There's nothing wrong with having the bulk of possession. But we do need to learn how to create against a low block. Pronto.
I'm usually a half glass full person when it comes to performances, but last night was appalling. No drive, no pace & no bravery. It is really worrying, that when teams come at us, we can perform and get results. Why our home form is so poor, teams know with a low block, they frustrate the life out of us, then catch us on the break. Unless, we can find a way of getting out of the mindset, then we are definitely in trouble. Very few positives from last night, in fact Matazo injury looks to be a devastating blow. Hughes and Puerta did okay, Crook's really frustrates me, he drifts in and out of the game, yes, gets a goal or two, but other than that does very little. Slater unfortunately was mainly at fault for the goal, initially gave the ball away, which then resulted in him chasing back and giving away the free kick. Pandur also should have caught the free kick. If we keep losing points to those around us, we are going to struggle to stay up.
Not like you to be this negative John, but I fear that you are right. We just don't seem to have a clue how to break through teams who sit deep with two blocks of four players defending and all season we've struggled to score goals. Less than a goal a game now. As well as we played against Sunderland we didn't actually score ourselves and if we were still playing now from last night we still wouldn't have scored. Home games and games against lower performing teams who defend deep and are often able to bully us are turning out to be our Achilles heal. The way it's looking is that our survival in this league is going to be down to other teams poorer performances rather than our own ability to save ourselves.
Even when we had a chance to counter last night we had no plan to do it, we don’t hit any wide men we have quick enough . Most teams have a plan , players seem to know where to hit it and know to get in the box for an accurate ball in .if we ever get behind teams they are usually back in numbers and our ‘ clipped’ balls in have no impact .
Too cross/angry/upset to post last night And too many pages to go back and read. I don't feel anybody had a particularly bad game but also don't think anyone had a good game. We just had not cutting edge. You could say we were unlucky to concede a deflected goal but they created more than we did. We were unlucky to lose Matazo as until he went off i thought he looked the best player on the pitch but we can't rely on individual players.
Plymouth have resorted to just hitting long balls and trying to keep the ball at the other end of the pitch. They will also likely play in a low block/park the bus. They will rely on crosses and set pieces to try and nick a goal but with Hughes, Jones and McLoughlin we should be able to cope with this. Scoring at the other end is going to be the issue.
Sellés said Matazo’s injury ‘doesn’t look good’ and they’re waiting for the swelling in his knee to subside before they do a scan. Regarding Barry, he said he’s seen a specialist and City are waiting to make a joint statement with Villa which should be later today.
I still maintain it’s a poor league. Cardiff were awful last night but in the 3/4 attacks they had they looked better than us. I don’t really think you can single any of our players out they were all as bad as each other. Puerta looked far away the best player on the pitch, for whatever reason he’s not been playing is absolute madness. We just need to scrape through this season. But if we don’t start picking points up against the poor sides we will go down. The worrying this is how poor we are against the poor sides. We just need to go for it more, players need to put more in we need to make more runs off the ball use it quicker but simply. Half the time we get pushed wide and it comes backwards.
I'm fed up of hearing how "crap" some other teams allegedly are. We have now taken 2 points from 6 games against "crap" teams (Oxford, Derby, Luton, Portsmouth, Stoke (H) and Cardiff). Also we do not have an easier run in than anyone else -if the last month has shown us anything it is that anyone can beat anyone else in this league on their day. We are now in a 12 match league against the teams you mention above and we need to gather as many points as the 3 teams currently below us have to survive.
True, however Puerta came on and was then the best player on the pitch. Problem was with the rest of them.
