As I said on a thread a few weeks ago, there are signs that the team is starting to perform from box to box. But within their own penalty area/final third the Rs remain prone to ridiculous errors that gift the opposition soft goals. And in the opponents penalty area the Rs continue to lack real teeth. After the Everton game I made a plea for the team to take more shots at goal. The Rs are not Arsenal and lack the wherewithal to pass the ball into the net, so need to have a go more. This I'm glad to so was the case against Reading. But for a good display by their 'keeper - whom Sky made man-of-the-match - there may well have been a goal or two in our favour. Beyond this, however, and in my opinion a more serious issue, the Rs lack any sort of physical presence in the opponents box. We saw how easily Morrison and Gorkks dealt with everything that was put into the box, the 'keeper played a blinder and kept all the long-range stuff out, leaving the only realistic avenue attacking at pace with a killer through ball. Here, Cisse fails to understand something called the offside rule. Without the attacking physical presence there's nothing for the poacher to feed on, nobody to effectively hold the ball up and therefore more opportunity for opposing central defenders to come forward. Hughes put great emphasis on improving the physical fitness on the squad when he took over, and particularly during those heady, halycon and optimisitic days of last summer. And yet there is still an enormous problem with the Rs inability to win the so-called second ball. This has been pointed out previously here, not only by me. Going forward, and particularly when chasing the game, it is an overwhelming necessity to recycle the ball. The absence of the upfront phyical presence and the inability to consistently win the majority of the second ball is a recipe for disaster that is being cooked up week in and week out at the moment. Helgusson has gone and Zamora ain't a fitting replacement. This we know and this is a major problem. So, onto the second ball: If the squad is as superfit as Hughes said he'd make them, but fail to win much of the second ball in what, to my eyes, appears to be most areas of the pitch, what does that tell us? A desire issue, surely? It can't be tactics. Tactics don't make you slower to the ball.
It can be tactics AS WELL imo. It's a numbers game. Put more players in the middle ( I know....I'm banging my head against the same old wall here!) and there is more chance that the 2nd ball will fall to one of ours. Reading had a massive share of the 2nd balls in the first half on Sunday and the majority simply "fell" to them as they had an extra midfielder in there.
Was at the game on Sunday, Ferdinand won every ball he went for. He looked good. He also responded to the fans during the game, seemed to steel himself... I think he does deserve a place...
I saw the exact opposite, Reading winning 90% of headers in our box. Virtually every corner resulted in an easy header for them.
Excactly this. Stoke will destroy us if our defence continue to play like that. Easily the weakest defending ive seen whole season in English Premier League or even in Finnish Premier League if thats matter.....
That's what the TV I watched showed as well - Sky for once! It was the same in their box. I was actually hoping Hughes would bring Zamora on in the hope he might make a difference, and lo and behold Hughes brought him on in the end.
Col, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you over tactics. But there are eleven Rs on the pitch (well, sometimes) and eleven opponents. The failure to win the lion's share of the second ball seems to me to be in many areas of the pitch, which says to me that it can't be just tactics. In your favoured 4-5-1(?) of course you have an extra head in midfield, but then there's even greater emphasis on the frontman to be either a strong physical presence that can win the ball and hold it up for the midfield to come up and create the offensive, or to be fleet-footed and nimble to take on and outpace the defence with skill. Zamora is not good enough to be the former and Cisse is so far failing this season to be the latter. If Zamora gets to the ball, there's often still a second ball to be won. Back to that problem. If Cisse can stay onside, he still needs quick support. A defender with a foot in often creates another second ball situation that, again, the Rs seldom capitalise on.** So I don't think it's just about the midfield formation is all. I think there's a desire issue borne of the team's current plight and exacerbated by typically shipping early (and soft) goals. You can see the "oh ****, here we go again" expression on the faces when the goals go in. [**note that Cisse's goal against Reading came about because he effectively was this time first to the second ball in the box once the initial save had been made]
