2 months ago
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WITH HIS team surviving a late scare against Guadeloupe in Friday’s Concacaf Gold Cup fixture, Reggae Boyz head coach Steve McClaren was critical of what he deemed inconsistent performances from his players.
Jamaica recovered from their opening defeat in Group C of the Gold Cup to get by Guadeloupe 2-1 in their second fixture, thanks to goals from Leon Bailey and Jonathan Russell.
However, it was not a comfortable showing from the Boyz as they needed to first, come from behind before benefiting from late heroics from goalkeeper Andre Blake to deny Guadeloupe an equaliser.
McClaren said it was a game of two halves as despite a dominant first-half display, they failed to control the second.
“We always focus on performance and I thought the first half was excellent. Despite going a goal down, we dominated possession 60 to 40. We created chances and opportunities and we controlled the game,” he said.
“On reflection, [I’m] delighted with [the first-half] but it was a bit of what we call a Jekyll-and-Hyde performance. The second-half we just lost our composure.”
The Boyz had entered the half-time interval high on confidence following two quick goals from Bailey and Russell to take the lead.
McClaren said he expected Guadeloupe to make a resurgence in the second-half – like they had did in their opening game against Panama.
However, despite coming into the second-half prepared to find a third goal, the Boyz had simply lost all their composure against their opponents.
LOST STRUCTURE AND SHAPE
“We knew at half-time we needed a third goal and all the way to the 100th minute, we knew we needed a third goal. We had opportunities but we didn’t take them. Credit to Guadeloupe, they pushed and pushed and pushed and we nearly got punished.
“We knew they’d come out in the second half. This is what they do. We saw them play against Panama and they did the same thing.” the Reggae Boyz boss said.
“But we lost composure and we lost shape and structure and we didn’t cope with the physicality and the man-to-man. Instead of playing over the press and over the man-to-man, we played into it, which caused problems.”
McClaren praised the efforts of Bailey in the first-half and particularly captain Blake in the dying minutes of the game.
He said it was Blake’s last-ditch goalkeeping in time added that prevented Guadeloupe from rescuing a point and keeping Jamaica’s hopes of advancing to the next stage alive.
“We thank Andre Blake for the three points. We talked about that before the game, how goalkeepers win you games. That second-half performance, and certainly late on, he made two or three wonderful saves which got us the points.”
Jamaica will close out Group C against Panama, knowing anything less than a win could see them being eliminated at the group stages for the first time since 2009.
In fact, Jamaica have made it to the quarterfinals in eight of their last 10 Gold Cup appearances.
“We’ve got a big game against Panama in which we have to prepare for. If we can play like the first half, we’ve got a chance. If we play like the second half, we go home.”
English (US) ·