Finn Azaz

[S-Clarke]

Just now, saintant said:

This is one of biggest and most basic problems - can we please get a coach in who knows about playing between the lines. The reason we never found him is because the rest of the idiots are not used to and have no clue how to play between the lines. I imagine Azaz was pretty baffled and not a little frustrated to play alongside others with no basic appreciation of how the game is meant to be played. Will Still needs to get this sorted and quickly.

Jander seemed quite willing to play between the lines when he came on, it's Downes and Charles who are pretty much robotic 6's and crab players. You only need 1 of those in a side.

[saintant]

Just now, S-Clarke said:

Jander seemed quite willing to play between the lines when he came on, it's Downes and Charles who are pretty much robotic 6's and crab players. You only need 1 of those in a side.

Yes and he is clearly a good footballer. However, all our players should be well versed and capable of picking up pockets of space between the lines and looking to pass to team mates who have done so. Do none of them ever watch good sides and see what they do. Even Pompey players were far better at it than our lot. 

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, saintant said:

Yes and he is clearly a good footballer. However, all our players should be well versed and capable of picking up pockets of space between the lines and looking to pass to team mates who have done so. Do none of them ever watch good sides and see what they do. Even Pompey players were far better at it than our lot. 

We're too slow when we're on the ball, so those pockets get filled quite quickly. That's our biggest problem, certainly in the first half. Half the time I have no idea WTF we're waiting for when we're on the ball.

We have footballers who don't act quickly with the ball, they favour retaining it and standing on it for a bit, and thus the chance slides away. We've got to move it quicker and with zip to really make the most of players like Azaz/Fellows/Archer etc.

It's not just CM which is the problem, our CB's and Manning in particular are particularly guilty of it. In terms of CM Charles is probably the more athletic and stronger of the 2 I'd say, so if we partner him with someone who is more capable of moving the ball quickly then we may start to get some positive outcomes.

[saintant]

4 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

We're too slow when we're on the ball, so those pockets get filled quite quickly. That's our biggest problem, certainly in the first half. Half the time I have no idea WTF we're waiting for when we're on the ball.

We have footballers who don't act quickly with the ball, they favour retaining it and standing on it for a bit, and thus the chance slides away. We've got to move it quicker and with zip to really make the most of players like Azaz/Fellows/Archer etc.

It's not just CM which is the problem, our CB's and Manning in particular are particularly guilty of it. In terms of CM Charles is probably the more athletic and stronger of the 2 I'd say, so if we partner him with someone who is more capable of moving the ball quickly then we may start to get some positive outcomes.

We are slow but a lot of that is down to the fact that players do not pick up the space between the lines and so the guy in possession is looking for non existent options to make a simple pass. The player is then forced to dwell on the ball and we become ponderous and slow to move forward. It is easily rectified but the players need intensive coaching because most of them just don't seem to get it. The good sides always have players between the lines and fizz the ball to them at pace. We plod around and either hit slow passes or lump it long. 

Edited yesterday at 20:38 by saintant

[davefizzy14]

From what I saw today Azaz is clearly a quality player. We simply have to get him on the ball to create. There were a couple of times when he played a precise pass through to Archer. 

Edited yesterday at 20:50 by davefizzy14

[sledger]

we move the ball so slowly teams can organise against us,neither downes or charles move the ball quickly forward,quite happy to play safe back and sideways.Other than not playing stupid passes in our own 6 yard box i see little change from last years tactics.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

6 hours ago, sledger said:

we move the ball so slowly teams can organise against us,neither downes or charles move the ball quickly forward,quite happy to play safe back and sideways.Other than not playing stupid passes in our own 6 yard box i see little change from last years tactics.

Yep, agree. 

We take ages to pass it around, gives the opposition plenty of time to reset.

So frustrating.

[Alanh]

12 hours ago, saintant said:

Yes and he is clearly a good footballer. However, all our players should be well versed and capable of picking up pockets of space between the lines and looking to pass to team mates who have done so. Do none of them ever watch good sides and see what they do. Even Pompey players were far better at it than our lot. 

This.  The most frustrating thing all afternoon was watching Flynn Downes getting into positions where he could not receive the ball becuase he was marked or there was an opponent between him and the ball. That issue was fundamental to the problems we had until he was subbed off.

[kitch]

9 hours ago, sledger said:

we move the ball so slowly teams can organise against us,neither downes or charles move the ball quickly forward,quite happy to play safe back and sideways.Other than not playing stupid passes in our own 6 yard box i see little change from last years tactics.

100% agree. We are SO ponderous. We've got the most one-footed player you've ever seen at LB, so when 50% of the moves seem to start there, it's no wonder things get 'recycled' back to the keeper. Unless there's an easy pass on for Manning, he always turns and goes back to a CB or to the keeper. Eventually it ends up with the RB before being worked back into the middle, only yesterday the only thing there was in the middle was blue shirts. So, it goes back to a CB and they pelt it, meaning creative players like Azaz watch it fly over their heads.
Manning's less ponderous when it's in the opponent's half, possibly because there's less risk involved? Who knows!

We've made some great signings this summer, but so far the ghost of Russball is still ingrained in too many players.

[S-Clarke]

3 minutes ago, kitch said:

100% agree. We are SO ponderous. We've got the most one-footed player you've ever seen at LB, so when 50% of the moves seem to start there, it's no wonder things get 'recycled' back to the keeper. Unless there's an easy pass on for Manning, he always turns and goes back to a CB or to the keeper. Eventually it ends up with the RB before being worked back into the middle, only yesterday the only thing there was in the middle was blue shirts. So, it goes back to a CB and they pelt it, meaning creative players like Azaz watch it fly over their heads.
Manning's less ponderous when it's in the opponent's half, possibly because there's less risk involved? Who knows!

We've made some great signings this summer, but so far the ghost of Russball is still ingrained in too many players.

Jelert could be a good shout there, he's a full back capable of playing both sides so is comfortable on both feet.

We need to phase ourselves away from the Downes/Mannings, as they are literally conditioned to be slow and ponderous. 

[kitch]

18 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Jelert could be a good shout there, he's a full back capable of playing both sides so is comfortable on both feet.

We need to phase ourselves away from the Downes/Mannings, as they are literally conditioned to be slow and ponderous. 

Yeah I did wonder about Jelert. Haven't seen anything of him though.

[swannymere]

We are essentially a new team with that many players coming into the squad, to expect them to have some understanding of each others strengths straight away is unrealistic. I think we'll be gelling sooner rather than later but i agree that the derby was very disappointing in terms of going forward.

Edited 10 hours ago by swannymere

[Dusic]

I think some of it is confused instruction. After the game Still clearly said, and Bazunu repeated it, that the plan for the first 10mins was to not take risk, to play it in behind their defence to stretch them and then after that try to find the pockets to play in.

In reality we played hoofball whenever we did have it early on to the point that it was about 6 or 7 mins in before we actually strung a sequence of 5 or 6 passes together, and on the rare occassions we did it produced our best moves.

There were multiple times the ball went to our CBs and instead of chesting down and playing they just punted it forward. Felt sorry for Archer as the service he got was non-existent.

We know THB is good at breaking lines from CB, his passing numbers for that even last year were very strong and we also know Downes excelled playing a high risk playing out from the back style. They can do it.

Yesterday they were told not to play for the first 10mins and it basically handed the momentum to Pompey, took the energy out of the crowd and we didn't recover.

I get that we don't want to go back to RM style passing across the back for the sake of it, but equally any good side passes the ball well - whereas we seem to be hellbent on being direct without really having any control or purpose to it.

[saintant]

15 minutes ago, Dusic said:

I think some of it is confused instruction. After the game Still clearly said, and Bazunu repeated it, that the plan for the first 10mins was to not take risk, to play it in behind their defence to stretch them and then after that try to find the pockets to play in.

In reality we played hoofball whenever we did have it early on to the point that it was about 6 or 7 mins in before we actually strung a sequence of 5 or 6 passes together, and on the rare occassions we did it produced our best moves.

There were multiple times the ball went to our CBs and instead of chesting down and playing they just punted it forward. Felt sorry for Archer as the service he got was non-existent.

We know THB is good at breaking lines from CB, his passing numbers for that even last year were very strong and we also know Downes excelled playing a high risk playing out from the back style. They can do it.

Yesterday they were told not to play for the first 10mins and it basically handed the momentum to Pompey, took the energy out of the crowd and we didn't recover.

I get that we don't want to go back to RM style passing across the back for the sake of it, but equally any good side passes the ball well - whereas we seem to be hellbent on being direct without really having any control or purpose to it.

Spot on. I was surprised when Still said pre match that we intended to play long at the start of the game because it made no sense. He and the team paid for that tactical mishap and we never recovered from the shocking start to the game which resulted and, as he said himself, we wasted the first 45 minutes. This was not what I expected from Will Still and hopefully he's learned a big lesson.

[benjii]

14 hours ago, saintant said:

We are slow but a lot of that is down to the fact that players do not pick up the space between the lines and so the guy in possession is looking for non existent options to make a simple pass. The player is then forced to dwell on the ball and we become ponderous and slow to move forward. It is easily rectified but the players need intensive coaching because most of them just don't seem to get it. The good sides always have players between the lines and fizz the ball to them at pace. We plod around and either hit slow passes or lump it long. 

It looked like our set up was very deliberately though. 

Our XI is full of internationals and experienced players. I'm not buying that they were bemused by coming up against the Blue Few running around a bit. They are being sent out with stupid tactical plans by a coach who seems out of his depth. I'm also fed up of seeing Lallana's stupid Monster Munch facing gurning at the camera from the bench.