Lack of creativity

[Fidel Castro]

I really do believe in playing a possession orientated game and passing the ball to death until eventually the opposition tires and loses concentration- Arsenal do this and regularly score 4 or 5 at home. It's much easier for a defensive unit like Fulham to deal with us in our current state, in particular for Hangeland yesterday. Those long balls into the box were food and drink to him. Where they might have struggled was with us knocking the ball around them, inviting them onto the ball and exploiting the spaces in behind as opposed to the direct approach we took.

agree with most of yr post mate, especially about the 4-3-3. but i still think my earlier point stands - Hangeland and co were breached twice, and Schwarzer also had to make two awesome saves to keep out Bridge and de Jong. if the defence had not gone to sleep after we got the second, we would be talking about a comfortable 2-0 win.

You seem to forget Zamora fluffing it from 1.5 yards and a bunch of other good Fulham chances. Or do only Citys close calls count when playing the "what if"-game?

Again though, that's the defence - not a lack of creativity.

Somebody else (I think it was CtK) pointed out that if you play possesion football and try to find spaces (=creativity), the other team won't have the chance to become dangerous themselves. But if we constantly lose possesion cos we can't figure out how to get through their wall, they can break and get chances of their own.

[M147WN]

Creative or not we are still capable of scoring in most matches!
Defence is still missing a natural leader who can motivate, direct and gee up the rest when things aren't going quite as they should!

[Pretty Boy Lee]

I really do believe in playing a possession orientated game and passing the ball to death until eventually the opposition tires and loses concentration- Arsenal do this and regularly score 4 or 5 at home. It's much easier for a defensive unit like Fulham to deal with us in our current state, in particular for Hangeland yesterday. Those long balls into the box were food and drink to him. Where they might have struggled was with us knocking the ball around them, inviting them onto the ball and exploiting the spaces in behind as opposed to the direct approach we took.

agree with most of yr post mate, especially about the 4-3-3. but i still think my earlier point stands - Hangeland and co were breached twice, and Schwarzer also had to make two awesome saves to keep out Bridge and de Jong. if the defence had not gone to sleep after we got the second, we would be talking about a comfortable 2-0 win.

You seem to forget Zamora fluffing it from 1.5 yards and a bunch of other good Fulham chances. Or do only Citys close calls count when playing the "what if"-game?

true, but point stands imo. attack did its job, defence was at fault. although how zamora missed that i will never know. (when your sat in row z and the ball hits your head, thats zamora!) cant remember fulham having that many good chances - they looked much more dangerous as soon as we scored the second. the defence needs to be able to soak up the post goal pressure, or the work the attack does is meaningless.

That's brilliant.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Last season we played our most scintillating football with a 4-3-3 system. SWP and Robinho as wide forwards with one of Caicedo/Benjani/Jo through the middle. We had one defensively minded midfielder (Kompany) and two attacking ones (Ireland and Elano). With that system and those players we thrashed Portsmouth 6-0, Hull 5-1 and Stoke 3-0. It wasn't flawless either and away from home we had a soft underbelly but I'd like us to try it again, as this time we have a world-class striker to link effectively in Adebayor, a more complete midfielder in Barry and defenders who are more comfortable in possession (yesterday excepted).

I really do believe in playing a possession orientated game and passing the ball to death until eventually the opposition tires and loses concentration- Arsenal do this and regularly score 4 or 5 at home. It's much easier for a defensive unit like Fulham to deal with us in our current state, in particular for Hangeland yesterday. Those long balls into the box were food and drink to him. Where they might have struggled was with us knocking the ball around them, inviting them onto the ball and exploiting the spaces in behind as opposed to the direct approach we took.

We have defensive problems but some of it is self inflicted. We're putting ourselves under pressure by giving the ball away cheaply whereas if we were on the ball 65-70% of the time there'd be less opportunity for the defence itself to be exploited.

As Bingo points out, SWP and especially Robinho will never look brilliant as wingers- as wide forwards I genuinely believe they'd both have been a great deal better so far. Also the 4-3-3 system which allows them to be at their best also gives Ireland the license to attack and make those clever darts into the box.

That's star post mate. Pretty much all that I was trying to say earlier but with much more finesse.