Route 1

[AndyT]

Maybe he meant he came bearing gifts!

 

[amsemp]

Good points @amsemp

My only tweak, as mentioned earlier, would be to go 4-4-2 and pass into midfield rather than across the back-line.

I do agree Andy. At least we wouldn’t be losing the ball in danger areas. Right now, when we lose the ball we’re already in hot water. Oxford’s first goal a prime example of that.

 

[AndyT]

Yes, a perfect illustration. Playing into midfield and pushing up just adds a bit more protection.

PB's side generally played this way. The key then was Lenny, who would be your safety valve in front of the back-four. I mentioned to someone the other day that we've actually never been the same side since his departure and started to slide in the season he had interest from Sheffield United.

Timlin did a good stop-gap under SCP, but once he went, the whole thing has gone South.

 

[Leigh_Seasider]

I do agree Andy. At least we wouldn’t be losing the ball in danger areas. Right now, when we lose the ball we’re already in hot water. Oxford’s first goal a prime example of that.

And opposition teams are putting men forward to exploit it. Matty Taylor case in point. Two things causing it I think, lack of confidence and lack of options. Lack of options would also dictate Sol’s formation/tactics as you eloquently described above. I bet he’s already identified who/what he needs to bring in, but he first needs to get the team playing his style. Route 1 isn’t going to happen.

 

[Leigh_Seasider]

Yes, a perfect illustration. Playing into midfield and pushing up just adds a bit more protection.

PB's side generally played this way. The key then was Lenny, who would be your safety valve in front of the back-four. I mentioned to someone the other day that we've actually never been the same side since his departure and started to slide in the season he had interest from Sheffield United.

Timlin did a good stop-gap under SCP, but once he went, the whole thing has gone South.

We are missing that. As you say, a Lenny type player.

 

[OldBlueLady]

We are missing that. As you say, a Lenny type player.

And before anyone says it, Dru was not that type of player. He might have become it but he was a long way off when he left to sit in Brentford's reserves.

 

[AndyT]

Exactly this. Lenny is your stopper. He's attributes were always his pace, reading of the game and tackling. He was never a great passer.

Dru, on the other hand, is best carrying the ball and running at people. I think Hutchinson has this as well. Both liked to create opportunities, but both need/needed someone to do the leg-work.

 

[rigsby]

Everyone seems to be focused on the defence when it comes to passing. You need all 11 players to believe if its going to work. The most important bit is movement. Without that you don't have options which is why we go all the way back. The best bit was Oxford didn't actually press us that hard. They just let us have the ball and waited to pounce on the predictable mistake.

Route one does not have to be headers only. The ball needs to be 'clipped' into Hopper. As he proved at Tranmere he is good at our level just shielding, holding and winning free kicks. When you have a decent number 9 being your most underused player at home when your desperate for points.....mmmmm

I not just blaming Sol and Bond. The rot set in under CP of going whole games at home without testing their keeper. Even our set pieces are shockingly poor.

For along time I have thought we are a boxer without a punch, now we can't even take a straight jab.

 

[Lord Football]

I would argue we have more players suited to this than we do long direct hoof ball!!

I watched a lot of that last season.....we barely won a game in 20, were 3 mins from relegation and it was universally moaned about on here by most fans....

You watched a lot of what?? I wasn't advocating long ball. I was merely stating we don't have the personnel to play the style KB wanted to and SC seems to think he is limited to. You may want to argue that, but the results and performances don't lie.

Given we'd both agree we don't have the players to play long ball it begs the question....

….what system do we play, that meets the personnel we have?

 

[Tombstone Blues]

Everyone seems to be focused on the defence when it comes to passing. You need all 11 players to believe if its going to work. The most important bit is movement. Without that you don't have options which is why we go all the way back. The best bit was Oxford didn't actually press us that hard. They just let us have the ball and waited to pounce on the predictable mistake.

Hallelujah. Someone has said it.

Many would have us believe that Sol and the players actually believe the object of possession was simply to play passes across the back 4!!

Possession football or short passing is aimed at one thing and that’s to draw opposition players to the ball and away from areas they want to protect ie their own half, their own final third and ultimately their goal.

Ultimately the only purpose is to play through, round, or over the press when it eventually comes.

Some teams will sit deep and let you have it - you need to be patient to draw these teams out and play closer to them, to threaten what they are protecting and offer them temptation to break ranks and try and win the ball.

Others will set out to press aggressively from the off - you cannot play close to your goal against those teams as the risk is too great. But you do need to break their press quickly and efficiently, again by playing through, round or over their press.

Some teams will offer a hybrid of these principles and you will need to recognise when and how you can break their lines.

Either way, you need ALL your players to be brave and proficient in their technical ability and willing to receive the ball in tight areas and have the ability and options to play quickly.

This is what Sol has constantly alluded to when he mentions “taking the handbrake off” and “making angles to play passes”.

However, where we currently sit, and after the numerous manager turn overs and the inevitable changes in philosophy that those managers have brought, the players have neither the confidence in themselves or the knowledge or belief in the system to do it well enough.

Saturday was a prime example. The back three repeatedly wanted and looked to play into midfield to try and break a line or beat the press. The options were very very limited either numerically or tactically and ultimately technically. The midfield players couldn’t or wouldn’t offer themselves up in areas that enables us to get out and so it resulted in another pass sideways or backwards. This appears to be done slowly because players are looking to play forwards, can’t see an option and then have to look elsewhere.

The most important players in modern football and modern methods are the midfield players who are technically good enough to receive the ball in tight areas offer themselves up on the half turn and play forwards from receiving the ball from their defenders and turn things into attacking possibilities .....academies are spending hour after hour on the training pitches, endless hours in recruitment and lots of money trying to create or find these players such as Phil Foden who can do this.

There has to be a start point and there has to be a pathway of improvement and that doesn’t include chopping and changing managers, philosophies or ethos every five minutes. That means being patient, persevering and having trust in what you do. This starts at the top, works through the club at all levels, filters through to the players and includes you / us, the clubs supporters.

Saturday we didn’t have those type of players on the pitch and we dont have the bravery in our play to be able to do it......yet. Hutchinson who is probably our most adept and bravest player for wanting and asking to be on the ball in tight areas was on the bench. There was a noticeable improvement when he came on, coupled with a system tweak and aided also by the introduction of Goodship who shows similar qualities. But for that first half hour we got it horribly wrong and that goes for management, players and fans!

Working backwards, the fans have a huge input into this. When players have spent all week working on a system and a pattern of play and have been asked to try and play through the thirds and into midfield that’s what they will try to do. When the crowd don’t buy into it and howl their displeasure it sows a tiny seed of doubt into the player in possessions mind. Caught between the weeks work and managers instruction and 6000 people booing him.....it creates indecision for a split second that is often the difference. I’ll tell you now from experience it will create an annoyance in the players mind...”you’re booing me when you have no idea what I’ve been asked to do or what I’m capable of” and it breeds resentment...player to crowd, crowd to player and ultimately most importantly, player to manager - which is where “losing the dressing room” begins.

We have been getting it wrong. Not by trying to play football but by not doing it well enough and not doing it at the right times.

Teams will set out to press us and if not aggressively they will press is tactically by setting traps forcing or allowing us to play into a certain player or area and then trapping us in areas we cannot get out of.

Tactically (and this is where @mfurok will actually agree with me ?) we need to actually play more directly earlier in games and play what is known as “for position not possession” for possibly the first 10,15 even 20 mins of a game. Set our stall out and allow the game to settle into a more natural pattern, allow nerves to settle and to let players feel their way into games before the ebb and flow of the game is in place....then we can grow into it and assert whatever it is we feel is our philosophy and game plan.

I could go on with observations on formations and what suits this best but I’d be boring some, accused of lecturing others and called a selection of names by others ???

Of course, I should always end my posts with the disclaimer that this is if course only my opinion.......

 

[Leigh_Seasider]

It’s not an incorrect opinion Tombstone. By and large I agree with you. Sol is persevering with increasing the players’ confidence, getting them to want the ball, play it forward, all that good stuff. Does anyone really think he says to the players “knock it across our 6 yard box” ?! .. it’s a work in progress. We need new bodies, everyone knows that. Until then, let’s look at the bigger picture. These are players whose mentality has been ingrained in them. We need to persist and support. Sol will not abandon his principles, of that I’m pretty sure.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Sorry Leigh Seasider but do you really disagree with the statement that If we lose the ball far away from our goal it is much more difficult for the opposition to score than if we lose the ball close to our goal?

I'm not Leigh Seasider but I completely disagree with that statement for modern professional football.

It's probably true for Sunday League football because amateurs don't have the speed or accuracy of passing to punish teams with passes over 20 yards but in L1 they do and we see it every week.

It's far less about territory than about the position of the defending team's players relative to the attacking team's players. Losing the ball away from our defenders rather than away from our goal.

If a team has a corner and leaves one player on the halfway line and that player then loses it on the half way line after the corner was cleared that's far worse than a midfielder losing it in the middle of his own half when he's got 5 defenders behind him.

Just look at the goals we conceded last weekend. The first was given away by Taylor in the penalty area. Goal.

The second was given away by Dieng half way in our own half. Goal.

The fourth was lost by Cox on the half way line. Same result. Goal.

The common factor was losing the ball in space, not where it was lost. It didn't make a difference if we lost it in our own area or on the half way line. L1 teams have the quality to punish teams for mistakes whether they are in their own area or on the half way line in a way that amateur footballers don't.

As Sol said in the AGM, we don’t have have the players to play route one. Sturrock had some success playing direct football but we had Barry Corr up front. Hopper isn’t big or strong enough to win headers and hold the ball up against towering centre backs, nor is Humphrys. Route one would mean the opposition centre backs heading it straight back into the middle where our completely inept midfield wouldn’t win it back, meaning our completely inept defence would then be completely exposed.

We also don’t have strikers with pace who can peel away from their marker and time a run for a one on one with the keeper. So there’s no point asking the midfield to release the ball earlier either, as a) I doubt many of them could play the killer ball and b) our strikers would get caught by the opposition defence.

That leaves the only viable option being what Sol is currently doing. Playing out from the back with patient build up, hoping to work the ball into the opposition box to create some chances for the strikers to finish. If we sign some playmakers, forwards with pace or height and strength in January then that may change. But for now I can’t see he’s got much other choice.

For what it’s worth, Hopper and Humphrys aren’t bad players. I rate them highly. But neither is a good strike partner for eachother. They both need to be playing alongside a striker with pace or height and strength. That’s not eachother and definitely not Cox. Would’ve preferred sending Cox out on loan and keeping Theo. He would’ve at least given us something different we don’t currently have.

Hopper wins virtually everything in the air. He doesn't necessarily out jump bigger defenders but with his greater mobility he positions himself to get there marginally before the more lumbering defender. He is very good at this.

What we don't have is anyone who can feed off of him. He's too isolated and we lack pace (and ambition) to get up to support him.

 

[Angell Delight]

The most revealing statistic of the Oxford game is that Southend had over 60% possession and still lost 4-0.

And that shows how meaningless possession stats are if you do nothing with the ball. Leicester ranked 18th in the Premier League for possession in 2015/16 (41%) and won the league by 10pts....

 

[AndyT]

Just following on from @Yorkshire Blue excellent post is that the thing noticeable about Hopper in the two games on ifollow and the Oxford game I have seen is the oppo defenders are right on him. There's hardly an inch of space, whereas the oppo players can turn in our penalty box almost unchallenged.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just following on from @Yorkshire Blue excellent post is that the thing noticeable about Hopper in the two games on ifollow and the Oxford game I have seen is the oppo defenders are right on him. There's hardly an inch of space, whereas the oppo players can turn in our penalty box almost unchallenged.

The fact that there is so little space in what I still think of as third division football is one of the things that makes it so watchable,IMO.

You're quite right also to draw attention to the fact (as have others) that this season in particular we are allowing opposition teams to pick their way through our midfield with barely a challenge worthy of the name.

 

[AndyT]

Exactly this. The number of goals conceded where players have time to pick their spot or pick a pass inside our penalty box is alarming.