Just posted this on the match thread. Agree completely. I'm chuffed we have marty but he's not above questioning and you have to wonder about the tactics so far this season...
Thats 3 times this season that we have been in the lead and ended up drawing - they seem to be sitting back(and defending too deep) as soon as they get the lead - and I agree - in fact if this continues the confidence could go and we could be in deep doodoo
i understand he wants to play counter attacking football, but if ne **** wants the ball its just gonna come back. If we concede possession to any team for 60+ minutes , we simply wont win!
I posted last week that we can't keep conceding 20+ shots a game while only having 4 shots ourselves, sooner or later we are going to concede. We got deeper and deeper as the game went on, possibly because we have forgotten how to win.
Totally agree with this. Defending deep is ludicrous. There are that many in the box that it can fall to anyone. Why not push out! Hold a higher line. I know we lack pace at the back but at times we had all 11 in the box!!!! Where is the out ball. Too many players have been poor so far this season and MON has not addressed this. We were slow starters last year. Maybe it wasn't all Brucies fault after all.
I remember when he came he got us scoring from all over the park. We can put this right in the next few weeks.
We competed equally in the first half but when W Ham applied more pressure in 2nd half we just retreated and played chase the ball again. We shouldnt have to do this against teams like them
We would have been beaten at least twice under Bruce this season already imo. Which tells me that certain players are not performing and costing us dearly and simply have to be dropped asap to allow other a chance to rectify the problem. If we wait until after the Wigan game and they don't perform again and we fail to win, then the pressure will increase 10 fold. I'd like to see Saha or Wickham (scoring regularly for England under 21's and reserves now) up front with Fletcher against Wigan and batter them into the ground.
Don't disagree Cest, but it's early doors and we still have the cups as well. 2012-13 may yet be our year.
We would have lost all 4 mate it was that bad under him, totally agree with 2 up top as well we have to score more goals before we even consider sitting back.
I'm absolutely convinced that we have the right combination of owner and manager Sid and MoN is nobodies fool but the game plan we have adopted cant be carried out by the current staff on the pitch imo and we have much better attacking flair than this seasons results would suggest. Our shots on goal stats and corners won dont tell the whole picture but they do worry me as well. If Fletcher gets crocked or has a 3 or 4 game lull, where would we be?
Defending to deep as you & many state is not necessarily the problem as many teams do it quite well with multiple World Cup winners Brazil, Germany & Italy just to mention three, have been known to do it rather quite well. Spain & the Netherlands play a different system aided by the higher technical ability of their individual players which makes it appear that their holding a higher back line. A manager can only work to the strengths of the squad & if without genuine pace out wide when defending or attacking will be forced to start play from a deeper central channel. This deeper idea is used to limit potential danger in defence, either from a quick counter or genuine lack of possession during a game by forcing the opposition to have to travel through more potential tackles. Defending high if you don't have a linked back line can cause even more mayhem. Iâd back any manager doing this as he/she is merely playing to the squads strength/weaknesses. Poor movement when in possession or attempting to get it looks more obvious to me from what Iâve watched. Iâd need to watch it live, not just the TV feed to confirm but Iâd certainly put money down on it from experience. The pressure created by it appears to be creating our panic after two passes to look for the miracle ball. Just an opinion like all above but the thoughts of others will be interesting.
