A game from which, despite going 2:0 down in the first 20 minutes, we could easily have come away with 3 points. Roll on Round 39!
Hate to throw in a damp squib but we're now in the bottom half of the table. Having an effective attack isn't enough when defensive tactics fail to stop the opposition scoring goal after goal. So the season winds down, "not with a bang but a whimper".
It’s looking likely that both Sainz and Sargent will be off at the end of the season. We will replace them and start again.
Sorry Rick but it is not defensive tactics but individual errors. In the first goal, for example, Cordoba faffed about and lost the ball and then, when the ball went across about a foot or two in front of Long, instead of sprawling or even sticking his leg out he just dropped down on one knee.
They will only be off if a Premiership Club come after them and are they really consistent enough for that to happen?
It was more the fact that Doyle was nowhere to be seen, leaving Córdoba to cover two positions. That's where tactics came in.
I doubt that the Coaching staff instructed Doyle to go awol so we will have to agree to disagree on that point. Defensively there will have to be changes in the summer. Doyle will not be here, Hanley has already gone and Duffy, in the last year of his contract, will be looked upon as only backup. This only leaves Cordoba and McConville, who I hope now gets more minutes on the pitch, which is not enough.
No but the team tactic is the cause of the first goal. When we lost the ball in the opposition 3rd both Soresson & Doyle tried to win it back quickly, which they both fail to do leaving a big space behind. Trying to recover the ball quickly by pressing aggressively is a team tactic. Another tactic would have been not to try and recover the ball but to drop, thereby reducing the space. Or the nearest person trying to recover the ball, fouling the opposition player if necessary , whilst every one else recovered. Doyle was awol because of the team tactic, as soon as he challenged, failed to recover the ball and had to turn he was always playing catchup. Now you can argue that it was poor decision making for Soresson / Doyle to use the teams aggressive pressing tactic at that particular time. Without knowing what Thorup and his team is coaching specifically we'd never know. But there is no doubt that team tactics and how the players are implementing them is a significant cause of our defensive problems, whilst individual player errors are a factor they aren't the sole cause. One of the sky commentators explained this much better than I have. Another question to ask is does the way we build attacks (team tactics) allow for sufficient "cover and balance" for when attacks break down, the answer is in the stats.
Watch the whole passage of play (2nd goal) on the Full 90 playback video on the Club website. IMO the cockup is not caused by the tactics resulting in Cordoba "having to cover two positions", i.e. CB and FB, but by a poor decision on Cordoba's own part to take the free kick quickly, before the midfield and FBs are "set" for the resumption of play. The result is that all five have to turn on their heels and run back towards goal*. So when Cordoba finds himself under pressure, having received the ball from Long, he finds no-one free to take a pass and so embarks on his kamikaze run to the touchline. He quite unnecessarily created a situation which wrong-footed team mates who, in normal execution of the tactics, would have been in place to support. This also illustrates why I think Gunn will leave in the summer. A more proactive and tactically astute keeper than either Gunn or Long could have stopped the situation developing, either by telling Cordoba to delay the restart until the midfield and FBs were in place, or by recognising that the circumstances dictated a clearance up to the front line, not the preferred play out from the back. * [Edit] I can't now find the clip which showed this so clearly. It seems to have been edited out in favour of a shot of Thorup and Wilshere in discussion on the touchline.
But when Cordoba lost possession to their No.12 he, the No.12, was surrounded by four yellow shirts, leaving empty spaces inside for an easy pass. If four were on one player that leaves just six to mark the other nine opponents. Not a good situation as was proven by the goal.
Yes, a good example of how one mistake leads to another, and another .......... Re. the first goal, I don't agree the tactics as such were to blame. Those familiar with Ben Lee's match analyses will know that a so-called "rest defence" of five players is a standard feature of our play in possession, either a 3:2 consisting of e.g. the two CBs plus a central midfielder, with the other CM and an inverted FB ahead of them, or a 2:3 comprising e.g. the two CBs behind the two CMs plus an inverted FB. When Duffy's over-ambitious pass forward to Marcondes (?) resulted in loss of possession, McLean, Sørensen and Doyle were all behind the ball ahead of Duffy and Córdoba. And when Sykes finally pulled the trigger, there were six Norwich players in our penalty area, against 4 attackers. Hats off to Sykes for his superlative, Sainz-like shot. So, like the second goal, the first was also a case of poor implementation of the tactics resulting initially from a bad decision (in this case by Duffy). Both concessions also highlighted Doyle's lack of pace. The answer doesn't lie in abandoning the tactics, but working to improve implementation, on the training ground and in the transfer market.
