Gerard's tactics

[hawkeye]

Fair enough TV. I feel his tactics have been utter shite with the personnel he has at his disposal. I agree the pass and move mentallity is the way forward, but we are not going to get results while we have the existing players being asked to do things that they aren't capable of. As for playing no strikers against Burnley! O'Neill would have been hung out to dry had that have been him. In short I will give him time to build his team and play his way, but he needs to accept that the players he has are more influential playing a different style to what he wants. A master tactician uses the resources at his disposal to the best of their respective abilities. For me, Houllier is not doing this right now.

not being funny but i have no idea what you are on about

[jembob]

I heard an interview with Luke Young today and he said that they were disappointed that they didn't play better football and felt that they had got dragged down into a derby style scrap. Overall the performance was poor by our standards but we should still have won it and had the much better chances.

A few people have had a go at Clarke's performance but I thought the guy did very well and looked the most composed of the midfielders. In my view Sidwell should have been off at half time and he's clearly off the pace and we would have been better off with Bannon or Ireland adding a bit of life to the midfield. Apart from that Houllier didn't have a lot to chose from the squad and at least tried something a bit more inventive by playing Clarke in that position, but what we really lacked today was moving the ball quickly which is what you need to do against a team of spoilers.

With a number of key personnel missing today (particularly Gabby and Petrov) we did OK against a very well organised Blues team. MON was very lucky with squad injuries during his tenure which may have hid (along with his appalling squad rotation) the lack of quality in depth he got for £120M.

I'm not as gloomy about the season as many people on H&V and still feel that we will do well when things settle down.

[hawkeye]

agree Jembob, and about Clarke, one of our better players today

[Muscle-Dolphin]

I really hope that GH knows what he is doing with respect to Ireland.  It appears that he "called him out" in the media as "not playing good enough".  The question is:  How will Ireland respond?

[glasses]

Fair enough TV. I feel his tactics have been utter shite with the personnel he has at his disposal. I agree the pass and move mentallity is the way forward, but we are not going to get results while we have the existing players being asked to do things that they aren't capable of. As for playing no strikers against Burnley! O'Neill would have been hung out to dry had that have been him. In short I will give him time to build his team and play his way, but he needs to accept that the players he has are more influential playing a different style to what he wants. A master tactician uses the resources at his disposal to the best of their respective abilities. For me, Houllier is not doing this right now.

not being funny but i have no idea what you are on about

Thanks for your contribution there Hawkeye.

[hawkeye]

Fair enough TV. I feel his tactics have been utter shite with the personnel he has at his disposal. I agree the pass and move mentallity is the way forward, but we are not going to get results while we have the existing players being asked to do things that they aren't capable of. As for playing no strikers against Burnley! O'Neill would have been hung out to dry had that have been him. In short I will give him time to build his team and play his way, but he needs to accept that the players he has are more influential playing a different style to what he wants. A master tactician uses the resources at his disposal to the best of their respective abilities. For me, Houllier is not doing this right now.

not being funny but i have no idea what you are on about

Thanks for your contribution there Hawkeye.

sorry mate i just dont understand

[AV82EC]

I've been very pleased with GH's tactics so far though I think he got it wrong today.  Clark was inspired as the holding midfielder but we lacked any creativity forward of this as Downing and Young were both played wide and Blues easily cut off the supply lines from the limited NRC and Sidwell.  As others have said if we get Ireland or Bannan on earlier we start to create problems like the last 20 minutes.  I suppose the pleasing thing about today is GH changed his formation from 4-2-3-1 to 4-1-4-1 and whilst it didn't come off we never looked in serious trouble from them barring Dunne being levered off the ball by Jerome.

The other thing I noticed about ths game and the Chelsea game is that the opposition played their full backs extremely wide and advanced which seems to give space in behind them but results in our wingers having to track back.  It seems to be an effective way of nullifying our threat, maybe a diamond with two up top would have worked better today.  Ah what does it matter, we didn't have enough quality to win.

[glasses]

Perhaps you just don't agree rather than don't understand. I don't think I can make my view any clearer. I suppose I just don't think our players are capable of the pass and move style he wants to play, therefore to get results he needs to play to our strengths until January, otherwise we will continue to drop points.

[AV82EC]

Perhaps you just don't agree rather than don't understand. I don't think I can make my view any clearer. I suppose I just don't think our players are capable of the pass and move style he wants to play, therefore to get results he needs to play to our strengths until January, otherwise we will continue to drop points.

I think you're wrong.  I think a lot of our players can play the pass and move style he wants, he just didn't have them available to him today. 

[Ads]

I thought he got it badly wrong today I’m afraid.

I can accept Clarke being in there, but not alongside NRC and Sidwell. You need two of them with say Ireland supporting the front man. I was also aghast at how often they were able to double up on Warnock, with Young drifting central. We had zero width on the right until Bannan came on and Young went wider.

[hawkeye]

Perhaps you just don't agree rather than don't understand. I don't think I can make my view any clearer. I suppose I just don't think our players are capable of the pass and move style he wants to play, therefore to get results he needs to play to our strengths until January, otherwise we will continue to drop points.

today we went back to hoof it, it was only in the last 20 mins when we got the ball on the deck that we started to look dangerous, i think we will continue to drop points and the squad needs strengthening

[glasses]

Perhaps you just don't agree rather than don't understand. I don't think I can make my view any clearer. I suppose I just don't think our players are capable of the pass and move style he wants to play, therefore to get results he needs to play to our strengths until January, otherwise we will continue to drop points.

I think you're wrong.  I think a lot of our players can play the pass and move style he wants, he just didn't have them available to him today. 

Sorry, should have said the players available, rather than just players. He chose the starting line-up and sat on the bench all game whilst we were hoofing the ball up to the isolated Heskey. If the players were not moving the ball as instructed to do so, how come no member of the coaching team tried to correct it? It must have been his tactics however, that decided us to play the way we started.
At no point though Hawkeye, did I say that I felt our strengths were hoof it football, I would say our strengths were what nearly won us the game. My big problem is that it was only nearly, and had we played that way earlier in the game could have won it. So hence, he did not play to our strengths, and was more concerned about what blues could do to us, rather than focussing on what we know we can do.

[brontebilly]

Hard to assess GH reign so far but I will get my tuppence worth.

He took over an absolute shambles. It was clear from the conditioning of some of the players that pre season was a farce, one of our best players had left and been replaced with a player noone sanctioned it seems, the chairman had rightly tightened the budget and we had a lobsided aging squad. During KMc brief regime we looked like conceding regularly.

So to be fair he has tightened us up at the back. We will concede very few goals this season. Young and Beye have done well at right back. Dunne isnt quite back to his best but with Clark we have four really good options at centre half. He has had to look at our options in midfield, Reo Coker has improved but at home against limited opposition he is never going to shine, Sidwell a 5m signing has got a chance but is best in a destructive sense. Albrighton has been a plus but imo has a long way to go to. Downing has improved hugely not withstanding his awfulness today. Young has been hit and miss but still our only real player of genuine quality. With Gabby out there isnt a huge pile he can do upfront, Heskey has improved but he was shown up for what he is today I felt. Carew has been unfit and lazy. Ireland a huge disappointment but has got many chances too. Trying Clark in midfield today in a three was interesting, I thought he was the best of our 3 in there without excelling but it showed GH was open to trying new formations at least.

Not playing a striker against Burnley was a brainfart. Apart from that, I think he has done ok with the resources at his disposal. Add an inform Gabby, Delph and a couple of players in Jan into the mix and I think we will still have a good season. By January he will have had a really good look at all players, both old and young and have a good idea what players he needs to try and ship out and players to bring in. To be honest, I think Randy Lerner needs to make a big statement in January and splash out on a player that will excite us again. A really good centre midfielder is hard to find, one comfortable on the ball, we are fine without the ball all players work hard etc but someone who is comfortable to pick up the ball and distribute it is what we really lack.

[hawkeye]

Glasses i agree with your analisys and he could have changed it earlier, i have no idea if A Young was supposed to come inside to little effect and leaving Warnock exposed down the left, Downing to play next to LYoung, which meant thier fullbacks were not troubled and able to push on to ours UTV

[hawkeye]

brontebilly we have Ireland but it looks like he is a long way short of starting