Not really. As a 10 I expect a bit of class. Not a truck who just runs about and can not trap or dribble with a ball. Thought he was massively lost in the lines.
Just seem him as a defensive player and not an attacking player. Hate when he plays there. We always create as little as possible when he does. Yday was prove of that. Not sure their keeper got his gloves dirty.
And the Cambridge game just before proved the exact opposite of everything you've said. Think you've just got a personal issue with him. Usually the case when one player gets blamed for everything.
No mate. I really think he is a useful player. Just not in a forward position. Players like embo and prichard play those positions for a reason. Don't tell me you'll have 09 instead of prichard as a 10?
In the Cambridge game Embo played deeper and O'Nien further forward and they were both excellent in their roles. Pritchard yeah is better there but that's a compliment to him not evidence that O'Nien is ****e.
Where's this idea that O'Nien is a 10 come from all of a sudden?! He doesn't look like a 10, he doesn't move like a 10, he doesn't play like a 10. According to Transfermarkt (so maybe not all that accurate) he's played 12 times there in his entire career registering 1 assist. Of the 119 times he played for Wycombe, 8 of those were as a 10 and he registered no assists. I haven't seen our last couple of games so can't comment for myself but is Alex Neil really playing him as a 10? Looking at yesterday's line up, is it not just that he was the slightly more advanced of the central three?
Well that point means that it's in our hands. Without it we could beat Morcambe but still go down 2 places. Am I right?
Its actually where he mostly played for Wycombe in League 2, getting off the scraps from the pumped up balls to Akinfenwa. Which makes sense right, that suits his game. He had no need to create anything, just had to get onto loose balls and ****house defenders. That’s what he’s good at. He’s a good number 10 in a system that doesn’t expect to play football and instead wants to stop the opposition playing. Not in a team like ours. I still think his best position is coming off the bench into midfield and adding energy. He’s like the perfect sub in that he can come on almost anywhere and add energy and intensity. That sounds like a criticism but subs are so important in the modern game. We should be starting games with our attacking flair players - going two goals up - and then bringing on people like O’Nien FOR those flair players once they’re knackered to see the game out. For some reason our managers have always seemed to approach it the opposite way and we get caught out quite a lot.
So if we go through our defeats this season one factor stands out, we cannot handle physicality and easily get knocked off our passing game. If it was not for those games where we were out fought, we would be in the top 2 now. AN has obviously noted this and tried to counter it. To a degree he succeeded, but not overall unfortunately, ie we were not totally swept away as in some big defeats we have suffered. Our passing and good football games has won us many games... but just as Doyle a promising youngster, probably going places ( also its does look as if Hume is talented) both of them were being out muscled by their opponents, meant we did not have a shot on target yesterday. Mind they did not have many either so we got stuck in to a certain extent. So for me the reason we have not won the league in the past few seasons despite being a good footballing side..is that we cannot match the physicality of big strong sides. Regular readers of my posts will know I quite like Rugby... in Rugby it is even more so that you have to match the strength and aggression of your opponents before you can play your game. Last night's game was a demonstration that this is a factor in football also.
So in the sense of being a true creative 10, he's not played that role. I've just read Neil's comments from a few weeks back about him being a running 8, which makes more sense given his attributes and sounds more like what you're referring to.
Aye this. Spot on. Neil got it wrong. We don't have the physical players to match up to Rotherham. They controlled that game IMO. Very good side. Playing players like 09 as a 10 hinders us. We need our attacking, quick thinking players in forward positions.
He did last night. Cambridge he was a little deeper I thought. He was very high up last night and offered nowt IMO. You're right though, we shouldn't persist with it at all. Stats doesn't back it up either.
Alex Neil seems a smart cookie though. Whilst he got last night wrong, he’ll know that last night effectively didn’t matter in the big scheme of things. That sounds mental but hear me out… Last night could have more or less guaranteed a playoff place, but if in doing so it knackered Pritchard and Embo for that intense playoff period, we’d have lost the playoffs anyway and last night wouldn’t have mattered. Instead I think he’s protecting both of them for the playoffs. If we don’t get into the playoffs as a result then clearly he’s shot himself in the foot. But if he’s made the assessment that we need them both firing on all cylinders to have a chance in the playoffs anyway, then you can kinda see why he might have rested them for this game and saved them for the game vs Morecombe that we absolutely cannot afford to lose. Not defending Neil as I think he got it wrong. Just offering an alternative view that he’s perhaps just trying to play the percentages and the long game here.
He's fairly well suited to the role that @Southern A describes but we've got more creative players that could be starting in the 10 role ahead of him. If we're going to go longer, then its useful to have someone who can do that. I don't think that to get that from him he has to play as the 10 though.
My take on last night fwiw, while we were all wanting us to take the game to them, myself included.. I reckon Neil looked at the first game and saw how we were out-muscled. The eleven he put out were possibly the most physical available in terms of height size and willingness to get 'stuck in'. We weren't going to win 4 and 5 nowt as some imagined. I thought we might win as most fans did but we always fail to see that the oppo are not going to lie down. Anyway onwards to the play-offs, we're now a difficult team to beat since AN came in and with a bit luck which everyone needs, we may still be celebrating.
Agree with that mind. We have Embleton, Pritchard and Neil can all play the advanced midfield role very very well. Onein is either centre defensive mid or full back/wingback. Still absolutely baffled as to why Embleton didn't start last night. Even though they're a solid, tough team, reckon if we'd have got at them from the off and got an early goal they'd have crumbled. Instead we tried to go toe to toe with a very physical and big team, in that situation there'd only be one winner.
People are often quick to criticise the decisions that managers make but, whether right or wrong, they will always be able to offer a logical and detailed explanation for why they've made a certain decision. Its not just arbitrary, as some people seem to make out.
Playing 09 as a 10 and Gooch on the left rather than the right, were missteps imho. However even if we had not put square pegs in round holes.... I doubt we would have won. 09, Evans and Matete were their to stop us being overrun. They lost that battle but not by much. Ie they did not create that much. My guess is the plan was to keep the game tight for 60 mins then to bring on more attacking players to try and win it. Unfortunately we gave a free header away (09 lost his man) and went one down. Pritchard and Embleton are our no 10s
Looking at the line up from last night again (and bear in mind I didn't see it), it seems to make more sense to me that Evans would have been the holding player and Matete and O'Nien would have been running box to box. Or they are there to make it compact in the middle. With two up front, there's surely no need for O'Nien to be looking for knock downs. When he did that for Wycombe, they were playing 433.
