Steadying the Ship

Memo to the home end: these are fine at 3-1 up. At 0-0? Not so much.

FC Tokyo 3-1 Nagoya

J1 Matchday 7

Well, did we ever need that! FC Tokyo's run of four straight league defeats ended after an ultimately convincing 3-1 win over Nagoya last Saturday afternoon. After recovering from the shock of going behind after we had completely controlled the first 25 minutes, The Gasmen fought back thanks to two Lucas penalties and a clinical finish from the otherwise-profligate Kazuma Watanabe.

The team sheet showed no surprises, but we were able to welcome Jang Hyun Soo back to the matchday squad after around a month out, and with Tadanari Lee, Nemanja Vucicevic and Naohiro Ishikawa also among the subs we had an impressive array of talent in reserve (some would argue all three of those should be in the XI).

Nagoya were fourth coming in, but they had benefitted from a fairly soft early fixture list, and their three wins so far had come against Kofu, Shonan and Niigata: all teams most league observers think will finish in the bottom half of the table. We were immediately on the front foot, and Lucas created two great chances in the first five minutes: first Watanabe's volley on the turn from Lucas' cross came back off the bar, and then Keigo Higashi first-timed a shot wide after a neat cut back from the right from our no.49.

Nagoya had not had a sniff in the first 25 minutes, but Kenichi Kaga had to be alert on their first meaningful foray when he headed the ball out for a corner after Kisho Yano crossed from the right. And then, in the 30th minute, we went behind after Shuichi Gonda punched a corner out of the area, the ball found its way to Danilson and he crossed from the left, with Josh Kennedy rising between Hideto Takahashi and Masato Morishige to plant a header back across Gonda and just inside his right hand post.

Watanabe almost gave us the perfect response three minutes later, but couldn't make a proper connection on Yuhei Tokunaga's cross, and then in the 39th minute our players surrounded the referee screaming for a penalty after Tulio used his arm to deflect Watanabe's blast from just inside the box away. In first half stoppage time the ref did point to the spot, after Tokunaga went down fairly easily after a tug from behind by their left back Yuki Honda. Lucas stepped up, Seigo Narazaki guessed the right way, but couldn't get enough on the ball to keep it out and we went in at half time level.

In the third minute of the second half we should've taken the lead, but Watanabe, who intercepted a loose back pass just inside the Nagoya half and raced in on Narazaki, fired across the face of goal when he HAD to hit the target. We didn't have to wait long to go ahead though, and again Lucas netted from the spot after Morishige, who made several surging runs forward throughout the game, was brought down by Hayuma Tanaka on the left side of the box.

In the 59th minute Watanabe, culpable of some poor misses earlier, made amends with a screamer from his most difficult chance of the day. Lucas headed an Aria Hasegawa cross straight at Narazaki from around the penalty spot, with the Nagoya custodian looking to start a counter attack by throwing the ball out to Yoshizumi Ogawa on the left. But when Ogawa dawdled on the ball, Tokunaga nicked in, squared to Kazuma about 25 yards from goal, and after a touch to sort his feet out he curled a superb shot on the turn just inside Narazaki's left hand post.

Lucas almost grabbed his hat trick goal in the 68th minute but hit the post after a one-two with Keigo Higashi, and the major talking point in the last 20 minutes was the continuous stream of yellow cards handed out by the ref, who overall had a terrible game. That culminated with Taishi Taguchi being sent off for his second yellow in the 85th minute, and with a two-goal buffer and a man advantage we just passed the ball around until the final whistle put Nagoya out of their misery.

So a much needed three points for us, but perhaps a wake-up call for Nagoya, who were disappointing to say the least. On Saturday we host Kawasucki Kawasaki in the first Tamagawa Classico of the season, and this win was hopefully the perfect tune-up for getting the river under control.

Up the Gas!

Panic Button Time?

Sendai 2-1 FC Tokyo

J1 Matchday 6

Another odd-goal loss last Saturday, our fourth in a row in the league, saw us tumble into the bottom half of the table, and makes our consecutive wins to start the season feel like months ago. Two quality second half finishes from Kakuda and Wilson gave Vegalta a 2-0 lead by the hour mark, and though Tadanari Lee (benched for what reason?) pulled one back with 12 minutes to go we couldn't make our late pressure count and find an equalizer.

The overall performance wasn't bad, and I don't think we've played particularly badly in any of the run of defeats to be honest, in fact I'd argue we didn't get the rub of the green in the first two of them, away at both Cerezo and Yokohama, but we appear to be fairly brittle mentally, especially after going behind in games. There seems to be a lack of calmness in the team after conceeding, Oita in the league and Kashima in the Cracker Cup aside, with players pressing just a little too hard to play the perfect pass, or missing the target on presentable chances, when it seems our opponents always take theirs when they come (get your violins out).

Despite the title of this post, I don't think we need to panic, but a few things need to be ironed out formation and personnel-wise, and it might be time for Mr. Popovic to make some tough decisions.

I love the manager, and have had several great chats with him since he took over, but I feel at times his blind loyalty to the likes of Lucas and Aria Hasegawa has gotten in the way of him putting our best XI on the park. I know there have been mitigating factors, like yet another injury to Naohiro Ishikawa and the failure of Hiroki Kawano to carry on his preseason form, but it seems like he's trying to fit round pegs into square holes at times.

Lucas is an icon of the club, second only to Amaral amongst foreign players in the eyes of all supporters, but the fact he is still being asked, no, counted on, to do so much out on the flank is a huge worry, when by this stage of his career he should really be the sort of player we can bring off the bench, up front, in bursts. Aria is just a massive enigma, capable of the sublime (his finish for the 3rd against Kashiwa for example) but also still prone to going missing for large stretches of games. He's still young-ish, but again, he's not a wide player, and the manager will just stick him anywhere to get him in the team.

The elephant in the room is the form of both Hideto Takahashi and Yuhei Tokunaga. You can't drop either of them, especially Tokunaga as Hokuto Nakamura is injured and Kenta Mukuhara, a better defender than Hokuto, is with Cerezo on loan this season, but both have been uncharacteristically sloppy, and Takahashi, who really seemed to be coming on as a passer, has gone miles backwards in that area of his game.

Up front, the solution is simple to me: Tadanari Lee MUST start up front, and Keigo Higashi MUST play in the hole behind him. Sorry Kazuma Watanabe, you've got five goals in the league already, but you'll have to get used to coming off the bench again. Mr. Popovic has fallen into the same trap as last year with Kazuma, when his (fairly) fluky hat-trick against Tosu saw him get a run of starts in which he did absolutely nothing. On his day he is a good-to-excellent J1 striker, but he's too hit-and-miss to be a permanent fixture in the XI.

Lee is the best striker, and natural goal-scorer, we have, and he needs to be the focal point of the attack, with Higashi, who has produced a couple of excellent performances in the hole but looked lost when played out wide, behind him. Now we don't know the reasons behind Lee's benching at Sendai, or whether he's had any problems with the manager etc., but for us going forward he and Higashi will give us the best chance to score goals, and win games.

There have been positives of course: Kosuke Ota has been generally sound at left back and Takuji Yonemoto has continued his development into one of the better holding mids in J1, but there is room for improvement almost everywhere else, and hopefully that, along with three points, will come this Saturday afternoon at home versus Nagoya.

Up the Gas!

Can't Take A Trick

Been too long between posts again, but I'll try to bring you up to date on our last five games: three in the Cracker Cup and two in J1, where we now find ourselves in a bit of a rut after three straight losses. After the first of these games we were buzzing, but four games later we're scratching our heads about how we can turn things around...

Kashima 2-4 FC Tokyo

Nabisco Cup Group B Matchday 2

This was a game of two halves if ever there was one, as Kashima controlled the first half and deservedly took the lead, but after we equalized on the stroke of half time we went on to boss the second 45 minutes and strolled to victory thanks to three excellent finishes.

Yuichi Maruyama made his first start of the season for us at left back, and was culpable for the opening goal in the 28th minute when he tried to dribble out of defence, Yuya Osako nicked the ball away, and then smashed a narrow-angled finish high into the net past Hitoshi Shiota after taking Davi's pass in stride. We levelled it up in first half stoppage time when Kazuma Watanabe turned in Yuhei Tokunaga's blast from the edge of the box, and after Keigo Higashi's half time introduction for an ineffectual Hiroki Kawano we ran the second half, taking the lead in the 57th minute when Lucas took Higashi's pass, feinted clear of a defender and lashed past the keeper.

Twenty minutes later the moment we had been waiting for, Tadanari Lee's first goal for the club, arrived in some style when his intelligent run from deep was timed perfectly to meet Kosuke Ota's cross from the left, and he glanced a diving header home for 3-1. Just a minute later Davi pulled a goal back for them when Kenichi Kaga's slight touch to his close range shot took the ball out of Shiota's reach, but we saved the best til last with the icing on the cake etc in the 81st minute, when Lee's cut-back from the right was met superbly on the volley by Higashi for his first FC Tokyo goal.

Yokohama 3-2 FC Tokyo

J1 Matchday 4

This was brutal. No way we deserved to lose this, but Yokohama are top of the league for a reason, and they showed it in a superb game that see-sawed back and forth throughout. We took the lead in the 27th minute when the Ota-Lee hotline resumed service, Tadanari showing brilliant technique to volley home Kosuke's cross from the left.

We held the lead fairly comfortably through the end of the first half and the first 15 minutes of the second, before Yokohama got very fortunate with their equalizer, when Shunsuke Nakamura's deep free kick took a wicked deflection off Higashi in the wall and Shuichi Gonda tried to scramble across but couldn't get to the ball as it bounced into the net. In the 68th minute Yoshihito Fujita headed in a cross from the right to put F.Marinos ahead, and as the game entered the last ten minutes it didn't seem as if we'd be able to find a way back into it. That was until Aria Hasegawa led a counter attack from the centre circle in the 82nd minute, passed to Higashi and stepped over the return pass which ran to Watanabe, who finished past the keeper via a deflection off a defender.

Unfortunately for us there was a late sting in the tale in the 90th minute, when Fujita stayed just onside, took a pass from Shingo Hyodo and finished past Gonda and off the inside of the far post to win it for the hosts. Gutting.

FC Tokyo 0-0 Nagoya

Nabisco Cup Group B Matchday 3

Can't believe we didn't win this one either, even though our performance was well short of our best, and it felt like a defeat after we didn't take all three points when they were there on a plate at the end. With the last kick of the game Higashi should've won it, but he tried to be too cute from the penalty spot after Hayuma Tanaka handled a ball into the box, and his attempt at a panenka came back off the bar. After a brief scramble in the six yard box Higashi had the ball at his feet, but his off-balance shot ballooned over the bar, with the ref blowing for full time immediately after.

FC Tokyo 0-1 Omiya

J1 Matchday 5

For the second straight year this lot returned up to Saitama with all three points, but these are not your father's Omiya Ardija, as, full of confidence, they abandoned the blueprint and took us on from the opening kickoff. Riding a 15-game unbeaten streak, they kept the ball well, and though they were unable to create many clear cut chances in the first half, it was refreshing to see them come to play football, rather than stifle the game.

All that said, we had the better chances in the opening 45 minutes, and should have taken the lead two minutes before half time when Lucas' cross from the right found Watanabe, but Kazuma somehow directed his free header wide of the post. Puzzlingly (as against Yokohama), Lee was our first change, just eight minutes into the second half, but Omiya began to fashion the better chances, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when Zlatan shot wide on the turn in the 64th minute when it seemed certain he would score.

And then, in the 78th minute, he did. Kaga was adjudged to have fouled out by our right touchline, the free kick was swung over into the middle of the box, Gonda flapped at a punch after leaving his line too late, and Zlatan held off Hideto Takahashi, heading into the unguarded net. We threw on Hirotaka Mita and Nemanja Vucicevic immediately after, and went excrutiatingly close to an equalizer in the 88th minute when Ota crossed to the far post, Watanabe headed down but the keeper pushed the ball onto the post and a defender hacked it away. Much frustration.

Cerezo Osaka 2-1 FC Tokyo

Nabisco Cup Group B Matchday 4

I wasn't able to watch this game, but for the second time this season we returned from Osaka with an odd-goal loss. Hopefully things will turn out better when we return to face Gam... Oh wait. Yeah. Shiota replaced Gonda in goal, and Tokunaga and Lucas were rested, with Kaga starting at right back, Hideto Takahashi at centre back and Takuji Yonemoto and Aria in centre mid, while further forward Mita and Kawano started on the flanks.

Brilliant youngster Yoichiro Kakitani gave the hosts the lead 10 minutes into the second half, but Lee equalized for us just six minutes later. With 20 minutes left Fabio Simplicio made it 2-1 to Cerezo and we were unable to break through again, despite the introductions of Naohiro Ishikawa, back from injury, and Nema. Right at the death Cerezo sub Ryuji Bando made history, getting sent off for a second yellow card just four minutes after coming on, but though there was some amusement in that for us, a fourth straight game without a win has us searching for answers.

We slid to fourth in Group B, and we'll need to win our last two, away at Oita on the 23rd and then home against Niigata in mid-May, to progress to the quarter finals.


And that's our latest update done. I'll try and do a report after our league trip to Sendai this Saturday, and following that we host Nagoya on the 20th.

Up the Gas!