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Perhaps a change in approach?


SaintVanderbilt
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Tadic needs sometimes to be more selfish and shoot.

 

I know it sometimes feels like that but most of the times when people were screaming for him to shoot yesterday he was at a tight angle on his weaker foot. People would have gone nuts if he'd blasted it over the bar.

The one time he got a bit of space in a decent position he did shoot, and it drew a save from the keeper.

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I know it sometimes feels like that but most of the times when people were screaming for him to shoot yesterday he was at a tight angle on his weaker foot. People would have gone nuts if he'd blasted it over the bar.

The one time he got a bit of space in a decent position he did shoot, and it drew a save from the keeper.

 

Tadic was better playing on the left. He cut inside less.

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If they awarded points on the basis of goals scored we wouldn't have to put-up with this anti-football bus parking of the type that WHU and other struggling sides adopt which is ruining the game. Any team would have found it difficult to score against them last night which is quite different to WHU being any good at football. It was very noticeable that when we were passing the ball backwards, forwards and across to try to draw them out of position they just ignored us with all ten of their players sat in formation in their 18 yard box without making any attempt to move towards the ball let alone all get into our half. How many times did Forster actually touch the ball?

 

If this is the natural development of PL football with poorer clubs adopting well rehearsed spoiling tactics to prevent the big money spending star-laden teams at the top playing football as the only way of staying in the league then the PL seems doomed to a very bleak future sooner rather than later. Bloody hell even the Championship is more entertaining than this.

 

If you think about it... once two opponents have mastered the simple art of Nought & Crosses it is impossible for either to win a game. Isn't that exactly what is happening now in the PL?

 

Why do we brag constantly about "clean sheets" rather than goals scored? I'll leave that for you to think about.

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Need more width and support to those wingers. Then good crosses that either produce a chance on goal or the 2nd ball is collected. With that 2nd ball you either have another attempt on goal or spread to the opposite wing. This stretches opponents and eventually works. It's what the top teams are used to and do well to break down. We're not used to it.

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Nothing radical needs to happen other than us gambling a bit more in the final third. We're too safe, too predictable.

 

As someone said above - shoot! Have a shot, it might go in, it might be deflected, it might lead to a corner, a handball...who knows! But it's more likely to have some sort of opportunity at the end of it than another sideways pass.

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Don't know how accurate they are but there are some long ball/short pass/long pass statistics on the BBC site and it seems that although not in the top few long ballers we're not in the short pass experts either. Averaging about 30 long balls a game seemingly. We may need to cut that out.

 

Surely you dont need LVG explain to you that not all long balls are created equal?

 

On the whole, our direct play was extremely effective as Pelle was winning most things in the air. Often he was dropping deep to pick up balls -in lieu of either Reed or Wanyama carrying the ball- so it wasn't your typical into-the-mixer hit-and-hope. Indeed, a few more straighter long balls might have been quite welcome - if we had Long available or someone with Nolan's instincts.

Edited by shurlock
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I felt with the WH game that with 10 men letting hammers have a bit more of the ball might be a good idea - pushing fonte/gardos further back, opening it up a bit, giving a bit more space and stretching the game out. Against 10 men it would then be far far easier to pass the ball round the players in the run up to the goal.

 

When you put fonte/gardos on the halfway line, you are almost creating the problem you're trying to solve; namely that the other team are just very very tightly packed and have their backs against the wall..

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I felt with the WH game that with 10 men letting hammers have a bit more of the ball might be a good idea - pushing fonte/gardos further back, opening it up a bit, giving a bit more space and stretching the game out. Against 10 men it would then be far far easier to pass the ball round the players in the run up to the goal.

 

When you put fonte/gardos on the halfway line, you are almost creating the problem you're trying to solve; namely that the other team are just very very tightly packed and have their backs against the wall..

 

Not sure they would have taken the bait. Jarvis for Valencia was a thoroughly defensive move as was Cole's substitution. Never mind that Carroll reinjured himself and Wham were effectively playing with nine.

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Surely you dont need LVG explain to you that not all long balls are created equal?

 

On the whole, our direct play was extremely effective as Pelle was winning most things in the air. Often he was dropping deep to pick up balls -in lieu of either Reed or Wanyama carrying the ball- so it wasn't your typical into-the-mixer hit-and-hope. Indeed, a few more of those might have been quite welcome - if we had Long available or someone with Nolan's instincts.

 

As I said the Beeb make a difference between a long ball and a long pass aimed specifically at one player, seems that long ball is a sort of euphemism for "aimless punt". I am not a fan of hit and hope into the mixer, good sides don't do it very much. As for Pelle, honestly I could well do without him, he's not often where he needs to be when he needs to be and is an ill tempered bastard most of the time. If we had JRod available Pelle would be a bench warmer.

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As I said the Beeb make a difference between a long ball and a long pass aimed specifically at one player, seems that long ball is a sort of euphemism for "aimless punt". I am not a fan of hit and hope into the mixer, good sides don't do it very much. As for Pelle, honestly I could well do without him, he's not often where he needs to be when he needs to be and is an ill tempered bastard most of the time. If we had JRod available Pelle would be a bench warmer.
Where is this definition between "long pass" and "long ball"?

 

How many times has Rodriguez starred for us as the main striker?

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As I said the Beeb make a difference between a long ball and a long pass aimed specifically at one player, seems that long ball is a sort of euphemism for "aimless punt". I am not a fan of hit and hope into the mixer, good sides don't do it very much. As for Pelle, honestly I could well do without him, he's not often where he needs to be when he needs to be and is an ill tempered bastard most of the time. If we had JRod available Pelle would be a bench warmer.

 

Yesterday, alot of our balls would have been classified 'long ball', though Pelle was winning them and getting us up the pitch quickly.

 

Not a fan of speculative balls into the box either, though a bit more variety and speed surely would have been a useful antidote to slow, sideways passing and the odd cross. United showed it can work, especially when CBs drop off and start defending at the edge of their six yard box.

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My main criticism is he moves the ball too slowly and takes one too many touches too often.

 

Seems to be a lack of confidence at the moment and as a result is caught in two minds as to what he wants to do with the ball. He wasn't playing like this at the start of the season when he was on fire and pinging in wonderful crosses for Pelle to attack.

 

Speaking of Pelle, he is another player who seems to be off form at the moment, his shooting has been woeful in the past few games.

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Not sure they would have taken the bait. Jarvis for Valencia was a thoroughly defensive move as was Cole's substitution. Never mind that Carroll reinjured himself and Wham were effectively playing with nine.

 

Indeed. There were a number of occasions in the last third of the game when either Fonte or Gardos had possession quite deep in our half and there was a 20 or 30 yard gap between them and the most forward West Ham player. They were very reluctant to come forward.

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Here's the article, comes from OPTA perhaps.

 

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/31428316

 

It's a clumsy definition and doesn't do justice to where the ball is played to or the number of players around the ball -both affecting the degree of control exercised by the attacking team.

 

Its the difference, say, between a direct ball for Lambert/Pelle to hold up in the opposition's half (almost certainly not a long pass as the ball is invariably contested, albeit by one or two CBs) and a launched ball into the box where there maybe a crowd of defenders and attackers, looking for scrappy, speculative seconds.

Edited by shurlock
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I've been saying for weeks that we need players that can pop one in out of nothing from outside the box. Currently, imo, we do not have a player capable of doing that. This, for me, is the missing link in our team. If we had an 'Eriksen' our top 4 prospects would be beyond doubt by now.

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An interesting quote by Scholes about his time at Man U rather than the current focus of possession would also fit into our current dilemma "...perhaps the most important part of being one of United’s attacking players, was that when you were in possession you had to take risks in order to create goal-scoring chances. It was not an option; it was an obligation."

 

So rather than being elaborate and keeping the ball in the final third there should be a bit more risk taking.

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An interesting quote by Scholes about his time at Man U rather than the current focus of possession would also fit into our current dilemma "...perhaps the most important part of being one of United’s attacking players, was that when you were in possession you had to take risks in order to create goal-scoring chances. It was not an option; it was an obligation."

 

So rather than being elaborate and keeping the ball in the final third there should be a bit more risk taking.

 

Indeed. The risk, of course, is losing possession, but as long as we're quick and efficient at winning it back, that risk can be outweighed by the benefits it brings.

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How do we exploit teams that sit very tight and deep,because this current approach isn't working and points are beginning to look hard to come by.

 

Mix it up with some shots and crosses instead of walking it into the box. Make defences know they don't know what to expect, it compromises their defending as they can't over-commit to forcing play to be predictable by defending the thing they already know you're probably going to do.

 

We'd need more crosses (and better ones too) and more shots to do that, though not when there's obviously no opportunity to shoot - Man City nearly conceded against Stoke by hitting two stupid shots with players right in front of them which got blocked and then they got nailed on the counter with players out of position trying to retrieve the loose ball. But to get decent shooting opportunities you need to move the ball quickly and control it out from under your feet.

 

Corner set pieces are a bit predictable at the moment too, every near post inswinger is headed away.

Edited by The9
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Indeed. The risk, of course, is losing possession, but as long as we're quick and efficient at winning it back, that risk can be outweighed by the benefits it brings.

 

I think the other point to it was it was OK to do it, confidence that the defending would be good if it doesn't work so you can have a go without the nerves or pressure coming into play.

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Tadic needs sometimes to be more selfish and shoot.

 

Agreed. Tadic started off giving good service to Pelle, but after defenders started double-marking GP....Tadic also seemed to suffer a dip in form. (tired, or overtrained ?)

Now we seem to have formulated a Plan B by having Mane and Elia as alternative front men, and Pellé has always been good at holding up the ball (ala Lambert) and passing it well.

 

The main problem now is that our midfielders, despite their individual qualities aren't hot shots by any means. I'm a great admirer of Steven Davis, but his shooting leaves a lot to be desired.

JWP is outstanding with his corners and free kicks - if only we had someone on the end of them, but yet again, he's good at hitting the woodwork, but still fails to convert chances in front of goal.

Wanyama either hits a " worldie " ...or the corner flag, and we've been without Schneiderin in the starting side since mid December.

....and although he's not a regular first choice, we do miss the input we saw early season from Shane Long.

 

Tadic really needs to get back to form and show us his shooting skills, it can hardly be worse than the others mentioned.

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I know it sometimes feels like that but most of the times when people were screaming for him to shoot yesterday he was at a tight angle on his weaker foot. People would have gone nuts if he'd blasted it over the bar.

The one time he got a bit of space in a decent position he did shoot, and it drew a save from the keeper.

 

What is this 'Weaker foot' stuff???? No professional player in the Premier League should have such a thing.

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