Donny defending at corners

Sometimes I have noticed that Donny tends to drop out of games a little, and to appear not intereted in chasing after balls, and others have mentioned it too to me.  That is a shame, as when we start games and I am checking the opposition cards, the opposition are worried by him, but that concern goes away if they think Donny isnt a tough player to play against.  So although Donny has been a key player for the past two years, I know that we can improve Donny further.

Part of the improvement will come from being involved in the game more, as at the moment Donny plays quite high up the field, and so gets cut off a bit from games if we are defending and under pressure.

So we are now going to play that Donny helps the defence by coming back to defend corners, as his height is a great asset for our defence.  It also means he is much more involved in the game, as he is there when we are defending, as well as there when we are attacking.  I know it is going to take Donny a couple of games to see the benefits of this, but he will quickly see how much more interesting it is to help us defend corners, than to stand at the other end of the pitch just watching a far away corner being taken.  

I have been very pleased with how Donny has broadened his play a lot this year, adding passing to his game, so we can now add defending to Donny’s game to broaden his play even more. 

Donny scored a goal every two games in our first year, in our second year Donny scored a goal a game.  In the 2008 - 9 season, I am setting Donny the target of an average of one and a half goals a game - which would be 21 goals in our 14 league games.  That is a high target to meet, but Donny has been the top scorer  in the past two years, scoring more each year, so I am confident that Donny will meet the new challenge.

Since going into attack, quite often Cian has scored one or two a game, as well as getting his first hat trick, so I would think that my target of 14 goals for Cian could be met.  Ben in the role between them scores well too, so I am setting Ben a target of 10 goals.  We havent seen enough of Enes on the wing yet to know quite how good he can be there, but he is a naturally attacking player, so I see lots of goals from Mr Tunc.

Defensively, we let in 4.7 goals a game in the Autumn season, so I want to cut that back to 42 goals or less conceded - an average of 3 goals or less conceded.  So clear targets for us to aim at, individually and as a team.  Our striking was good - we were the fourth highest scorers in our Division with 44 goals in 14 games -  so lets aim for 56 goals next season- which is an average of 4 a game.  We scored over three a game last season, so with our extra experience, I think we can move up to the next level of scoring!