Saturday's game highlighted for me a part of the game that I'm sure nobody can disagree is nowhere near as good as it used to be or should be. For once I agreed with Dour Garry Birtles remarks when he said a cross is what it says on the tin. Get the ball into the area and let people fight for it. Trying to be to clever is not working. As long as the ball is put into a 10-15 yard area, strikers can make their runs for it. One decent cross on Saturday, in stoppage time of all things, and we should have scored. And then we wouldn't be bemoaning a poor game but remarking on how we were well clear of relegation.
Not certain I agree with that, I think the problem was more who we were aiming for than the fact that we were aiming! Jackson, Hoolahan and Snodgrass aren't exactly target men. It showed that once we got Holt on, we were a lot more dangerous. For me, it's another reason Jackson is always a mistake
agree with you there Redruth Pilks and Snodgrass bet to do some training this week, why on earth we dont let Garrido take all the deadball crosses from the left I dont know, need Pilks in there to score and Garrido is by far more consistent with a good ball
In reality, crosses were worthless on Saturday until Holty came on - Jackson and Hoolahoops against Coloccini and Williamson (who are big muthas the pair of them) was hardly a fair fight and crossing at height into the box (hard we have done any - we didn't do it well on Saturday and some of our dead ball crossing hardly cleared rge first defender) served no purpose. We have been dangerous from set-pieces this season but our crossing from open play or dead ball situations was consistently poor. We gained a point - for that I am grateful.
I agree with #BHW. Because we only had Jackson up front, the ball in would have had to be nearly perfect for him to score from. As a result, we were trying much more marginal balls in, and they just weren't coming off. Once Holt came on, you could just hang the ball up at the back post and he'd be able to compete, so crossing should have been easier. The quality was still very, very poor, but with Holt it should have been easier.
The opinion seems to be then that it wasn't the crossing that was poor but the idea that Plan A said we had to cross it in no matter who was on the end of it.
Not mine anyway! The crossing was dreadful by Pilks and Snodgrass all game long. And I think people are wrong; it looked to me like we were aiming our crosses at Snodgrass (Makes sense as he is a bit taller than an average man) who did win a few headers but wasn't even going to trouble 2 CBs by himself in the way that Holt would. But, yes, it would of been much better if Jackson was playing to play it down the middle, all the more reason Fox should have played!
well I saw Turner and Bassong up for all of them damn ball never got near them nothing to with whether Holty was up there just damn poor delivery
...and E. Bennett instead of Wes. more pace and more forward attack. two small, fast central attackers could have caused panic in the Newcastle defence.
And as they correctly pointed out on the commentary, nothing worse than trotting 75 yards for a set piece - which doesn't even clear the first defender Then galloping all the way back to resume defensive duties.
I thought that the quality of our delivery into the box, especially from set pieces, was a stand-out strength during our great run before Xmas - it just seems to have deserted us of late. Hopefully Holty coming back will provide an obvious target going forward but that doesn't excuse chest-high balls into the box from freekicks and corners with all our other big guys loading the area, as happened last Saturday. I'm sure they'll be practising this week!
