A few thoughts on today

Waz afcb

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Thought I’d share a few thoughts about the performance today and the general state of the squad:

-this performance can be summed up by three words, the first one is ‘possession.’ Unfortunately the second 2 are ‘without substance.’ The amount of safe possession we had in our own half today (and at other times this season) was bordering on ridiculous in all honesty. Parker explained in last weeks post match interview that this was intentional, with the aim of drawing the opposition onto us and then in theory, giving us the opportunity to play through them. In theory this is a sound philosophy, but (and it’s a big but,) the success of this philosophy is very much dependent on having the correct personnel at your disposal. You really need to overload the midfield with creative players, players who can pick up pockets of space, and both drive forward with the ball and have an eye for a pass. To be blunt I’m not sure that we have these types of players, I think both Billing and Marcondes are late box arrivers/getting on the end of things type midfielders rather than creators. The only number eight I’d say we have currently who’s suited to this style is Stan, and we all know we can’t rely on him to stay fit. The result of this is that we are almost entirely reliant on our wide men/full backs to provide a creative threat, which is where most of our chances were created from not just today but also the entire season so far. As a result, if you are able to negate the threat of our wide men/attacking full backs then you are likely to negate us totally. We badly need a creative midfielder or two for this to work or else we are going to see many performances like the one today.
 
Thought I’d share a few thoughts about the performance today and the general state of the squad:

-this performance can be summed up by three words, the first one is ‘possession.’ Unfortunately the second 2 are ‘without substance.’ The amount of safe possession we had in our own half today (and at other times this season) was bordering on ridiculous in all honesty. Parker explained in last weeks post match interview that this was intentional, with the aim of drawing the opposition onto us and then in theory, giving us the opportunity to play through them. In theory this is a sound philosophy, but (and it’s a big but,) the success of this philosophy is very much dependent on having the correct personnel at your disposal. You really need to overload the midfield with creative players, players who can pick up pockets of space, and both drive forward with the ball and have an eye for a pass. To be blunt I’m not sure that we have these types of players, I think both Billing and Marcondes are late box arrivers/getting on the end of things type midfielders rather than creators. The only number eight I’d say we have currently who’s suited to this style is Stan, and we all know we can’t rely on him to stay fit. The result of this is that we are almost entirely reliant on our wide men/full backs to provide a creative threat, which is where most of our chances were created from not just today but also the entire season so far. As a result, if you are able to negate the threat of our wide men/attacking full backs then you are likely to negate us totally. We badly need a creative midfielder or two for this to work or else we are going to see many performances like the one today.

Fair summary. Desperately need another couple of attacking options or I can't see being a genuine promotion candidate.

I think Parker recently mentioned signing another 2 or 3 players.

Also need Brooks to up his game. Seemed to start the season with a bit more purpose, but appears to have drifted back to last seasons level. I don't think he can be excused any more for his long term injuries.we re probably paying him a very high wage.
 
Agree with a lot of that Waz. Apart from I think Brooks not Stan is our best number 8. Having him so far on the flank is a waste for him and robs us of a goal scorer which we need a few of. That spread out team thing of Scott P’s with winger on the touch line I actually like but only works with lightning quick wingers which Brooks isn’t. He is wasted there.

Football managers need to remember their job is to entertain first and foremost, it drives me mad when they don’t see this and we need to limit the endless passing around at the back especially against lesser teams that don’t come on to you as is the intention.

Above everything we need a natural finisher though because had we had one instead of Solanke we win and this conversation becomes redundant. I keep hearing he works hard but so did Wilson in our promotion season. Working hard should be taken for granted… strikers have to finish reasonable chances or be dropped.
 
Agree with a lot of that Waz. Apart from I think Brooks not Stan is our best number 8. Having him so far on the flank is a waste for him and robs us of a goal scorer which we need a few of. That spread out team thing of Scott P’s with winger on the touch line I actually like but only works with lightning quick wingers which Brooks isn’t. He is wasted there.

Football managers need to remember their job is to entertain first and foremost, it drives me mad when they don’t see this and we need to limit the endless passing around at the back especially against lesser teams that don’t come on to you as is the intention.

Above everything we need a natural finisher though because had we had one instead of Solanke we win and this conversation becomes redundant. I keep hearing he works hard but so did Wilson in our promotion season. Working hard should be taken for granted… strikers have to finish reasonable chances or be dropped.
That is a fair shout re Brooks. I suppose the problem is that we have no other right wing option either. I agree that his best work for us historically is generally done from central areas of the pitch, he certainly has the attributes to play there. It certainly doesn’t suit his natural game to hug the touchline.
 
Thought I’d share a few thoughts about the performance today and the general state of the squad:

-this performance can be summed up by three words, the first one is ‘possession.’ Unfortunately the second 2 are ‘without substance.’ The amount of safe possession we had in our own half today (and at other times this season) was bordering on ridiculous in all honesty. Parker explained in last weeks post match interview that this was intentional, with the aim of drawing the opposition onto us and then in theory, giving us the opportunity to play through them. In theory this is a sound philosophy, but (and it’s a big but,) the success of this philosophy is very much dependent on having the correct personnel at your disposal. You really need to overload the midfield with creative players, players who can pick up pockets of space, and both drive forward with the ball and have an eye for a pass. To be blunt I’m not sure that we have these types of players, I think both Billing and Marcondes are late box arrivers/getting on the end of things type midfielders rather than creators. The only number eight I’d say we have currently who’s suited to this style is Stan, and we all know we can’t rely on him to stay fit. The result of this is that we are almost entirely reliant on our wide men/full backs to provide a creative threat, which is where most of our chances were created from not just today but also the entire season so far. As a result, if you are able to negate the threat of our wide men/attacking full backs then you are likely to negate us totally. We badly need a creative midfielder or two for this to work or else we are going to see many performances like the one today.
Yep we could go out and buy the creative players we need or just play a system that suits the players we have.

I mean we all know the difference between an inverted winger and a traditional winger right?.....so can somebody please tell me what the bloody point of playing inverted wingers and telling them to stay wide!!!......
 
The Sky match report had that we played 442. Is that correct or was it 433?
The latter stages we seemed to switch to a 4-4-4-2, but the majority of the game we played the same/similar system with Lerma playing the Billing role. Only difference was that Lerma naturally had the tendency/was instructed to drop deeper while in possession.
 
Agree with a lot of that Waz. Apart from I think Brooks not Stan is our best number 8. Having him so far on the flank is a waste for him and robs us of a goal scorer which we need a few of. That spread out team thing of Scott P’s with winger on the touch line I actually like but only works with lightning quick wingers which Brooks isn’t. He is wasted there.

Football managers need to remember their job is to entertain first and foremost, it drives me mad when they don’t see this and we need to limit the endless passing around at the back especially against lesser teams that don’t come on to you as is the intention.

Above everything we need a natural finisher though because had we had one instead of Solanke we win and this conversation becomes redundant. I keep hearing he works hard but so did Wilson in our promotion season. Working hard should be taken for granted… strikers have to finish reasonable chances or be dropped.

You seem to have a thing for playing wide players centrally... danjuma, now Brooks.
 
Yep we could go out and buy the creative players we need or just play a system that suits the players we have.

I mean we all know the difference between an inverted winger and a traditional winger right?.....so can somebody please tell me what the bloody point of playing inverted wingers and telling them to stay wide!!!......
This is a very good point. If we are not able to bring in the players to suit this style then there is a very strong argument that Parker should be implementing a style that suits the tools at his disposal. I think the idea of playing inverted wide men is to encourage the full backs to underlap, not sure that is so much of an issue. It’s the lack of creative number eights that will hurt us.
 
You seem to have a thing for playing wide players centrally... danjuma, now Brooks.
Danjuma was more for the team than him, we needed to get a goal scorer in the middle of the park, something we’ve not had since Callum left and it costs us too frequently including today. He is a better wide player.

Brooks on the other hand strikes me as an advanced central midfielder and played well at times there for Eddie who said he would end up there one day. So I think it would benefit both him and the team.
 
This is a very good point. If we are not able to bring in the players to suit this style then there is a very strong argument that Parker should be implementing a style that suits the tools at his disposal. I think the idea of playing inverted wide men is to encourage the full backs to underlap, not sure that is so much of an issue. It’s the lack of creative number eights that will hurt us.
We don't need inverted wide men to encourage the full backs to underlap.... surely a traditional winger would be more suited to that job......the whole point of having inverted wingers is for them to drive inside which allows space for our fullbacks to overlap...... otherwise what's the point of having a left footed winger playing on the right and vice versa?
 
Just got back. Wasn't a vintage performance but we had more than enough chances. Unfortunately we couldn't finish our dinner. We're yet again screaming out for more up top to help out.
More creativity is needed too imo. We may have had a few chances however, two of our better ones were from a corner and a give away from the keeper. Can’t remember us creating a decent one from open play aside from the Marcondes chance from the Zemura cut back. Yet again our expected goal total was low at 0.6.
 
We don't need inverted wide men to encourage the full backs to underlap.... surely a traditional winger would be more suited to that job......the whole point of having inverted wingers is for them to drive inside which allows space for our fullbacks to overlap...... otherwise what's the point of having a left footed winger playing on the right and vice versa?
Fair points. We don’t really have any natural wingers in the squad though, all our wide men are more comfortable playing on the opposite side cutting in. Coming back to your point that the system in place probably doesn’t suit the personnel at his disposal
 
It’s a bit of a strange one because you’ll notice that when we do attack there isn’t a shortage of bodies in the box, the issue is that we have too many who want to get on the end of a chance and not enough who can create one for a team mate, when attacking it’s almost like playing with a front three at times with Billing and Marcondes right up alongside Solanke. I’d be interested to know the stats re which areas of the pitch we are creating most of our opportunities, my guess is that it would be heavily centred around the wide areas of the pitch. No point in having all these bodies in the box if you can’t create for them. Blackpool worked out that if you work hard to shut down our wide areas then you can blunt us, Hull did the same today. There was a heavy emphasis on marking our wingers tightly and not giving them space to play in, the full backs did provide an occasional threat with cut backs. In short, we need another string to our bow. If we had a midfielder who was able to create centrally it would give the opposition more to think about, and as a result our wide men would also get more joy. This position really is vital for us.
 
I think we are collectively, here, starting to figure out how SP wants to play, and what threat that represents with the players at his disposal. There's not a lot a disagreement on what we see just how to fix it.

Likewise every opponent will be scouting to do the same.

Overall I would say that other than counter attacks, we are quite predictable and formulaic. You can see other teams also figuring us out as the minutes pass, and no amount of new players to the system changes that. However good or bad the managers have been in last couple of years, they all possessed ability to make big enough tactical changes to change games, but need to see at least another 5 from SP to see if he is capable of it.

For me, what's going to be needed is one or more players changing the system mid game on their own at the risk of being dropped if it goes sideways, i.e. the players need to become unpredictable in SP's predictable system. I much prefer Brooks giving the ball away 9/10 times, but the edge of their box rather Kelly losing possession in our half or asking the keeper to just clear it.

Only question from me is, if as some suggest we play with 2 No. 8's. What number are we not playing with and what effect is this having?
 
Yesterday our substitutes killed the game for us. After Brooks and Marcondes went off the players coming on created nothing and just disrupted the system we were using.

Anthony switched to the right flank, Zemura stopped bombing down the left and Kelly's forward passes went into touch on the half way line.

Our play is also somewhat robotic. Other than set plays it is 99% on the deck. Without a threat alongside Solanke the opposition don't need their central defenders close together so there is no space for the inverted winger to come inside, only Zemura has the skill to be comfortable with taking the ball to the bi-line so the attack comes back to the halfway line.

Please when we do get a rare opportunity please please have a shot.

We have become the Arsenal of a few years ago of wanting to pass the ball into the goal.

We've been sussed already. Time to have a Plan B. Whilst Lerma added stability and a bit of nous with being confident on the ball and covering/breaking up danger we missed Billing's height, presence/unpredictability and Kilkenny's vision for a pass.

At times we were very sloppy with our passing.

I don't profess to know what the answer is. Whilst with Cahill looking pretty fit in the half time kick about plus Cook, Smith and Rossi we have cover at the back we seem to have bodies available now in the wrong places

Our attacking is like a funnel shape overloading the outsides and not enough down the middle.
 

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