Hawke's Bay United coach Brett Angell has impressed on his troops the need to position themselves in the right areas and find composure if they are going to score goals. Photo/file
From where Hawke's Bay United are sitting, the last time they looked out of the window of opportunities the goal posts hadn't shifted just because they had gone into an interlude for the Christmas holiday.
"The goal is still there and we're obviously trying to make it into the playoffs area," says the Hawke's Bay soccer franchise team coach Brett Angell before they resume their ISPS Handa Premiership campaign in round nine against Hamilton Wanderers in Napier tomorrow.
The Thirsty Whale-sponsored hosts, who kick off at 2pm at Bluewater Stadium, went into Christmas on the heels of four losses in their past five outings, including a 3-0 away defeat at the hands of Canterbury United Dragons in Christchurch.
Assistant coach Jamie Dunning, deputising for Angell who was serving a match ban after he was banished to the Park Island stand in the round eight stalemate against Tasman United on December 10, had described the loss to the Dragons as "two minutes of madness".
At the crux of the Bill Robertson-captained Bay United's frustrations is the foragers' inability to turn opportunities into goals.
Therein lies Angell's disappointment because some of those matches they would have ticked for three points and, consequently, kept up with the peloton for a more comfortable break for playoffs berths.
"I believe, realistically, we need to win seven of those nine remaining games to making the playoffs so that's what we'll endeavour to do," says the coach whose club is appealing his one-match suspension on a matter of principle.
It hasn't escaped his attention that Bay United have yet to win a game at home, never mind turning it into a fortress.
"I think we need to obviously change. We're very frustrated that we haven't picked up all three points in previous games at home."
The tendency is to expect his men to roll on to the park and roll off with three points tomorrow because the Wanderers, who lost 1-0 to Bay United at Porritt Stadium in Hamilton, are winless and have just one point to their credit from a draw as they languish at the bottom of the table.
Bay United are perched a rung above them, albeit it eight points adrift, on the 10-team national summer league with two wins and three draws.
But Angell and his troops are mindful the Wanderers have taken the lead in their past two games, including their 3-1 loss to the Wellington Phoenix just before the break, so there's no danger of complacency creeping in at all.
"I feel that, at times, we lack a bit of concentration and perhaps individually switched off a little bit when we could have done better."
In a nutshell, his mantra at training has been for those with potentially bountiful boots to find their target, not just with more regularity but also with more intent and purpose.
When he juxtaposes last season's shooting statistics with this summer, it's evident his players just aren't doing enough to make life difficult for opposition goalkeepers.
"That's the sort of thing we've been talking about from day one, really, but it's something we seem to have a mental block in."
Angell has impressed on his charges that winning football is part of a cycle where success breeds confidence, which in turn becomes a catalyst for stimulating individual prowess and collectively that equals momentum.
"At this point we've never been able to build any momentum."
The second stanza of the premiership, he believes, is an opportune time to turn things around.
The former English Premier League striker believes Bay United were unfortunate not to claim three points against Wellington Phoenix, Team Wellington and Tasman United at home.
"The Waitakere United game was very representative of the Canterbury United [away] game where we suddenly went from nil-nil to 2-0 like in the 15-minute period in the Waitakere game."
It was one-way traffic, he reflects, with his men failing to capitalise on it and switching off defensively to allow the visitors to get their tails up.
Eradicating those lapses from both ends of the paddock is imperative for 90-plus minutes. While it's a minute detail what worries him is that it happens with monotonous regularity to deprive them of momentum.
What he is trying to instil in his players is the urgency and ease with which they should find themselves in the right position before finding the composure to take advantage to score goals.
Angell suspects worrying is cluttering the minds of his hunters and collectors on what happened in the previous rounds.
"We've only scored seven goals so, realistically, it's not something that's going to give, overall, an abundance of confidence."
Bay United need to chuck out the excess baggage to find an element of routine in the chaos.
"But sometimes it's more in the mind than in the technique."
He says the worst thing a striker can do is drift off the choice scoring areas because of the fear of missing the target.
"We need a little bit of help, whether it's luck or someone having just a little more composure [tomorrow] to release the pressure on the whole team to create a better platform to build on."
If that again proves difficult tomorrow he is hoping the players keep moving rather than stewing on it because that persistence will yield goals another day.
"I probably say we don't have what we'd call a natural goal scorer in our group so that's something we've got to work around a little bit."
Angell emphasises, though, Bay United have players capable of finding the net. That brings up American/Ghanaian import Samuel Adjei jnr, who the club signed late in November, but the stocky striker arrived hamstrung and immediately went under team physiotherapist Aaron Shirley in the hope of coming right during the festive season to help end that goal drought.
"It's been very frustrating for Samuel, the club and everyone concerned because we have been working on him for a fair while so he can take part," he says of Adjei who is the 24-year-old son of former Ghanaian international Samuel Adjei snr.
Adjei has trained with the squad and has been making all the right noises and moves so the coach expects him to make a contribution of some description in the much-anticipated debut of a professional midfielder who is itching to show he has all the attributes of a striker.
What portfolio Angell offers Adjei, even if he comes off the bench, will be interesting.
"I'm sure it'll be the first opportunity that fans will get to see Samuel."
The Englishman makes no bones of the fact that Adjei will bring a dose of spark, brightness and penetration that the team are missing. In the past few days Adjei has shown more fluency in training than Angell has seen from him before Christmas.
Conversely he also is conscious of "putting everything" on the broad shoulders of the import.
"That pressure has to be shared and I'm sure it'll be shared but he's a new signing and he should give us a little bit of newness about the group so I'm pretty comfortable he'll show us his skills set and capabilities [to the fans]."
It will make for an interesting battle because Wanderers coach Ricki Herbert is a former All Whites and Wellington Phoenix mentor who hung his hat on the cornerstone of defences to frustrate oppositions, including super powers, all the way to the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa.
Angell employs a full-press defence and counter-attacking philosophy which has paid dividends in securing playoffs in his three previous premiership seasons.
However, if statistics are anything to go by make what you can of the goals for/against record of Herbert's Wanderers this summer.
The visitors have scored eight goals - so they are suffering from the same yips as Bay United - but they surprisingly are victims of a leaky defensive wall syndrome after having conceded 28 goals to date.
With the transfer window beckoning in the new year, 49-year-old Angell says they have their ears on the ground but stresses it's a difficult market with little activity and lean pickings.
"There is a free agent around who we are in the process of speaking to but at the moment he seems to be weighing up other options so we'll just wait and see."
However, he has whisked three players - Ben Lack, Joshua Murphy and Jorge Akers - from the Bay United youth team who have started training with the seniors.
Graham Craven is unavailable tomorrow because he is attending his mother's wedding this weekend.
Former striker Sam Mason-Smith has signed a contract with Stellenbosch FC in South Africa and was expected to make the transition this month.
"It's great for Sam. I'm very pleased for him because it's been an ongoing saga and he's had to wait a little while for it but things will finally be sorted out and he'll be able to play professionally in South Africa and I wish him the very best."
Mason-Smith had done tremendously well for Bay United and Angell is proud to have helped him on his way.
He hopes the Englishman, who also played and captained Wairarapa United in winter, will go on to higher echelons in his professional career.
■ Hawke's Bay Utd: 1. Ruben Parker Hanks (GK), 2. Daniel McHenery, 3. Kohei Matsumoto, 5. Bill Robertson (c), 7. Wesley Cain, 8. Alex Palezevic, 9 Samuel Adjei, 10. Adam Thurston, 11 Hayato Wakino, 13. Ben Lack, 14. Gavin Hoy, 15. James Hoyle, 16. Liam Hayes, 18. Joshua Murphy, 19. Birhanu Taye, 21. Bjorn Christensen, 23 Jorge Akers, 24. Karanjit Mandair, 26. Mackenzie Waite (RGK).
Coach: Brett Angell.
Ast coach: Jamie Dunning.
■ Hamilton Wanderers: 1. Matt Oliver (GK), 4. Liam Fellowes, 5. Samuel O'Regan, 6. Flynn O'Brien, 7. Michael Built, 8. Sam St de Croix, 10. Marc Evans, 11. Jordan Shaw, 12. Raheem Hunter-Ali, 15. Ignacio Machuca-Maturana, 16. Hamish Smylie, 17. Xavier Pratt, 18. Alexis Carcamo-Varela, 19. Armin Pasagic, 23. David Masters (RGK).
Coach: Ricki Herbert.
■ Referee: Peter Linney.
■ Ast refs: Mark Rule, Gareth Sheehan.
■ Fourth official: Anthony Riley.
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