It’s commonplace with big clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona do it often when selling to other Spanish clubs. It’s usually for when they know a player will be good enough but want them to prove it without the comfort of knowing they’re coming back.
Never said we were terrible defensively. I said we get overran in midfield and that inevitably puts more pressure on the defence. We still concede a lot of chances against us. Another smarmy **** who thinks they’re clever by twisting my words.
1.5 per game.... no team that concedes 70 over the season on that average is going to be anywhere near top 6
On friday, we had 3 or 4 bagatelle sieges on our goal with multiple shots blocked by last ditch defending. Bodies hurling themselves in front of goal bound efforts. Excellent. Very good defending. Not to be relied on every week however, Sometimes the deflections and ricochets go against you.
There were three city players, four counting Ingram, between the Sykes who put it across and the guy who tapped it in at the back stick...It was such a good ball none of them could cut it out...If one of ours had done that it would have been in the top 10 passes of the season. Sykes is someone we maybe could have looked at when playing for Barnsley.
I think the only issue with Traore is he’s being played out of position, he still looks good when he moves into the centre.
also massive luck, not good defending. Two gaping open goals missed by poor finishing. We ride our luck to the extreme and it doesn’t translate over a full season and certainly doesn’t if you manage to get into the playoffs.
In fairness the back 4 defend the box really well. Everyone in front of them lets it get to the box far too easily and often.
Seems to have been translating for a long time now though doesn't it? Last season under Rosenior, one of the best defensive records in the division over many months. Not bad for a team that can't defend.
Compared to last season during LRs tenure I dont think we have made any progress maybe even gone backwards despite the infux of new players. We have won two and drawn one not including the loss to Donny. On paper thats great but beneath the surface cracks are appearing. We tried to make a balls of our one convincing win against what seems is going to be one of the leagues poorest team and eventually came thru thanks to some stunning finishing by Ozan. Against Blackburn we struggled against 10 men and eventually won the game courtesy of a couple of great over the top thru balls and some skilful finishes from Connolly. But even in that game we had our backs to the wall and it took some heroic defending by I think it was Colye who prevented a certain goal by heading it off the goal line. Blackburn had other chances that they failed to take due to our poor midfield play. Against Bristol City we played well for 20 mins at the start then went of the boil and in the end were lucky to get away with a draw. Where am I going with this, well I may have conviced myself we are not getting the ball back in the middle of the park quickly enough (I am sure their is a stat for that?) so dare I say it maybe i am moving to the Kalman camp and seeing the need to someone to. grab the game by the scruff of the neck by winning the ball back quickly in midfield, which I think is called a midfield enforcer, in the mode of Rodri. Not a bruiser but someone who can win the ball back quickly and get it to a creator like Seri.
I think this is a very good point. The other thing is that we wanted to be more open this season. Everyone was saying it. Too safe, we only keep teams out because we're too defensive, and so on. We want entertainment and goals. So this season I think we're notably pressing higher, leading to more domination of games and more goals as a result, which is exactly what Rosenior has told us the plan is for this season. However it also means we're more open. When our press is beaten or we lose the ball, we have a lot of bodies forward and are easier to break on. Overall it's going well, but we are noticably more open at times and that's the cost of being more expansive and pressing higher. Hopefully in time we can get good enough at our game that we give it away less often and have our press beaten less often and it becomes less of an issue. Time will tell. There isn't a simple solution to perfection though. Man City let Sheff United back into the game today despite having the mythical Rodri at DM. Briefly found themselves open after a mistake. It happens to everyone.
or... Norwich were lucky scoring against us in the last minutes And Connolly could have won it for us against Bristol If those slight differences had gone our way we'd be 3rd... (EDIT - 2nd…automatic promotion spot)
We’re also scoring every game, including cups and pre season. What seems to be happening is we start the way LR wants us to, we look great, then having followed the plan, we end up slowing down and letting teams back into the game. The opposition don’t seem to change or do anything different to what they’re trying to do, but the same group of players that start the game and blow teams away in 20 minutes, suddenly just stop doing what worked and retreat into their shells. From what I can gather, it looks like the plan is some sort of Blitzkreig to overwhelm the opposition, get the first goal and then catch teams on the counter as they try to get into the game. What’s actually happening is we do the first bit but then don’t know how to do the second, which means we invite pressure and can’t handle it.
I think part of the problem why we are easy to pass through is because we press so high yet our defence sits so deep. This means our team it spread across the length of the pitch and leaves gaps all over the place. Usually teams that want to play possession based attacking football move the ball up to the half way line and the play is intended to be in the oppositions half which only leaves a big space behind the defence. It's a little ironic that we spend so much time sucking teams in to create the same kind of situations that we constantly gift the opposition for free.
he's not worse either, both are unreliable - Greaves problems have been well documented - too slow, often totally out of position, fails to cut out crosses - the equaliser for Bristol was a good example - I've never known a player who fails to cut out crosses as much as Greaves, plus he's constantly pulling shirts - we desperately need a centre back and a left back - unfortunately neither appear to be on Rosies shopping list
I said before the season started that five points from August would represent a decent start; Blackburn just missed out on top 6 last season, Norwich had a false position last season through crap management, Brizzle were similar to us (so a draw is understandable) and I figured Sheff Wednesday would put up more of a fight than they did. Quite a tough September, Leicester will be tricky too and I think they’ll have too much for us, much as I don’t want to say it I think it’ll be a humbling. This followed by games against the likes of Coventry, Leeds and Stoke means that the game against Plymouth is the most likely 3 points. So to be where we are, with an incomplete transfer window is a great start and we aren’t there by luck.
