"It's all well and good camping outside your box absorbing pressure but by the end you're so tired you can't create anything," he told BBC Radio Norfolk. "Good teams find a way through. We need to believe that we're good enough to give them something to worry about." "The players we've got and the signings we've made I just think we can be a bit more aggressive in our play and really ask questions of other teams as opposed to making them ask all the questions of us," Ruddy continued. "The lads are putting in an unbelievable shift defensively but we need to be more positive. We're a good group of players and that believe in each other but we need to put that belief out on the pitch at matches." http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24109525 Ruddy calling for more attacking football, I agree with him when it comes to the mid/bottom table teams we should be more attacking but I think we should be defensive against the top half.
I'd urge caution with this interview, many people are reading too much into it. He was asked very loaded questions. Quite sly by radio cabbage. The players won't have been happy to lose in that way but this has a feel that the "the plaars went oot alone buh and ignored that houghtun buh" conspiracy theorists will declare this as absolute proof the footballers hate the management.
From the fuller version of the interview on EDP24 it is patently clear that JR is talking about his team mates, not the manager. He confirms what I've said time and again, that the idea that CH forbids his players to do anything other than camp in front of the penalty area and defend, defend, defend is wide of the mark and doesn't address the real problem, which is player self-belief and confidence. CH himself in his interview says quite explicitly that they went to WHL on Saturday believing that they could come away with something: "..... we genuinely came thinking we could get something,” he said. “We felt perhaps bringing in so many quality players they might struggle at this early stage to get that consistency." That is entirely consistent with the side he put out, exactly the same side as against Saints. That wasn't the team selection of a manager sending his team out to do nothing but defend. Furthermore, if anyone bothered to watch CH on the touchline, they would see clearly from his gestures and reaction that the team are NOT doing what he wants them to do. The players were knocked out of their stride from the start by Spurs, and things were made worse by passes immediately going astray when they tried to get a foothold and stem the tide. Personally I think JR should have had more sense than to be drawn into saying what he did; that was dressing-room only talk.
They have shown it, but they have also shown that they get easily knocked out of their stride if teams press us high up the pitch and don't give our defenders and midfielders enough time on the ball for comfort. That's the problem. We managed to cope pretty well against Everton, and Saints didn't press us in that way, but anybody who watches the video from Saturday will know what they have to do against us from now on, so we need to find a solution. I'd be very surprised if Villa don't come right at us from the start on Saturday. To impose ourselves on the opposition we have to get the passing right even when under pressure.
No doubt Lambert will have watched our game and will dare to press like that away from home. What I fear is if we repeatedly struggle against high press that all teams in the league will see it as a major weakness and we will face it every game.
I'm sure we will face it a lot this season. Fortunately not everyone has the wherewithal to do it effectively, and we will be able to combat it and make them pay. But management and players do need to find a solution when teams who can do it do.
We need to move our two central midfielders more forward to combat this or one of them needs to at least move a lot more forward, it might leave us more vulnerable but this is where the fullbacks need to come in and support the midfield, helping to hold the line so to speak instead of bombing it down the line to play in pointless crosses. Our main problems are. -Neatly retaining possession, we've mention this a lot of late. -Being too zonal e.g. not pressing in midfield backing off and holding the line, this is why we sit so deep some times. -Greediness too many players going for glory and missing out free players. -Sloppy deliveries. If we sort this out we're laughing, hopefully with the training and players getting to know other movement a lot of these problems will cease to exist.
I wonder if we could start playing Howson next to Fer with a remit to get forward and so start playing with one central defender some of the time. Johnson breaks up play well but he doesn't provide the Movement Jonny does. I'd also like to try playing Pilks, Redmond and Snoddy together, all three can play on either side and through the middle as an AM. if they were allowed to rotate through those positions would be very hard for the full backs to follow who they need to be marking especially with whoever is in the middle at that point comes over to the side the play is on. I think it would look something like this: Ruddy Whitaker Bassong Turner Olssen Fer Howson Snodgrass Redmond Pilkington Rvw I'd also likt to try something like this: Ruddy Whitaker - Bassong - Turner - Olssen Fer Snodgrass - Howson - Redmond (or Pilkington) Rvw - Hooper or of course a mix of the two, this isn't how is would ever want us to line up away and probably not against 50% of teams at home but would be interesting as an experiment both would likely only take 1 sub if it going very badly to go back to a team thats similar to how we've been playing recently.
It would be interesting to see Howson along with Fer in one of the central midfield positions Bath, I don't rate him in an attacking midfield role that some people tout him for. If Fer could be the enforcer and the rudder so to speak it e.g. clearing it up and distributing it, that would allow Howson to bring some movement into the fold and would perhaps force Villa back into own half as I know they won't like a midfield runner operating behind them but both of them would need to have tremendous games to manage that, I reckon Lambert will have Delph sweeping the midfield up for them if I remember he seems to play a 4-3-3 not a Villa expert so I might be wrong. Looking back at the Spurs game as well as being out manoeuvred I thought they over powered us too, we have some big units in our team but they ploughed through the middle of us their midfield Dembele, Paulinho, Sigurdsson and Livermore are neither short or weak, it'll be interesting seeing how we fair against less powerful midfields I could be reading into this a little too much though as that Wanyama who is a unit struggled when Southampton played us.
