IT doesn’t take a lot of smarts to play intelligent soccer, but at the moment it is just not adding up for Wodonga Diamonds.
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Diamonds lost 2-0 to Albury Hotspurs at La Trobe yesterday.
“Simple football is the best as far as I’m concerned,” Diamonds coach Jimmy Bell said.
“It’s how I like the team to play and they’ve got the ability to do that.
“It’s a very good squad on paper and have every chance of being able to play well against any team in the league.
“But we need to be more intelligent in our decision-making and if we were able to replicate what we do at training then we would have very few issues.”
Diamonds were the more fancied team going in and created more opportunities, but it was Hotspurs’ ability to put away their chances that was the difference.
“We don’t seem to know how to score a goal at the moment,” Bell said.
“We create the chances and the defence do well, but as soon as you step away from the game plan things fall apart, we need to trust a game plan that works if you stick to it.
“But you can’t take the result away from Hotspurs — they played good football, their formation absorbed a lot and then they hit us on the counter.”
Tim Crilly and Ben Whitehead again produced solid games, while Dan Millynn made a welcome return from injury.
“Tim and Ben were awesome,” Bell said.
“And Ben Russell didn’t do an awful lot wrong in goal.”