tactics

[tinofbeans 89]

Seems that last night we highlighted our greatest weakness at this level with our inability to break down a rather negative and dour blackburn side.

 

 

So here are my 2 cents.

 

It would seem to me that our back 4 really overall can’t be faulted for their work rate and endeavour, Krul is Raw, but actually good enough at this level, as is old man Harper. So that leaves us with our work to do further up the pitch. As we know on the left, Jonas is our get out ball when we need someone to run at and commit defenders, but his end product is distinctly average.

Bartons delivery is good but his relative hot headedness means that he can be a liability, he is however the one fit player with the true passing ability to unlock defences. Nolan, as we know does not have the mobility of a natural old school box to box midfielder. He is most effective when playing off a front man as a goalscoring midfielder pushed higher up the pitch. Routledge is not effective at this level, despite his pace and reasonable finishing ability. Ben arfa when he is back from injury may well be an option down the right as an inside out winger ( see Adam Johnson/ Pedro of Barcelona for modern examples of players that do this role very well). Holding players are vital and we all to a man agree Check Tiote is really very good, but what about when the pressure is on. Using 2 deep lying playmaking midfielders (and Tiote also helps us tick over) does tend to work as you would always have an outlet in the middle of the park. Now it appears that Guthrie is not strong enough to do this but has a tidy range of passing available to him which gives us a plan b.

 

My midfield would therefore be (against the top teams) 5 men. Jonas left, Tiote and Guthrie holding, barton right, Nolan furthest forward.

Against the weaker sides Jonas left, tiote holding, barton central, routledge ( replaced by ben arfa when fit) right, and again Nolan furthest forward.

 

Forwards next. As we know Andy Carroll is a dangerous but raw player. He is a goodish target man, but is not quite as good as a number of board members think he is. Shola has the ability to score around 10 goals a season at this level if he remains fit and motivated. Lovenkrands is a one trick pony, over reliant on pace, and can’t play the wide positions well enough to be used as an orthodox winger. He remains, to me at least an enigma. Best is injured and probably not good enough at this level.

 

Now against arsenal, we beat them by defending solidly, by countering well and exposing their keepers weakness, but other than that we really just kept the ball better than we have for some time, what was so different against Blackburn is they employed an effective pressing system that stopped us from getting the ball wide to our more dangerous players. As our central midfielders lack a cutting edge in terms of passing through massed defences, we effectively run out of ideas.

 

What do we need then? Do we play like other sides, (in reality our system is similar to arsenals in that both our wide players are right footed(currently)) and we do now like to move the ball around.

 

I’d also be concerned that we are using the same players and by march we are going to be suffering some serious burnout.

[tinofbeans 89]

anyone?

[Guest alex]

Bueller?

[Dr Gloom 20160]

fry?

[tinofbeans 89]

oh great. i waste literally 4 minutes putting that together and you guys come up with....

[Guest alex]

It's being/been discussed in other threads mate. I agree with your points on the whole like.

[Holden McGroin 5067]

 

It seems we are 1 dimensional at the moment. Everything goes through Carroll. And to be fair that has worked well this season. However, if we want to continue upgrading then we'll need another outlet (perhaps Barfa could have given us this) as when Big AC comes up against the likes of Huth/Samba it becomes difficult to out-muscle man mountains.

[Papa Lazaru 0]

 

It seems we are 1 dimensional at the moment. Everything goes through Carroll. And to be fair that has worked well this season. However, if we want to continue upgrading then we'll need another outlet (perhaps Barfa could have given us this) as when Big AC comes up against the likes of Huth/Samba it becomes difficult to out-muscle man mountains.

 

This is the really annoying thing, Ben Arfa is the difference, he's the guy with a bit of magic in games when we're off form and the other team keeps it tight, its what Hughton knew he'd bring and we've been robbed of it by a thug like De Jong.

 

I do think though that Hughton should have brough Routledge on for about 20-25 mins, i know he's been pretty bad this season, but his pace on the right would at least have given another possible option as Blackburn knew we were relying on the left to heavilly last night.

[Dr Gloom 20160]

 

It seems we are 1 dimensional at the moment. Everything goes through Carroll. And to be fair that has worked well this season. However, if we want to continue upgrading then we'll need another outlet (perhaps Barfa could have given us this) as when Big AC comes up against the likes of Huth/Samba it becomes difficult to out-muscle man mountains.

 

This is the really annoying thing, Ben Arfa is the difference, he's the guy with a bit of magic in games when we're off form and the other team keeps it tight, its what Hughton knew he'd bring and we've been robbed of it by a thug like De Jong.

 

I do think though that Hughton should have brough Routledge on for about 20-25 mins, i know he's been pretty bad this season, but his pace on the right would at least have given another possible option as Blackburn knew we were relying on the left to heavilly last night.

 

yeah i agree with that. if only we hadn't been robbed of ben arfa. mind, only getting one creative player in during the summer was always going to be a gamble and it didn't pay off as he's crocked for the season. we should have been in for a striker too that could have offered a different option to what we have.

 

against the sides that shut up shop, we need a player with more pace than shola to play alongside carroll. we've no one really at the moment that can stretch defences and get around the back of those that are sitting deep and defending in numbers.

[Papa Lazaru 0]

 

It seems we are 1 dimensional at the moment. Everything goes through Carroll. And to be fair that has worked well this season. However, if we want to continue upgrading then we'll need another outlet (perhaps Barfa could have given us this) as when Big AC comes up against the likes of Huth/Samba it becomes difficult to out-muscle man mountains.

 

This is the really annoying thing, Ben Arfa is the difference, he's the guy with a bit of magic in games when we're off form and the other team keeps it tight, its what Hughton knew he'd bring and we've been robbed of it by a thug like De Jong.

 

I do think though that Hughton should have brough Routledge on for about 20-25 mins, i know he's been pretty bad this season, but his pace on the right would at least have given another possible option as Blackburn knew we were relying on the left to heavilly last night.

 

yeah i agree with that. if only we hadn't been robbed of ben arfa. mind, only getting one creative player in during the summer was always going to be a gamble and it didn't pay off as he's crocked for the season. we should have been in for a striker too that could have offered a different option to what we have.

 

against the sides that shut up shop, we need a player with more pace than shola to play alongside carroll. we've no one really at the moment that can stretch defences and get around the back of those that are sitting deep and defending in numbers.

 

Yeah, it was a gamble like you say, though with the money he had it was the right thing as we needed Tiote as well! But the problem is definitely the need for variation alongside Carroll in games like last night.

[manc-mag 1]

 

[David Kelly 1117]

What last night also proved is that if we can't keep our game raised against the poorer to the level we are lifting it to against the better teams we will struggle because they are going to do that too us.

This is where you see that we're a mile away from the best teams in the league. They can afford to be playing at less than 100% against the weaker teams and still get a result, we quite simply can't. And tbf it's very difficult to keep up that standard every week (especially when you lose players through injury and suspension) so we are most likely going to have a few more games like last night before the end of the season.

[manc-mag 1]

Bueller?

 

 

Love this doctored one by the way...

 

[Happy Face 29]

Prefer polos

 

I didn't like how narrow we were last night. I know it's been highlighted as the key to our success against Arsenal away, but they play on the floor and we had to stifle them.

 

It had the opposite effect of playing into Blackburns hands though cos they found it far easier to contain us and keep up their energy levels for closing down having not been stretched at all.

 

I think Guttierez, having had a season or two looking like our most willing player looks like a bit-part player amongst the rejuvinated squad at the moment, full of energy as most of them have been.

 

Even last night when the whole team looked lethargic again, when you'd expect him to rise to the top again with his biggest selling point....his running, he just kept cutting in and walking straight into Blackburn's hands.

 

Perhaps it was the plan to just win set pieces, but Barton's delivery wasn't what it has been so we couldn't capitalise on that.

 

If Barton can play on Saturday put him in the middle and have routledge & Guttierez bombing the wings.

[Guest alex]

I suspect it's not the first time Salgado has stuck Jonas in his back pocket and I think he was psychologically beaten before he'd started.

[OTF 6368]

Jonas got some ok balls into the box to be honest. In fact he, Enrique and Carroll looked like the only players in our team who were confident on the ball despite the physical closing down tactics of FSA. We obviously lacked any sort of balance down the right compressing our attack and making it easier for them to double up on Jonas/Enrique or at least have them operating in much less space. Tiote was well off in this so they were missing his everpresence inside them, plus Nolan was largely anonymous, as was Shola before he came off.

 

The tactics weren't spot on today, but truth be told it was a horrible mistake and some weak defending (that was probably a foul anyway) that they scored from. If we lacked the mental application against Arsenal on the weekend we'd have been well out of that game.

 

Lets keep it all in perspective, our guys were flat from the get go I'm sure partly because the Arsenal game in London just 3 days earlier took it out of them both physically and mentally. I hope they have it in them to bounce back with a good performance against Fulham.

[vinnieq 0]

ya, i'd be interested in seeing Guthrie in a 4-5-1.. Haven't seen the best of him yet though.. Could be the type player who'd excel with Tiote beside him.

[vinnieq 0]

Jonas got some ok balls into the box to be honest. In fact he, Enrique and Carroll looked like the only players in our team who were confident on the ball despite the physical closing down tactics of FSA. We obviously lacked any sort of balance down the right compressing our attack and making it easier for them to double up on Jonas/Enrique or at least have them operating in much less space. Tiote was well off in this so they were missing his everpresence inside them, plus Nolan was largely anonymous, as was Shola before he came off.

 

The tactics weren't spot on today, but truth be told it was a horrible mistake and some weak defending (that was probably a foul anyway) that they scored from. If we lacked the mental application against Arsenal on the weekend we'd have been well out of that game.

 

Lets keep it all in perspective, our guys were flat from the get go I'm sure partly because the Arsenal game in London just 3 days earlier took it out of them both physically and mentally. I hope they have it in them to bounce back with a good performance against Fulham.

 

Nolan usually is anonymous until we get some possession around the opposition's box..

But ya, wouldn't get carried away on it, based on that trip to London 3 days earlier..

 

It just kills me for two reasons tho:

Firstly, that Hughton's bid for a new contract has taken a dash of cold water

and that it's blackburn.. Last match i got over to see was against them and they won that day too.. What's that? 5 on the trot now against them??