The attacking(or lack thereof) play of Simmo

Well lads, I've just been thinking......


We have 2 players who are no world beaters when it comes to ballplaying ability in our starting lineup and that's Willo and Simmo.
Willo's hoofball tendencies are well documented and I won't be going into that, it'll seem like I'm beating a dead horse.

However, I would touch on our play with Simmo as our RB.

Having watched so many of our games last season and this season, I'm sure we all know Simmo can't take on attackers up front, has horrible judgement of a ball's bounce, and is exemplary in showcasing the squad's characteristic of poor crossing ability. No doubt some may award him some marks on his defensive capabilities, I have said before that I actually prefer a RB who can at least attack and stop the double teams on HBA sees every game.

But now I think there is more to the weakness of Simmo... When he receives the ball and there is a slight threat of opponents closing him down, what does he do? He passes the ball backwards. I have even seen times that he does that despite our central midfielder (Tiote/Cabaye in separate incidences) being in space. It seems that he can literally only play it safe and pass backwards, and not even attempt a pass to the middle.
And then comes to the key to my point here, when he passes it backwards, most of the time it is to Krul. And then guess what Krul does with it.
Yep, Krul hoofs the ball up the pitch!!!!!!!!!!!!

What does this translate to? It translates to a loss of possession as cheaply as that!
It literally means when Simmo gets the ball and can't make a forward pass, we give the ball away and our attack ends! Now before we think I'm clutching at straws against Simmo, this just adds to the arguments that league-wide we play even more long balls than Stoke.
Add Krul's long balls to Willo's and what you get is a lot of meaningless punts up the field for Cisse(and to a lesser extent Ba) to waste his energy chasing.

As a comparison, look at Santon when he gets the ball, he receives the ball is able to beat a defender, able to pass it to his wide player or his central midfielder.
Now what if we had somebody similar if not better at RB, I'd say our play would be immensely better.

 

I wish Simmo well when he eventually leaves but I've said for a long while we can do better.
Debuchy or Santon switching and Pieters coming in on the left would suit me down to the ground.

 

We definitely need a left footed LB and a right footed right back. To me these two positions are the only two on the pitch that absolutely definitely need to be matched.

Our attacks similarly slowdown on the left due to Santon and Gutierrez needing to cut back onto their stronger foot.

 

Simmo is a good RB defensively, but doesn't add much to the attack. But to be fair he's relied upon for almost all our crosses from that side, and once every 3/4 attempts puts a half decent ball in. Our first goal of the season came from one of his crosses.

 

The thing with Pieters is he is slow (as far as im aware) and could give us a bad balance with the attacking from the wings cause of the pace from Santon on the other! He would be an improvment on what we have but Debuchy would be the best bet IMO!

 

We'll probably end up signing someone no one has even thought of. Remember Santon and Cisse.

 

true, but he takes too many attempts to put a ball in. Also, as long as defenders get reasonably close to him, he is not a threat to do anything at all, and gets nervous about giving the ball away and passes back. Simmo just doesn't have attacking talent and that is his major flaw that prevents him from taking his game to the next level.

 

I HAVE IT! Jonas at right back. Job done.

 

I think he has done fairly well this season and put some decent balls in.

I do look forward to us signing a left back though and Santon switching. We'll see the best of Santon then, particularly defensively.

 

Mr Maradona thinks that is his best position.

 

I dont think he has a best position, he's awful everywhere these days

 

He is utter ****e defensively. Never puts in a tackle, NEVER stops a cross and his positional sense is awful. Time and time again we've had to watch him be at fault for a goal only for him to throw his arms up in disgust and act like he has done nothing wrong. He is ****ing useless and I pray to god we don't offer him another contract.

Simpson's typical defending:

- Back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- back off
- anticipate the cross is going to be made and stick out a leg in a ridiculous fashion, arms down by his side (god forbid he conceded a penalty, that could lead to a goal! good man Danny)
- raise arms in disgust and look around at team mates

We have conceded more goals from crosses than anyone in the league this year and I'm not ****ing surprised.

 

Been very good defensively this season