I must admit that seeing the once mighty Croatia so lowly placed at this stage season - and with little hope of catching the leading pack - is both disturbing and unusual.

A senior source at the club has little doubt that the underlying reason behind Croatia’s demise is poor player commitment.

At the moment only around ten to twelve people regularly train - many of them juniors - and as a consequence the club is

frequently compelled to field unfit players whose work ethic is woefully low resulting in a team incapable of being competitive for ninety-minutes.

Indeed, not only has the team lost all semblance of its once

formidable and intimidating ‘passing’ game, their forwards (without Marick) rarely look capable of scoring, and the

midfield (without young Grosso who often plays in defence) rarely looks capable of winning or retaining the ball.

Wanderers find themselves in a similar situation in as much as turnouts to training, junior

players aside, has been incredibly disappointing - so

disappointing in fact that Tuesday training sessions are in threat of being cancelled.

The response by the Blues’ coaching staff has been brave, astute and commendable:

drafting a host of juniors into the ‘A’ grade side on the one hand; on the other, putting in place a more attack orientated team formation that has three up front.

Of course, when the Blues push forward down the wings via Tullett and Fewster - this three pronged attack converts to five giving them a greater

opportunity to hit the back of the net.

As a consequence I must say that Wanderers has looked a

different outfit over the last four matches and whilst they have lost these games, they have none-the-less managed to become a more competitive

outfit that no longer loses by six or seven goals.

Perhaps now is the right time for Croatia to also seriously think about dropping their under-performing lacklustre ‘stars’ and ‘blooding’ more of their junior players -something that has arguably not happened regularly enough at ‘A’ grade level (which is why many of their young players such as Hayward and Greenbank have left the club).

The last time these two teams met they played out a very

entertaining six goal draw.

This time around, if the Blues continue to play their juniors and continue to show improvements in all aspects of their play - they could win their first game of the season!

Final verdict: soccer is a lot about confidence and

confidence is something neither Croatia nor the Blues have a lot of at the moment.

Therefore, the team that scores the first goal will have a

tremendous psychological advantage over the other.

I predict Wanderers to score first and to go on and win

handsomely.