The difference between ours and their midfield was night and day. Ours is full of destroyers, theirs was full of creative technical players.
There are few sights as sorry as an incorrect attempt at a Whoosh. It's like watching a baby lamb being swept away down a river by the current.
Its something we haven't had since Geovanni and maybe Bullard. Someone who when the ball is at his feet actually looks at the opposition goal instead of the sideline. We have no craft, end of!! Our midfield instead of being able to turn with back to their goal, just lay it off backwards, sidewards, anyway but forwards. One other thing from last night, who got p****d off with people not showing for throw ins. !!!
We definitely do have those players though. Maloney, Diamé, Huddlestone and Snodgrass are all capable of being the creative midfielder in the hole behind a striker.
Throw ins seem to be a real problem for us. There is only ever one option for the thrower and he is usually marked by 2 opponents. Other teams don't seem to have the same problem and some of our players need to improve their movement
I was impressed with Hollowheads analysis on Sky last night, maybe he would be a good one to get them fired up from kick-off
Maloney is as creative as any of the best in this division, the question is where do you fit him in? Ideally you'd say behind a front 2 but then you're sacrificing width. You could maybe go (taking advantage of resting a clearly jaded Elmo): ......................................Mcgregor ..................Dave Davies Maguire Robertson ...................Snodgers Livermore Meyler/Diame .......................................Maloney ................................... Abel Akpom And before anyone points it out, i wasnt suggesting we play Dave Davies of The Kinks....
I don't think two up front works for us, people will point to the run we had but it was an anomaly, Akpom and Hernandez don't link up and nothing goes through central midfield. I'd much rather have Maloney/Diamé/Huddlestone playing behind Hernandez, and Snodgrass playing right wing in place of Elmo when he's fit.
Well I agree, this was using he players we have and have seen. I think if Anne Diamond turns out to be good then in place of Chuba it could be a formation that brings out the best of what we have, I just dont know yet if he's good or not.
From what I saw last night he seems like he'd be a good foil for Hernandez, he looks quite quick and has a decent touch but he doesn't look like he could hold it up as well as Hernandez.
Yep. Cos they had 5 in midfield. It was a thankless task for Jake and Meyler as they were up against 3 in the middle. I thought that Hector was excellent. He picked up all the loose ball and started all their moves. I'm amazed Bruce didnt make Akpom or Hernandez drop in and pick him up. Why the **** they moved him to RB second half i dont know, but it cost them.
One up front clearly doesn't work , it's when we have looked at our poorest , what we need is some proper wingers that can beat a player , elmo struggles when coming up against a fb with speed and clucas couldn't beat an egg
They had to in order to cover for one of their injuries. To be fair Holloway identified this at half time, and basically said Bruce would tweek the formation to counter it, sure enough tweeks were made at half time, words of wisdom obviously passed and as a result we performed better after half time.
Not seen Sky. We shouldnt have waited till half time. Thats exactly what Derby did to us too. Very harsh on Clucas. I think he needs a rest personally. He's done well, better than i expected, maybe give him a rest and get Snodgrass in.
Only guessing but I suspect that messages were being passed onto the pitch given the verbals that Brucie seemed to be trying to get out there, but it`s always easier to sort these things out in the changing room. Holloway also was full of praise the way Bruce identified the problem and sorted it out at half time, and even went as far as suggesting that is why we will be up there at the end of the season because of Brucie`s knowledge and experience of the game, now I know that may piss some of the posters off on here but don`t shoot the messenger. For what it`s worth I kinda agree, and I don`t see anyone else out there better that would come here currently. Bruce has his faults, but for me I`m happy for him to stay.
Not a chance in hell of getting Moyes even if we were in need of a manager. Moyes has already rejected Swansea and is looking for a top club. I suspect Moyes will go abroad again.
Couldn't agree more, there's obviously a lot more to management than most people think, it's not just a case of picking a formation and set of players and having success like it's a video game. Bruce is massively respected by people in football who understand the job way more than we do and that's good enough for me, we are not gonna do better than Bruce.
