If you’d have told me 30 years ago that Town would lose 3-0 to Accrington Stanley one day, I’d assume you were either lying or Town had gone bust and were playing in an amateur league. Thankfully it was just a friendly game which lead to this defeat, and it’s not worth getting too upset about it.
Reaction from Town fans after game was mixed. Many accept it’s just another opportunity for the players to get fit, others were behaving like the sky was falling in. While losing 3-0 to a side that are associated as being a punchline to a joke isn’t a great feeling, it really doesn’t matter much either.
Here are five reasons to not be too concerned by this defeat…
It’s only a friendly
It’s our second game of preseason and the players have only been back a couple of weeks. These games are genuinely focussed on getting fitness levels back up and picking up sharpness. I don’t know what footballers do to themselves between May and July, but it’s always the case that it takes time to get up to full speed again.
Knowing the way David Wagner likes to work in preseason, it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole squad had intensive training sessions on Friday before playing on Saturday. This would never happen before a competitive game, but makes sense before inconsequential friendlies.
If Accrington Stanley’s players were relatively fresh going into the game and our team were heavy legged after putting a tough shift in on the training pitch the day before, then it’s natural we’ll look a bit lethargic at times and not turn in a top-drawer performance.
Our best players didn’t play
While I firmly believe the result doesn’t matter, it’s also fair to say we were missing most of our best players yesterday. Here’s a quick run down of all the players that weren’t available:
- Mooy
- Zanka
- Lössl
- Sobhi
- Van La Parra
- Danny Williams
- Bacuna
- Durm
Don’t get me wrong, the players that did play yesterday should have been good enough to get a better result, but it’s pointless trying to draw too many conclusions when so many players were missing.
It’s also fairly likely we’ll be seeing more players arrive in the next few weeks too.
Schindler’s injury isn’t as bad as it first looked
One thing that seemed like genuinely bad news was Schindler limping off the pitch after 33 minutes. He was our best player last season and a serious injury would be bad news for Town. David Wagner confirmed the substitution was a precaution in his most match interview due to a dead leg, so it’s unlikely to hold him back too much.
Preseason is the perfect time to mess up games
Friendlies are literally pointless, there’s nothing at stake in terms of league position or progress in the cups, so it’s a great time to learn about your weaknesses and to make mistakes. David Wagner and his team will have been taking note of the frailties exposed by Accrington Stanley and will be thinking about how to resolve them.
While it’s nice to steamroller the opposition and build confidence, you learn more from defeats and it gives you more to work with. So really, if you stretch the point a bit, Accrington Stanley did us a favour by beating us 3-0 and giving us all those wonderful “learning opportunities”!
Accrington Stanley are a good team now
I’ve become one of those horrible Premier League team fans that doesn’t pay attention to the lower leagues, so I didn’t know before yesterday that Accrington Stanley were League Two champions last season and are now a League One side. That’s still two divisions below Town, but they’re not the minnows they once were.
There were two sides involved in this game and it’s fair to say that Accrington Stanley played well and deserved their victory. They pressed Town into making mistakes and attacked with intent and desire. It wouldn’t surprise me if they do well in League One this coming season.