- Joined
- 8 Sep 2008
- Messages
- 1,916
- Player
- Eddy Sonko
Awful.
1-0: Shuker cba picking up short-corner. Ball was knocked into the box, Bowditch for some reason gifted all the time and space in the world to pick out header.
2-0: I was at the other end of the pitch, but looked like Cresswell lunged in on some Yeovil striker just inside the box with stupid and unneccessary slide-tackle.
Both goals could have been prevented but Yeovil could have scored another goal or two were it not for a very impressive performance from Daniels in goal. He made a few great stops, and looked confident with crosses throughout. Seems to have a tendency to punch but is good at it.
Defence consisted of 4 teenagers, Logan the most experienced with 17 previous league appearences. Cresswell came 2nd in that list with 13, whilst neither of our center-halfs, Taylor or Gunning, had played a competitive professional league game between them before today. That considered, they did ok as a unit. Both full-backs tried to get forward as much as possible, though Logan did better than Cresswell who suffered from poor decision making on occasions (least of all the challenge that led to the penalty). Taylor had little to do and looked ok until deciding to spontaneously give the ball away straight to a Yeovil striker towards the end. Of the two, Gunning looked the more finished article, a solid center-half who may merit a loan-extension on the basis of todays performance IMO.
Midfield was a shambles. Mahon was anonymous for most of the game, looked like coming into it after half time before being subbed off after we went 2-0 down (why?!). Welsh literally may as well not have turned up. Mclaren was involved often and saw more of the ball than anyone on the pitch but did little with it other than knock simple passes sideways, and gave the ball away a large percentage of the time when trying anything more ambitious. Shuker was good, worked hard, always wanted the ball and ran at people when he got it...
Thomas-Moore, like Mahon, had a very quiet first half but came into it a bit more as the game went on after finding some joy drifting out to the left hand side. Curran was lively and came closest to scoring for us with a glancing header @ 1-0 down, which had their keeper rooted to the spot. Small margins but in fairness we didn't deserve it.
Whilst below-par individual performances didn't help our cause, my main concern is with the style in which we are playing and the way we are organised tactically. Barnes has Mclaren and Welsh sitting seriously deep, and at times Taylor and Gunning were barely passing the ball 10 yards ahead of themselves when seeking out one of our 2 central midfielders. 90% of the time the ball would be returned by them to the defence, before going accross the back 4 and then being given back to one of the central midfielders...and back again...the ball was just going forwards, backwards, sideways along the "back 6" for about 10 mins at the start till Shuker got bored and decided to drop deep into our own half in an attempt to try to fashion something for himself down the right. Mahon and Shukes being asked to tuck inside to allow both full-backs to bomb on seems to work sometimes but mostly end up in a mess. 90% of our posession was in our own half, and we buckled when we got into theirs. Once or twice we put together some lovely short passing sequences, but for the other 89 mins we were pretty depressing to watch.
Our interpretation of Barnes' philosophy seems to be posession for posessions sake, total football with a sideways twist. It's like a really, really bad version of the 4-2-2-2 Brazil play, for those who are familiar. I don't think we're good enough to make this system really work as JB intends. This, added to our lack of a goalscorer and a worrying tendency to allow concentration to lapse in key defensive areas really makes me think of last year's relegated West Brom team when I watch us. Pretty, pointless football...pretty pointless...
Logan - 7
Taylor - 5
Gunning - 6
Cresswell - 5
Mclaren - 5
Welsh - 3
Shuker - 6
Mahon - 5
Curran - 6
Thomas-Moore - 5
1-0: Shuker cba picking up short-corner. Ball was knocked into the box, Bowditch for some reason gifted all the time and space in the world to pick out header.
2-0: I was at the other end of the pitch, but looked like Cresswell lunged in on some Yeovil striker just inside the box with stupid and unneccessary slide-tackle.
Both goals could have been prevented but Yeovil could have scored another goal or two were it not for a very impressive performance from Daniels in goal. He made a few great stops, and looked confident with crosses throughout. Seems to have a tendency to punch but is good at it.
Defence consisted of 4 teenagers, Logan the most experienced with 17 previous league appearences. Cresswell came 2nd in that list with 13, whilst neither of our center-halfs, Taylor or Gunning, had played a competitive professional league game between them before today. That considered, they did ok as a unit. Both full-backs tried to get forward as much as possible, though Logan did better than Cresswell who suffered from poor decision making on occasions (least of all the challenge that led to the penalty). Taylor had little to do and looked ok until deciding to spontaneously give the ball away straight to a Yeovil striker towards the end. Of the two, Gunning looked the more finished article, a solid center-half who may merit a loan-extension on the basis of todays performance IMO.
Midfield was a shambles. Mahon was anonymous for most of the game, looked like coming into it after half time before being subbed off after we went 2-0 down (why?!). Welsh literally may as well not have turned up. Mclaren was involved often and saw more of the ball than anyone on the pitch but did little with it other than knock simple passes sideways, and gave the ball away a large percentage of the time when trying anything more ambitious. Shuker was good, worked hard, always wanted the ball and ran at people when he got it...
Thomas-Moore, like Mahon, had a very quiet first half but came into it a bit more as the game went on after finding some joy drifting out to the left hand side. Curran was lively and came closest to scoring for us with a glancing header @ 1-0 down, which had their keeper rooted to the spot. Small margins but in fairness we didn't deserve it.
Whilst below-par individual performances didn't help our cause, my main concern is with the style in which we are playing and the way we are organised tactically. Barnes has Mclaren and Welsh sitting seriously deep, and at times Taylor and Gunning were barely passing the ball 10 yards ahead of themselves when seeking out one of our 2 central midfielders. 90% of the time the ball would be returned by them to the defence, before going accross the back 4 and then being given back to one of the central midfielders...and back again...the ball was just going forwards, backwards, sideways along the "back 6" for about 10 mins at the start till Shuker got bored and decided to drop deep into our own half in an attempt to try to fashion something for himself down the right. Mahon and Shukes being asked to tuck inside to allow both full-backs to bomb on seems to work sometimes but mostly end up in a mess. 90% of our posession was in our own half, and we buckled when we got into theirs. Once or twice we put together some lovely short passing sequences, but for the other 89 mins we were pretty depressing to watch.
Our interpretation of Barnes' philosophy seems to be posession for posessions sake, total football with a sideways twist. It's like a really, really bad version of the 4-2-2-2 Brazil play, for those who are familiar. I don't think we're good enough to make this system really work as JB intends. This, added to our lack of a goalscorer and a worrying tendency to allow concentration to lapse in key defensive areas really makes me think of last year's relegated West Brom team when I watch us. Pretty, pointless football...pretty pointless...
Daniels - 8
Logan - 7
Taylor - 5
Gunning - 6
Cresswell - 5
Mclaren - 5
Welsh - 3
Shuker - 6
Mahon - 5
Curran - 6
Thomas-Moore - 5