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Author Topic: Home truths  (Read 31987 times)

Online john e

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #15 on: September 15, 2013, 02:00:52 PM »
I think it may be more down to the attitude that they start a game in rather than the formation

they need to come out pumped up ready to attack from the of, like Man Utd used to do under Fergie, even when playing a team considered usefull, they would fly at them, sometimes the game was over in  the first 15 minites before the opposition could even get playing

I don't know whether Lambert can do this, I cant remember one game where we have played decently for the whole 90 minutes, we are a one half team and hope to get a result based on scoring during the good bit,
its as if we have our own version of Crickets power play

Offline supertom

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #16 on: September 15, 2013, 02:03:35 PM »
The bog standard 4-4-2 at home won't do anything except make us play in exactly the same way we have for 10 years. There's no going back - as a club, if we want to play well and win at home, we have to do things we have never done before, and just fucking move on from the same old Britisher tactics that just couldn't be more screamingly inadequate.
The problem is I'm not sure we've got the quality to play the more modern, attractive approach. Were trying to play with a certain subtlety, but ending up looking even more unrefined than if we were playing the old school 4-4-2.

I'd love to see us to dominate home games and dictate the tempo of games but we don't have the quality in midfield. What we do have is solid players to put in the middle, and pace on the flanks. I think looking at our squad, if anyone is going to possess a bit of guile, its probably one of our forwards. Certainly Benteke, potentially Helenius.

Again though, not signing the "number 10" is going to cause us problems. The frustrating thing is, that given how Lambert apparently aspires to play, that sort of player is essential and he's not signed a single player of that ilk yet. Hes signed 4 six foot center forwards though. 

I can only see us struggling if we continue setting up like we have been at home. There's no subtlety. Keep Gabby quiet and you're half way there. Keep Benteke isolated and we're buggered.

Online montague

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #17 on: September 15, 2013, 02:11:47 PM »
This is not a recent thing. In last 10 years we have only won 78 home games, lost 50 and drawn 62. Thats an average of 8 home wins a year and just 28 points a season. Just twice we have got to 10 wins. At least twice its cost us a really good go at the top 4.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #18 on: September 15, 2013, 02:21:09 PM »
We are desperately short of an attacking midfielder who can unlock defences, like Ben Arfa. It's painfully obvious and must be addressed.

I said not long after the final whistle that if we had Ben Arfa we'd still be undefeated.

Online Tayls_7

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #19 on: September 15, 2013, 02:23:46 PM »
Sylla needs to get the nod. Our so called cultured midfielders couldn't pass water so why leave him out? Pretty soon I can see us playing Benteke and Kozak at home, playing hoofball and feeding off the scraps. The defence are too weak with little in the way of protection. Bennett, Moon and Lowton all paperweight. Lambert should be spending more time at the drawing board than Hitler did in 44-45.

Offline ez

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #20 on: September 15, 2013, 02:24:57 PM »
For me you should always build a team from the defence first. The lack of clean sheets should have rung alarm bells last season and rectified in the summer. It hasn't been and as we now concede in every game we obviously have to score at least two to win. We are going to miss our quota of one nil wins. Something else we are not doing is scoring the opening goal. It looks like we only come out to play when we're losing.

Offline Monty

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #21 on: September 15, 2013, 02:27:19 PM »
The bog standard 4-4-2 at home won't do anything except make us play in exactly the same way we have for 10 years. There's no going back - as a club, if we want to play well and win at home, we have to do things we have never done before, and just fucking move on from the same old Britisher tactics that just couldn't be more screamingly inadequate.
The problem is I'm not sure we've got the quality to play the more modern, attractive approach. Were trying to play with a certain subtlety, but ending up looking even more unrefined than if we were playing the old school 4-4-2.

I'd love to see us to dominate home games and dictate the tempo of games but we don't have the quality in midfield. What we do have is solid players to put in the middle, and pace on the flanks. I think looking at our squad, if anyone is going to possess a bit of guile, its probably one of our forwards. Certainly Benteke, potentially Helenius.

Again though, not signing the "number 10" is going to cause us problems. The frustrating thing is, that given how Lambert apparently aspires to play, that sort of player is essential and he's not signed a single player of that ilk yet. Hes signed 4 six foot center forwards though. 

I can only see us struggling if we continue setting up like we have been at home. There's no subtlety. Keep Gabby quiet and you're half way there. Keep Benteke isolated and we're buggered.

Sorry for the half-outburst, didn't mean to sound quite so aggressive. Been a long footballing week with the Ukraine stuff and then all this.

Well, first up, Lambo agrees with you. He said yesterday that he doesn't think we have the 'knowhow' to play slow football, so we need the tempo and the energy and all the rest of it. That's fine - but there's no reason why that has to equate to smashing it to Benteke front-to-back every time we get the ball. We should try things, sure, and not be concerned with achieving Barca-levels of possession, but we should have done better than we did yesterday, and we just hammered the ball long like idiots.

As for personnel: you're right, and Lambert knows it too - but it's his fault he spent £7m on Another Target Man which, however good he may be, looked infantile yesterday when he threw him on and lumped it to two big guys with no midfield in between. Shoot! magazine would have called it tactically immature. With a boggish 4-4-2 it would just be that all match, because we have no player to go in between the lines and make it a 4-2-3-1 - which is Lambert's fault, and which many of us were saying last week.

Now, he could actually play better stuff than we did yesterday with the players that we have, just by training them to do it. Players will revert under high-pressure to what they feel comfortable with, and if you train them to feel comfortable passing and moving then they'll revert to that. As it was, they reverted to bypassing the midfield hopelessly for long spells of the game yesterday. It was clueless.

Offline eastie

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #22 on: September 15, 2013, 02:44:38 PM »
The performance in the last 20 minutes or so was like something you would see in a Sunday league game , what is the point of having four strikers on the pitch with no service to them at all- it really was piss poor management and repeated something he should have learnt from when he did it against bradford .


Offline Mister E

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #23 on: September 15, 2013, 02:59:55 PM »

Now, he could actually play better stuff than we did yesterday with the players that we have, just by training them to do it. Players will revert under high-pressure to what they feel comfortable with, and if you train them to feel comfortable passing and moving then they'll revert to that. As it was, they reverted to bypassing the midfield hopelessly for long spells of the game yesterday. It was clueless.
Agreed.
I'd be keen to see a 4-5-1 type approach, with a midfield that is more fluid - say, Westwood, Sylla, Delph, Tonev and Bacuna - and can quickly turn defensive possession into attack. And, yesterday we saw the impact of a pressing strategy - the Barcodes did that really well and gave us no time on the ball.

Offline Monty

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #24 on: September 15, 2013, 03:04:50 PM »
It's a good idea that, Mister E. It would feel harsh to drop Gabby though - as bad as the miss was yesterday he has been one of our most incisive threats this season.

Offline bertlambshank

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #25 on: September 15, 2013, 03:07:16 PM »
A lot of it is tempo at home,we haven't had it for years.

Offline eastie

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #26 on: September 15, 2013, 03:10:31 PM »
It's a good idea that, Mister E. It would feel harsh to drop Gabby though - as bad as the miss was yesterday he has been one of our most incisive threats this season.

The thing is we should have variation and be able to change our formation and system to adapt to certain situations - at the moment everyone knows how we play and teams know how to combat it - we must be able to shake things up and have a plan b and plan c which we are a equally comfortable with when plan a is not working.

Offline pauliewalnuts

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #27 on: September 15, 2013, 03:29:19 PM »
This is not a recent thing. In last 10 years we have only won 78 home games, lost 50 and drawn 62. Thats an average of 8 home wins a year and just 28 points a season. Just twice we have got to 10 wins. At least twice its cost us a really good go at the top 4.

I was going to say the same. We've been mediocre at home for the best part of ten years.

Offline tomd2103

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #28 on: September 15, 2013, 03:33:37 PM »
I suspect more teams will also have us figured out when we play on their patch. I think we'll struggle to get a really solid run of away form again like we have done on occasions in the last few years.
If we don't sort out our home form, we'll be in trouble. I actually think resorting to a bog standard 4-4-2 might be the way to do it at home. Have Gabby and Tonev on either flank and perhaps have one of our front men dropping off slightly, either Benteke or Helenius. At least that way we can introduce a bit of width to our game and try and get crosses into the box for the big men, as well as help out our fullbacks defensively, because they're our weak link at the moment. I don't think our centerbacks have been all that bad. We have to resign ourselves to the fact that we're not technically proficient enough to play a possession game. In all honesty, the way to go about it, is the O Neill way. Play at a high tempo get the ball wide as much as we can and feed the two front men. It's not pretty but I'd rather be average at home than piss poor. Our away form will be good enough on the whole I suspect.

What with Albrighton still at the club, might he be a worthwhile option to slip in wide right? He works hard, he provides width. It's for want of a better option granted, but it's also surely his last season at the club to try and make the grade. If he got back to his form under Houllier, he'd be an asset, particularly with Lowton to overlap.

I'm not sure a 4-4-2 would work as Tonev aside, we don't really have any natural wide players.  I personally think that part of the problem at home is that Gabby and Weimann don't have the ablity on the ball to create on a consistent basis in the final third and tend to switch off defensively leaving our full-backs exposed.  Also switching to a 4-4-2 would mean that Westwood would have to be dropped as I don't think he has the athleticism to play in that formation.  A midfield four of Bacuna, Sylla, Delph and Tonev may be worth a try with Gabby or Weimann partnering Benteke up front. 

On another note, the Kozak signing is beginning to look a strange decision, as there are other areas of the side that clearly should have taken priority.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Home truths
« Reply #29 on: September 15, 2013, 03:44:44 PM »
We've been shit at home for far too long. When you think about great home seasons of the last 30 years, there are depressingly few.

This is the number of home wins each season, starting with last season.

5
4
8
8
7
10
7
6
8
9
11
8
8
8
10
9
11
11
6
8
13

And that covers the PL era, hopefully I didn't miss one. For a club that has regularly been top 6-8 during that time that is pretty shit.

 


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