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 4 hours ago 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 4 hours ago 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.