November 21st, 2009
Nicky
One word to describe my performance this week.. Poor. Why? Because I didn’t put in 100%. I feel as though when I don’t put in 100% it ultimately impacts my peromance. When I do, I play well, get more high five’s from my players and more nice pass or nick or great stuff from coaches. One thing I had trouble with the weight of my touches when running with the ball and especially my final one leading up to the shot, so i’ve found a pattern now in the things i’m doing bad. My first touch has slightly improved, I set up a wooden table outside on it’s side and did one touch passing against it and this feels as though it’s improving my touch so I’ll keep at that through next week.
Ive also got feedback from the coaches to place my shot, instead of smashing it which is what I’ve been doing.
November 16th, 2009
Nicky
I’ve found that one of the things I need to make sure doesn’t happen is lose the ball while dribbiling especially as I usually play an attacking role.
So this week I’ve really seen how putting ur foot next to the ball to shield the defender is really useful and now I understand why coaches tell you to do it.
Another thing, I’m not confident with one on one situations with the keeper. I’ve been told I relax to much on the ball before I shoot which is probably why my good right foot doesn’t produce enough goals. So I’m gonna work on that by..concentrating more and not relaxing before I shoot.
Anyway that’s two things I’ve learnt this week, on comes another,
Hey,
Got back from Bucharest today and after one day of the three scheduled playing days, we got sent back home. It turns out that there were three cases of swine flu reported from the school and so the Romain government had to shut down the school and our torny. At least we got to take an all-expenses paid one-hour flight back home instead of a 15 hour train ride we did getting there.
If feeling my whole body aching now, after playing 3×60 minute matches on Thursday.
1st game against Istanbul: Won 2-1
2nd game against Warsaw: Lost 2-0
3rd game against Bucharest: Lost 4-0
Going back on the goals I set for myself.
Did I Give 100%? I don’t think I gave absolutely everything, I still had some energy left but other than that I did work pretty hard.
Concentration? I guess so, there weren’t really any moments where I wasn’t concentrating.
Did I Score 7 Goals? No, I scored none our of the two goals ! I’m really pissed at myself about this, I had a couple of great chances but almost all of them were blocked by defenders.
All Tornuament Team? Cancelled tornumanet so don’t know..
MVP? Don’t know yet, have a feeling I have a good chance.
The Good things I did:
- I was really pacey on and off the ball (except in the Warsaw game who had an exceptionally quick sweeper).
- Ball control was good, hardly lost the ball.
- Gave some nice through balls and long passes.
- Determination was high to get back in positions and work to get the ball.
- Leadership, I really wanted to win games so I screamed at players to mark up, gave feedback to what players could do better, etc.
The things I will improve on:
- 50/50 Balls, especially in the air. I think it’s because I’m scared of clashing heads, I’m a high jumper and a good header but it’s this mental thing about hurting my head with another player. Tackles I always seem to lose.
- First touch, this was my biggest downside as my touch dictated how it would lead up to the next shot, pass, etc.
- Urgency, I always relax way too much on the ball which is why my shots are blocked and I missed an open goal and a couple of nice opportunities which looked on target after I shot them.
- Confidence with left foot, I’m scared of taking touches with my left foot and shots. Need to practice more on it.
Will post this weeks training schedule by Monday.
As for then, come on Chelsea!! who play man u this wkend!