For those that have been to the last few matches, is the diamond still working? It seems to me that teams have figured out that if they get at us down the wings we are vunerable. It goes back to the discussion of should we be playing four central midfielders instead of playing some wingers. I know everything was going well for a few games and we had some great results but does this last result show that we need to be more adaptive to the situation. I'm still not impressed by the subs PJ keeps choosing.
The big problem is that we lack pace all through the team! We have to give Martin and Carson a chance on the flanks to give us some width and pace rather than relying on Creswell and Edwards. Just look at the Palace game when time and time again we couldn't cope with their pacey wingers. I know Jewell has done well to steady the ship from last year but lets be honest we are still a million miles away from getting promoted based on this group of players.
For me everytime I've watched us this season we struggle in centre of the park. Now I'm a big fan of Bullard but quite honestly the view of our fans of the sun shining out of his bottom is ridiculous. People saying JET is a luxury we cant afford, I'm afraid Jimmy is the same, as a holding DM he cant tackle and isn't strong or mobile and doesn't break forward enough, today Andrews and Jimmy were doing the same job and the one occasion Jimmy ventured into the final third he scored a great goal but without the ball, he is simply a liability (maybe a bit strong) but certainly a weak link. Cresswell would have made it a fairer match as Kennedy was poor but realistically our midfield lacks drive and direction, none of them are willing to travel with the ball and that left Chops and Scotland on their tod and quite honestly was as poor as anything I've seen from Town and all too familiar to the Keane era
The Diamond might work OK against most teams, but not the mighty Millwall! Bullard is overrated. He thinks he's Diego Forlan with that hair but he is pony.
I was there yesterday and that was absolutely abject. If that wasn’t the easiest three points Millwall have had all season I’d like to know what shower of utter ****e actually was. Rarely have I ever seen a team so clueless in possession. I can only liken us yesterday to England vs Algeria in the World Cup. You actually sit there and wonder if you’re watching footballers or people randomly rounded up off the street. A few short passes across the back and … what? The player concerned looks confused and slightly agitated, so HOOF – up it goes in the vague direction of someone in the same coloured shirt preferably about five miles up the pitch and yet again possession is lost. Stockwell pulled of some brilliant saves today only to watch helpless as the ball sailed back past him, our deadbeat cretins inevitably beaten the ball by people who actually play football for a living. Bullard looked like our only footballer today, but he spent much of it sitting patiently in front of our pathetic defence where he is completely wasted. And Scotland had an open goal today with plenty of time to shape up and remember the lifetime of professional training needed to achieve such a tremendous feat – guess what happened. They were an absolute pile of steaming dingo’s kidneys and I was ashamed to be associated with them. I see a lot of conference football living in Cambridge – Utd in the Conf Prem, Histon in the Conf Nth, Cambridge City in whatever the Isthm’ Prem is called this week. I exaggerate not a jot when I say that in the first half you could have replaced us with any of those teams and you wouldn’t have noticed the difference. In fact, Cambridge Utd would definitely have put up a better show. All this with the people supposedly responsible for this brief renaissance under Jewell. This is business as usual, not a blip after a restoration of long-lost good form. Not only that, I had to leap on a bus after buying my ticket all the way back up to the Elephant and Castle just to find a pub to watch Chelsea v Arsenal, such is the post-holocaust style desolation of the surrounding area. I am not happy.
I would agree with most of what has been said on these posts, although perhaps not as downbeat as JJ but then again I was not at the match. I'm not sure about the diamond, I think it could work and has worked for us but as many of you have said, Bullard just should not be playing in the DM role, he's a liability there because he can't tackle, lacks pace and is overambitious in his passing for playing in that position. At the end of the day he is one of if not the best midfielder in this division by a long shot but he's being made to look rubbish. The 2 times this season I have seen Bullard venture into our final 3rd(apart from set pieces) he has scored or set up a goal, he needs to be played higher up the pitch if this is to work. Out of the 4 currently occupying the CM Andrews would be best in the more defensive position, he's good at playing the simple pass, or making it look simple and very good at the quick release pass and aware of the players around him but not so good at the attacking flicks he keeps trying in the final 3rd. He's also much better at tackling at Bullard and I just think has that bit of authority to sit in front of the back 4. Or we need to bring Hyam in and drop most either leadbitter or Bowyer. I think in the end we will play with some wingers in a 442 formation, hopefully with Bullard and Andrews in the centre. The problem is I think Jewell would find it hard to drop any of the 4 currently playing because 3 are big name ex premier league players and 1 is our captain, I mentioned this at the start of the season and it concerned me then, once again I'm not sure we would have got Bowyer if Jewell knew we would be able to get Bullard. I do find Jewell's subs slightly puzzling also but then again we are taking alot of risks with players regards to injury and match fitness atm perhaps he has subs on the bench to replace the walking wounded. Thats something else I have been slightly concerned about, are any of our players actually fit?? Most of them seemed to miss preseason, have had an injury or some other type of problem and noone seems to appear to be fit!!! Saying all these, despite the past few poor performances and results, we have come along way in the past few months and yes we still have got a million miles to go, perhaps this is a reality check to some people who thought we could suddenly change our poor fortunes in the past few years in a matter of months. Like I said when we were doing really badly I'm sure he can turn this around and he did but then when we were doing well I said there will be still many dark days ahead, for a start thats the nature of the championship, does any result surprise anyone in this league?? We should be doing better with the players we have though, particularly with the experience and quality we have in midfield, we should be keeping the ball better. Our weaknesses were very plain to see even when we were performing well and winning but the difference was then we were keeping the ball, without the ball it was clear we were poor defensively and there was alot of space on the wings but we had more possesion that we were having now. I would also say that perhaps its a realisation that Collins and Sonko are not as good as we think, I'm not saying they are bad defenders, far from it. Collins is a very good solid defender, same with Sonko but they are not that great, they are far better than Delaney and Smith but both especially Sonko are limited. I would definitely like to sign Collins on a permanent deal though. But I think perhaps both are more consistent that someone like McAuley but on his day McAuley is a far superior defender. You have to understand that I don't think they are bad defenders or should not be in our team, I just don't think they are as good as everyone has made out the past few weeks, saying they're the best defenders we've had at the club in years!!! Like I've said, I think with the team we have even if we don't add anyone to it I think we are good enough for a top half finish but we are a real work in progress this season. Bringing in the amount of players we have brought in brings its own set of problems and it is clear to see we need still quite a few more but Jewell has brought in what 15 players in, in the space of 3 months, every single manager makes mistakes, we need to be patience and I'd say we need at least another 2 transfer windows before he can really shape a team in the style he wants.
The biggest problem is we have 4 centre midfield players who all expect to play and are all of a similar ilk. Not once did any of them get the ball and drive forward. When it was Andrews and Bullard together in the centre they both sat back (no idea why) and we simply don't have the flexibility in the personnel we have, all of them want to get it and play it simple or try an audacious through ball. If we had someone who could attack the space ala Lee Martin but in the centre of the park we would create so much more. Currently we are simply too predictable and nowhere near adaptable enough
As much as I agree with you, I think bullard despite lacking pace could do this, obviously not by taking people on but driving forwards with the ball, in a more steven gerrard style way, although he still doesn't look anywhere near as fit as he was last season, he looks like he's running on sand all the time especially when he hasn't got the ball. Interestingly I remember reading a while back that Martin prefered playing through the middle, maybe an option?? I think we definitely need to invest in at least one good winger in January though, perhaps we should pull out the stops and try and get Townsend in!! I quite happily see us spend quite a few million on him.
Just what is the point in bringing in old dried up experienced players for this season when we all know full well that the team will have to be transformed again at the end of the season! Jewell has made a serious error of judgement if he thinks that our current squad of elderly players will get us through the season! Bowyer is out injured and Sonko had to come off again yesterday. Jewell should have bought in younger players, more like Cresswell and if we lost a few by heavy margins this year at least we could say that the squad would improve with experience! We have Carson and Martin who aren't getting a look in and what has Luke Hyam ever done wrong! FFS We are Ipswich Town who always used to have a reputation for bringing in youngsters to mplay in the first team. Instead of having Marcus Evans on their shirts perhaps Stenna Stairlifts would be far more appropriate!
JWM as much as I agree with you and would prefer us to give youngsters a chance in our team, buying more players like Cresswell into the team, I think we have to be patient with Jewell on this one. He knows that we lack pace and that we lack young players, but he can only do so much. Do you think JET should be playing more?? IMO youngsters need to be blooded into a team and put into it slowly, most of them are going to show incosistency (although Cresswell seems immune from this). The problem is if Jewell had of bought alot of youngsters, he would have to have put them straight into the team because, well before he bought anyone in we didn't really have a team, if things went bad, the youngsters may not of had the resolve or experience to get over certain setbacks, they need some experienced players to guide them through it. Filling a team full of youngsters may be extremely problematic, especially as these young players would not have played together for a long time, unlike other teams who have lots of youngsters who have played together for years. IMO we now have the base of a good team, with alot of experience and in the next 2 transfer windows I'm sure he will look for the younger pacier players. Over the summer he needed to bring players in quickly, and probably had not had the scouting network as readily in place as he would have liked, therefore not willing to risk bidding for certain players. He got in alot of proven players with experience along with a couple of gambles(Cresswell & JET). I think we can all see how good Cresswell is, but it is unusual to find a young player to be so consistent on stepping up a level in a new team. I think you can see that with some of the frustrations with JET. I have certainly been impressed with the quality of player he managed to attract to the club considering the utter mess we were in last season and the lack of a squad we had. Who would have thought we would have had Stockdale, Bullard, Bowyer and Chopra playing in our team??? Yes the situation is not ideal atm but I'm sure in the next couple of transfer windows Jewell will look to resolve this, maybe not the January one but certainly over the summer if he gets the chance. Patience is the key here as I've said all season, its going to be rocky but Jewell has basically had to start from scratch and we still have major major weaknesses in our team, I may not be happy with some of the performances or results but I'm pretty pleased with the direction we are going in and the noises coming out of PR.
We have the oppotunity to change things around now we have injuries to cope with, restore Cresswell to left back after his suspension, play Wabara at right back, and move Edwards into midfield where he always used to play instead of Bowyer. And finally drop Andrews and play either Martin or Carson, this way we would inject some pace into into the side in defence, through midfield, and up front. We need speed on the flanks and a stream of quality crosses from wide players and not rely on full backs to provide this.
great rant from jonah by the way why are you playing bullard in the holding role? shouldn't leadbetter be there? bullard is SURELY your most creative player!!
Leadbitter is crap, it's better to play him higher up the pitch as his crapness has less of an effect I agree with most of what's been said on here. We lack any attacking intent in the midfield. At the moment we have Leadbitter as the furthest forward midfielder and he just seems to get lost with or without the ball, he must be the most ineffective technically good footballer I've ever seen! Jewell was talking about players who aren't very good techinically but make the most of what they have on goals on sunday yesterday (Arjan De Zeuw being the example) and Leadbitter has to be the perfect example of the complete opposite of that. Then you have Andrews and Bowyer who both have experience, work rate and can take chances but neither have pace or are good on the ball. I would like to to see Andrews drop deeper and play in Bullard's current role but he too lacks pace and from his interviews its clear he doesn't want to play as a defensive midfielder, despite the fact that he's actually pretty good at it! It's further complicated by the fact that Scotland and Chopra are playing well, it's just the midfield not performing, so it's not as if we should just change back to 451 and rotate 3 out of 4 of the midfielders as that would ruin a good partnership that's developed. Thinking short term, unless the opposition has no wingers themselves we should go to a flat 442 and play Andrews and Bullard in the middle with Bowyer on one side and Martin on the other. Although Bowyer isn't a great winger I think his experience brings a lot and he has a big influence over the team. Long term I'm not worried as I think JET will improve and Jewell will bring in some younger players to give the team a better balance.
Personally I still thing 4-2-3-1 would be our best bet. I know it removes the second striker but it tightens our defensive frailities and with the back post winger effectively moving into a more central position when the play is building on the opposite side. Stockdale Cresswell - Collins - Sonko - Ainsley Bullard - Hyam/ Kennedy/ Bowyer Martin - Andrews - Edwards Chopra Its not ideal but its a formation I think may work There would be questions over whether the wingers would give adequate cover to the full backs. A sitting midfielder alongside Bullard will help with the defensive side of the game but still allow Jimmy to spray the ball forward and hopefully create numerous chances.
I agree with most of what ptc said in his last post, we needed to get players in and did pretty good considering last season. We have the personnel to play both the diamond and a standard 4-4-2 but PJ isn't putting the players needed to change the system on the bench. I think that is the most frustrating thing, when we are getting slaughtered down the wings PJ is not changing it up to counter what's happening. We should drop Leadbitter and Bowyer, play JET or Martin at the top of the diamond with Bullard and Andrews behind and Kennedy in the holding position, something he has done quite well every time he has been asked to play that role. It won't happen though because PJ stupidly made Leadknob captain and that makes it hard to drop him. If we had a starting line up like this it would be easier to change the formation without making substitutions. JET/Martin and Andrews could be pushed out to the wings if we went 4-4-2 or just by taking Andrews, Bullard or Kennedy off for Wabara we could move Edwards forward.
