Oh jeez I don’t know anymore. I’m getting a bit sick of being so negative but I am also quite sick of watching us recently. After a semi-meltdown on Twitter after this game, I woke up the following morning with a Twitter hangover, feeling quite sick when I thought of either our game or having tweet battles with strangers who probably became J League experts from watching YouTube highlights videos and reading the official J League EN Twitter account. Opinions are like arseholes it is said. Either we all have one, or the internet is full of them. Actually both are true and I’m a bit fed up with contributing to the online arsehole count. Not saying I don’t want to hear anyone’s opinion. I have been in contact with some people whose opinion I respect and found those interactions a lot more rewarding that the usual ‘he’s shit’ vs ‘no, you’re shit’ level of debate that I regrettably fell into last night. With that in mind, I think I’ll stop ranting so much on these blog posts. Either you already agree with me and therefore my moaning is pointless, or you probably disagree with me and my perspective won’t change your mind, so… my moaning is pointless. I am also aware that Oniki is actually a human being too. I don’t think I’ve ever got so rude that I have ignored this fact, but clearly there are a lot of people who know what is going on a lot more than I do who think that he’s doing a reasonable job. So, I’ll tone it down a bit, and in what will be a big break from tradition on this blog, I might stick more to the facts. I preferred it when I could avoid facts and just make jokes but there’s not much to laugh about recently. And with news coming out today that there was someone who is apparently not Japanese behind the goal who was drunk and shouting and singing whilst maskless, I think there’s not much off the field to have a laugh about either. So basically you might want to skip the next few blog posts or the next however many posts it takes till we get out of this slump. In my opinion it might be quite a while, but there are other opinions available, and those opinions are held by a lot more people than mine is. So, coming up, a few comments on the game, a Frontale Rabbit first table and then we’ll be done.
So some comments. Oniki again went with Tachibanada at left back and Chanathip on the left. I don’t think that has worked in the past and I don’t think it worked again. But others disagree. Bringing on Tsukagawa at left back seemed another way for Oniki to indirectly give him a boot in the nuts and of course people are blaming him for us conceding, given that he gave away the corner they scored from. It definitely wasn’t his fault from the corner kick though and it looked like we might have got undone by what I think looks like our zonal marking but I’m not an expert. Seems to have happened a few times recently though. I should also say that I don’t think we can be upset when a midfielder doesn’t play well at left back. Oniki’s subs meant a reorganisation, with us changing to what I thought was a more likely to succeed shape with Chanathip in the middle. I’m not sure why we couldn’t have gone with him there and Tono on the left from the start. Not sure I would have played Oshima in the anchor role either, but then Tachibanada was being used elsewhere so maybe our left back selection caused lots of other players to be moved around all over the pitch. Ho hum. We are still employing the usual recent slowly slowly slowly build ups with thousands of passes before we even leave our half and then attacks petering out before they get to the opposition’s box. It’s noticeable that our goal came from a more direct pass. Given that we didn’t do that much I guess it was not a tactic but maybe came from someone veering off the script. After we scored, we looked like we were happy enough to sit on the 1-0 lead. Of course that makes some sense, but it hasn’t worked that well in recent times has it? By the end of the match Jubilo looked far more like they wanted to win the game. We were still persevering with the slow build up. Maybe we’ll finally manage to score a second when we manage to put the perfect selection of passes together some time early next week. It was a far from engaging game. In the first half I found my eyes being drawn much more to the Rubik’s cube that the little girl in the row in front of me was doing rather than anything that was happening on the pitch. And here a wonderful comparison sails into view, as she would complete one colour, proudly show her dad and then try to complete a different colour messing up the first complete side in the process. Likewise on the pitch, we had some nice triangles passing around the back, but when it came to combining those triangles with anything else meaningful it all fell apart. Anyway, here’s a table for you:
I dunno, we don’t do very well against teams near the bottom, do we?
Obviously the fact that it’s the bottom seven teams should show you that
I chose that cut off to best prove my somewhat random point. We always
struggle against teams who sit back and who were are ‘supposed’ to beat
easily. But this year this seems to be happening more than ever. And
don’t forget that the Gamba and Jubilo draws and the Vissel win were
really last minute jobs without which we would be in a lot more trouble.
Next
up Cerezo Osaka away on Saturday. Non-reserved visitor seating
returning means that we’ll be back to the old horrific lengthy two-stage
queueing process. We never do that well against Cerezo so maybe they
are the kind of opponent we need to shake us up a bit. But most likely
it will be another dull draw or a defeat. At least we have a nice day
out planned on Sunday so I have something to look forward to!
Another game, another truly awful performance. Some are saying this was a shock, but if that’s the case I’d say it was one of the most predictable shocks you could imagine. I certainly thought we were going to lose and Oniki still being in charge of the team increased that likelihood massively. There were a few giant killings in this round of the cup but I don’t think you can all this a giant killing. It’s more like something that would take place in a Swiss clinic, and we’re hardly giants this year. So perhaps more like a slightly taller than average man self-euthanisation. To be honest, whoever Oniki started with I think we would have struggled given his apparent complete lack of tactical inventiveness and dearth of inspirational qualities. He’s running us into the ground. At least we know that whoever takes over when he leaves at the end of the season won’t have an ACL campaign to trouble them and instead will be able to use the Levain group games to work on some things. Maybe that’s why Oniki has been struggling recently. He’s a victim of his own success! Constantly qualifying for the ACL has meant that he only has Emperor’s Cup games available to tinker with things. Oh… but he pretty much usually plays a full strength team in those games too… On this occasion he rotated slightly but I don’t think that was necessarily completely to do with giving people a chance. More to do with his sincere belief that the best rotation involves the same limited group of players with at least two out of position and no changes in tactics. We’re on a horrible run. The only teams we seem to be able to beat are ones who are students or have a pathological desire to self harm. I really feel for Seko and Matsui who messed up for the goal, but Matsui was playing out of position in one of his first games for us. Seko has shown some kind of sensitivity over his position in the squad and his performances but I hope he’s not being too hard on himself. Idiots online going for them certainly isn’t going to help matters. Especially when it seems that Oniki is not going to be held to the same standards. A tweet by a well followed Japanese language Frontale blog stated that the defeat was making them keener than ever to get back to the stadium on Saturday and get back to winning ways. Personally, it has had the absolute opposite effect on me. I don’t particularly want to go, (but I will), and I think we’ll almost certainly lose. We had a change in personnel for this game but no change in approach. It was still horribly ponderous and utterly predictable. I think it took us 32 minutes to have our first shot. Players seem scared to shoot or take chances and this can only come from pressure from above. Sasaki looked like a shell of his former self, perhaps noticing that he was dropped in favour of a midfielder playing way out of position for what was probably the preferred first choice line up against Consadole last week (don’t forget how useless we were in that game!). With that in mind, you’ve got to think that Damiao is now also not a first choice. So we had players starting who really had nothing much to gain and everything to lose. But the players haven’t all turned into bad players in the course of a month or two. It has to be the tactics. It’s all safe, safe, safe… oh we’ve conceded, better carry on doing the same thing… oh we’ve lost. Loads of possession playing triangles of passes around the back. A midfielder at right back, a midfielder in central defence, a left back in central defence, a left winger playing on the right. All wonderful stuff isn’t it? I guess Oniki thinks he eventually come up with the dream combination of players out of position to make his dull tactics work. I don’t have the same confidence. And if he does finally solve the problem, it will no doubt be too late by then. I think it probably already is too late actually. Verdy defended solidly in numbers and then hit us on the counter attack. The same thing that every team Oniki has struggled against has done. Every team for the last three or four years. But still he hasn’t even hinted that he’s noticed it happening, let alone found a solution. Instead, it’s those triangles and lots of lovely possession and none of those horrible goals scored.
I appreciate that I’m in the minority when it comes to these kind of things. Plenty of people have confidence in him and think he can turn things round. I don’t particularly want him to be fired. Ideally, I’d like him to come to his senses and come up with some kind of route to us regaining some kind of form. If he doesn’t do that, and I don’t think he can, I think he should have a look at what might be the real reason for our slump, recognise that it’s pretty much down to him and that he has no solution and then do the honorable thing and resign. I don’t think the fact that we have no-one ready to take over is a problem. I think that he has come up with nothing original to get us out of the slump is a far bigger problem than getting someone in urgently to shake things up a bit. Terada could probably do a better job right now. I base this on nothing other than there’s not much chance of anyone doing a worse job than Oniki at the moment. Our squad is monstrously unbalanced and as he’s been in charge for years during which time that unbalance has worsened he has to be blamed for that. Perhaps it’s unbalanced because Oniki has a belief that midfielders can play anywhere. Recent performances suggest that this might not be true. I don’t know why our once pin point destructive strike attack has been turned into a foam hammer. Yes, I know we have lost some good players, but we still have about three quarters of the same starting members that we had last year. Definitely lots of people are out of form and as I always say, this does happen sometimes, but when it happens to so many players at the same time, you’ve got to think that there might be some other reason for it to be happening.
Next up Jubilo at home on Saturday. Remember that away game, where we were utterly shite and struggled to make any decent chances till we had conceded and then just about managed to fluke a goal and a draw? They knew how to play against us on that occasion and you’ve got to imagine that they will know how to do it again. Oniki is being tactually outthought by pretty much everyone he comes up against at the moment. And then occasionally gets a result to slightly ease the pressure on him, even if that result when examined looks very, very lucky and highly undeserved. He’s always been a lucky manager but now it seems that the luck when it comes to the team has run out and it’s only working when it comes to saving his own skin. We looked awful at the start of the season but compared to how we’re playing now, we can look back on those games with some kind of beautiful nostalgic joy. Sure we were shite then, but now we’re really shite. On Saturday we’ll probably go with the same system and tactics, Tachibanada at left back again, will not do much, then concede from a fast break from a Jubilo attack who will have been sitting back in numbers. Then Oniki will make lots of subs, nothing will change and we’ll concede again late on in the game for another utterly frustrating defeat. Oniki will say he takes responsibility for the defeat, but stop short of actually taking any responsibility, another midfielder will start getting trained up to play in goal or at centre back and we’ll move on to our next defeat in Osaka next weekend. At the end of the season, we’ll call it a transition season and use that to explain why we’ve finished seventh. Oniki will have tarnished his reputation so much that he won’t have any job offers so will sign a new contract for a fresh period of demolition of our team, reputation and my sanity. Blimey, this has all turned a bit bleak. But I suppose that’s not a great surprise, is it? At least by the time I arrive at the game on Saturday, I should be have consumed quite a lot of drinks on the way as I have an event to go to first. Therefore, the crushing disappointment will be dulled slightly. Cheers!
Kawasaki Frontale 5 - 2 Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo
Football is back! J League is back! Busy work schedule is back!! With three games in eight days and a lot more classes than usual, something has to give, and that something is the length of these blog posts. Some might welcome the brevity though I guess. Not sure how I would approach this post if I was going the usual flabby way though, as this game was a real mess of contradictions. So I’ll keep it brief and be done with it. We scored five for the second time in a row! But once again it was mainly due to the opposition’s shortcomings rather than anything from us. We won in spite of Oniki not thanks to him. The long international break gave him plenty of time to think about our last two awful league defeats. And what did he come up with? Playing a midfielder way out of position at left back and put Chanathip back in the position in which he was totally ineffective in at the start of the season. The line up looked like we might be going with three at the back, but of course, super conservative Oniki wouldn’t actually try something new, would he? It’s telling that every dangerous Consadole attack and both of their goals came from moves down our left. It’s almost as if we were trying to give ourselves a handicap. And who knows what the tactics were supposed to be? But whatever they were, they resulted in some possession for us in our own penalty box and lots of lovely passing around the defence. Don’t be under any illusions. If we hadn’t been playing a team who are also a bit of a shambles at the moment, we would have lost. All three of the goals that won us the game came gift wrapped from Hokkaido defenders with a card expressing their desire for Oniki not to resign or get fired. Of course, some credit should go to the players who nicked the ball after some sloppiness at the back from Consadole. It should also be noted that most of those players didn’t start the game. Marcinho, the only player who has looked even slightly threatening for us recently got dropped to the bench. If Chinen hadn’t got injured we probably wouldn’t have seen Kobayashi till the 85th minute. At the start of the second half, Tono played better than Chanathip on the left, which is something anyone who had seen any of our games this year would have known but is something that has eluded Oniki’s attention. Perhaps he felt he needed to try something new to get us out of our dodgy run, but the fact is that all he did was play some different players out of position which caused us problems and created nothing for us. Nice work Oniki! At half time with us just about hanging on against a team who most managers love playing because their tactics are so wild and often insane, we were facing the reality that once again Oniki had been tactically outwitted. We shouldn’t have been surprised though as Oniki has only one set of tactics and all he does is try random combinations of players in the same shape with the same instructions to pass it backwards at every opportunity. Oniki is like a chef who tries to include all of his favourite ingredients into his dinner regardless of the outcome and serves up a steak with ice cream and natto, with a refreshing orange juice and mint drink on the side. Although I suppose at least those combinations might be unpredictable and slightly interesting in their originality whereas we’re just left with the same results from every apparently random option. If we’d lost, I don’t think we would have sacked Oniki and I don’t think he would have resigned. But with every passing week he further tarnishes his reputation and him getting another job offer becomes increasingly unlikely. I guess though that the JFL in its support for Moriyasu has form for doing absolutely stupid things so maybe he’ll still be able to get the national team job. Fingers crossed. If they could give it to him sooner rather than later that would be lovely thanks. The title is gone. We’re only one point behind but there’s no way this mess will consistently get results and there’s no way both YFM and Kashima will mess up enough to let us get past them.
This all seems a bit contrary considering we won 5-2, but if you’d watched the whole game I think you’d understand what I’m saying. Yeah, the goals were nice, but don’t kid yourself to say that we made them and weren’t gifted them. And don’t forget the fact that three weeks of contemplation and some important players finally coming back from injury and available brought Oniki to this starting line up and tactics. With Kazama in charge we were exciting. With Oniki in charge we become duller with every passing week. I’m not a tactician so I can’t tell you why we’re so boring but I am in the stadium watching the tedium so I can vouch for its intensity. We were so bad in this match that it even took the spotlight off Kasahara, a ref who is consistently awful, but who looked like a paragon of officiating in comparison with our tactical competence. I can’t remember a single time this year where we’ve played well and been unlucky. Actually some might say I could have stopped that previous sentence at ‘well’. I can remember countless times when we’ve played awfully and got very lucky. And a few times where we played terribly and got what we deserved. I can’t see it changing either, if even on the back of our worst run for years this is all he can come up with. And given that we fluked another win, (ignoring the fact that Oniki’s original plan for the game was so disastrously wrong but somehow a win was presented to him), he’ll probably take it as some kind of ringing endorsement of his master plan. People will probably find this post intensely annoying. Our biggest win of the season and perhaps my biggest moan. I know. But this performance was utterly shite for the most part. Some nice goals though, eh? That should help kick the can down the road for another week or so until the next time we fail to get extremely lucky. Maybe Wednesday? If not, next Saturday.
Team
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 10. OSHIMA Ryota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 19. TONO Daiya
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
FW 18. CHANATHIP
Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT (on for WAKIZAKA 82')
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for TONO 82')
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu (on for CHINEN 58')
DF 15. SASAKI Asahi
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for CHANATHIP 74')
DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
My Frontale Man Of The Match
I feel like this probably should go to one person, but given that another proved his point well I’m going to predictably split it two ways…
IENAGA Akihiro and KOBAYASHI Yu - Ienaga was really enjoyable in this game doing his usual swat the opposition away thing. He'd obviously really benefited from a bit of a rest. And Kobayashi, who has tried his best to take advantage of his limited opportunities, mainly on the wing, showed that if he’s given a bit of time in the middle he’ll score. Which we probably all knew, but Oniki apparently didn’t.
I’m sure avid readers of this blog if there are any will have been excitedly waiting to see quite how I could get all moany about this game. Given our form leading into the game, it had potential banana skin written all over it. We’ve been awful recently and we have a habit of toiling against lower league opposition in the Emperor’s Cup. What a surprise it was then when we took the lead early on and didn’t look back. The fact that it was so comfortable probably says something about quite how out of the ordinary this season is compared to recent years. The first couple of minutes of the match made it look like we might be in for a tough evening as Sapporo came racing out of the traps and it was a bit end to end. But that turned out to be the extent of their powers and after we’d taken the lead they faded and it became a real mismatch. It’s quite difficult to write anything meaningful about this game as it was so one-sided. Because of this, I’ll just go with some comments on a few players and that’ll do. I thought I’d have to describe the goals as the JFA are notoriously slow to put up the Emperor’s Cup highlights, but I’m shocked to see they’ve done it already. So that’s saved me some work.
Matsui started at right back and did really well I thought. He looked very comfortable on the ball and I noticed him a lot more than I did when he was playing on the left (I think) in the ACL. Whether Oniki thinks he’s a good stand in for Yamane who as I’ve said plenty of times needs a rest, I’m not sure, but I think he could definitely do a job. Seko and Kozuka did well in the midfield. I’m happy to see them both in a bit more of an attacking role as previously both of them have had to play the anchor role. Seko’s goal was lovely and shows what we miss if he plays further back. Kozuka’s finish was nice too, but the best thing about the goal was that it indirectly came from a great cross from Yamamura who was charging down the right wing, even though he was playing at centre back. I’m slightly surprised that Oniki didn’t give Chinen 45 minutes in the middle and then give Kobayashi 45 minutes in the middle in the second half. In fact, Kobayashi didn’t even make it onto the pitch. Also surprising was that Oniki has finally trusted Tanno to play a game. Think he had one save to make so it wasn’t that different from standing around on the touchline but I’m pleased he could get a start. Tono in the Ienaga position was good to see too. He’s done well in midfield but again I can’t really understand why he hasn’t played more in a position that he is more suited for. Einaga was probably the story of the evening, coming on for Marcinho at half time and looking very bright on both the left and the right. It was great to see him get a goal. But it was even greater to see him so at ease on the ball and willing to take people on. He was on my list of potential towel purchases but I think that this performance has made that potential selection a lot less left field than I normally like to make so maybe it won’t be him that I go for. He looks very exciting though. And a quick word for Tanabe, who has been quite forgotten it seems. He came on to replace Sasaki for about a third of the match. I thought he did pretty well but I’m not sure if Oniki will bring him in to give Sasaki a rest, given that everyone is getting a rest at the moment. We’ll see though.
So that will do really. Apart from a quick mention that as usual the JFA’s desire to take over every aspect of the matchday experience in the Emperor’s Cup as usual makes the whole thing feel weird and significantly less slick. And of course you want me to say the music is awful. It was but the transition from acoustic guitar flamenco picking to a Top Gear approved cock-rock guitar solo in a matter of seconds in the same signature Emperor’s Cup theme song was this year’s lowlight. At least it gave me something to write about, I suppose. Next up, a two week break! And then we’ll play another Sapporo team at home but this time it will be Consadole in the league. Hopefully the break will do us some good and this win will give us some kind of probably not wholly deserved morale boost. Fingers crossed. Now, a chance for me to catch up with all of the stuff that I’ve ben neglecting in order to write these blog posts and travel to all these away games. Phew!
Team
GK 27. TANNO Kenta DF 25. MATSUI Renji
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 15. SASAKI Asahi
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 19. TONO Daiya
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
FW 23. MARCINHO
Subs
GK 21. ANDO Shunsuke
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 26. EINAGA Takatora (on for MARCINHO 46')
DF 30. TANABE Shuto (on for SASAKI 75')
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for TONO 85')
My Frontale Man Of The Match
I probably could on this occasion but it was such a mismatch that it doesn't feel right.
After a shocking result against Shonan, we held clear the air talks and decided to freshen things up. I’m not sure exactly what purpose these talks achieved as although we seemed to start this game a little brighter we quite soon resorted to the absolute same old shit. Oniki’s reaction to our worst recent performance was to drop Marcinho, the one player who always seems to offer something and replace him with Miyagi, who has really struggled this season. I mean, I haven’t given a man of the match recently because basically no one has deserved it, but if I’d had to, it would have been solid Marcinho for the last however many games. It’s becoming something of a cliche for me to say that the best thing about recent matches is everything apart from the match but once again it’s painfully true. We’ve lost consecutive games for the first time in ages and I can’t say we didn’t deserve to. Once again we were shite. One shot on target in 90 minutes. Add this to the one goal in four games stat and you can see where things are going wrong. Sadly Oniki apparently can’t. When one or two players have a bad day, well, that’s what happens sometimes. When almost to a man the whole team has a bad day repetitively for month after month (yet we still somehow squeak out some results) well, you’ve probably got to look elsewhere. Readers of this blog might think I’m anti Oniki and perhaps they’re right, but I don’t think I’ve been quite as publicly and directly against Oniki as I am now. Please let him resign. If it takes a defeat to a university team in the Emperors Cup on Wednesday to do that, well, that’s fine by me. Of course I don’t ever want us to lose, but surely his time is up. Obviously it would be better for the team and even for my own morale if he could just turn things round, but I can’t see any way that his stubborn conservatism could ever achieve that this year. I don’t dislike him, but we seem to be preparing for a terminal dive down the table with him at the helm. Once again we’ve been helped by a rival, with FC Tokyo beating Kashima. But once again we’ve messed up at the same time. And now YFM have sneaked past both of us into top spot. Some managers take a ragtag bunch of rough and ready players and turn them into a winning team. Some inherit a good squad and system and slowly turn them into an utter bore. Oniki has looked at the flowering young talents in our Frontale garden and has decided to mow them down and replace them with a tarmac drive because that’s more steady and reliable. Sure, we’ve had some good times together, but hey, don’t mention 2019, and don’t mention our ACL campaigns, or our performances in knockout competitions. We’ve now lost four times in the league this year and our current third place spot is hugely flattering. I can’t envisage us scoring again, let along winning. When things are going your way, draws become wins and every ricochet bounces into the path of your striker who slots it home. When things aren’t, the goal posts become impossibly wide and an invisible fence is erected on the edge of the opposition penalty box. We hit the post a few times in this game. But don’t forget Kyoto had more than enough decent chances to win the game comfortably. I’m getting fed up of singling out players for criticism. But the fact is that people are playing way too much and seem to be without any kind of decent instruction or leadership. Players are getting run into the ground as there is no trust in the players that we have to cover for them. And those back up players have hardly played, apart from against a team of kids from China. If Oniki plays the ‘first team’ next Wednesday against Sapporo University I think he should be fired regardless of the result. Maybe the reason he doesn’t choose some players is because they lack experience. But they lack experience because he never ever chooses them even once in a while against perceived weaker opposition. Last time I compared watching us to a kids anti-drugs video, as it felt like our style and performance was an attempt to wean the viewer off being interested in football. After this game I think I’ve been too soft and should more accurately compare it to some kind of masochism or death cult. Perhaps a lot of us fans think that we deserve the worst kind of punishment for things we might have done in the past. Don’t get me wrong, if we were just bad it would still be painful. Instead we flatter to deceive right up until the opposition box. The first half in this game felt like an improvement from Wednesday. Admittedly there wasn’t really any lower place we could sink to. But this was just a false dawn brought on by a new stadium and a fun day out before we got to the stadium. Soon reality came hurtling back and we’d lost another game.
Ten shots, one on target. Of course I can’t blame Oniki for missing those shots, or for absolutely blasting the ball into his own goal, but I can blame him for making a once exciting team play such turgid stuff. I can blame him for sticking endlessly with tired and out of form players. And for only changing the formation when we were already in a lot of trouble and apparently doing so with no preparation and also no apparent concept of how a changed formation might change the way we play. If anyone knows what formation we were playing at the end, please let me know. All I remember is Marcinho on the right and apparently no one on the left. We had plenty of scrambles in and around the opposition box but so low is morale that even when presented with a nice chance we still messed it up. People are moaning about Damiao. I think this is a bit mean and shortsighted. Things aren’t falling for him, but who exactly are they falling for at the moment? It’s the absolute tactical inflexibility when everyone in the league has worked us out that is infuriating. Endless fast breaks from which the ball is returned to our own defence. It’s just the inevitability that is killing me right now. We knew we were going to be shit, the starting line up reinforces that feeling, the first half slightly softened it, but the second half turned it into a granite monolith in the shape of a curly turd. I don’t like openly saying people should be sacked, but ONIKI OUT! Get him out whilst we still are vaguely alive in the title race. It’s too late for the ACL. It will probably be too late for the Emperor’s Cup after Wednesday and too late for the league during the next round of games. I feel like I know Oniki quite well. With our team absolutely grasping for some form and morale, a cup tie against a university side and an upcoming international break… He’s going to play the first team isn’t he? And we’ll lose. Yamane and Taniguchi won’t be able to play on Wednesday I think, but I bet he’ll go with the rest of the usual players with a view to getting them some confidence back and instead will deal another hammer blow to a structural beam in what is already quite a wobbly Frontale house. Get him out!
This all seems quite Oniki focused. So let’s have a go at some others too. Tanimoto the ref was an absolute disaster, clearly out of his depth, and lacking any kind of control. He didn’t bother to try to stop any Kyoto time wasting (which began in the first minute and lasted the full ninety). When they were making obvious time wasting subs (which, don’t get me wrong is totally fair enough), he demanded a Kyoto player leave the field on the side of the pitch he was on a few metres from the touchline, and just keep waving at the player as he walked right past him, totally ignoring him. And he apparently also didn’t notice the obvious message go round to the ball boys that they should stop throwing the ball back once Kyoto were in the lead. He didn’t however ignore lots of Kyoto diving and rolling around on the floor, all of which got them free kicks. One particularly galling example was when Marcinho (remember, the guy who does nothing according to Oniki, and didn’t start this game…) broke through with the ball by hassling the defender who went down holding his face. A few minutes later, perhaps the same defender, (I dunno, the details are a bit sketchy and watching back on DAZN is driving me potty so I’ve given up), absolutely scythed Marcinho who’d done a smart turn, getting nowhere near the ball. Guess which challenge got them a free kick and which one was apparently ok? Their captain seems quite a detestable person, whining and diving relentlessly and therefore bravely leading and setting an example for the rest of his team. But basically, whatever they wanted from the ref, they got. I read on Twitter that apparently the VAR review for the possible penalty when Sasaki cleared off the line (shortly after clearing into the roof of his own net) went perhaps unfairly in our favour. Which I would say goes to prove my point that the officials were fucking useless but to be honest on the replay I can’t see any way that it could ever have been given. Except by a totally inept referee. So there you go, a lucky escape for us. The basic fact of the matter though is that Cho is a manager who knows how to change tactics to suit the game. Gamesmanship and diving and whining is all a semi-legitimate tactic and if you are the apparent underdog you have every right to use them. It’s just a shame that Tanimoto was quite so blind to them. And it’s a shame that whilst other teams managers have some kind of guile or savvy, our manager has one idea and then after that it’s just randomly shuffling magnets round a board and then failing to even communicate that to the players on the pitch. Definitely luck isn’t with us right now. We hit the post late on (so couldn’t grasp a ‘brave’ draw), and we got absolutely nothing from the ref who definitely should have sent off at least one Kyoto player for a second yellow (I’m looking particularly at you Appiah). But even against ten men, I don’t think Oniki would have had the know-how to turn this game round. I think we actually play even worse against 10 than we do against 11 usually.
So, another awful game. Exactly as predicted. But that’s not saying much as Oniki’s idea of clearing the air and changing things up apparently means keep on doing the same. Thank you to Tachibanada, who’s after hearing the rumours about foreign interest this summer did his best to have an awful game and put off any potential suitors. His tackling was great but I don’t think he could have completed a pass from his front door to out of his genkan in this match. Yamane was alright in the first half but then reverted to recent Yamane form. Everyone is tired though. They need a break. Yamane and Taniguchi won’t get one unless they don’t play whilst on international duty, as inevitably as soon as they are back, they’ll be straight back into the team for further grinding down. Before then, Oniki will play Yamamura and Kurumaya at centre back and probably put Tachibanada or Seko at right back. Which admittedly would be an improvement on playing Seko at left back. And probably keep everything else as it is. Never has that house on fire, drinking a cup of tea meme been more true than it is for us right now. Right up until he starts getting singed, Oniki’s not going to do anything and by then it will be too late. And also by then our title hopes and the fans’ collective mental health will have been irreparably damaged. Honestly, I’m fed up of watching these games. But of course I will still keep going. People might think I’m being spoilt child moaning when things go bad after a few good years, but we’re not a bad team, we’re just being made to be bad by some utterly insane decisions from the top. What would be the ideal result on Wednesday in the Emperor’s Cup? I honestly don’t know. A defeat would put Oniki in real trouble but I don’t think we’d sack him and I don’t think he’d resign. A big victory would paper over the cracks and if it came with what is predominately the first team playing it would give Oniki license to keep doing the same old nonsense when the league returns. I’m struggling to work out what would actually constitute a fun evening at the game to be honest. Every scenario comes with some kind of bad feeling, whether it is towards Oniki or feelings of guilt towards a team of students who suffer the consequences of a bounce back after our worse run for years. To be honest, I think it will be an ultimately frustrating 1-0 win for us, where we once again run into the invisible fence around the opposition penalty box but someone finds a sneaky way through and scores with our one shot on target. And then this rotten situation rolls on to the next league fixture in a few weeks. Which we lose. I should reiterate that the dream scenario for me is that Oniki wises up and turns things around, but I just can’t see it happening. Likewise, I can’t see us parting ways, so basically we’re going to limp our way to the end of this season slowly sliding down the table, occasionally picking up a 1-0 win with a goal going in off the opposition keeper’s backside to bridge the gaps between miserable defeats to relegation contenders. Oh well, at least we have the Levain Cup group stage games to look forward to next year!
Team
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya
DF 15. SASAKI Asahi
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento
MF 19. TONO Daiya
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki (on for TONO 61')
FW 20. CHINEN Kei (Yellow card 90+5') (on for WAKIZAKA 70')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for MIYAGI 46')
MF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for SASAKI 88') FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro (on for LEANDRO DAMIAO 61')
My Frontale Man Of The Match
THE ROOF OF THE STAND WE WERE SITTING IN - made watching the game a bit more bearable, but not much more bearable. At least we didn't have sunburn and heat stroke to add to complete frustration.
In 270 minutes of football, including games against the bottom two teams in the league, we’ve managed to score one goal. But that’s not a surprise really as we’ve only managed to hit the target 13 times. But we’ve kept things tight at the back, haven’t we? Well, until this game we had. But conceding four against a team who’d only previously scored 9 times in 14 games has kind of undermined that point too. Over the course of the last few match days we’ve been very lucky with other teams managing to help us even as we weren’t quite doing the job. In this game though we were beyond help and even a last minute equaliser from Sagan Tosu to make it 4-4 against Kashima wasn’t enough to help us desperately cling on to what was undoubtedly an absolutely ridiculous top spot in the league. I don’t want to come on like a know it all, but in this game, all of the problems I have consistently been moaning about came home to roost. And thanks to me watching the DAZN feed afterwards to check how bad we were for the goals, all I am now left it is an image of Oniki studying his magnet board apparently unaware that we are losing 4-0 at home to the second bottom team in the league. If I hadn’t left immediately on the final whistle I would have felt very bad for the players who had to present themselves to the fans after the game. Some of them had nothing to do with the shocking loss. Bizarrely though, some of our fans were still applauding them. I’m not going to boo players after a game, and even if I’d wanted to, we’re not allowed to at the moment, but to applaud anyone after a totally gutless, pointless and frustrating performance is baffling. I guess some of the players may feel the same way too. At half time in this match, after we’d had a few long range back pass style ’shots’ and had had a few let-offs I said that the only way was up from here. How wrong I was. Don’t expect anything positive in this post and there probably won’t be any laughs either. But there will be plenty of moans, all wrapped up in the form of a couple of bullet points hopefully explaining why this kind of result was long overdue and pointing the finger firmly in one direction.
Ridiculous lack of reinforcement -
I’m not sure how many years it is that I’ve been moaning about us not bothering to buy any defenders. It’s bitten us a few times already but clearly the chickens are home to roost this year. Jesiel’s injury was unfortunate of course. But not reinforcing at all when we were aware that he would be out for months of the next season is stupid. Tanguchi’s red was unfortunate too. But remember the last time we shipped a load of goals at home in a wake-up call defeat (three home games ago…), and recall that he was at fault for most of the goals. Perhaps it doesn’t help that our two central defenders in this game were a midfielder and a left back. And the fact that one of our left backs is playing in central defence means that we’ve had a young player in his first season playing game after game for us. Sasaki had a rotten first half but I feel like that’s fair enough as he’s been overused without a break. What’s bizarre is that Oniki kept him on for the start of the second half. Ah, but that’s because we had no cover in that position! So after we went 2-0 down Oniki made a quick change put on our right footed central midfielder Seko there. And then we conceded two more. And then Oniki switched to a back three putting Yamane in the three and for some reason giving him the captain’s armband, presumably as a reward for looking like he absolutely doesn’t give a shit for the last however many games. At least that put some slight brakes on his attacking. Yamane in 2022 doesn’t want to defend. When it comes to attacking he always has enough energy. When it comes to the opposition attacking, Yamane is usually strolling back from the left sided attacking position, watching from a distance as his teammates try to cover for his absence. He too is probably tired as he hasn’t had a break for ages, so maybe I should cut him some slack. But he never looks tired when he has a chance to attack. And this points to my second and main moan…
Super conservative Oniki -
Oniki is apparently so worried about the possibility of not winning that he’ll run his best players into the ground, apparently under the illusion that even if a player is knackered, starting them will be better than taking a chance with another squad member. We actually do have other defenders in the squad but they’re young and Oniki won’t ever give them a chance. Seko, a player who was captain of Yokohama FC last year, has only recently made his way into the team after having to undergo Oniki’s usually one year long ‘I’m not sure I know you, so I’m not going to use you unless I really really have to’ treatment. He apparently can play at right back. Not that we’d know though as Yamane can only be dislodged by being physically distant from the stadium, (rather than mentally distant as he appears to be in most games). But still, we don’t really have another right back. Again it’s a midfielder being played out of position there. Tanabe who can play there and is actually a defender is in the squad, but even Takai seems to have gone ahead of him in the pecking order. But let’s be honest, for the most part, even when a youngster makes the bench they are there strictly in an unused sub capacity. It’s not just with selections though that Oniki is so conservative. He has long lacked a plan B, persevering with plan A relentlessly, occasionally moving players around and squeezing them into positions that don’t suit them. Perhaps this is due to our horrendously unbalanced squad. Every time I see Kobayashi on the right I feel for him. He does his best, but it doesn’t really work. You can multiply this feeling by a hundred when he’s on the left. Perhaps at stages of 2022 we have seen the emergence of a plan B, but more often than not it looks like the tactical change is the result of Oniki dropping his magnet board on the floor and just going with the mess that remains. We ended up with a 3-4-3 in this game, but still somehow Damiao seemed isolated in the middle. I feel for him too. He’s not scoring, but to be honest, I can really remember him actually getting many opportunities. His job seems to to be more winning headers, the ball then rolling through for the opposition keeper as there’s no-one there with him. I guess though we didn’t concede after going 3-4-3. But that probably more to do with Shonan giving up. Honestly, I don’t know why they were bothering with all the time wasting. They could have got double figures against us if they’d wanted. Apparently there have been some kind of talks between Oniki and Taniguchi after this game to refresh things and clear the air. I hope this works as the air was getting pretty stinky and that’s not just because summer is coming and the temperature is going up. If one player is playing badly in one game, well, that’s unfortunate, but it happens. If all of the players are playing badly for the whole of the season, then you’ve probably got to look elsewhere. I don’t think Oniki has any ideas to get us out of this mess and if we hadn’t squeaked all those late goals and were in a more realistic league position for the way we’ve been playing, I think the pressure would be mounting. I reckon that he was probably going to leave us at the end of the season, the third consecutive league title in the bag and go out on a high, perhaps going into the Japan job after Moriyasu fucks up the World Cup. Now I’m almost certain that he won’t have the three-peat, and that his reputation will be so tarnished that he won’t have a job lined up so might continue. It would be tough to sack him after all he’s achieved, but can you imagine what we might have achieved if we’d had someone in charge who could actually do the job instead of a very lucky Oniki?
Isn’t it fun this year? Can you actually remember the last time we played well? I can’t. We haven’t scored more than two goals in a game this year and have conceded four or more on three occasions. It’s fair to say that when we lose, we lose big! When we win, we squeak it. Perhaps Kashima away was the last feel-good game. But you’ve got to remember than aside from the first 15 minutes when we went 2-0 up we spent the rest of the game hanging on and playing the same old shit as we’ve been playing the rest of the season. We can’t shoot, we have games where we can’t defend, the players look a mix of bored, disheartened, out of form, some of them managing all three. And what’s more now we have rumours that Tachibanada might be leaving in the summer. Which I don’t want to believe and indeed would find hard to believe judging by some of his recent performances, but which seems likely when you consider that Joao Schmidt was pretty much frozen out but is now being slowly reintroduced. And also perhaps an awareness of his impending departure might be making some players feel a little pessimistic about our chances of pulling ourselves together. Of course we have plenty of players to take people’s places, but the fact is, none of them get much of a chance due to Oniki’s conservatism and lack of ideas. Add to this, the news that we’re going to play PSG in a friendly at the national stadium in July. We’ve just conceded four at home to Shonan… The cheapest ticket for this game comes in at ¥7000 and when you consider that the national stadium is one that isn’t really suited to football, this just looks like a massive cash grab. Presumably given our willingness to let our players leave for not much, we’ll let PSG keep all the money and also have a few free picks from our squad too. All this adds up to me feeling pretty uninterested in us at the moment. Not just because we’re not doing so well, but because there’s a grinding predictability to us and it’s also a surprisingly ineffective predictability too. I said it before but the best bits of match days are all the hours when we’re not at the stadium. Frontale in 2022 is like one of those films intended to stop kids taking drugs. All we’re seeing is the miserable side of matters with the intention of scaring/boring kids into never wanting to watch football again. I wonder if we’re taking some backhanders from the Japanese baseball league who are worried about young people being more interested in football than baseball and want to get some young fans back. Watching us play PSG in a friendly for ¥7000 a ticket would be rotten I think. When we play Vissel and Iniesta trips over the ball we get gasps of adoration and ripples of applause and glowing praise from our fans. The already horrendous view from behind the goal at the national stadium would be further ruined by a wall of phones taking videos of basically some of the financially greediest players in the football world. I’m not interested. Let’s finish up this downer post on a massive downer by saying that the comparisons to 2019 can’t be avoided now. After two good seasons we are again incomprehensibly shitting the bed, have a manager who instead of changing the sheets and looking onto our eating habits and pre-bedtime routine is just pushing the shit around the bed sheets, imagining that he’ll be able to wipe it off, but is instead perfectly smearing steaming poo around to cover exactly 100% of the bed clothes. And sadly we have to sleep in that bed for the next 19 league games…
After a round trip of around 2200km, a lot of drinking, and a lot of fun, our little away odyssey is over. I should make it clear that the above description refers to us rather than our players who probably had less fun and almost certainly didn’t drink as much. Fukuoka home, Kobe away and Tosu away looked like a very tricky run of games and to come away from them with 7 points out of 9 and to have had Kashima slip up once and YFM slip up twice in the same period is extremely rewarding. Definitely it was a little more difficult to be so optimistic/realistic immediately after this game, a match in which it felt like we might actually be about to get something away at Tosu until another Taniguchi DOGSO red card. More on that later. Not saying we were all over Sagan Tosu. Far from it and they had some good opportunities. But just as we were building some momentum and some pressure and actually making some good chances we got hobbled. Actually though, we continued to attack after the red card and it would have been lovely to have grabbed a win. But we probably wouldn’t completely have deserved it and it would have been harsh on Tosu. Perhaps we as a club and as fans are becoming more aware that we’re not as good as we used to be. Coming away from Tosu (and more generally a Kyushu away game) with a point is something of a victory and should maybe be celebrated compared to recent season’s results. But we have been somewhat spoilt in recent years with exciting and effective football and we now only seem to be able to get one of those at the most and sometimes neither. Whilst Tosu and Fukuoka flip from doing great and doing terribly seemingly at random, you can always rely on them to give us a beating, perhaps justifiably, or perhaps unfairly. Whichever way, we usually lose. And we didn’t this time! And the booze at the stadium is still great! And it was a nice day and our area was in the shade! So many things to be positive about. But I probably should moan a bit too, right? And I should definitely get this post out of the way quickly, right? Ok!
So, some moans. Oniki shuffled the pack a little but we are still suffering from the same lack of excitement in front of goal. In the last three games we haven’t managed more than five shots on target in a match. We still break quickly and then stop and play the ball backwards. In spite of us scoring a few goals from corners, we still play pretty much every free kick that isn’t just outside the box short, basically surrendering any advantage we might have got from getting it and any chance that we might have of getting someone on the end of it. In the first half of this game we had three shots, all of which missed the target. We picked things up a bit in the second half as we tend to do, but it’s not exactly promising that whoever starts the match struggles to do anything. If manage to win the game it’s not so much of a problem I guess, but we’ve really squeaked our way to some wins this year and could very easily be significantly lower down in the table if we hadn’t been lucky. We certainly have good players, but it seems that we don’t have a good game plan at the moment. For once though, I’m going to resist giving out advice from my position of zero knowledge. I haven’t got a clue what’s going wrong. Or more accurately what’s going OK if you judge us on results rather than performances. In the past we could perhaps say that a few teams or managers had us worked out. Now it seems more like only a few haven’t worked us out. So maybe a change needs to be made. And we now have to make a change at the back as Taniguchi is banned for the next game. In a way it’s a shame that Yamane wasn’t sent off instead, as he’s the one who really needs a rest. On that red card, well I dunno… When the challenge went in, I said he’s taken one for the team as I knew the yellow was coming. To have it upgraded to a red was pretty annoying but quite predictable when you consider that Araki has sent off Taniguchi before for a DOGSO, (which he also initially gave as a yellow I think, but was a clear red in my eyes at the time), and that Kasahara, who constantly seems to ruin things for us has also sent off Taniguchi and gave a penalty at the same time away at Oita a few years ago, was the VAR guy. With these two things in mind it seemed inevitable that any slight mis-step from Taniguchi was going to end up with a red. I’ve done a little research on the DOGSO rule and will bore you with some probably factually inaccurate moaning shortly. But DOGSO just seems to be another one of those new rules that has been created just to justify the existence of VAR. In the past a ref could be fairly sure from weighing up the situation and general feel whether an offence was a red card or not. But now he has to go through an immediate mental check list to decide if all the criteria have been met. Just seems a bit like the people who run football might want, for some unfathomable reason, to make VAR exciting and necessary, and in order to get it rolled out for use a few times in each match, have made the job of the on field ref so difficult that he needs back up from some jumped up prick in the VAR room who doesn’t have to justify the decision in person. I don’t even really understand why it’s used sometimes. We hear a lot that it’s for situations when a clear and obvious error has been made. If it takes a ref going to the pitch side monitor and repeatedly watching a replay, I’d say that the error isn’t so clear and obvious. Anyway, apparently there’s a SPA and a DOGSO which is good news for those of you who like acronyms.
A SPA is ‘stopping a promising attack’ and is a yellow apparently, but gets upgraded to a red if it meets the four DOSGO requirements, which are something like distance from the goal, lack of covering defenders, distance from the ball, and direction of the player’s run. These four requirements seem to be set out in lots of places but I can’t really find anywhere that goes into them in much detail. However, apparently the direction one has the clarification that the attacker needs to be running directly towards the goal and not the goal line which I’d say probably rules a DOGSO out on this occasion. But who knows? Anyway, I’m not denying it was a foul or a yellow and I don’t know if the red was right under the rules as I suspect the real guidelines are kept under lock and key along with the bungs that various football associations have received from the companies who make the VAR equipment. I don’t just hate VAR when it goes against us. I constantly hate it and despair when people say that it’s necessary as it brings accuracy. I dunno, do we need 100% accuracy? It’s not like we’re launching a rocket or something. It’s more like VAR introduces another layer of interpretation which almost certainly leads to frustration at not being able to celebrate goals. Perhaps though the celebration hasn’t been destroyed, it’s just been shifted on to the defending team in the occasion of a goal being ruled out. So yeah, great! VAR is so good that now we can celebrate when something negative happens to the opposition, rather than something good happening to your own team. What joy! Anyway there was no guarantee that we were going to win anyway. And we probably could easily have lost. So not sure why I have gone on for so long about this and about nothing much else. Perhaps it was the shochu, but in my mind there was a general feeling of this being another game where we didn’t do much until it was a bit too late so if that’s true, there’s probably not much else to write about. I do love a moan about a ref though, and also a moan about VAR, so I guess it’s not a big surprise that I’ve spent so much time going on about it.
Next up Shonan at home on Wednesday. Not as much of a bogey team as our previous three opponents and not so much of a bogey team at home compared to away, but I don’t expect it to be an easy game, in spite of their league position. I mean, our league position is pretty false I think, so perhaps their’s is too. And they did beat Vessel Kobe a bit easier than we did. After that we’re away at Kyoto on Sunday, an away fixture which has apparently proved to be very popular with our fans and has sold out. So perhaps a full away end to watch a potential bed-shitting on the horizon. I wonder if they have shochu in their stadium? Go SHOCHU! And in a more desperate and fearful way, go Frontale!
Team
GK 1. Sung-Ryong JUNG DF 13. YAMANE Miki
DF 7. KURUMAYA Shintaro
DF 5. TANIGUCHI Shogo (Red Card 82')
DF 15. SASAKI Asahi
MF 6. JOAO SCHMIDT
MF 17. KOZUKA Kazuki
MF 16. SEKO Tatsuki
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. CHINEN Kei
FW 11. KOBAYASHI Yu
Subs
GK 27. TANNO Kenta
MF 8. TACHIBANADA Kento (on for IENAGA 62')
FW 9. LEANDRO DAMIAO (on for CHINEN 62')
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
MF 19. TONO Daiya (on for KOBAYASHI 76')
FW 23. MARCINHO (on for KOZUKA 46')
DF 31. YAMAMURA Kazuya (on for SEKO 83')
My Frontale Man Of The Match
Once again, can't really be bothered to do this. Sorry!
