We all must have seen tufan causally stood watching as the built up as passed their way up the pitch. What must that do to those players that are running around trying to close down, only to get passed around because tufan doesn't think he needs to work off the ball
Same as Estupinan busting a gut to close down the goalie who casually passes to an unmarked and unpressed defender, whilst a bunch of highly paid so call stars stand around scratching their arses. Not good enough gentlemen!
It’s infuriating. Oscar’s the only summer signing earning his keep at the moment, if not in goals then in effort to press the opposition. The last 4 or 5 games I’ve noticed Oscar press the opposition goalie or centre-half and Tufan is just ball-watching, not busting a gut to join the press.
Can someone explain what a “journeyman” is? Does somebody aged 28 at his 3rd club fulfil the criteria?
I live in Watford & the Watford fans I know told me Tufan is fat & lazy & thats why he was rarely in the first team. He's only doing at City what he did at Watford.
Seri for large parts is the same - it's too much luxury in one side and you can only carry luxury when you know they may produce a moment of brilliance. When Swansea hit the bar in the first 10 mins, Seri walks back as his man runs past him, the one who strikes the ball and hits the woodwork. You can't have a 3 man middle when two of them are at walking pace, unless both or at least one of the two starts busting a gut to pick up some of the slack.
All 3 in a midfield 3 should be working hard when out of possession. All we have is Slater, Batty Mk2 - not having another go at him, he grafts but let's be honest / real. Shota has to sort it but I'm not sure he can, at least not until January. There are stop gap options (Jones, Christie, Coyle) but they are nowhere near solutions.
Whilst everyone is having a pop at midfield it is the defence who are supposed to be the 'defence; - you see the name gives it away - unfortunately Greaves, Figs, Jones and Coyle are equally at fault by failing to carry out that basic task - Coyle doesn't mark the winger and isn't stopping crosses come in and Figs Jones and Greaves are all too slow, get passed far too easily, **** about with the ball tippy tappying it between themselves getting ever close to the keeper and then panicking and ****ing it up - it wouldn't be half as bad if they could head the ball with any conviction but they can't - I had hoped that bringing Figs in would address some of our defensive short comings, unfortunately, so far, he has proved to be actually worse which is why in the short term McLaughlin should be given a chance - in any event we need actively look at sorting out our back line in Jan because we will continue to ship goals with the present incumbents
The defence did OK last year but had 2 hard working DMs in front of it. Very few back 4's or 5's are going to play well with two dwarf pedestrians playing in midfield. We can maybe play one, but not two.
I dont think the height is as critical as many are making out, but then you absolutely can't be pedestrian if that's the case. With more movement from whoever sits deeper in the middle, some width, and providing the back line can make a pass when the opportunity arises we shouldn't need to field what would practically be 7 defenders if we're talking 5 at the back and 2 DMs. That being said I saw the lineup for Swansea and thought it'd be a massively improved performance afyer the previous 2 games. It's failing the absolute basics and still making mistakes that's killing us more than anything. Thinking back to the first few games Tetteh, Oscar and Allahyar gave us good options the moments when we went longer from the back. With them gone our efforts forward have been almost non existent. The short pass game hasn't really worked for us all season without making mistakes and gifting the opposition chances has it to be fair.
Two total howlers from Figueiredo didn't help and he has been very disappointing so far, but we need some grit in midfield and some width to make use of the passing ability. We haven't dominated a single game this season and haven't looked likely to. I agree we are missing Tetteh and Allahyar but we are going to be without them for some time and need to cope before the January window (assuming we have any FFP room left). I don't see the plan, maybe it's just me but I can't see a balanced side whatever you do, without leaving out some very highly paid personnel.
The physicality in midfield does matter. Our players are losing out in most of the challenges in that area. Add that to two out of three who only play when we have the ball and we are in trouble. Coco the clown in defence isn't helping either. Wood slater and docherty in midfield as we have no strength there,but they will battle and mcloughlin back in defence. Back to basics
