9/24 Levain Cup Quarter Final 2nd Leg

Ventforet Kofu 1 - 1 Kawasaki Frontale (1-2 on agg.)

This was an absolutely disgusting win. I feel kind of dirty. Not saying Kofu were robbed though. I think this was probably the kind of game in which the fairest result would have been a 0-0. But then that undermines the fact that they scored. But it was from a free header because one of the usual suspects wasn't doing what he's supposed to be doing. Us scoring late does make a nice change from conceding late on. On those occasions there was a certain inevitability about it though, our play being pretty bad and it only being a matter of time. In this match you can't say at all that it was inevitable that we would score. Blimey we left it late. Left it late for quite a few things actually. Left it till the end of the first half to have our first shot. Left it till the 93rd minute to have our first and only shot on target. It’s fair to say this was not a game of the highest quality. And don’t forget we had the easiest possible draw in the round. And we still almost messed it up. The main thing to write about this game is that we were absolutely awful so let's just do a couple of bullet points and get this over with.

- Quite pleased to say that I predicted the line up almost exactly correctly. The only difference I had was that I thought Kurumaya would have started instead of Haydar. And maybe he would have if he wasn’t (perhaps) injured. I’m only guessing he is, but he went from starting to not even being in the match day squad. I predicted Tachibanada at right back too. Am I a genius? No. Because I got the score wrong. I thought we’d be the ones conceding a late goal to crash out. But I did get the line up and the fact that we’d be shite correct. But once again I’ll undermine myself by saying that it’s not difficult to guess these kind of things because recently Oniki is even more predictable than he is useless. After he was so pleased with our first half against Sapporo, which to most people was an atrocity of a performance, it’s not surprising that he brought back his 'big guns' for this important game. Equally unsurprising was the fact that the 'big guns' played awfully. You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for the players who started against Kofu in the first leg. They won a match, something that the first choice players haven’t done recently and which those first choice guys still didn’t manage to do in this game. But they were dropped. Well apart from Wakizaka and Tachibanada of course, who Oniki would probably pick to start even if they had completed a transfer to another team. Wakizaka was awful again. But once again, perhaps not as bad as Miura. Oniki taking him off at half time was a shock, but a very welcome one. I still don’t like to blame players for what I wholeheartedly believe is Oniki’s fault though. His football depresses me so much that I can’t begin to imagine how terrible it makes the players feel to have to play it. Surely they don’t sit there listening to his match plan and think that this is definitely the way to win. They must have their doubts. I just wish someone would speak up and say something. I’m presuming no one has. Or perhaps the ones who have been exiled said something. Anyways let’s just remember that once again his starting line up failed to do anything and it was only when he made changes that we really started to even make chances.
 

- I’m not sure there’s any need for this second bullet point. I really can’t get past the fact that we were terrible. Oniki’s post match comments are just baffling. It feels like he’s been watching a different game. Perhaps he should spend less time looking at his magnets. Perhaps he, like me, doesn’t like to criticise the players. Although to be honest, I think that this only applies to some of them. I don’t know what he is watching during the matches sometimes. His apparent obsession with pressing and passing and absolute lack of interest in shooting or scoring is quite baffling. Of course to do the latter you need to do the former, but quite how he thinks us doing only the former makes for a good game, I don't know. He’s really lucky our supporters are so happy clappy. I don’t think other clubs’ fans would put up with this utterly pointless stuff. We’ve often said that our football has at times become like an art installation, where the beauty of passing is being displayed. Perhaps this is still true but the thinking behind the installation has changed and now it's intention is to demonstrate the futility of life through endless and pointless repetition. Oniki’s ideal super cut video on YouTube would be a video of us breaking with numbers into the opposition half, then carefully working the ball back to our keeper. Over and over again. Oniki probably thinks margarine tastes better than butter. When he’s feeling a bit wild and wants to go crazy he probably listens to Oasis, (although they are a bit challenging musically for him). His favourite beer is undoubtedly Asahi Super Dry, a beer that pairs perfectly with every food because of its absolute bland tastelessness. He once went crazy and had two glasses. He accidentally burped though so had to have a lie down. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike him. But it’s getting increasingly difficult to retain this opinion as our football gets even more pointless and boring. And, I kind of don’t even get the point of him being there anymore. We always do exactly the same thing, the same players, the same formation, the same tactics, the same subs, so maybe we could just replace him with a set of instructions he could write at the start of the season. He’s even admitting nothing changes in his post match comments. Someone asked about the subs and he said something along the lines of how we just swapped some players and didn’t bother changing the formation much. I think plenty of people are so desperate to see some method in his madness that they are seeing changes that Oniki hasn’t noticed. And to be honest anyway, it’s not the formation that’s the problem, it’s the system and approach. As I have said on numerous occasions. And apparently will continue to do so, wasting both my time and your time too. So let’s just finish this here.

Next up a relegation 6-pointer against Sagan Tosu at home on Friday. With no midweek game this week it will give Oniki the perfect opportunity to use the same players who haven’t achieved anything and some time on the training ground to work on practicing exactly the same ineffective things we’ve done for the last three years. Who needs new ideas when you’ve just magnificently overcome/scraped through with a very late goal against tough opposition/a team doing almost as badly in J2 as we are in J1. Delete as you prefer. Not meaning to be rude to Kofu. I quite like them and would be very happy to see them back in J1 as I like the away trip. Actually, depending on Friday’s result we might be able to do the trip next year anyway. I’m pretty sure that if we do end up in the relegation zone Oniki won’t have what it takes to get us out of it. After that, we start our ACL campaign against, surprise surprise Ulsan. Confident about that?

 

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 19. KAWAHARA So

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 71')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 71')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for WAKIZAKA 80')
DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai (on for MIURA 46')
DF 35. MARUYAMA Yuichi
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (on for OSHIMA 90+5')

Goals

SON (Kofu) 31' 1-0
TONO (Frontale) 90+3' 1-1

Highlights

 

Vs Ventforet Kofu (home) 4/9/24 Levain Cup Quarter Final 1st Leg

Kawasaki Frontale 1 - 0 Ventforet Kofu  

After perhaps what was one of the most infuriating experiences of the season we’ve moved on to what was perhaps one of the most… erm… underwhelming wins of the season. Parachuted into the Levain Cup with only eight teams remaining, at the start of the year this would certainly have looked like the easiest way for us to get our hands on a trophy this year. With our campaigns in every other competition lying in tatters, the Levain Cup is now our only way of getting anything out of what has been an even worse season than last year. With the return leg coming up soon, this post will be in the shorter style that I always attempt but which often gets thwarted by my waffling. Here we go.

- This was a win but it was far from convincing. Before the game, imagining that it would be exactly the same team as it always is, I suspected we’d draw the match and then lose late on in the second leg. An uncharacteristic rotation from Oniki, (more on that in a minute), meant that I was actually quite excited to watch this match. As it was, this was pretty much the same as ever really, with some ponderous build up finally resulting in some bad shooting, all just with some different faces on the pitch. The long ball tactics that Oniki conjured up for the Consadole defeat and which were a crucial part of what he thought was a good first half performance in that game are now gone. I couldn’t see any unique approach for this game. And let’s be honest, even when Oniki does change something, it’s basically the equivalent of swapping the tangerine slices for mandarin ones in his fruit salad, a change which is pretty difficult to notice and which has no real significance or effect. All of which underlines the fact that Oniki’s negative influence remains strong. This was the absolute easiest possible game for us in this stage of this cup. A home leg against a J2 team who are resolutely mid-table this year. But we only managed to win thanks to a mis-hit shot in the first half before a lot of wasting of chances. Due to the new rules, Kofu using a concussion sub meant that we could have made six changes from our bigger than usual bench. But the master Oniki only made four, and even those made us play worse than we had been doing before he intervened. I don’t know what the opposite of a golden touch is, but whatever it is, Oniki seems to have it. The fact that he rotated, whilst both welcome and extremely surprising, was also quite confusing. He usually doesn’t do this kind of thing apart from against non-league teams. Does this mean that he is really worried about relegation and is saving our ‘best’ players for the league? Does it mean that he saw how awful we were against Consadole and wanted to shake things up? There’s no way to tell. Particularly as he obviously included Wakizaka, who’d played pretty badly against Consadole. Oh and of course Tachibanada, but at right back naturally. I suspect for the next match he’ll revert to the Consadole line up, but maybe with one change. I think he’ll drop Sai (for absolutely no reason), play Tachibanada at right back and put Kawahara in midfield. Maybe I’ll be proved completely wrong, but that’s my guess.

- A bit about the stinker performances in this match. I mentioned Wakizaka above and whilst people might think I have an agenda against him, this was definitely another terrible game for him. He seems obsessed with desperately trying to do something fancy and is prepared to make stupid mistake after stupid mistake in pursuit of this ultimately pointless goal. Along with that I guess I’m sore because he tried to shoot when a simple sideways pass would have presented a teammate with an open goal which would have made the second leg a bit less worrying, and the fact that he seems so determined to dominate the score sheet that he was blocking Erison’s goal bound shots. (Do I need to put the winking face in here? Or do people understand this is not entirely serious?) He’s obviously not a bad player but he’s not playing well at the moment and Oniki’s insistence on including him endlessly is pissing me right off. Another kind of unfair thing to say but which I apparently seem to feel obliged to declare is that at the moment Miura really doesn’t seem to be as good as people think he is. Sasaki was much better at left back and we got worse after he was switched to the right. This all feels a bit harsh though as it’s not the players’ fault. It is Oniki’s fault. And as it’s not a great look to whinge when we’ve won, I’ll leave the moaning at this and then presumably pick it up again after the next match. In conclusion, we won, but it wasn’t a massive test, and thanks to our one dimensional approach, it’s one that we could easily have failed.

- A few words about the debutants. Kawahara was probably the stand out player. Which isn’t exactly great news when you consider that’s the one area of the pitch that we have the most cover in. He looked good in the tackle and had a nice range of passes. I’m optimistic about his future, IF he gets a fair crack. Hayder had a solid debut too I thought. It looks a bit like he’s going to be the Jesiel replacement. I don’t know if Jesiel will be leaving us but the fact that he keeps getting injured is a bit of a concern. We haven’t seen the best of Jesiel for a few years now, so hopefully Hayder can fill the gap that Jesiel has left due to his injuries. Having a reliable centre back would free up Sasaki to play on the left where I think he’s better. But anyone who remembers when Jesiel joined us will recall that in spite of him looking better than the rest of our centre backs, he was only given a shot once there were no other options, so maybe we shouldn’t expect Oniki to see Hayder have a good game and then play him again. Yamaguchi did fine but was only really tested on a couple of occasions. I’m still a bit miffed by Oniki’s treatment of Hayasaka who now seems to be back to third choice after a defeat where he wasn’t at fault. It was also kind of baffling to see Yamaguchi given man of the match in the stadium considering how little he had to do and the level of the opposition. I presume Oniki doesn’t pick this award, but jeez, it seemed like there was some kind of emotional bullying going on to both Hayasaka (who after coming through our youth team finally got a chance, was shockingly let down by the players in front of him and was immediately exiled) and Tono, who would have been expected to get it given that he scored the only goal. Yamaguchi did his job and made a couple of decent saves, but when you consider that Kofu didn't really have many chances and the fact that it wasn't some kind of against all odds protection of a goal that was getting battered it seems a bit strange to single him out for special praise.

- Once again, nothing about the opposition or the ref. This was a fairly uneventful game. It was a shame that Erison’s goal was ruled out by VAR but even from the initial replay on the big screen before VAR was even mentioned I wondered if it might be. We in the stadium certainly didn’t see enough replay angles to make any conclusive decision but there seemed to be enough for the ref to change his mind when at the monitor. He did have to watch it quite a few times though to decide on what I guess is supposed to be a clear and obvious error. The cancellation of the goal really took the wind of our sails though. That wind was only a light breeze though, but I guess it shows quite how on edge everyone is at the moment and how their confidence is pretty fragile. But I have no issues with the decision, and the subs Oniki made had a greater negative impact anyway. Oops here I go again with the whinging…

Next up the second leg in Kofu on Sunday. I made my team prediction above and don’t particularly want to predict a result. And don’t need to predict anything tactical, do I? 😉 After that we have a relegation six pointer against Sagan Tosu the following Friday. Way too much Friday Night J League remaining this season for my liking. If we do slip up on Sunday and then go on to slip up again next Friday we could be in a hell of a lot of trouble. There are a lot of teams behind us but at the same time the points difference isn’t much and recently we’ve been known to give our rivals in that area of the table a gift-wrapped three points for free. And after Sagan Tosu we still have to play Kyoto… And when the ACL starts will have a fixture pile up. And presumably still just the one idea. Blimey.

Team

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
MF 19. KAWAHARA So
MF 77. YAMAMOTO Yuki (Yellow card 61')

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (Yellow card 51')

FW 9. ERISON
FW 17. TONO Daiya

 

Subs

GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki

MF 6. ZE RICARDO

DF 13. MIURA Sota (on for YAMAMOTO 74')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 18. Bafetimbi GOMIS
FW 20. YAMADA Shin (on for ERISON 74')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for SEGAWA 83')
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for WAKIZAKA 74')

Goals

TONO (Frontale) 27' 1-0

My Frontale Man Of The Match

In such an underwhelming game I wouldn’t normally give this out but given that the decision in the stadium was a bit of a weird one I feel like I should balance that out. No offence to Yamaguchi but as he didn't really have that much to do, it’s going to…

KAWAHARA So and SAKASI Asahi - Kawahara looked a lot better than some others who’ve played in midfield for us this year and looks very promising. Sasaki had a good game in his preferred position. Presumably if Oniki continues to Oniki he won’t get the chance to do that very often though.

Highlights

Vs Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (away) 1/9/24 J League match 29

Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale 

Ah, another amazing game! I’ve said so many times this year that we’ve reached a new low that perhaps the phrase has lost its meaning. I can confirm though that this most definitely was a new low. Perhaps worried that we were in mid-table mediocrity and had nothing to play for after our three win run, Oniki has plunged us back into the excitement of a relegation battle. But don’t worry guys, he’s got it all under control! Actually, if he did say those words it would be enough to send me into a massive downward spiral of worrying. We’re six points off the drop zone with quite a few teams between us and the relegation places. This probably means that we’re not in too much trouble. However, we’re absolutely the worst kind of shite at the moment and have a manager who has long since lost any credibility as a capable leader. I was sitting around all morning doing nothing because I knew I had to write this blog post and totally couldn’t be bothered to do it. But I must do it in order to free me up to do other more exciting things like deep clean the bathroom. Here we go...

- Absolute shit from both teams in the first half. Terrible skills, terrible tactics, terrible vibes. Everything felt like it was a game between two teams who’d not only already been relegated but also who’d been told they were about to be liquidated and the players had been told someone was about to set fire to their homes. Utterly shit. Utterly useless. And whilst this kind of uselessness can sometimes be entertaining this was utterly dull too. Basically two teams doing a couple of sideways passes and then gifting possession to the opposition. So bad was the first half that the only part of it that is shown on the highlights is our kick off, which in a very prescient way shows us pass the ball backwards and then aimlessly hoof it long, immediately losing possession. But surely the managers saw how bad it was and would do something at half time, right?
 

- Half right. As in one of them did. And no surprises, it was the Consadole manager. Oniki apparently looked at that first half and thought, ‘Hmmmm, pretty good, we’re not losing and they’re as bad as us so we should be able to get a thrilling 0-0 draw against the team who are sitting bottom of the league’. We weren’t. Consadole came out firing. We came out snoozing. They were well on top and then also made some changes. Which presumably caused Oniki to get the magnets out and have a think. And in his usual lightning fast way he produced the game changing substitution of Tono on for Marcinho. Because yeah, that was the big problem area, wasn’t it? Five minutes later they scored. Oniki was at this stage presumably thinking, ‘If we keep things tight we can come away with a great 1-0 defeat against the team bottom of the league’. Out came the magnets again and when he realised we don’t get any points for losing 1-0 he made two more subs, taking off the right back and the player who’d come closest to scoring and giving two strikers who are desperate to play and score a whopping 11 minutes to completely turn around the game. Of course Kobayashi would have to do that from right wing instead of up front as Yamada was on the pitch and he scored some goals a while ago so is now undroppable. We briefly flirted with two up front, (Yamada and Erison), before Oniki saw Oniki sense, and moved Erison out to play on the left. It’s impossible to understand what he is trying to do or what he even thinks. Unbelievably his post match comments included him saying that we should have played more like we did in the first half but we maybe couldn’t keep it up because we'd overdone it trying too hard in that half . This is now gaslighting of the highest degree. Surely most people at the club now realise he’s talking bollocks. Can’t someone call the authorities and get him taken out of harms way for both his and our sake.
 

- I don’t like to single players out and I guess I’m about to single out so many that it probably doesn’t count as singling them out. Those who were crap from back to front. Takai, again after a confidence boost played awfully and was partly at fault for both goals. Miura, did nothing apart from attack their number 33,  and well done to him for doing that, but other than that he was awful. And I think his corners might be even worse than Wakizaka’s, which is really saying something. Tachibanada, seems to completely disappear when playing alongside Oshima. Only appeared when he was moved to right back and did nothing for their second goal. Wakizaka, strolls about the pitch looking to make a killer showbiz pass and in pursuit of that one good pass per game, spends the rest of the time giving the ball away. Marcinho, feel a bit guilty as he clearly tries hard but about a month ago he was our only attacking outlet and wasted way more chances than he made, never passing until it was absolutely too late. Presumably has been ‘coached’ by Oniki and now seems to have lost the attacking part of his game, leaving him basically just with the missing chances part of his game. Yamada, you can never fault his effort but why he gets almost 90 minutes of every game and is automatically ahead of every other striker we have, I don’t know. He had a great run of games but since then has done close to nothing. And quite how anyone not in the starting line up is supposed to do enough to get in the team from just playing in practice or for ten minutes at the most in games we’ve already totally fucked up, I don’t know. But this is all unfair. We know they’re not bad players. It’s Oniki's fault. But still we’ll go with 4-3-fucking-3 and perhaps his new tweak as a reaction to us losing again will be to tell them to attack less. His one tactical masterstroke in this game was to pump it forward as often as possible. Lots of long balls to our front three who aren’t very big and two of whom probably won’t even be up front. But even these long balls were awful. The only person who didn’t immediately hoof the ball off the pitch or give it to Consadole was Oshima, and his passes to Marcinho were ultimately pointless as it seemed that Oniki had spent the week telling Marcinho that he is shit, had kidnapped his pet and said that the pet would face the consequences if Marcinho attempted to attack.

 
- Consadole had kept three clean sheets all season until this match. Two of them were against Jubilo and the other one was in the first game of the season. They are notoriously not bothered about defending and on the rare occasions they win, it’s usually 5-3 or something similar. We failed to score against them. And worse than that, I can only remember one decent chance. We could still be playing now and probably would only have been able to score if their goalie had to pop off to go to the toilet. I’m not even convinced we could put the ball into an empty net at the moment. I think that right now, we’d be defeated by one of those free kick dummy walls that people use to practice. Somehow our tactic of trying to pass the ball directly through that wall rather than go around it wouldn't pay off. And then after a light gust of wind blows the wall over and it would clip the ball which would trundle slowly down the pitch, with one of our defenders who’d been distracted by Oniki shouting micro management instructions from the side of the pitch turning round quickly, taking out our goalie, and the ball would trickle slowly over the line. Oniki’s assessment would be something along the lines of ‘We wanted to win for the supporters who’d come to the stadium and should have tried to focus more on passing the ball though the solid object. I take full responsibility for the result, (By which I mean, I take no responsibility, it’s nothing to do with me), and I’ll do the same thing next week when we come up against another tough opponent, those little cones they use for dribbling practice.’

It's difficult to see but there's some double
magnet board action going on here

- It’s not all Oniki’s fault though. Well, 95% his fault, but not all his fault. I said it last week but our summer transfer business was ridiculous. Along with the disappointed Brazilian quota we have to fulfill (which now seems to be have been widened to being a disappointed South American quote), it seems like we also have to make up a supremely talented central midfielder quota too. I’m sure on his magnet boards Oniki has on numerous occasions tried to work out how to play a 0-10-0 formation. I guess that way we could get the pass count up which seems to be our only aim recently. Yamamoto has been treated appallingly and I’m kind of surprised he didn’t demand to leave in the summer. I hope Ze Ricardo is enjoying his time in Japan in the way that Gomis is. I saw one of Gomis’s Instagram posts and I’m not sure if he was being ironic when he said he’s ’Enjoying [his] journey through Japan’s culture’. I’m pleased he is because I can’t imagine he’s enjoying his time at Frontale. And poor Hayasaka. Out of the squad again. Wonder what the excuse if this time… None of these people have been given a fair chance. And there are numerous others who you could add to the list. And at the same time there are people in the team and in charge of the team who consistently perform badly but aren’t held to the same standards. The supporters aren’t immune from criticism either though in my opinion. I like the fact that we’re nice and generally positive supporters. I don’t like us being encouraged to sing a congratulatory sing after an awful performance when we’ve lost against the team who were bottom of the league. Some elements of our support would probably roll out a 'let’s go to the next level' song as our relegation is confirmed after our last home game of the season against Avispa. 'Let’s pull together and have a great season in J2 next year!' I’m not going to boo them, although I might reconsider my no booing policy if that sneak Oniki ever came to the supporters after the game instead of slinking away. But at the same time, I’m not going to sing to them if they’ve stunk the place up. I don’t think it’s their fault, I think it’s Oniki’s fault. Likewise if one of my students completely fails their Eiken test because I was instructed to only teach them words you can use to insult a referee in English instead of using the proper materials, I wouldn’t expect their parents to come into the school and give me a round of applause for my efforts. If they do a decent job I’ll clap them and sing. If they’re shite I’m just going to stand with my arms crossed and stay quiet. I wish more people would do the same.

Not a word about the ref or the opposition because there’s nothing to say. Everything in this game was down to us. We are playing awfully with awful tactics and awful team selections. Confidence is justifiably non-existent and the guy who is supposed to turn this around thought the first half of this game was a success! We’re fucked! Next up a home and way double header against Kofu in the Levain Cup, which we’ve been parachuted into at a late stage, helping us to not go out in the first round. In the Emperor's Cup we triumphantly beat a non league team and then lost to a J2 team. I fear that this time we’ll go one step worse and go out at the first time of asking. Expect the same line up and some amazing tactical tweak, perhaps something like attempting to keep the ball by the corner flag for the entirety of the home leg. If we crash out of the Levain we can really focus on the league... ermmm, on avoiding relegation to J2. Oniki will know what to do. He has a tactical approach for every occasion. by which I mean he has one tactical approach that he uses for every single fucking game. Success this year will be staying in J1. On our showing in this game, even though it seems like it should be achievable, I really am starting to have my doubts.

Team

GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong

DF 31. VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai

DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 2. TAKAI Kota
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento

MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota

MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO

Subs

GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
FW 9. ERISON (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 79')

FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for IENAGA 79')

MF 17. TONO Daiya (on for MARCINHO 64')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for WAKIZAKA 85')

FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata (on for YAMADA 85')

Goals

AOKI (Consadole) 71' 1-0
SUZUKI (Consadole) 80' 2-0

Highlights