8 teams have beaten us this season. Did they score good goals? No. Did they play great football? No. All of them, apart from Forest who got lucky, simply parked the bus and did the basics right and that's all it took to beat us. We quite clearly struggle, especially without shelvey, to break down defensive teams with no incentive to go forward. Teams have basically figured us out. All they need to do is sit back, work hard and they're in with a good chance. It's not even respectably decent teams that do this, it's teams near the bottom of the league who are getting spanked by mid table crap. The worst example of this was against Hull in the cup. We literally dominated them the entire game, and they barely had a sniff, but we couldn't break them down because all we had was a plan A, and it becomes predictable when we just pass the ball to Shelvey and expect him to play like Pirlo. We need a better plan B, and we should be using our target men better, but we don't. We bring Mitrovic on, and we don't cross balls into him, we carry on pumping hopeless balls around and losing possession trying to score a tippy tappy goal. We don't have anyone in the team that is great at crossing the ball consistently. We need to learn how to play different styles of football. Rafa is being too stubborn. We need to learn when to play precise, passing football, and when to just whip those balls into the box for a big man to get on the end of them.
We will be lucky to avoid another few defeats over the next few games by end of February we'll either be basically promoted or in serious ****
Pretty much agree. We need someone in a forward position who is more able to carry the ball past players and make space in behind to break teams down.
Townsend or someone of the Ben Arfa ilk is what we need. Someone that can take people on and open up defences. Atsu should be starting more [when back from AFCON] as he has looked dangerous.