well, another week another draw, so in the grand scheme of things we didn't lose any ground on our CL rivals but let's delve deeper into the game.
first off it was pretty obvious with the team roy picked he wanted to keep things as tight as possible for as long as possible and hope the brilliance of torres or gerrard would make the difference (as was indeed the case in the very last league game).
this tactic of keeping it tight for 45 in the hope of nicking something with a moment of magic in the second half is becoming very tiresome because it is putting pressure to make something happen in the remaining 45 and if the opposition score you have little time to respond.
Poulsen and lucas were the midfielders charged with protecting the defense, maxi and jove were charged with creating the chances, jove aside that is a painfully slow midfield, in fact it could be argued it is the slowest least creative midfield in the whole of the league, let alone a side with aspirations of a CL place. in that midfield four who is going to create chances either by beating players and crossing or bursting from the middle of the park with the ball?
Being organised and solid is a genuine tactic away from home, it quiets the crowd and limits the oppertunities of the opposition who are expected to make all of the running but it also means they will have most of the ball and against a half decent side they will punish you, even a side you would class as ordinary 'really' should have put us to the sword today, with only the brilliant riena saving us, again.
anyway, back to poulsen and lucas, two very slow and ponderous midfielders. it was like they were on a mission to break up any promising attack, unfortunately they were OUR attacks they were breaking up, they would often see a player in space and instead of just passing the frigging ball to them they would take a touch to control, look around for other options and THEN make the pass they should have made in the first place, all the while brum defenders getting back in numbers. what the heck is wrong with the simple ball?
then you have johnson, who I actually think is really good going forwards and...not so good defending, so play to his strengths, if you invite pressure you are allowing the opposition to run at a suspect defender all game long rather than placing the incentive with us, I think johnson would have had a lot of joy going at their left back but instead he was running around chasing his own tail because we were content to contain the mighty brum. another reason to push johnson on would have been to give a hand to the ineffectual maxi. maxi really did himself no favours if he wants to usurp kuyt for the right hand slot, he really didin't know what he wanted to do today, protect the fullback or add numbers to the attack, in the end he ended up doing neither.
you have to feel a little sorry for gerrard and torres feeding off scraps, gerrard was dropping deeper and deeper hunting for the ball so torres was often left isolated, when the ball eventually reached torres he often had to fend off two or three players. the bottom line is there isn't going to be anything near the box when we eventually do muster an attack. on the match thread some people are having a go at torres, what was he supposed to do today, take on the entire brum defense single handidly (he actually attempted that at one stage)?
I thought the penalty shouts weren't penalty shouts at all, torres misses the ball and falls over, the overhead kick by maxi hits the defender's hand but it's ball to hand, and there was another ball to hand incident. gerrard almost certainly would have been given a penalty if he'd gone down but he stayed on his feet and the chance was gone.
a special shout to pepe who really did pull off 4 world class saves.
it's easy to critisize but there are some easy solutions
1. the center of midfield
if you are playing poulsen and lucas together you are going to get zero creativity from the middle of the park, even after 4 games this should be obvious to roy, with no creativity then the forwards (even if they are world class) aren't going to do anything as you can't do anything without the ball.
it should always be an creative/attacking midfielder and a holding midfielder, this concern is going to be eased with the return of cole because it will free up gerrard to drop deeper, unless roy decides he wants to play cole wide.
2. subs
if you can see the tactics aren't working on 45 mins (and you'd have to hope he can) then why wait till 70 mins to make changes? again, you are relying on the brilliance on a couple of players rather than forcing the issue. sure, babel is erratic and patches is inexperienced but no guts no glory.
I can see the reluctance, he knows maxi and jove will keep it simple, help out the fullbacks and are unlikely to give the ball away, but a moment of magic, a burst of pace, a bit of invention and WHO KNOWS, its certainly better than doing...NOTHING!!
at no stage in that game did roy go full out to get three points so intent was he that were weren't going to lose, well, mission accomplised, no ground lost on our peers but we need to take advantage of their slip up yesterday. it's 4 away wins in two years and roy doesn't look he want to buck that trend, I'm sure he 'hopes' we buck the trend but he isn't doing all he can to make the difference. we came for a point and got a point, that is midtable mentaility.
it's like anita says in her 'risk taking' thread you have to take risks if you want to win games, the more you attack the more vulnerable you are to counter attacks, everytime you fullbacks push up then that is space behind them that opens up, eveytime a central midfielder bursts from midfield that is more ground the holding midfielder has to cover to fill the gaps, but despite all that we HAVE to do that if we want to win games. this cautious approach is getting us nowhere, it's giving the incentive to the oppostion (regardless of how mediocre they are) it's squeezing the creativity out of our team (or rather the few players who possess it) becasue we are more concerned with snuffing out the oppositon and the attacking players are getting starved of service and when they DO get the ball they have to fend off too many defenders because they have too little support because the team wants to keep it's shape and keep it tight.
roy needs to buck up his ideas or it's going to be a longggg season...
first off it was pretty obvious with the team roy picked he wanted to keep things as tight as possible for as long as possible and hope the brilliance of torres or gerrard would make the difference (as was indeed the case in the very last league game).
this tactic of keeping it tight for 45 in the hope of nicking something with a moment of magic in the second half is becoming very tiresome because it is putting pressure to make something happen in the remaining 45 and if the opposition score you have little time to respond.
Poulsen and lucas were the midfielders charged with protecting the defense, maxi and jove were charged with creating the chances, jove aside that is a painfully slow midfield, in fact it could be argued it is the slowest least creative midfield in the whole of the league, let alone a side with aspirations of a CL place. in that midfield four who is going to create chances either by beating players and crossing or bursting from the middle of the park with the ball?
Being organised and solid is a genuine tactic away from home, it quiets the crowd and limits the oppertunities of the opposition who are expected to make all of the running but it also means they will have most of the ball and against a half decent side they will punish you, even a side you would class as ordinary 'really' should have put us to the sword today, with only the brilliant riena saving us, again.
anyway, back to poulsen and lucas, two very slow and ponderous midfielders. it was like they were on a mission to break up any promising attack, unfortunately they were OUR attacks they were breaking up, they would often see a player in space and instead of just passing the frigging ball to them they would take a touch to control, look around for other options and THEN make the pass they should have made in the first place, all the while brum defenders getting back in numbers. what the heck is wrong with the simple ball?
then you have johnson, who I actually think is really good going forwards and...not so good defending, so play to his strengths, if you invite pressure you are allowing the opposition to run at a suspect defender all game long rather than placing the incentive with us, I think johnson would have had a lot of joy going at their left back but instead he was running around chasing his own tail because we were content to contain the mighty brum. another reason to push johnson on would have been to give a hand to the ineffectual maxi. maxi really did himself no favours if he wants to usurp kuyt for the right hand slot, he really didin't know what he wanted to do today, protect the fullback or add numbers to the attack, in the end he ended up doing neither.
you have to feel a little sorry for gerrard and torres feeding off scraps, gerrard was dropping deeper and deeper hunting for the ball so torres was often left isolated, when the ball eventually reached torres he often had to fend off two or three players. the bottom line is there isn't going to be anything near the box when we eventually do muster an attack. on the match thread some people are having a go at torres, what was he supposed to do today, take on the entire brum defense single handidly (he actually attempted that at one stage)?
I thought the penalty shouts weren't penalty shouts at all, torres misses the ball and falls over, the overhead kick by maxi hits the defender's hand but it's ball to hand, and there was another ball to hand incident. gerrard almost certainly would have been given a penalty if he'd gone down but he stayed on his feet and the chance was gone.
a special shout to pepe who really did pull off 4 world class saves.
it's easy to critisize but there are some easy solutions
1. the center of midfield
if you are playing poulsen and lucas together you are going to get zero creativity from the middle of the park, even after 4 games this should be obvious to roy, with no creativity then the forwards (even if they are world class) aren't going to do anything as you can't do anything without the ball.
it should always be an creative/attacking midfielder and a holding midfielder, this concern is going to be eased with the return of cole because it will free up gerrard to drop deeper, unless roy decides he wants to play cole wide.
2. subs
if you can see the tactics aren't working on 45 mins (and you'd have to hope he can) then why wait till 70 mins to make changes? again, you are relying on the brilliance on a couple of players rather than forcing the issue. sure, babel is erratic and patches is inexperienced but no guts no glory.
I can see the reluctance, he knows maxi and jove will keep it simple, help out the fullbacks and are unlikely to give the ball away, but a moment of magic, a burst of pace, a bit of invention and WHO KNOWS, its certainly better than doing...NOTHING!!
at no stage in that game did roy go full out to get three points so intent was he that were weren't going to lose, well, mission accomplised, no ground lost on our peers but we need to take advantage of their slip up yesterday. it's 4 away wins in two years and roy doesn't look he want to buck that trend, I'm sure he 'hopes' we buck the trend but he isn't doing all he can to make the difference. we came for a point and got a point, that is midtable mentaility.
it's like anita says in her 'risk taking' thread you have to take risks if you want to win games, the more you attack the more vulnerable you are to counter attacks, everytime you fullbacks push up then that is space behind them that opens up, eveytime a central midfielder bursts from midfield that is more ground the holding midfielder has to cover to fill the gaps, but despite all that we HAVE to do that if we want to win games. this cautious approach is getting us nowhere, it's giving the incentive to the oppostion (regardless of how mediocre they are) it's squeezing the creativity out of our team (or rather the few players who possess it) becasue we are more concerned with snuffing out the oppositon and the attacking players are getting starved of service and when they DO get the ball they have to fend off too many defenders because they have too little support because the team wants to keep it's shape and keep it tight.
roy needs to buck up his ideas or it's going to be a longggg season...
