Forum | perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? by karlski

Forum index | Previous Thread | Next thread

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? 12:38 - Mar 11 with 2040 views

i have to say i was extremely surprised the way hughes set the side up yesterday. to be fair we still should have got something from the game for obvious reasons and we'll never know what would have happened had he set up differently, but i thought his formation and team selection was odd considering the opposition:

1. SWP at focal point of diamond. First of all his form is poor. Second of all even at the best of times he is a WINGER, not a creative centre mid player.

2. Lack of width. Bolton have one of the worst defences in the league, and especially in the full back positions, where Sam Ricketts is suspect and steinsson right back is back up for boyata who has been awful this season. Playing with no width instantly reduces the pressure you are able to exert on an opposition defence.

3. Derry and Diakite. 2 defensive midfielders? And then Barton? Uninspiring with the ball to say the least, where is the creativity meant to come from? I would have thought if you are going to play the diamond, then it would have been Buzsaky plus two of those three.

4. this all leads me to conclude that Hughes set his side up primarily for when we didn't have the ball as opposed to when we did. On the one hand i can understand this as an attempt to solidify the team and stop conceding goals, but in my view that didn't really work as we conceded a lot of ground to Bolton by setting up this way. I suppose apart from the two goals they didn't create much else...

Despite all of that as I said we still should have got something from the game and were probably the better side so maybe it was just bad luck and poor finishing that cost us. But I personally reckon a more attacking approach would have meant that it was a straight shoot out between our attacking players and theirs, and we have the better quality by far in that area and would have taken 3 points, especially given Bolton's poor home record.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 12:48 - Mar 11 with 1926 views

sexton

Agree. Couldn't believe Buzz wasn't in the side. Had bad vibes as soon as I saw the team.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 12:52 - Mar 11 with 1924 views

Juzzie

Seems to me that he set up not to lose rather than to win. Problem with that is if/when you fall behind you're not set up properly to get back on terms. We always seemd to be chasing the game.
Even if Hill's goal had stood, it was against the run of play. We looked livlier when we made the subs. With 10 mins left it was too late in the game though as it was around the same time their changes were made so parity resumed.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 12:55 - Mar 11 with 1918 views

Northernr

It was a dreadful team selection, the game was only as close as it was because Bolton are poor.

Where are Bolton weak this season? Full back. What do we do? Play with no wingers.

Bolton very limited football side but very good at the physical side of things. What do we do? Leave out our footballers and try to win a physical match up with them.

Bolton have a leaden footed but extremely tall central defensive pairing. What do we do? Play long ball football towards them.

I can only assume whoever went to scout Bolton for us is an absolute fcktard.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 13:01 - Mar 11 with 1911 views

karlski

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 12:55 - Mar 11 by Northernr

exactly.

Scout yes, but Hughes should know it too.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 14:45 - Mar 11 with 1853 views

baz_qpr

I disagree - he played that way because Bolton played 5 in midfield we wanted to field Cisse and Zamora and Derry and Diakete or any combination of those two Buzacky and Barton would have been overrun in a straight 4-4-2. Added to the fact we dont actually have a winger who can cross. Both Onhura and Traore got forward well and got into dangerous positions. The notion we are just going to go up to Bolton and paste them is not born out of any evidence

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 15:45 - Mar 11 with 1799 views

stuabd

It was a kind of Big Sam team selection. Set up a team to negate the other team.

Considering we have better footballers we should have played to our strengths.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 15:49 - Mar 11 with 1792 views

Jamie

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 12:55 - Mar 11 by Northernr

On £58k/week Hughes should be watching enough DVDs of Bolton to make his own decisions.

Bolton have one class player in Miyachi. Everyone in football knows the kid is class so instead of doubling up on him, we have SWP stuck behind the strikers....

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 15:55 - Mar 11 with 1775 views

JonDoeman

Maybe the lads at Euston just wanted to discuss tactics with him!

It Is What It Is !!

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 17:24 - Mar 11 with 1689 views

karlski

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 14:45 - Mar 11 by baz_qpr

but that's precisely the point - he played the way he did to negate what Bolton did rather than dictating to them how we wanted to play. And there is a mountain of evidence from this season that if you play with width and pace against bolton they will capitulate. Plus further evidence that SWP cannot play where he played, and that barton/derry cannot be relied upon for creativity.
Traore is an excellent crosser, SWP does far more positive things wide than in the middle.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 17:34 - Mar 11 with 1679 views

Neil_SI

We made a real blunder with the team selection, formation and tactics we went with here. We played straight into their hands, because we didn't grasp the opportunity to get at their entire defence and allowed their wide men, who were their best players and strengths, to penetrate and get into many two-on-one situations with our fullbacks.

I was very surprised and even more surprised that we didn't make any attempt during the match to try changing the formation or at least getting someone out wide a little more permanently to test the waters.

On paper it was a nice idea, perhaps trying to split the strikers so that Cissé would find himself in a wider one on one position with one of their defenders and Wright-Phillips piercing through the middle late, but it never really materialised that way.

I think we shot ourselves in the foot with this, they were truly poor at the back, and both teams were, but we gave them an opportunity to punish us and struggled to deal with their wide play and balls into the box, including the amount of silly free kicks we gave away in those areas and we struggled to deal with that too.

And to play three central midfielders and still be penetrated so easily says it all really. They played with one up front, but still got in behind us and caused problems, and when they went with two towards the end the writing was on the wall really because we gave them so much rope to hang us with.

If we had played with a system that was more familiar and perhaps allowed us to be more controlled and composed on the ball, we'd have found far more success because whenever we did get it right, we looked good and found areas where we could really hurt them. This was a real wasted opportunity.

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 17:50 - Mar 11 with 1668 views

blavod

surely when Hughes says in the week "we need to get something from every game" you knew what he really meant to say was "I'll settle for a point"

perhaps Hughes got it wrong yesterday? on 18:14 - Mar 11 with 1633 views

DesertBoot

I cheered when SWP was taken off. Confidence shot, a player on the rapid decline and his "air shot" summed up his season.
The difference when a hungry Buz and Mackie came on was remarkable.

Wish I could be like David Watts

Forum index | Previous Thread | Next thread