Another frustrating game on saturday, here are some of my main observations and opinions: Formation - Never a fan of just playing one up front, especially at home. Was imploring Nigel to switch it, but when he did after about an hour or so, I thought we actually played worse! Rosenior - Another baffling tactic was the countless times when Rosenior was out wide all alone, we kept spraying the ball out to him to cross in. This was just too easy for Palace, because as good as Roseys deliveries were, all he had to aim for was Fryatt, a small centre forward against a tall, strong Palace defense. With big Dele up with Matty, this would have worked and would have caused Palace all sorts of problems. The fact that Palace left Rosey unmarked for the entire 90 minutes hinted to me that they were perfectly comfortable with this tactic and lapped it up all day. Cairney - I may be in the minority here, but was slightly baffled by Cairneys MOTM award and all of the praise he was getting. Dont get me wrong, when he had the ball to feet he was skilfull, played some nice passes and drove us forward a little. Off the ball though, i thought he looked very cumbersome, almost dis-interested, and didnt try and win the ball enough. I think when you are losing at home you need all the midfield to be getting stuck in, I dont think he had a much better game than McKenna in all honesty, but Cairney does seem to be flavour of the month at the moment. Again, I rate the lad and think he will have a bright future, just like to see a bit more effort off the ball. Leadership - For me, the reason why we are looking so lacklustre, we have no leader. I do think MnKenna has done an ok job so far, but expected him to be more of an Ash type than proved so far. Gerrard had these qualities also, and I would like to see a real general brought in before the window closes, be it at CB or MF. Still too early to panic, I think we are just a few tweaks away from being a real decent side. Main dissapointment from saturday was that a well-organised but generally limited Crystal palace side had as comfortable a 90 minutes as they are likely to experience away from home. (MOTM - Rosenior)
Can't argue with much of that, though I wasn't at all surprised that Cairney won MotM, he played some tidy football and came closest to scoring.
Lets hope Big Nige, realises he's been a bit negative with his tactics and pushes the boat out and becomes more adventurous, i think our problem is we worry about the opposition far too much instead of having confidence in our squad to go out there and attack, its like were just trying to stifle every team we play hoping we can nick a goal. Is Barry Bannan availale on Loan ? Exactly what we need.
Decent review. I'm hoping that Saturday acts as a big wake up call to NP, if he doesn't change his formation at home after Saturday then there will be some questions to be answered. I heard someone on the radio the other week saying that NP is scared of playing attacking football after the Middlesborough game at the end of last season. Boro where on the crest of a wave when they came to the KC and we had to go all out to get that play off place, looking at the circumstances surrounding that game i don't see why that should put NP off playing more positive. Palace didn't have the attacking prowess Boro had that day and had we gone all out for the win they wouldn't have coped with us. Obviously it's horses for courses and all that and playing more defensive is at times necessary but NP can't let that Boro game put him off attacking teams at home if that is what is one of the causes of the negative tactics.
In fairness, we were **** before that game too... I'm pretty sure we'll see a 4-4-2 for the Reading match, with McLean or Adebola partnering Fryatt. I think NP would like to use two out-and-out wingers but obviously we only have Brady and the next nearest thing we have to a winger is Koren. We absolutely have to score in this game though. If we lose and fail to score again we're going to be in big trouble.
I thought he looked okay in both his previous outings for us, he's quite tenacious and we could do with a bit of that in the side at the moment.
In his only competitive game I hardly noticed him, which in some positions is okay but you'd like your wingers to be getting on the ball and at least trying to create something. It's only a first impression and I may well be wrong.
It was a hard game to judge him on, the whole team were ****e, but he was mainly playing in front of me in the first half and I thought he did okay.
I disagree with you awarding Rosenior MOTM. I think he's been poor so far this season. In fact, I think the problems you cite about Cairney are more applicable to Rosenior's performance. He was OK going forward, but with little help from his team-mates, but nowhere near good enough when it came to tracking back and defending. Cairney had an excellent game. If only he were faster and had the confidence to take a man on, bigger and better clubs than ourselves would be after him.
I rate rosenior highly and credit him with turning our season round last season. Nice to see a full back pushing all the way to the opposite goal line AND getting a cross off. Didn't really notice him being caught out of position, must have had good cover. . Just out of interest, is it hobbs with the long throw? Saw a couple of times a long throw and thought it should maybe have been used a bit more.
rosenoir got in some good positions saturday, but most of his crosses where awful ands wasteful...if it was dawson there would have been hell to pay, but because its the crowds favourite it goes unnoticed...
Agree Rosey is class but not up to the standard he showed last season so far after his recent injuries. Brady will, like Cam Stewart, come good - just needs to channel his energies better and not try too hard to the xtent that that its counter productive. As for playing another wide men - great but it does leave us exposed with a midfield that appears lightweight to say the least.
Just Fryatt up front is a good tactic v teams that are strong at home other than that we need to have two strikers on the pitch, very disappointed with the tactics the last two games and looking to see if Pearson is brave enough to change it. Reminds me of when Brownie started bodging the tactics and not changing even though 1 up front was getting us nowhere.
