Midfield has been the problem since we sold our old one to Norwich. Various team formations may not help, strikers not making decent runs may not help, but ultimately they are nowhere near good enough individually or as a unit. When the opposition have the ball, they never seem pressured and always have a spare man, when we have the ball we always seem under pressure and never have a spare man. No pace no creativity.
I can't understand why people are having a go at Byram. The lad is doing exactly what he's been told to do - to motor up & down the wing. And he does, and does it well. The problem we have with the diamond is that the wide midfielders go narrow & don't provide cover for Byram, exposing him. doesn't happen to Warnock, as he doesn't get forward half as often. Byram looked particularly good in his first season because Green played wide right, & covered for him when he went forward. That doesn't happen now, so why is it Byram's fault that he's exposed. Take a look at the Cock in the dugout for the answer to that. Leave the boy alone!
I will repeat we still started with 7 outfielf players from last year, Diamond formation will never work, 433 maybe We need time to click, Then again dont reckon hockady is the man.
Its the coach thats the problem and more specifically the formation thats used. I think individually all the players are capable with specific jobs and some of them are capable to be that little bit extra and be an outlet, we do need to sign more. We lack width, have said it all summer long and I don't understand why it wasn't one of the first things sorted as its been our major problem since selling Snoddy. In my honest opinion, the only formations that work at this level consistently or indeed any level without needing very high quality intelligent players are 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 (what we used under Grayson). And when you do play 4-4-2, you need to still play natural wide men. If you play these formations and you find players who specifically play a position and play them there you can't go wrong, then you can start to work on how you want your team to play. Now obviously I didn't see this game but I saw the lineup before the end result and immediately thought we've lost this game. Same old thing, the Hock is picking the 11 players he wants to play and then finding a position for them in the starting 11. When was the last time we actually had a manager pick his formation and then specifically pick his best player in each position? It's just such a simple thing, its management 101 yet we've had manager after manager failing to do this correctly.
Fair play WJ. You seem to have been able to see a couple of positives in last nights performance. I am afraid they passed me by. The best I could come up with was they must not have recovered from all that running about chasing shadow last Saturday. I don't see green shoots of recovery, I see dry barren rocks.
This is something that puzzled me before kick off. We've almost bought a full team, were told all quality, mainly young with great potential, yet so many of them not to be seen last night. I expected by now to have almost none of last years dross still on the field
It was last night. BHA had guys on both touch lines whenever they had the ball, not only did we play within the width of the penalty area when in possession, we defended the same way thus giving them time and space to play out wide and back inside then through us. Disgusting performance made worse by the fact I signed up to watch more of it next Wednesday.
That's down to our immobile diamond formation. We break out looking decent get 40 yards from their goal and then turn round and pass it back and along the back four. We lose any 1-1oportunities and are always trying to score against a ready and marshalled defence. Somewhere between this ****e and hoofball is where we need to be. And if smith is on the field we need to be 4-4-2 with smith producing knock downs to a close running striker. It's not difficult
that is another issue but the 2 have nothing to do with each other. You should be able to pressure the ball as a professional footballer regardless
Last night was probably one of the most frustrating games I have watched in years. The first half simply appalling - I can't remember Smith getting the ball to any of our players - he either headed it out or straight to Brighton. Bianchi was mainly on the right but kept getting really narrow offering Byram no support going back or forwards. I can not see why Murphy is in the team at all - he can't pass, head or tackle - too slow in thought and dead for the championship. Tonge must have a F***ing stiff neck because he never looks round when he has the ball and time. I don't think the back four were too bad but the midfield barely existed, Austin huffed and puiffed but that's bloody useless unless teammates help. Sharpe did look tried but still worked hard, I think he was dead on his feet when swapped. We need a replacement for Tonge urgently and pray Bendicic gets fit soon to replace Murphy or it's more of the same.
It's looking like the bookies could be right and leeds are one of the favorites for relegation this season....
Murphy was actually pretty decent against Middlesborough I thought but all in all he is a very average midfielder who doesn't provide much, haven't even seen him have a really good game to justify the potential is there or the fee was even slightly warranted. I agree that Tonge needs replacing, Im hoping that if we don't sign any more players for that position that he is just waiting for Mowatt to come back to play in that position. Not really sure what Tonge adds and we always seem to have our REALLY bad performances with him in the team. And lastly, its Sharp, not Sharpe.
