I thought Burns had a decent first half and was really our only consistent outlet, he's just not being found enough, I think how things shaped up yesterday it would've been an ideal game for Chaplin. It just feels like there's just been too many players who aren't quite used to the system yet, I know some of this is due to injury but there's definitely bits of the players who got us there that we miss, particularly from a positional sense.
Woolfenden inviting the press...Morsy has looked far less impressive without Woolfenden. Davis in part hasn't been as able to get forwards due to the role which Luongo plays. Chaplin being out of the side means Burns isn't being played in as much and Davis isn't able to find him in the box. Hirst being out of the team isn't able to create the same space for others in the box.
From what I have observed so far the players we've brought in are superior in terms of their athleticism and strength to those we already had but their positional/tactical awareness currently isn't as good and a significant part of that may be down to the fact they haven't played together for very long but I also think the players we recruited in League1 and the Championship are all intelligent tactically aware footballers but perhaps lacking athleticism in some form. I've yet to see that from any of the new players yet. And this is the challenge we have in regards to integrating lots of new players into the team.
There's areas we are far stronger in than last season, we are clearly a faster, more athletic and stronger but there are also areas we are weaker that's tactically and positionally and we'll need to wait to see whether these new players develop that through playing together but also how McKenna develops the team tactically because we've always been at our best under him when he's selected a settled line up and understood the strengths of his players and how they all fit together in the team. At the moment we've not looked anywhere near as coherent on the ball as we have previously and that may partly be due to the level but I do think in the main it's due to the number of players we're integrating into the team. I think McKenna does need to stick with the team a little more, there have been players this season who've had great games and been dropped the next, it doesn't feel too much like form is being considered in team selections currently.
I do like the sound of Clarke, Szmodics and Hutchinson but I also think you risk being crowded in the centre and it would also require having more width from our fullbacks, something we haven't done as much this year.
