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So there will be people who don't see any positives and that's absolutely understandable, yesterday wasn't much to shout about (except getting a loud complaint from the neighbour upon celebrating our goal), so I'm gonne try and be as neutral as possible.
For the first 20 minutes we looked very solid, nothing spectacular but we didn't give them space to create chances and their only shot must have been from 30 yards out or something. On the flip side, we lacked attacking intent and seemed comfortable perhaps waiting out until half time to nick a goal before we head in (a very dangerous game). As soon as henry made that awful mistake and we conceded, we looked lazy, incapable of moving the ball properly and nervous, not helped by the poor passing of Dunne and Barton. Playing what looked like a 4141 with kranjcar switching occasionally with fer and Henry 'shielding' the defence (poorly). Their second goal was really inevitable and came from a poor error from Vargas but I feel Dunne and Hill should have been better in their movement, with hill too far up leaving Dunne moving to cover him and opening space for Walters in the middle. Looking from that point on, we started to move forward, and got our reward with a good team goal brought about by our MOTM Leroy Fer. Moving him into the middle gave us a level of defensive solidity and this was highlighted by him making more tackles than any stoke player and only barton making more tackles than him. Going into the second half with Shawcross injured and momentum behind us, I felt we could go on to win it (a la Leicester at home).
The second half was quite interesting for a few reasons as it highlighted a few interesting points. We looked better in that second half but still not great, never really looked like scoring much. we had four shots in the second half from inside the box and should have had one more if zamora actually made contact with that header, and for the first time this season, we actually had chances in the 6 yard box. Probably the only two notable chances were the Genius overhead kick and the Barton free kick. We never looked to penetrate, rather we wanted to shoot from outside. The reasons for this are that Austin isn't a through ball striker. He doesn't tend to try and beat the offside trap and our players never look to play that pass anyway. People will say that Vargas should play up front so he can do that, but it would be useless if none of our players try and play him through. My concern is why our players don't actually bother looking out wide to pass and try and get a cross in. I think this will be solved once we bring in a new left sided player or bring back phillips to the side.
I don't think the third goal highlighted anything new really, 3 goals scored in the 90+ period in our last 5 league games have cost us.
How I see us moving up this season is simple, play an actual 433. Not a 433 that becomes a 451 because we aren't fast enough in the middle for that. Play a simple 433 with Vargas, Austin and a lw at the top, fer, Barton and Sandro in the middle, and the regular defence but with caulker instead of Dunne (for passing purposes) and we will see improvements. Right now, it isn't looking great and there were more negatives from yesterday than positives for sure. But going forward, we can succeed.
For the first 20 minutes we looked very solid, nothing spectacular but we didn't give them space to create chances and their only shot must have been from 30 yards out or something. On the flip side, we lacked attacking intent and seemed comfortable perhaps waiting out until half time to nick a goal before we head in (a very dangerous game). As soon as henry made that awful mistake and we conceded, we looked lazy, incapable of moving the ball properly and nervous, not helped by the poor passing of Dunne and Barton. Playing what looked like a 4141 with kranjcar switching occasionally with fer and Henry 'shielding' the defence (poorly). Their second goal was really inevitable and came from a poor error from Vargas but I feel Dunne and Hill should have been better in their movement, with hill too far up leaving Dunne moving to cover him and opening space for Walters in the middle. Looking from that point on, we started to move forward, and got our reward with a good team goal brought about by our MOTM Leroy Fer. Moving him into the middle gave us a level of defensive solidity and this was highlighted by him making more tackles than any stoke player and only barton making more tackles than him. Going into the second half with Shawcross injured and momentum behind us, I felt we could go on to win it (a la Leicester at home).
The second half was quite interesting for a few reasons as it highlighted a few interesting points. We looked better in that second half but still not great, never really looked like scoring much. we had four shots in the second half from inside the box and should have had one more if zamora actually made contact with that header, and for the first time this season, we actually had chances in the 6 yard box. Probably the only two notable chances were the Genius overhead kick and the Barton free kick. We never looked to penetrate, rather we wanted to shoot from outside. The reasons for this are that Austin isn't a through ball striker. He doesn't tend to try and beat the offside trap and our players never look to play that pass anyway. People will say that Vargas should play up front so he can do that, but it would be useless if none of our players try and play him through. My concern is why our players don't actually bother looking out wide to pass and try and get a cross in. I think this will be solved once we bring in a new left sided player or bring back phillips to the side.
I don't think the third goal highlighted anything new really, 3 goals scored in the 90+ period in our last 5 league games have cost us.
How I see us moving up this season is simple, play an actual 433. Not a 433 that becomes a 451 because we aren't fast enough in the middle for that. Play a simple 433 with Vargas, Austin and a lw at the top, fer, Barton and Sandro in the middle, and the regular defence but with caulker instead of Dunne (for passing purposes) and we will see improvements. Right now, it isn't looking great and there were more negatives from yesterday than positives for sure. But going forward, we can succeed.
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