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Corky

Loss of momentum when attacking

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11 hours ago, Corky said:

Seems to be far too common in our games, especially tonight. How often did we take an extra touch, delay in laying the ball off, heavy touch to lose control, bit of "skill" easily blocked, aimless cross?

 

Plenty were guilty. Iheanacho, Ndidi, Chilwell, Albrighton, Ricardo, Maddison, Gray all had opportunities to build something but, for whatever reason, didn't happen.

 

Is it nerves about losing the ball? Trying too much? Lack of composure in attacking areas is hurting us.

This is a huge problem for us and you’ve named half the team as culprits which tells its own story.

 

For me biggest culprit in this regard is somebody you’ve not named and that’s Mendy. He’s completely incapable of playing the ball forwards - the few occasions he tries it he loses it immediately.

 

Mendy is a very clever player - positionally he’s bright, he’s mobile, combative and very neat and tidy in his short passing game. But he is a terrible partner for Ndidi in this system.

 

The flaws in Ndidi’s passing game are well documented and if we’re to stand any chance of changing the pace of our attacking play he needs somebody with a stronger range of passing next to him. Right now that player has got to be Iborra, who made several decent forward passes yesterday and also adds some much needed height to what is not a tall team.

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Our forward players aren’t good enough. The coaching team are trying to improve them but it’s very slow progress. If we had players like Mane, Salah, Sterling, Mahrez etc we’d be better but currently we don’t.

 

So that leaves two options: 

- Change our style to better fit our current players. Better results short term but delaying any transition to “technical” football. 

- Persevere with our current style and acknowledge we aren’t very good. 

 

 

Even if we change our manager the choices are pretty much the same. I think we are a bit like Stoke when they changed  Pulis for Hughes. Hopefully it turns out better for us. 

 

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24 minutes ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

And to further compound that problem, he still doesn't throw caution to the wind in chasing a game.

 

How many times this season have Mendy and Ndidi finished the 90 minutes even when we're losing? Or he's waited until 75 or 80 minutes to make a change when it's been clear from 45/50 minutes that it's not working?

Yep. I called it yesterday that he was going to drag Iborra instead of any of the other two. N’Didi must have been close to having our most number of attempts yesterday. All miserably wide, high or a combo of both. 

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1 hour ago, Lovejoy said:

We try and pass our way through yet we have no passing ability in the deep lying midfield and we never get more than 2/3 bodies in the 18 yard box, quite often just one.

 

This is the main reason I actually think another midfielder and inside forward should take priority over another striker, as we don’t even have a good enough starting eleven, let alone having cover.

But with Vardy out we have nothing up front. The lack of movement last night was unreal. That and the fact we never get numbers forward. 

 

Then at the back we need to fvck off this zonal marking. It may work in Europe but not in our game. That and no one picks up runners. Times last night they had a spare man in the box. 

 

Last night was fvcking awful and I am starting to get the Puel out bug. We are not great up front with Vardy but without him we have nothing. Our midfield seems to just defend and none of them get into the box to help out. 

 

Then we have our back 4/6 that can't defend. No one picks up runners. Like spuds last night teams always seem to have a spare man or even an extra man. 

 

Daft as it sounds do we only start with 9 men. We always seem to be one short up front and another one short at the back. 

 

Yes I know we are 9th but no reason we should not be 6th. I'm not going to scream Puel out. But tbh I think I'd be happy if he was booted. 

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43 minutes ago, sylofox said:

But with Vardy out we have nothing up front. The lack of movement last night was unreal. That and the fact we never get numbers forward. 

 

Then at the back we need to fvck off this zonal marking. It may work in Europe but not in our game. That and no one picks up runners. Times last night they had a spare man in the box. 

 

Last night was fvcking awful and I am starting to get the Puel out bug. We are not great up front with Vardy but without him we have nothing. Our midfield seems to just defend and none of them get into the box to help out. 

 

Then we have our back 4/6 that can't defend. No one picks up runners. Like spuds last night teams always seem to have a spare man or even an extra man. 

 

Daft as it sounds do we only start with 9 men. We always seem to be one short up front and another one short at the back. 

 

Yes I know we are 9th but no reason we should not be 6th. I'm not going to scream Puel out. But tbh I think I'd be happy if he was booted. 

I understand there might be some relief if he was booted, but I think pretty quickly that would change to the slow dawn of anticipation of who might be next 

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30 minutes ago, harpendenfox said:

I understand there might be some relief if he was booted, but I think pretty quickly that would change to the slow dawn of anticipation of who might be next 

Don't get me wrong I love the fact we can play keep ball. Also play out from the back. I just think some of his tac tics don't fit the English game. The tempo is missing. We don't get men back fast enough and pick up runners. Then going fwd we seem so slow and have no runners. 

 

Also playing the way we are is not Vardy's game. So we then need two strikers 1or 2 in the middle and a new fuchs. 

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15 hours ago, Corky said:

Seems to be far too common in our games, especially tonight. How often did we take an extra touch, delay in laying the ball off, heavy touch to lose control, bit of "skill" easily blocked, aimless cross?

 

Plenty were guilty. Iheanacho, Ndidi, Chilwell, Albrighton, Ricardo, Maddison, Gray all had opportunities to build something but, for whatever reason, didn't happen.

 

Is it nerves about losing the ball? Trying too much? Lack of composure in attacking areas is hurting us.

So many times Chilwell, Gray and Maddison had through balls and forward passes just deflect off a Spurs player as it was heading through to danger. It cant just be bad luck, it's just naivety and a lack of composure. Theres the potential there but how long it will take to be realised is anyone's guess. Whatever the outcome we simply have to bring in more options in attack and out wide, not to mention a central midfielder who can create.

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Just now, Farrington fox said:

The last opportunity to get a point or 3 this year presents itself next Saturday. 

So how we gonna do that, without Vards, there seems very few options, we’re lacking in creativity, and we’re lacking sharpness in front of goal. 

Cardiff at home on the 29th isn't as difficult as perceived to be, they aren't unbeatable. I know Warnock is a pioneer in football but we're at home.

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Is it me or could our midfield really use a Danny Drinkwater type player. Combative,  tough player, who is good on the ball and can spray a pass. I know it may be taboo to bring him him back, but at this point......

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1 hour ago, Farrington fox said:

The last opportunity to get a point or 3 this year presents itself next Saturday. 

So how we gonna do that, without Vards, there seems very few options, we’re lacking in creativity, and we’re lacking sharpness in front of goal. 

Stick ndidi or maguire up front. At least they’ll have half a chance of heading it in

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The other issue is that we predominantly attack through the full backs.

 

This can give you a huge advantage in one of two ways if done right:

1) It allows you to create an overlap with the wide men to provide more crossing opportunities; or

2) It allows the wide forward players to tuck inside and support Maddison and Vardy.

 

The latter is how we started when Puel first got here, with Mahrez and Gray coming off the flanks to support Vardy. 

 

Unfortunately we’ve now found ourselves playing more of the first style (an inevitable consequence of Albrighton being in the team). This is all well and good if you’ve got both a target man and runners from midfield but we have neither. Time and again Albrighton and Chilwell/Pereira create good openings and there’s nobody to aim for.

 

Inevitably this leads to getting into good positions before one of them has to put their foot on the ball and roll it back to Wes. And we start again.

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17 hours ago, nepa fox said:

Is it me or could our midfield really use a Danny Drinkwater type player. Combative,  tough player, who is good on the ball and can spray a pass. I know it may be taboo to bring him him back, but at this point......

Presumably you mean Drinkwater c. 2016. On that basis I'm not sure Drinkwater is a 'Drinkwater type player' any more.

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Referencing an earlier post there is also a habit of players playing a pass and then standing to admire it instead of continuing to move and creat the return pass. Gray and Ghezzal both did it in the second half against spurs from memory. Started an attack then just stopped dead as the receiving player received the ball 

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8 minutes ago, F1_AN said:

Can I mention here my hatred of bringing every player back to defend corners?

just keep one up to at least give their defence something to think about if the ball breaks out 

You're not the only one. Remember when we used to leave 3 on the halfway line. That was attacking intent!

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On 09/12/2018 at 06:27, fleckneymike said:

Agree with @davieG

 

We also suffer from a lack of central players running beyond the ball. Our attacks fizzle out before they even start because no one moves to provide an option. 

This is absolutely spot on.

Do we have anyone in the squad capable of playing this way? I don't think so. Absolute priority to have this option and as soon as possible. We are just too easy to play against. Our striker is too often completely isolated.

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Just now, yorkie1999 said:

You're not the only one. Remember when we used to leave 3 on the halfway line. That was attacking intent!

We used to mark man-to-man and could clear the penalty area because we knew Morgan and Huth would head away anything which came into the box. It was in our interest to have space in our own area as it allowed them a free-er run.

 

Now, marking zonally, we need more defenders back to cover the space. We haven’t got the quality in defence to guarantee that somebody will get their head on it and grappling at corners appears to be slightly more frowned upon than it was 2 years ago. Once VAR comes in next year everybody will be defending zonally (most do anyway) and once this happens very few sides will leave men forward at corners.

 

It is frustrating but it does seem to work for us - by-and-large we defend set pieces very well.

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4 minutes ago, reynard said:

This is absolutely spot on.

Do we have anyone in the squad capable of playing this way? I don't think so. Absolute priority to have this option and as soon as possible. We are just too easy to play against. Our striker is too often completely isolated.

Not sure if we do :( 

But Puel is aware of this I think.  I assume he's told Ndidi and Mendy to move forward more often when they get the chance, Ndidi in particular seems to be venturing forward more as evinced by the number of times he got forward on his own at the weekend.  Good intent, but clearly not used to getting in those positions

 

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55 minutes ago, ttfn said:

We used to mark man-to-man and could clear the penalty area because we knew Morgan and Huth would head away anything which came into the box. It was in our interest to have space in our own area as it allowed them a free-er run.

 

Now, marking zonally, we need more defenders back to cover the space. We haven’t got the quality in defence to guarantee that somebody will get their head on it and grappling at corners appears to be slightly more frowned upon than it was 2 years ago. Once VAR comes in next year everybody will be defending zonally (most do anyway) and once this happens very few sides will leave men forward at corners.

 

It is frustrating but it does seem to work for us - by-and-large we defend set pieces very well.

But it inevitably means the ball is coming right back at us 100% of the time. I wonder how many goals we have conceded due to a recycled ball from a cleared corner?  I have no idea btw 

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58 minutes ago, ttfn said:

We used to mark man-to-man and could clear the penalty area because we knew Morgan and Huth would head away anything which came into the box. It was in our interest to have space in our own area as it allowed them a free-er run.

 

Now, marking zonally, we need more defenders back to cover the space. We haven’t got the quality in defence to guarantee that somebody will get their head on it and grappling at corners appears to be slightly more frowned upon than it was 2 years ago. Once VAR comes in next year everybody will be defending zonally (most do anyway) and once this happens very few sides will leave men forward at corners.

 

It is frustrating but it does seem to work for us - by-and-large we defend set pieces very well.

We used to concede from from what seemed like every other set piece before the change.

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