- Jan 27, 2011
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Don't know if you saw what Ange said re sluggish starts but he was asked about them yesterday:Definitely lack the urgency and incisiveness in our first 45 generally
Are the sluggish starts from the team one of those things or a trend?
I get it, it's kind of interesting when you take a snapshot. But I reckon we've had it all this year: We've scored early, we've scored late. We've conceded early, we've conceded late. We've scored from set pieces, we've conceded from set pieces. We've defended well, we've not defended well. Mate, it's just a season of football, particularly for a team like us which is very much trying to build something.
Trends for me are something which happen over a longer period of time and something which become endemic. I see absolutely no difference between winning 3-1 and scored three goals in the first 15 minutes than scoring three goals in the last 15 minutes. For some reason, it seems to be more convincing if you score early and are comfortable after that whereas if you score late it tends to navigate towards you having a struggle. But if you look at trends historically, from the first year I managed, all my teams score late goals. It's sort of the game model. So if anything that's tilting towards more of the team we want to be.