It was a problem last season and it's an even bigger problem now. Not sure what's wrong with what he said there.
Thought it was a good performance all in all with everything considered. Reading on here it's as if people expect us to be a well oiled machine with this new system already, which is ridiculous. TW keeps saying it himself - too much passing backwards not enough bravery. This is an instinct that's being trained out of them but it won't happen quickly. The worst culprits are Jones, Macca, Slater and Coyle from what I've seen. Not enough of the movement like we've seen from TW's Hamburg and needlessly giving it away as well. The confidence will come with time, or when they're replaced with incomings. The biggest problem is, we're falling down too readily before the ball has reached midfield by not being as 'fluid' as TW is expecting. The back line has a lot more to do to get us going in this system than just playing sideways and waiting for Seri to take it from them. When we do get it further up, usually via Giles, we get into good positions so much more quickly than we did last season. Add a bit more quality in the right places and you can see us converting these half chances into more clear cut chances and goals. In attack we now find ourselves with so much more space than we've been used to due to the speed we're getting it forward with when we manage to get past the first step. Adding quality higher up will finish more of those situations off. On Coyle, he was outstanding when he got forward and scored a great goal. The biggest problem was, despite his excellent defending, he didnt, and generally doesn't contribute nearly enough to our attacks when in possession. He doesn’t feed the right wing or the advanced midfielders as often as Giles does. This is probably why Ömur looks lost on the right. I bet he'd look better with Drameh behind him from what I've seen so far. Coyle's brilliant for us, but in this system he'll need to be more offensive. Pandur made a couple of poor passes today which piled pressure on us at bad times, but played some good balls too. Overall I thought he had a good game and made some strong saves. He couldn't do much about the shot they scored from. All of our deep players gave it away needlessly at times, and that will improve with more time and new players coming in who are willing to move and play the ball forward confidently from deep, directly - as opposed to what we have now and what they're still set in their ways doing. In terms of attack, I think we're asking more questions than we did last season, despite being severely weaker in terms of personnel. I think once the window is shut and with more time working in this system, we'll start to see the benefits. Biggest stumbling block will be our back 4 though, and how much they can contribute to starting our attacks as opposed to starting the opposition's.
What an excellent summary. Don’t want to go against the grain and I did miss the first 20 mins but I actually enjoyed watching that match Yes, there were a ton of misplaced passes and players going back more than you would want. However, I had set my expectations pretty low given the extensive player churn, protracted recruitment negotiations and a whole new style of play, so I was not disappointed. If we were playing like this two months from now I think people would have a reason to quibble but right now appears premature.
My concern with the performance isn't necessarily that we aren't the finished article yet, but more that Plymouth theoretically aren't either under Rooney. He's had just as much time with their squad as Walter has had with ours but they managed 7 shots on target to our 2 and looked like their goal came from the weight of chances they had, whereas ours was a moment of individual brilliance and less to do with our system. All teams in this league are getting up to speed, no one's the finished article, we just seem particularly off the pace over the first two games, and for a manager who supposedly creates teams that score a lot of goals, we've had barely any clear cut chances over the first 270 minutes of competitive football.
Not the best game quality wise, but watchable. Benjo above sums up how I also saw the game and our progress. Clearly, a number of the players are still in the mind set of Liamball, and often play the safe pass sideways or backwards. However, in order for this to change, there needs to me more movement a head of the back 4, so give options in space to pass to. This is why TW tries to get players to rotate in order that they do find space. This is going to take time, and I don't think we will start to see this is action until October, when all the players are in, and have worked on the training ground and learn the system. Nevertheless, even what we are starting to see, we are certainly creating more attempts on goal which is encouraging. Coyle was the standout for us, and the goal was well worth waiting for. Millar, who had a good game, and Giles looked better together on the left, so that was an improvement. I think with Hughes coming in, McLaughlin looks likely to lose his place, so maybe he will be heading out to Blackburn in order to get regular football. Oscar doesn't look the answer up front, we need someone more technically better. Overall, to be unbeaten after 2 games is better than I was expecting under the circumstances, if we can get a win against Millwall, then the start will not look at all bad.
Fair point, though to be fair, Plymouth played pretty similar to the last game of last season, so their changes are not as drastic as what TW is trying to implement.
It’s crazy how many fans and even the coach are still blaming the style of play on Rosenior. As if that one season has changed who they are as footballers and now they couldn’t possibly adapt to a slightly different style in two full months of pre-season. 9 of the 16 that played yesterday were not at the club or didn’t get a game under Liam anyway.
And Rosenior came in and basically overnight transformed the team from the one that leaked goals under Shota.. Walter's had a whole pre-season with the majority of the XI.
New signings in but not played, and yet we gained a point, something the superstars of last season could not do, also we only drew with Bristol last season, so I would see the two games so far as being positive, but new strker still required.
I just don't think you can compare games like that. Context matters hugely. Once WBA went 3-0 up the team last season had nothing to play for, this is an early season fixture where no matter what happened elsewhere we had reason to keep fighting. Let's see how we go against Millwall though, I think that's going to be the big one to tip the scales either in favour of 'reasonable start given new signings need to gel' or 'slow start undermined by pace of signings'. If we lose that it doesn't look great.
I disagree with that, in theory if we won 7-0 (I think it was) we'd have finished above Norwich on GD. Unlikely, I know, but teams have won by that margin before. We should have been at them from minute one flying forward but instead played it safe looking to win 1-0. It's one of the angriest I've been watching a City game.
Great theory but utter bollocks I’m afraid. We conceded in the 40th minute and WBA hadn’t scored by then. In fact their first was right on half time.
I noticed several times where one of our players suddenly realised there was space that they could move into to open themselves up to receive the ball but it was like a delayed reaction. Jones in particular did it two or three times but it wasn’t instinctive, it was like a sudden realisation after a few seconds. Hopefully, they’re going to get better at it and the new arrivals will too. I actually quite enjoyed the game and wouldn’t have been surprised if we’d come away with all three points. I feel like I can see what we’re trying to do but we just need a bit more time and some better personnel to see the benefits. Yes, I’d have liked to see earlier recruitment like everyone else but it seems like there’s some real thought being put in to who we’re bringing in and I think we’ll soon start seeing the benefits of that and the style of play. Seems to be a lot of unnecessary negativity on here recently, which is a shame considering what they’re trying to do, compared to what we had a few years ago.
Because all he does is moan about this season, it takes time to gel and yes nobody wants to keep conceding first but it happened more often than not last season with a settled team and rosiebolloxball
Good post and adds a little more context than my "i thought we were ****" comment. Sometimes wish I could be bothered to expand my thoughts but I'm too lazy. Well done to you. Oh, and there is a hell of a lot of work to do for this experiment to succeed. Whatever success looks like.
Fraid I never saw or heard the game ( a nice 400 mile round trip collecting grandkids instead) but sounds like we did well to get a point, anyone got a link to Tim's post match interview ?
We definitely need better personnel to see the benefits of having TW at the helm. Bigger job than just changing the coach. Does anyone else worry about our owner and what he does and how he does it. Feels like we are in a game show
