Where's it gone? This is the most boring football we've played since the Sousa season IMO, we struggled to string 2 passes together on the weekend and we've been mediocre at best in most of our games this season. We look so lethargic half the time and I'm sick of watching Shelvey playing pointless diagonals. (although if Laudrup wants to play like that we should start Bony...) Pozuelo deserves to be starting games we should pick all our most technically proficient players, I don't see how Shelvey is an upgrade on Ki who's first touch and pass completion is much better, we need our CM's to play the likes of Michu into space not looping diagonals out to Dyer. We have a chronic lack of creativity in the team so it's hard to assess Bony, with Pablo being constantly out I think we need to sign 2 new wingers, this is Routledge's worst run of form since signing and Nathan Dyer's playing like he always has done.
Sorry no10, but my brain hurts with figuring out our style of play and the solutions over the last week. I am brain dead. I think I'll just watch from now on, zombie fashion.
We have trully lost our identity, and it's in need of a return to what got us here, and removing the players that are not good enough, shelvey and De Guzman would be a good start!................ I would have Pratley back over Shelvey!.....................
Then who's fault is it......we are playing rubbish and will continue to play rubbish as long as laudrup is here. roll on when he goes and i hope to god he don't get us relegated before he goes and Huw can repair the damage done by making sure we have the right manager who shares our philosophy of how to play. He thought laudrup did but he was taken in by laudrups spin, we all were but the way we play the game now is mediocre at best...
We seem to be losing our fluidity but teams seem to want to stifle us. When this happens we struggle for a plan B. Our ball retention has been poor in recent matches and we dont seem to shoot when an opportunity arises. Interesting to see how we handle stoke
We once had Two very good Possession engines in our midfield in Joe Alan and Leon Britton, now we just have one, is it any wonder we don't keep the ball so much? Leon has always been the rock in front of our back line, while Joe was our Bodde terrier at the front of our midfield, yes he was never a goal scorer, but he did so much more in retrieving the ball from the opposition around the outside of they're box, but know when we lose it in such positions who have we got? Shelvey? De Guzman? both hopeless in retrieving the ball, and hence why we end up on the back foot, trying to defend counter attacks one after the other, no longer do we have large spells of possession because we have players that are inferior to those we had in the past, in doing the basics of our football philosophy................
Its a difficult one isn't it ? We have played our usual stuff this season too, particularly away at Southampton where dispite the result I thought was one of our better performances this season. We are extremely patchy though and consistency is becoming a big problem,the reasons I see for this are 1. A lot of new players coming into the team. 2. A slight shift in style with the ball,more one touch through the middle of the field. 3. Mixing a different line up nearly every game to rotate towards euro and prem league, there isn't the same combination of players for more than 1 game, thus its taking longer for people to intergrate our technical game effectively. 4. key injuries have also been a disruption to the dynamic of the team,yet again creating a lot of new combinations and sometimes making it more difficult to be as fluid with our passing. 5. there is a lot less time being spent on the training ground due to euro games,it leaves less tactical work and less time to intergrate the new lads. 6. other teams have also spent good money to improve their playing squads, we are thinking we spent big but its still less than a lot of others! as laudrup said, we have to spend money just to stand still in this league, all things being equal teams are definatly more aware of how to stop us now. I think its a combination of a lot of smaller things as opposed to one big problem , with there very often only being rest and relax time befofe the next game we sometimes look a bit unfinished as a unit,seemingly going into games under cooked . If we play tomorrow then return on Friday that only really leaves Saturday morning before travelling to the sunday game which is basically zero rest. I am aware that we have done ok after some euro games but the longer term effect is that fatigue can build up and the new players arnt getting the required time to work with the rest of team on the training pitch, this is perhaps why Bony has not featured as much as we would have liked, it all makes good sense when you consider our playing schedule and international calander . 5.
What's 5?..................... I agree with all that Norway, there is much reduced time to sort out tactics and training drills etc, but some of our players need it drummed into them about sloppy passing and ball retention, it's critical at this level, you really can't afford to be giving the ball away, the way we are this season, sorting that out would go a very long way to helping our cause!....................
Well I for one am more than happy to sacrifice tikki takka-ing in our own half at the expense of 'style' - provided it gets us goals. I agree though. We're not nearly as good to watch this season.
I can't remember the last time we played a give and go behind/over the oppo's defensive pressing line. Nor when our wingers got to the bye-line for that matter. And what's with Routledge crossing with the outside of his right instead of his left? Oh well, see what happens tomorrow. Never know we may play a traditional 4-4-2.......
Now that would be a novelty Master. [video=youtube;v7hEqCdAwjs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7hEqCdAwjs[/video]
