Huddersfield Away , last trip before the break.
- Thread starter The Blobster
- Start date
I'll say again it is my dearest wish that Martin packs his bags and heads for pastures new and takes his bunch of 'coaches' with him. If anyone at the Liberty possessed half the football knowledge of a backward amoeba, they'd be granting this wish sometime soon - preferably in the next 30 minutes. How anyone who professes to know anything about this games can actually pay someone to produce this utter dross, is utterly beyond my comprehension. We are pathetic!!
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
There’s no substitute for a player being willing and able to skin a defender. It’s dangerous and disruptive to any system you choose to setup and defend with. Cooper, Cundle, Flex have shown themselves willing and to some degree able. I exclude Paterson because he thinks he can but 9 times out of 10 twists up his own arse and looses the ball. I don’t see it in Obafemi or Piroe to the degree that makes them dangerous with their backs to goal receiving the ball. Ntcham is another that hints at this ability but teases instead of making it a regular try.
we keep trying to use wing backs on the touch lines high up but none have the ability to function as a winger and therefore rarely threaten. They thrive on a leading pass and things are often too tight, and our minds and movement too slow to make it a viable option. They receive the ball, lack the speed, skill, desire to try and almost invariably turn back and pass back.
the little I saw today resembled an attack v defense kids kick about in the park. The big difference being as kids we couldn’t pass for shit but we could dribble of sorts and were ultra keen to take a defender on. Our seniors as a whole lack the keenness even if they have the nous.
When I used to play with Ronnie Rees, he loved to receive the ball certain ways because he knew exactly how he was going to receive and beat the defender with one touch and you could see the thrill in his eyes as the ball came in and it all unfolded. The thrill made him hungry for the ball; he would invite the defender to get tight. We don’t have that except for perhaps in Flex, and as with Montero, we lack the intelligence to quickly play him into the game and harvest the rewards.
football just by passing is like death by a thousand cuts. It has its place, but it has to be the means to release your most potent threats. Sadly we lack the movement and tempo to create killer passing options and we don’t put enough wizards on the field nor give them the green light to work their magic.
I'm sure dribbling is forbidden by a lot of possession-fixated coaches, who seem to want a team full of midfielders playing one-touch keep-away while forgetting there's a goal to attack.
It's "safer" to pass the ball before you have to beat anyone. They try to beat the defence with passes instead, but because possession football is almost always slow-paced (how much can you stretch the field playing 10 yard passes?) those passes then have to be world class to beat the 10 men that have had time enough to walk back in front of their own goal. It is much easier to defend that style of football than it is to play it.
Look at Martin - I've joked before that he's secretly playing a 0-10-0 formation most weeks. Look at his pets:
Darling would be better as a midfielder than a defender - he's good a good shot and his braincramps would harm the team less. Fisher would even be better as a midfielder than a goalkeeper, because a midfielder who passes like a goalkeeper is still less of a liability than a goalkeeper who catches crosses like a midfielder.
Martin's midfield fixation has ruined Piroe, too. Piroe is a striker capable of scoring 0.54 goals per game but he's been played as a #10 or a #8 so much he's forgotten how to play #9.
I was looking at the table earlier. Swansea are still somehow in 8th place after today while Bristol City are 18th. I chose Bristol City because of their stats:
Both teams have scored 27 goals.
Bristol City have conceded just one more than Swansea - 29 v 28.
Swansea are 8th, Bristol City are 18th.
Swansea are 7 points better off than Bristol City.
This means that Swansea's attack and defence capability is almost exactly the same as Bristol City. One team is 7 points and 10 places better off only because one or two goals fell at advantageous times for Swansea where they did not for Bristol. The teams could easily be in each other's places.
It's a far cry from the records of the top four or five teams, who either have staggering positive goal differences (Burnley +14 and Sheffield United +16) or at least healthy ones (Watford and Norwich +6, Blackburn +5).
Swansea are the highest-placed team that have a negative goal difference. This isn't sustainable. The attack and defence needs to improve, but Martin can't get his head out of the midfield long enough to see it.
At MK Dons he almost always played 3-5-1-1, which is another way of saying 3-6-1. At Swansea it's 3-4-2-1, which is also another way of saying 3-6-1. It's a perfect symbol of Swansea's struggles. The smallest numbers - 3 and 1 - are at at the two ends of the field where Swansea need help, co-incidentally the same two ends of the field where the goals are and the two ends of the field you're least likely to want to play a pass. No wonder passing-obsessed Martin doesn't know what to do in either.
I'm not a long-ball advocate but a few weeks of 4-2-4 really wouldn't go amiss right now
It's "safer" to pass the ball before you have to beat anyone. They try to beat the defence with passes instead, but because possession football is almost always slow-paced (how much can you stretch the field playing 10 yard passes?) those passes then have to be world class to beat the 10 men that have had time enough to walk back in front of their own goal. It is much easier to defend that style of football than it is to play it.
Look at Martin - I've joked before that he's secretly playing a 0-10-0 formation most weeks. Look at his pets:
Darling would be better as a midfielder than a defender - he's good a good shot and his braincramps would harm the team less. Fisher would even be better as a midfielder than a goalkeeper, because a midfielder who passes like a goalkeeper is still less of a liability than a goalkeeper who catches crosses like a midfielder.
Martin's midfield fixation has ruined Piroe, too. Piroe is a striker capable of scoring 0.54 goals per game but he's been played as a #10 or a #8 so much he's forgotten how to play #9.
I was looking at the table earlier. Swansea are still somehow in 8th place after today while Bristol City are 18th. I chose Bristol City because of their stats:
Both teams have scored 27 goals.
Bristol City have conceded just one more than Swansea - 29 v 28.
Swansea are 8th, Bristol City are 18th.
Swansea are 7 points better off than Bristol City.
This means that Swansea's attack and defence capability is almost exactly the same as Bristol City. One team is 7 points and 10 places better off only because one or two goals fell at advantageous times for Swansea where they did not for Bristol. The teams could easily be in each other's places.
It's a far cry from the records of the top four or five teams, who either have staggering positive goal differences (Burnley +14 and Sheffield United +16) or at least healthy ones (Watford and Norwich +6, Blackburn +5).
Swansea are the highest-placed team that have a negative goal difference. This isn't sustainable. The attack and defence needs to improve, but Martin can't get his head out of the midfield long enough to see it.
At MK Dons he almost always played 3-5-1-1, which is another way of saying 3-6-1. At Swansea it's 3-4-2-1, which is also another way of saying 3-6-1. It's a perfect symbol of Swansea's struggles. The smallest numbers - 3 and 1 - are at at the two ends of the field where Swansea need help, co-incidentally the same two ends of the field where the goals are and the two ends of the field you're least likely to want to play a pass. No wonder passing-obsessed Martin doesn't know what to do in either.
I'm not a long-ball advocate but a few weeks of 4-2-4 really wouldn't go amiss right now
CroJack
Key Player
I wish Martin had a midfield fixation, but he doesn't. Midfield means in the middle of the field, not on the flanks.
Martin's ball = pussyfooting around.
This is Wood-Lati-Cooper's heat map against Huddersfield:
And this is Cabango-Manning-Ntcham's:
So, tell me, what on earth are Cooper and Ntcham
doing on the flanks?
And how on earth are we going to score goals when our two attacking midfielders,
who are supposed to play BEHIND Piroe, are hiding on the flanks
most of the time leaving Piroe alone to attack crosses?
But I don't blame the players, I blame the manager who allows such crap.This is Wood-Lati-Cooper's heat map against Huddersfield:
And this is Cabango-Manning-Ntcham's:
So, tell me, what on earth are Cooper and Ntcham
doing on the flanks?
And how on earth are we going to score goals when our two attacking midfielders,
who are supposed to play BEHIND Piroe, are hiding on the flanks
most of the time leaving Piroe alone to attack crosses?
Not much to add to what's already been said. Our passing is fine but, like the rest of our game, it needs far more zip. We need to be doing EVERYTHING faster in fact. This slow motion stuff is strangling any aspirations we might have of challenging the top. And it would help if Martin benched Piroe and threw the dice with Cullen or start Obafemi. We need goals and, for the moment, Piroe has dried up. FACT. Some stats:
POSSESSION: 25-75 SHOTS: 8-16 OT: 4-6 CORNERS: 2-11 FOULS: 8-9 GOALS: SOD ALL.
POSSESSION: 25-75 SHOTS: 8-16 OT: 4-6 CORNERS: 2-11 FOULS: 8-9 GOALS: SOD ALL.