http://www.professionalsoccercoaching.com/attacking-functional-drills Been thinking of playing a part again and been looking for new ideas - this is a fairly standard look at how to coach attacking skills, but it made me consider just how badly (most of the time) we link attacking midfield with wing men and strikers - our scarcity of goals kind of highlights it. We can do the sexy diamonds and the pacey wing runs, but the end product is usually a damp squib. So what is the problem, or do you believe we are fine? Do we have a specialist attacking coach, someone to take the blinkers off the link- up play and focus on the attempt. An old sales maxim is that if you throw enough **** at a wall, some will eventually stick; but we don't do we. Do we need a coach to focus the game-changers?
we rely too much on early crosses, so many of our attacks come from the right hand side with elmo usually 20 yards from the byline, we lack penetration through the middle, we don't seperate the space between the central defenders, take trencin for example they were playing narrow defensively ( and this is from the highlights obviously) but just a mroe recent example.. we can't create the space needed to get through but we don't seem to have the 'speed' to whip it about to the flanks and back, we play quite a slow tempo of football, elmo definitely needs to be more conservative with his crossing but i've had just one beer so my brain is turned to mush so i can't even remember how many players are on a team
I think we haven't had enough game-changers at this level for a while. For the last couple of years our strengths have been in central midfield and centre back, as well as the keeper and Elmohamady. We haven't really had anyone who can beat a man or produce something from nothing. Hopefully Snodgrass and Ince will fix that. They're exactly the kind of players we've been missing.
Still think we need another midfielder who can pass the ball and/or one who can get forward more effectively. When Elmo does cross it in how many times have we got a midfielder making a run into the box?..occasionally Meyler? How many times does a midfielder actually knock a ball into a forward and make a run beyond them? Livermore looks good when he does but he doesn't do it enough for me
Think you're right that Meyler is the man for those runs but Huddlestone and Livermore can both pass well.
As Brady says, with how early Elmo crosses the ball unless we sign Usain Bolt we aren't going to have a midfielder anywhere near the ball in. Elmo is a solid winger/WB but I think the service from Snodgers, Ince, Brady and potentially Boyd will be invariably of a higher quality and from better positions. Sometimes we lack positive movement off the ball and we have a habit of sauntering into space and not driving into it. This adds to the look of us playing at a slow tempo. It's a shout we all heard from the touchline as youngsters but "give and go give and go" is still a fundamental part of football at any level. I think we could be better at it.
David Beckham's passing of the ball was a skill he honed on the training ground, more often than not in a solitary way. What made that wonderful skill exceptional was the brain of where and when to execute the pass, that game-changing ability that has now been mentioned three times. Sometimes it is an individual who can change the game, they are not rare, but they are usually, at their level, expensive to buy-in. More often it is a partnership of two (or more) players who, each to their own abilities, become far stronger as a whole. Some can work it out for themselves, but I don't see that happening with Long and Jelly, for instance. Would you sacrifice a transfer fee and wages to bring someone in who has the skill and passion (important, that passion when coaching attack). Agnew is more the individual one on one coach, Bruce a defensive maelstrom, but who do we have who brings in the killer instinct? If, like me you can't recognise it, who do do think would fit the bill and the team?
I agree on Elmo, BFT. Do you think it is a confidence thing or is he (subconsciously?) conserving energy, as he has to cover a lot of ground when playing wingback? He's a top player and we are . . informed spectators who know that he needs to vary the depth of his runs - where is the coach saying vary the depth of . . .?
i said it first, i'm a master tactician really, but i believe it's part of brucey's play, there's no coincidence that for such prolonged periods of time he floats in early crosses, part of the game plan
It's no coincidence that most of our play comes from the wing positions. The 3-5-2 relies on wingbacks and because Elmo's crossing ability is one of our assets, we're going to try and use it. However - and I said this so many times last season - teams aren't thick. If they work out what you're doing (which at this level is pretty much guaranteed), it doesn't work. Most PL defenders are over 6ft, so if you just lump balls into the area, they're most likely going to be cleared. A perfect example of this was the 1-0 win over Sunderland at the KC. Sunderland were down to 9 men and we were laying seige to them non-stop. But it was the same ball into the box over and over again. They didn't have to change their shape at the back much, because we didn't force them to. Instead, we continued bombarding them with crosses, which their defenders dealt with every time. It was one of the most frustrating games I've ever watched; all we had to do was start running at them with the ball, start playing our strikers in behind and we'd have smashed them. I think Tom Ince prefers to play through the middle, as does Aluko, although the latter will have to improve if he's to keep his place. I'd like to us with a genuine plan B next season, not just formation wise, but on a more tactical level.
I don't disagree with any of that, but when we do get it down and play it around it rarely converts into an attacking move. We have the players and it's great getting them to play as a group, but how do we get them to turn and run at goal - with or without the ball? When I was looking at it I thought of Nicky Barmby; never shy of turning on a tanner and going for goal, instinctively knowing when to make his move. Could he, or someone like him help others develop that instinct? I think too many players rely on fancy tricks instead of timing and aggression; Aluko is in danger of that, IMO.
