by Ted Hughes » Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:47 pm
Some thoughts. Warning: LONG POST.
(Anyone not interested just move along and fuck off, don't read it all then complain.)
I can understand someone thinking the system is wrong & wanting it changing but I can't get my head round the notion that it was ever likely to work in such short space of time.
Along with some others, I called out the defensive bollocks pre season & got sarcastically dismissed by some for 'reading too much' into pre season games, as if I was behaving like a fucking idiot. It was obvious that the number of changes to the defensive system were causing chaos to the team.
Well 'up yours' to all of those who came out with those comments. Now some of those people are listing the exact faults I listed then.
It was a total fucking mess then, & it is now. The problems go through the whole team, not just the back 4. Second half there was an immediate improvement in each aspect, so the Count talking is having an effect, but it was still shaky as fuck & likely to fall apart at any time.
Pre season, I said I can't see how this can possibly be trained into the players in a short time & that, imo, it may take all season. Nothing I've seen changes that.
My hope is that the attack will get it's shit together (we have seen snippets of new ideas) & that, with a reasonable improvement in the defence, we will still be successful, because our attacking options are so fucking good basically. But today & at Cardiff, it was not a title winning team. Today it was barely a top 8 team, rescued by 2 sheer quality moments. We were like the rags have been most weeks for the past 4 years tbf though; utter shite but still won.
The attack will be no problem imo, we have the extra ability to nick goals from crosses & free kicks (due to spending time practicing free kicks #not rocket science) & Negredo just looks like the best striker in the Premier League imo; he is a fucking awesome PROPER CENTRE FORWARD. Any of the others could play with him, including Dzeko but none can do what he does.
(Has he reached our total of headed goals from strikers from the whole of last season already perhaps ?) Crosses & movement are getting there. Corners look dangerous. Free kicks are being practiced. Those are all big plusses.
Elsewhere, I told everyone last season that Nastasic was useless 1v1 & again got hysterical, sarcastic, shit for it. He got skinned plenty then, (& pre season by Connor Wickham) & several times today.
BUT, he is a kid & he will almost certainly get better at that, & a lot of the mistakes he made today were, like Lescott, due to confusion, nerves, worrying about positions, rather than doing his own job, etc etc. Sometimes he & Lescott were so busy trying to watch for formational fuckups that they lost concentration on their own jobs & had to rely on a shout from the partner.
There is a fundemental problem which is contributing to the nervous, confused, behaviour of our cbs imo: the oppo strikers are getting on the ball too easily, with time & space to turn or 1-2 & then run at them. They are dropping off & the midfield is not picking them up. The cbs can see this & it is making them jumpy; Nastasic for instance was skinned several times due to trying to come out & nick the ball & getting it wrong.
I have no problem with that from the kid, it shows he is trying to be proactive rather than just standing around watching, keeping his nose clean, looking cool, like he did many times last season. I don't blame him for what happened today, nor Lescott when he got skinned; the system was all over the shop & it was in their heads all the time causing indecision.
Likewise I have no problem with Yaya's efforts defensively today, he ran with players when it was needed & played hard. Fernandinho ran his fucking bollocks off, & by the end of the game had gone from nervous shite, to the best player on the pitch.
But they don't protect the centre backs. They move around.
Because we have Yaya/fernandinho making runs around the pitch, Silva & Navas wideish, plus two strikers & no Barry or Nige, we often caught with 4 players less in that area than we used to. Dortmund would score ten goals.
The idea I think is that our 'pressing game' is supposed to win us the ball back, thus negating the problem. But our pressing game utterly failed 1st half. Second half it started to come together, especially when Fernandinho got involved.
In conclusion: imo the Count is trying to implement about 5 or 6 big changes to the way we play & we are only getting about 2 or 3 right at any given time, so the whole system isn't working & the defenders are nervous because of it.
It's down to personal choice as to whether people think it should be stopped or whether we just get on with it. But it's not going to be easy & imo, Lescott, Kompany, Nastasic are not the right kind of cbs for that defence. One of them needs to be Keith Curle.
The pissartist formerly known as Ted
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