slystallone Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 I'm off work at the moment after a foot operation; and there's a limit to how much SSN you can watch so I decided to raid my sky+. I watched the Leicester game; granted the Windass love-in from half-time was fast forwarded, but it did throw up some really interesting points for me in terms of how different we are set up now vs then; and also how different the individual players performed then vs now. The side that day was Fleming / Eardley / Hazell / Gregan / Golbourne / Taylor / Maher / Allott / Smalley / Hughes / Windass. The main points I picked out were: A large chunk of our play was directed through our full-backs; both Golbourne and Eardley received the ball from the central midfielders and centre backs; and they provided balls to the wingers or balls into the channels for Hughes to chase. The 2 CM's put in a shift; but essentially gave it simple when they had it. That included switching play and forward passes; as well as sometimes looking backwards for a 'out ball' (usually to either FB) The wingers were used all the time; neither wasn't involved and we kept Leicesters attack minded full backs in their own half as our 2 rarely came too deep We had an 'on the shoulder of the last defender' striker in Hughes. He worked the line; ran the channels and never gave the oppostion CB's or 'Keeper a quiet moment - linked in with Windass dropping deep into the space between defence and midfield; we had strikers who genuinely caused problems. The whole team looked to battle hard - Smalley put 1 tackle in that I remember hearing the thud from in the stands; it looked even better on the TV - but everyone worked back; we got 2 vs 1's in our favour whilst defending and the players were really working hard for each other. Fast-forward to this season and its hard to believe it was just a year ago - This season we don't utilise the wings, we have 2 individuals playing upfront; not a pairing, we don't have the same work ethic or buzz about the pitch - we look a pale shadow of that side. With the players DP's brought in and with the ones we still have in our ranks; we should still be able to produce football in the same vein as this surely? We have 2 wingers here; we have a drop-deep ST and a run the channels ST, we have midfielders who should be able to grab a game and dominate it..... Whilst I'd go along with a general weaking of the squad ability wise; IMO with the right tactics and management; we still have enough quality in the squad to be able to produce the sort of football we managed to play only 1 year ago. Thoughts on this people?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaticsLee Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 basically that team would sh*t on this seasons team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BP1960 Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 (edited) One of the big problems is the wide men have not been functioning when they recieve the ball, hence a poor service to the stikers and a lack of goals. If wingers aren't working the system should be abandoned in favour of two creative central midfielders (not many on the books though I'm afraid). Edited February 4, 2010 by BP1960 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GlossopLatic Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 (edited) I think you highlight an area where I think we have really struggled recently and that is how we pass the ball. Against tranmere our opassing was absolutely atrocious as aresult their was no cohesion to the performance and we couldn't mount any sustained period of possecion and therefore we couldn't put them under pressure. Everytime a defeder got the ball Bang! lumped forward into no mans land. When we got the ball their was a limited amount of options of who to give it too. The team who past the ball best this season was Leeds they kept it ticking over doesn't matter if it has to sideways from time to time keep it you can't score without the ball and if you have it then the opposition can't either. Edited February 4, 2010 by GlossopLatic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razza699 Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 One massive factor is the work rate the commitment of Earldley, which some narrow minded fans never gave our 100+ game 20 yr old captain credit for Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobOAFC Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 We played a bit like that earlier on in the season, when sheehan was here, he was linking up well with the left mid and would bomb forward playing high up making other teams lose their right mid attacking We can replicate them type of performance in we do two things - attacking full-backs and someone to play slightly higher up the pitch than pav, as he is able to drop into the space between their defence and midfield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.