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We shouldn't really be more worried about defensive solidity as opposed to actually creating some more chances at home against Blackburn. We're not a plucky lower league team in a cup tie.
"Four full defenders plus a deep lying midfielder and a CM who can motor back and fore should be a solid enough base to attack from"
Is what I said. Yes, occasionally a fullback will get forward and it's down to a midfielder to tuck in. That still leaves almost half the team in either a full on or relatively defensive role when we attack. We can surely afford a few more numbers getting into the final third?
If we're pushing on we need more than two or three players in the danger areas. We can certainly spare a midfielder to do more than just help out with the defence.
I guess I'm just not hugely fond of worrying more about how to contain the teams we're playing than in imposing ourselves on them. It drove me nuts when Paul Clement used to do it (and arguably cost us our place in the Prem as a result) and it annoys me now.
The problem with that is that it makes us reactive rather than proactive, which has been the problem for much of the season against almost all but the poorest opposition. We generally react well when the opposition has the ball. When we have it ourselves we're not proactive enough.
Setting up defensively just invites opposition onto us, which is bad enough away but a major problem at home. If we moved the ball quickly on the counter then it might work as a sucker punch tactic, but we don't.
Four full defenders plus a deep lying midfielder and a CM who can motor back and fore should be a solid enough base to attack from. We have to start consistently picking the players who can win us games, not just the ones we hope will prevent us from losing.
I don't think we were leaky on Saturday because we suddenly decided to take the game to QPR. They caught us cold and a couple of otherwise reliable players had arguably their worst games for us.
I do take your general point about a Fulton/Stamenic combo being generally more defensively solid though. Maybe things would have been different on Sat.
Stamenic is a big, strong unit. He should be motoring through midfield but rarely makes headway. Just faffs about a bit. Fulton can play a nice pass but isn't someone we should be relying on to.open teams up. Eustaquio is a capable #6.
I think the capability is there but maybe the emphasis has been a bit one sided on the press as opposed to what we do when we've won it back.
The team needs to worry a bit more about creating chances than retaining possession for the sake of it.
Off the ball we're not doing a lot wrong. We're working hard and winning possession back fairly quickly for the most part, but we're not hurting teams enough when we do have it. Don't see that it matters much who is up front when you're creating as few clear cut chances as we have been against all but the worst teams.
Michu was always on borrowed time. His ankles were knackered before he signed for us. It's one of the reasons we got him so cheap in the first place. Other clubs were aware, but decided not to take the risk. It was always possible, maybe even likely that he'd struggle to hit the same heights again.
Vipotnik this season has two goals and an assist in three starts, in a team playing in a way to suit another striker. There's absolutely no reason to believe that if we shifted back to a style that suited him and actually gave him a game or two to get up to speed he couldn't be as prolific as he was last campaign.
Leon Britton was five foot and a fart and excelled in the right style of play. I don't think Just is that much bigger.
It's nothing to do with physical stature. This is the way that Matos wishes to play and he doesn't seem interested in playing any other. Hopefully that will work in the long run.
It's dangerous territory when people feel that they have to caveat questions with the phrase "it's not a criticism but"...
It absolutely is in this case. We're not creating enough opportunities and a player who appears to be capable of doing so has been bombed out on loan, only to be replaced by another who very much isn't based on what we've seen so far.
As well as Matos has done he should be challenged when he screws up, and this looks like a big one.
A Nation State is its borders. It should have full power to decide who to allow in and who to turn away. Removing those borders weakens the Nation State, which some would claim is a deliberate tactic.
I have no problem with anyone moving to the UK from anywhere as long as they contribute to society, can pay their way or prove that they can support themselves and their families, and respect our laws & customs. Anyone who doesn't do that should be subject to removal with no legal protections.
No. I couldn't care less about the Ospreys. If I'm being honest I expect the crowds to shrink again once the novelty of a new ground wears off. I know several people who went last night who otherwise haven't bothered going in years.
I'm not here lecturing people about things that I can't be bothered to do myself though. I do possess some self-awareness. Unlike others.
Certainly our good start has led to a degree of arrogance and perhaps complacency when it comes to assessing our chances in games and this season in general, but today was probably an outlier in that we're unlikely to be 3-0 down inside 15 minutes again any time soon. We were spectacularly bad.
We need to be positive, we need to take our game to teams and we need options when Plan A isn't working. I've not seen anything like a hint of a Pan B so far.
The scale of the defeat may be surprising, but the defeat itself is not. As I've said elsewhere, despite us turning over the lesser teams we've faced, we generally come up wanting in the games that matter. We've not spent the money we have to get turned over so easily by the better sides.
Clean sheets and goals against Watford and Derby are all well and good. Clean sheets and goals against West Ham matter more.
We have to start doing better against the sides in the higher reaches of the table. We can't keep writing off poor results as a one off when in reality they're beginning to point to larger issues with our play. We can't keep picking the same teams and players and expecting different outcomes.
As it stands now five of our seven wins have come against teams in the bottom six. We've scored three goals in four games against sides currently in the top ten, and conceded ten.
We have to do better against the teams we hope to be competing against or we're going to find ourselves rapidly sliding down the table. I hope the complacency doesn't extend to the club as well.
He's done nothing all season and he's straight back into the team in the #10 role again today. It's astonishing how much faith Matos has in him despite his almost total lack of contribution.
But, as I said, it's not really his fault today. We've just been hugely weak defensively. Maybe the players you mentioned would have made us less porous. Eom can certainly consider himself hard done by to be on the bench again.
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