Frustrating!

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
No Kane No Gain

No Kane No Gain

Well-Known Member
Jun 2, 2011
20,642
3,503
113
I'll start off with saying it was a great 3 points to take, especially with those around us dropping points.

My issues with the game is that it shouldn't have been a problem for us. Liverpool are a good side on the ball but having a 2-0 headstart should've been enough for us to play clever with them. Suarez was doing his usual losing the plot everytime a decision went against him whilst Sterling was so far in Vertonghen's pocket that he resorted to trying to pull and push him around, much to Jan's amusement. There was also clear frutstration in their side across the rest of the pitch, at 2-0 up against a team winding themselves up it really couldn't have been set up better for us.

In the first half our players became blinkered, each trying to get their face on the backpage of the next day's papers as one by one, Walker, Defoe, Bale, Dembele and Vertonghen all lined up to take their long distance shots that came to nothing. That's fine, it happens and apart from Dempsey early in the second half that was largley stamped out after the break. In the second half though we knew they were going to have to step their game up but for some reason we switched into trying quick counters when they weren't on and hoofing it high for Defoe. There was only one or two ocassions that we really kept the ball and frustrated them further.

I just don't understand why that wasn't our tactic from the start of the half, it would have been so easy passing the ball, not always looking to go for goal and letting them foul us, as they often did. I just wonder to what extent the buck falls with the players or the manager. It might be a case of AVB allowing players like Dawson play to use a game that they're more comfortable with or it might be a case of those same players panicking at the thought of having to play calm football passing it short around the backline. I certainly hope that this way of defending is not the way AVB is setting us up to play on purpose as it's suicidal and I don't think the fans hearts can take it!

It's frustrating that we didn't frustrate them more <grr>
 
I didn't see the game, only the highlights. This isn't the first time we've done this though. I'm sure it happened against united too. The problem I've noticed with it (whether its a tactic we bring in on purpose or not) is that it appears we lose confidence when we start playing it. we're frustrated watching it, but the players look more frustrated playing like it! Our game turns into an absolute mess. I'd be concerned if this is a tactic, or whether we are getting some sort of halftime hangover instead? how many times have we been a different side in 1 half, compared to the other? it's ridiculous.
 
The two halves is something that will recede with time. There seems to be a good morale in the team and they know their weaknesses. Together they will work on it with AVB whom I'm beginning to trust more.
 
Roo said:
I didn't see the game, only the highlights. This isn't the first time we've done this though. I'm sure it happened against united too. The problem I've noticed with it (whether its a tactic we bring in on purpose or not) is that it appears we lose confidence when we start playing it. we're frustrated watching it, but the players look more frustrated playing like it! Our game turns into an absolute mess. I'd be concerned if this is a tactic, or whether we are getting some sort of halftime hangover instead? how many times have we been a different side in 1 half, compared to the other? it's ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Away at United it was more understandable. When United have been chasing games this season they will tear you apart if you try to play it around them. Unlike Liverpool it only takes one mistake leading to one chance for them to score when you've not got numbers at the back. It's the home games that concern me most because they are the ideal opportunity for us to bring in our passing game when we already have the lead.
 
Its hard to call what he was thinking, but if you silence Suarez, where are Pool's goals? At 2 up its almost as if he thought 'that'll do, Suarez won't score a hat-trick' and almost settled for what we had. There seemed little urgency to get a 3rd or a cricket score to improve GD, just take the win at whatever cost. That tactic sails far too close to the wind for me...frustrating! :)
 
Annoyingly, it seems to have been a facet of our game, for some considerable time, that we have a blinding first half, only to see us falter and wilt in the second. We have been extremely fortunate in a few of the games that we have won (eg United & Saints, to name but two), to have come away with all three points, when we clearly had it within us to push these teams backwards and put them under the kind of pressure required to contain them. If it is a tactic of AVB's, that we will sit back and let teams come on to us, in the event that we are ahead, I think it is an extremely foolish one, and one that will cost us many points.

Alternatively - and more positively - it could simply be the case that AVB is getting the team to play a certain game of football that is beyond the squad's current levels of fitness, so that we simply do not have the energy to compete to the same high degree, in the second halves of matches. If that is the case, then we should see an improvement in the second half of the season, provided that the players are on the correct fitness regime.
 
It's been a "tactic" for as long as I can remember. Nobody, but nobody, does nail biting finishes like Spurs. Occasionally, we even manage to go one better and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Why? I've no idea. But we just can't seem to put a game to bed, or do things the easy way.
 
I tend to think it's at least partly a fitness issue as well. That, two days rest and missing 3/4 defenders from last year. The problem may be that it's hard to get the squad to do interval training when it's beat up and exhausted from playing two games a week.


But give us credit for providing a new twist on the inevitable late goal concession. It would get old otherwise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back