sacreblueits442

...he plays off the shoulder and you watch Vardy struggling in this system, you cannot expect him to excel in this system!!! We need a unorthodox Forward who will give us the presence up front aerially.

...not sure if anyone is watching the Brugge derby game, but it has a lot of spice and spite!!! The referee is all on Club Brugge side, he is going to send a Cercle player off eventually, I don't trust him not to. Very good game, first 10 minutes gone.

...I would like to see him stay on his feet more, stop going to ground!!! Any slight touch to win the ball by Hamza pushes the ball into the oncoming Middlesbrough player's path and Hamza would be out of the picture as he would still have been on the ground. Both Hamza and Faes seem to have this rush of blood to the head and makes rash decisions from nowhere.

...it would have been hard for the ref to award a penalty, Nacho would have had to throw himself down!!! He did the right thing staying on his feet, he was the right side of the defender and had positioned himself between the defender and the ball. Just as long as he could lift the ball over the Keeper was all that he would have been thinking about.

...the wingers have flattered to deceive!!! They have countless chances and cannot produce. Mavididi at 25, shows no composure in front of goal, if he is not scoring then his assists should be right up there with the best in the league. Fatawu, looks like a potential star, but makes the same mistakes, can't keep his shots down and makes insane decisions to shoot when he runs out of ideas. As I said in another thread, switch them around at the start or in games where we are struggling to make the breakthrough. If the are coming inside on their strongest foot, then it is hard to pull the ball back for the incoming midfield players, they have to go on the outside of their defenders, in order for them to supply with the "cut back." It is not a difficult thing to grasp, I was hoping that Maresca would have made the adjustment to his wingers by now. Leathering the ball is a sign of a lack of confidence, Maresca should have knocked that out of Mavididi's game by now and Fatawu may need to change his boots. Sometimes a new style of boot causes you to strike the ball differently. Constantly lifting the ball whilst shooting looks like he needs to go back to what he had before.

...a conventional Forward in a team that keeps possession is a ploy that seems to work!!! I always believed Hirst was a good player and pleased that he is at a place where he can show it. We will, I believe, get that same added part to our game with Cannon in place. I have only watched him on YouTube, but his movements and ability in the air will give us a new dimension, and teams will no longer be able to sit and ask us to break them down.

...that is because we have been institutionalised in respect of how we play the game!!! We have to start from the back and build, anything outside of that is alien, going direct with players taking the responsibility to progress and speed up the play is not part of the process. We have to our credit learned how to play a style of football that requires hard work and discipline, we now need to add variety to our game and reduce the passing to get in on goal, we are only passing for the sake of passing.

...not that we are trying for the perfect goal, no one is willing to take the responsibility of going for the goal!!! McAteer did just that before his injury and today had a run at the defence where he could or should have gone on his own but chose to make the pass instead. Passing is so ingrained in these players they do not want to take on the responsibility to go for a goal.

...just reading this it seems that you are saying that there has always been a playing style that has suited him!!! I am sure you meant the reverse, We just do not play in a way that suits his game, as a clone of Vardy it was a strange move to bring him in, seeing that Vardy was struggling in games where he was not getting on the ball and the service was non -existent. Maresca's style of play is a one-size-fits-all, it does limit us and for certain teams with a certain style of play, you have to change to combat what they will bring and give yourselves every opportunity. For teams such as a high-pressing Sunderland or Leeds, you might be best to start with a back five where Ricardo and Justin come into their own, a midfield of Winks, KDH and Yunus and two players forward, such as Nacho and Vardy with Daka coming on later. We do need to show something different, but I would suspect Maresca would see this as his system failing.

...posters have been saying this all season!!! QPR was supposed to have been the patsy, we squeaked through that one quite late. Until we can get our wingers producing, we are not going to be in a position to slaughter teams, they are always in the game for up to 70 minutes.

...wouldn't all this come down to Maresca!!! If you have a player putting in that sort of a performance you are surely going to hook him before half time. Has Maresca gone too soft I believe he was running a tight ship and if you are not "toeing the line", you are out of the team? Madivadua was banished to the U21s (for something that was said, done or not done) and is looking to find his way back, but if you do it for one, you have to do it for all.

...we will have better players!!! Borges was what I wanted to bring in to play on the left, Oscar Bobb as an #8 Archer and Rak-Sakyi as the CM and Right winger. All these at a fairly low cost and if we brought in McAtee it would improve this team no end. What this system needs are intelligent players, we let ourselves down so much with the choices that we make it does tend to cost us. We do need Maresca to identify the players that he believes can play these roles, this team will be markedly (in the Premier League) different from our present squad.

...I would think he brought in Ricardo to play the Winks role with Hamza alongside, with Casadei back in #8!!!

...the inference from Howard was that he was the only one willing to do something different and the style of football we are playing, strangles that!!!

...he needs to pull into the half spaces, where he has a run at the defence and not starting from the touchline!!! Sometimes you have to mix it up a bit, being too rigid makes you predictable. Switching wings would have been a good option, where they can supply with their better foot and you do not need several touches to do so.

...we have been unlucky having Yunus, Praet, and Wilf, all not available and a disfunctional Casadei!!!

..."third man running" seems to be missing from our play of late, no one making the run or looking to implement it!!!

...I really think Fatawu would be a good player to use in a similar situation!!!

...Justin has been poor and has done a few good things in games and probably why he has not had the crowd on his back!!! But you are right, I find him frustrating and in the last game every time he received the ball he was either giving it away or making some ridiculous foul on the opposition. He is right footed so struggling on the left to push us forward.

...did't the player take the ball back a bit in order to get it up and down!!! The defence was where they were told to be, but the ball was not where the referee had taken the distance from.

...I did not think we were ever going to score today!!! Much like the Hull game where we hit the post, the Leeds game where we hit the crossbar and as soon as Nacho hit the post, I just knew we were about to lose this game. You would think they would practise 3 v 2 breakaways and have a pattern in place, as we keep taking the wrong option and this is not just down to this season. As it seems coaches do not appear to focus too much in this area, the only way to improve this problem is to buy better more intelligent players, because there is no way I see these players getting better in these situations.

...the same problem which is running through this team, lack of composure!!! You can't go around swinging at balls just hoping to catch it right. For a team that is drilled in passing the ball, the amount of time we butcher chances by not making the right decisions will continue to cost us. When games are so tight, you need that bit of composure to come to the fore but we mess up over and over again.

...it was good to see McAteer back on again, I would have loved to have seen Cannon start today!!! Whether it is Vardy or Nacho, we are still not effective upfront and we need something different from what they bring. Bringing on Daka would not have helped, he would be just as frustrating as using Vardy, with them sitting so deep. Enzo not using his subs gives the impression he is looking to make a statement regarding the January window as the players from the bench would not have made any difference from what we saw today, just more of the same..

...we are predictable, we do the same thing over and over!!! Teams know how to handle us, they are never out of games as we do not punish teams when in the ascendency. A plan B, how about switching the wingers around, giving the opposition something else to contend with? With this option, we can pull passes back from the byeline as opposed to the square balls across goals. We are toothless with our wingers not producing, they are so predictable when they are in possession, we need a maverick upfront who other teams can't read and do the unexpected. Liverpool was the big influence on how to approach games against us, lesser teams are going to try and press us and man mark, and they will then go into a low block later in the game and hope for the breakaway goal, we look likely to concede in this way.

...the latter...!!! It is pointless for them to play so deep, it is not Vardy's game, it should be Nacho's but he has not got the hang of what is needed from him. As you said, a fox in the box is what we need, we have had breakaways and the striker is not where he needs to be, let us hope Cannon stays high enough to get on the end of crosses and can hold up the ball for support from the midfield.