Losing the lead.

[Jden86]

AFC Wimbledon in League 1. I'm constantly taking a 2-0 lead or similar going into the second half and lose it, like almost every single game, the only time I'm winning is when I've gone up 3 or 4-0 and the other team can't peg back 3 or 4 goals.

Any suggestions?

 

[WJ]

Tighten up. The other team will at some point try and get back into the match.

 

[Joel911]

ye i'm having exactly the same problem, playing in League 1 with Rotherham and have just come off the back of throwing a 2-0 half time lead to a team 10 places below in the league, after telling the players to keep focussed and getting 10/11 positive motivated and focussed reactions from the players, losing the game 3-2 in the second half. I'm 5 games from the end of the season and worked out that i've lost 35 points from winning positions over the course of the season, throwing a 2 goal lead on 3 occasions . Switching to a contain mentality with virtually all the players set to defend deep isn't making any difference.

 

[WJ]

Switching to a contain mentality with virtually all the players set to defend deep isn't making any difference.

For how long? Sounds like all you did was to invite a massive amount of pressure onto you for the rest of the match.

 

[PatrickLFC]

You've got to judge each game on it's merits. If you're dominating then don't start parking the bus too early or you're just giving them a way back into it. If you took the lead against the run of play then maybe go more defensive

 

[Joel911]

usually I try to leave it until at least the 80th minute or if possible the 85th, the game i'd mentioned in the previous post i kept on control after half time because id been so dominant in the first half and got good reactions off the team, but it was just a complete collapse. i've had success in previous games switching to counter mentality but i don't seem to have my counter tactic sorted out right in this one. One thing i'd noticed that may be to blame is that my centre backs were becoming drastically more tired than the rest of the team getting down to about 55-60% (about 10% more than other positions) in the last 15 minutes or so, they don't seem to have any worse natural fitness, and i'd tried lessening the amount of closing down which seemed to sure up the back for a few games but then became leaky again.

 

[WJ]

Natural Fitness has nothing to do with players losing Condition in a match. That's Stamina.

The team talk isn't important here. You may have had them in good spirits for 5 - 10 mins. You were talking about a collapse. That's tactical.