Have we been relying too much on screamers?

[coolhandfox]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

Yep, we have progressed into a team that is probably "too good to do gown" because we genuinely have top class players that can do incredible things. I'd argue given our performances we are lucky to be 12th as it stands! We've been generally poor.

 

Compared to Man Untied though, we definitely have a clear structure of play. You can see what we are trying to do in every game we play, whereas Man United are just individuals. However, Man U have even better individuals than we do so have managed to get more points us, even though as a team they are much worse.

 

It is strange though. This is the best squad we've ever had, and many players are in good form. And yet through poor individual errors and a collective lack of synergy we have been poor. Rodgers isn't telling our players to go out and play shit, but they are not performing. I suspect it's because the players are too comfortable and the same message being repeated every day lacks it previous gravitas. We do still have many good moves in every game, but there aren't enough of them and we aren't as good as sustaining attacks or repelling the opposition forays.

 

Fergie would always sign marquee players, often when he didn't need them, just to keep players on their toes. I do wonder if we needed something like that; a proven big name player in the right position to lay into the team. It can be a big risk, but Zlatan Ibrahmovic as an example really pushed Man U and AC Milan up a gear. I think the team and squad needs a major system shock, though of course this carries many risks with it.

I think it is a mental thing than anything else.

 

Winning the FA Cup is a massive achievement for the majority of our squad. Listen to any past winners of mayor trophies, and they often mention the difficulty in going again. It is easy for some players to rest on their laurels a little, even if it is subconsciously. In the PL, you only have to drop off a couple of % to come unstuck.

 

Then add in finishing 5th at the final hurdle two seasons running. Once again, it's harder to find the drive to go again. 

 

I thought our summer business was good from a squad and future playing point of view. But felt we needed a lift from a marquee signing to boost the squad from a quality point of view and give everyone a mental lift. Almost a "Wow, he's playing for us moment" I better up my game. 

 

But it's hard for us to have the financial muscle to do that. 
 

[foxinsocks]

We are only scoring individual goals at the mo because we have no systematic approach to how to use possession to create a chance.

Most teams have 4 or 5 template goals... (wide to the left, early ball in to players rushing into the box; slide rule pass beyond their CBs etc).

We just pass it about. 

[filbertway]

2 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Yep, we have progressed into a team that is probably "too good to do gown" because we genuinely have top class players that can do incredible things. I'd argue given our performances we are lucky to be 12th as it stands! We've been generally poor.

 

Compared to Man Untied though, we definitely have a clear structure of play. You can see what we are trying to do in every game we play, whereas Man United are just individuals. However, Man U have even better individuals than we do so have managed to get more points us, even though as a team they are much worse.

 

It is strange though. This is the best squad we've ever had, and many players are in good form. And yet through poor individual errors and a collective lack of synergy we have been poor. Rodgers isn't telling our players to go out and play shit, but they are not performing. I suspect it's because the players are too comfortable and the same message being repeated every day lacks it previous gravitas. We do still have many good moves in every game, but there aren't enough of them and we aren't as good as sustaining attacks or repelling the opposition forays.

 

Fergie would always sign marquee players, often when he didn't need them, just to keep players on their toes. I do wonder if we needed something like that; a proven big name player in the right position to lay into the team. It can be a big risk, but Zlatan Ibrahmovic as an example really pushed Man U and AC Milan up a gear. I think the team and squad needs a major system shock, though of course this carries many risks with it.

Can't disagree with any of this.

 

I think my main gripe is that I'll happily back a manager and team if I think we're playing at our expected level or above, it's when the performance levels drop below the expected for a sustained period of time.

 

If we had a bunch of cloggers playing in league two, I'd be just as active on this forum and would be just as concerned that the team either is or isn't performing to expectation. Everything is relative and things can change drastically within a couple of years. At the minute, we have a squad of unbelievable talent that for one reason or another isn't performing anywhere near the levels that we've seen them perform.

 

It's all very flat and there seems to be no marked improvement, our 2 best performances came against teams who got whalloped the following game, how we performed after those two games makes me think the opposition played as much part in the performance as we did. We've just made a team that has been in awful form and low on confidence look every bit out equals if not better than us. I just can't get aboard the mindset that we should wait for things to fall apart before making a change.

 

I'd like to think that Rudkin is at least in Rodgers' ear just saying "we need to see some improvements". At the minute it feels like everyone seems to be happy with how things are going as there seems to be no change in our approach to games or the performance levels. It's easy to see why football manager cycles seem to last 2/3 years. I think if you're too nice then the players will become comfortable and naturally drop off. On the flip side, if you're too much of an arse like Conte or Mourinho, eventually the players come to dislike you and performance levels drop.

 

It takes an impressive character to be able to manage a club for a long period of time whilst still being able to keep performance levels high and players motivated to perform to the best of their abilities.

 

The 2 experienced players we have brought in don't seem to have had a positive effect on the squad, looks like Bertrand is here for a last good pay day and Vesty has already been replaced by the player he was supposed to replace. 

 

Hopefully we learn a bit of a lesson from this in terms of contracts we hand out to managers in the future, we've tied our hands behinds our back somewhat in that Rodgers is under no pressure to turn things around. I'm sure he'd like to of course, but it's not his career or families future on the line if he doesn't. He's held in high regard by the media and will get plenty of opportunities regardless of how this season pans out.

 

I'm pretty sure I was buzzing about him signing the contract at the time as well, so it's something I'll definitely be thinking of in the future as well.

[Corky]

2 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

I think people overstate set pieces as a source of goals. 

 

On average, it's something like 20 corners lead to a good chance. This season in the league we've had 57. That's about right considering the miminal decisions we've had go against us in that area disallowing three goals. 

Our attacking set-pieces are improving.  Rodgers got a lot of stick for his claims we'd been working hard on them but you can see a different approach (drift in at the near post, flick on) in the last two games.

[StriderHiryu]

2 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

I think it is a mental thing than anything else.

 

Winning the FA Cup is a massive achievement for the majority of our squad. Listen to any past winners of mayor trophies, and they often mention the difficulty in going again. It is easy for some players to rest on their laurels a little, even if it is subconsciously. In the PL, you only have to drop off a couple of % to come unstuck.

 

Then add in finishing 5th at the final hurdle two seasons running. Once again, it's harder to find the drive to go again. 

 

I thought our summer business was good from a squad and future playing point of view. But felt we needed a lift from a marquee signing to boost the squad from a quality point of view and give everyone a mental lift. Almost a "Wow, he's playing for us moment" I better up my game. 

 

But it's hard for us to have the financial muscle to do that. 
 

100% agreed.

 

The players looked really deflated at the end of last season despite winning the FA Cup. It might have been one rodeo too far.

 

The issue is that problems like this aren't so easy to fix. There is a growing feeling of fans turning against the manager, but I'm not convinced that's the silver bullet many think it will be. Despite having a young squad, it might actually be best to move on a few and bring in new blood. I could see Tielemans, Ricardo and Soyuncu all going and whilst all 3 are on their day top class players, that would be a big shakeup both for the squad and first team. Especially if the manager also changed. But equally things could go south very quickly if we aren't careful if that happened.

 

Sometimes major corporations change their CEO, even if they are doing well just to bring in new ideas and modernise things. I feel like we need to do that, though not necessarily through player and manager changes. Fergie changed his assistant manager every few years for this reason, and that had a big impact. For example the team with Ronaldo / Rooney / Tevez played 433, whereas his class of 99 side played 442. That change was brought about by Carlos Quieroz as Fergie wanted to modernise the side. Maybe we could do that, but Brendan is a proper training ground manager and honestly knows his stuff. 

 

In short we all know there's a problem but no idea how to fix it. Sometimes in life you can get into a rut and nothing works out... and then as mysteriously as the rut set in it can vanish just through luck or some other completely random factor. We are definitely in a rut!

 

[Duquesne Whistle]

2 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

 

 Listen to any past winners of mayor trophies
 

[Dahnsouff]

If screamers is Youri’s  nickname, then yes.

[Hoopla10]

3 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

Listen to any past winners of mayor trophies, and they often mention the difficulty in going again.

I agree, winning the Charity Shield ruined us.

[justfoxes]

On 09/11/2021 at 23:13, MPH said:

Thought this was a post  about Bernie..

I thought this was a post about something completely different !!