Finding myself confused by Smiths tactical schizophrenia

[hertfordyellow 460]

16 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

I like Dean Smith, think he generally speaks a lot of sense and his post match comments often reflect how I’ve seen a game. In fairness to him, he’s often had his hands tied in terms of options available to him.

But tonight joins a couple of other games (and sadly mainly winnable games) where I just can’t work out tactically what he was thinking or certainly why he didn’t change it early when things were clearly going wrong.

Now Southampton we’re faster, fitter and stronger than us all over the pitch in a way that showed up Webber big time once again. But even so, why go to a team who we know press intensively, high up the pitch and just repeatedly allow them to pin you in the corner by playing short goal kicks to Gibson then giving the ball away in your own half. We must have done it 25 times tonight. And we haven’t done it in other games recently so it was a deliberate tactic. Just don’t understand. 

You are confused because you have zero experience of professional football coaching and Smith has well over a decade. 
 

It’s not football manager where you can press a button and the team suddenly changes as one to playing a different way. Why don’t you write him an email and explain what he needs to learn from you?

[Pyro Pete 1,966]

I think losing Idah has completely derailed Smith's plans. By his own admission, Smith said we wouldn't use two up front against top teams. But playing Pukki, with Idah as a battering ram,  against lesser teams was starting to pay dividends.

Ok, it meant we often had less than 40% possession due to being a man light in midfield. But it did equate to more chances created and more goals as a consequence.

Not having another striker to play the role Idah had assumed is really hurting us. More poor planning from Webber.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,115]

I do feel like we're due for a period of decline. The defence is probably ok for the championship with likely Byram/Mumba/McCallum at full back. But we'll lose Kabak, Normann and (Gilmour) which will leave us with huge problems in midfield and attack. Emi and Skipp have not been replaced, nor has Vrancic. We have no flair in this team whatsoever, there needs to be some serious rebuilding. This team doesnt really do anything well, at least with Farkeball we had an identity. 

[Pyro Pete 1,966]

15 minutes ago, The Great Mass Debater said:

I do feel like we're due for a period of decline. The defence is probably ok for the championship with likely Byram/Mumba/McCallum at full back. But we'll lose Kabak, Normann and (Gilmour) which will leave us with huge problems in midfield and attack. Emi and Skipp have not been replaced, nor has Vrancic. We have no flair in this team whatsoever, there needs to be some serious rebuilding. This team doesnt really do anything well, at least with Farkeball we had an identity. 

I would say Rashica provides a little bit of flair. Maybe in the Championship Tzolis can as well.

But I agree with the general point that we haven't properly replaced Buendia and Skipp.

 

 

[Robert N. LiM 4,694]

59 minutes ago, The Great Mass Debater said:

I do feel like we're due for a period of decline. The defence is probably ok for the championship with likely Byram/Mumba/McCallum at full back. But we'll lose Kabak, Normann and (Gilmour) which will leave us with huge problems in midfield and attack. Emi and Skipp have not been replaced, nor has Vrancic. We have no flair in this team whatsoever, there needs to be some serious rebuilding. This team doesnt really do anything well, at least with Farkeball we had an identity. 

Feel that's a bit of an overreaction. Krul Byram Gibson AO Hanley Mumba is a very good championship defence. Sorenson Rupp McLean gives us decent Championship midfield options. Pukki and Idah are more than good enough up front. If we can keep Milot and if Tzolis matures that's a couple of weapons out wide. Bit of strengthening in midfield and we'll be serious Championship contenders. The problem is more that we'll still be miles from a team that can compete in the Prem.

 

[Robert N. LiM 4,694]

I also don't think it's a foregone conclusion we'll lose Normann. 

[Yellow Wal 314]

Mumba still has to prove himself. An unused sub again today for Championship Peterborough.

[vos 156]

Jim Smith's observation is 100% correct. We must have tried to play out of the back on nearly 30 occasions and yet on almost all occasions we lost possession before the ball left our own half. Indeed throughout the match our passing was very poor partly because the midfield never achieved any grip our control and most of our passing was hurried to players already closed marked. We never created any space. Rupp, when he came on showed a glimmer of hope, but he quickly dissappeared. It did not help for the opponents coach to cleverly force Sargent and Rashica wide and made them fairly non-existent. 

I assume our coaches had come to the conclusion of ignoring the long ball as we had no strength or power upfront, but I was dissapointed to see they had no Plan B  or indeed any ideas how to get in to the game. I fully accept their cause is not helped by us lacking Premiership quality in most departments but any tactics to give us a chance were lacking. The Saints played good quick basic football but actually I thought lacked a bit of quality in their own strike force.

[Jim Smith 2,366]

16 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

You are confused because you have zero experience of professional football coaching and Smith has well over a decade. 
 

It’s not football manager where you can press a button and the team suddenly changes as one to playing a different way. Why don’t you write him an email and explain what he needs to learn from you?

Sorry but it’s exactly like football manager. The clue is in the name of the game. One instruction from the bench is all that was needed. Certainly could have been sorted at half time. Anyone watching that game who thinks our tactics were right knows absolutely nothing about football. I’m sure Smith will admit after the event he got it wrong. What confuses me is why we tried it in the first place when generally our tactics worked well at Anfield against a team who play a similar pressing style. 
 

And I also don’t understand the no players on the edge of the box thing either.

 

[Ulfotto 672]

It’s not like football manager at all. Basically to stop playing out from the back and give us an out ball he needs to play Sargent up front and drop Pukki. Easy right. Now imagine doing that in real life.

[Jim Smith 2,366]

Just now, Ulfotto said:

It’s not like football manager at all. Basically to stop playing out from the back and give us an out ball he needs to play Sargent up front and drop Pukki. Easy right. Now imagine doing that in real life.

He just needed to tell Gunn to stop playing it short to Gibson every single time. It was that short goal kick that was causing us the problems. Every. Single. Time. Stop doing that and get Sargent and Kenny to push further up the pitch for goal kicks for Pukki to feed off.  As it was the ball went to Gibson who either passed it to Williams who was pinned back or tried a risky pass up the middle to a midfielder who was also already being closed down.

He moved Sargent up front in the second half when we made the subs and we improved markedly for a spell (Rupp and PLM did well to be fair).  Didn’t need some kind of military operation. 
 

Occasionally doing it is fine. Mix it up a bit to keep them guessing. But we went short every time. 

[hogesar 9,854]

On 26/02/2022 at 09:44, Captain Holt said:

I honestly think Smith will leave in the summer. I don't think he's taken to us and I certainly don't think we've taken to him.

Absolutely no idea where you get this from. He's well liked by 90% of the fanbase and he himself has spent a lot of time locally and getting involved with the youth teams as well as community work the club does outside of football. He's pretty invested.

[Jim Smith 2,366]

2 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Absolutely no idea where you get this from. He's well liked by 90% of the fanbase and he himself has spent a lot of time locally and getting involved with the youth teams as well as community work the club does outside of football. He's pretty invested.

Agreed. He’s a good guy. I’m not anti Smith at all. Just a bit frustrated at the way we’ve approached a couple of our key games recently. 

[Grumpy 124]

I can't say that I agree with the OP.
We have been playing out from the back for the majority if not all of the games thus far.Just like almost every team in the EPL.From the keeper to one or other of the centre halves,who passes it across to the other and eventually it will get passed to either of the full backs.
Its at this point that any similarity with the other teams in the EPL stops because primarily our midfield doesn't seem to have the ability to find space to receive the ball without being joined at the hip by the opposition. 

[Jim Smith 2,366]

58 minutes ago, Grumpy said:

I can't say that I agree with the OP.
We have been playing out from the back for the majority if not all of the games thus far.Just like almost every team in the EPL.From the keeper to one or other of the centre halves,who passes it across to the other and eventually it will get passed to either of the full backs.
Its at this point that any similarity with the other teams in the EPL stops because primarily our midfield doesn't seem to have the ability to find space to receive the ball without being joined at the hip by the opposition. 

There is playing out from the back and then there is what we were doing on Friday night (and at Man City) where the two centre backs are behind the keeper when receiving short goal kicks. I agree with you on the midfield and their ability to find space to receive the ball from the centre backs. But we have not been starting from goal kicks persistently in the fashion we did the other night in recent weeks/games. It was a deliberate and noticeable tactic for this game. 

[Jambomo 215]

13 hours ago, Grumpy said:

I can't say that I agree with the OP.
We have been playing out from the back for the majority if not all of the games thus far.Just like almost every team in the EPL.From the keeper to one or other of the centre halves,who passes it across to the other and eventually it will get passed to either of the full backs.
Its at this point that any similarity with the other teams in the EPL stops because primarily our midfield doesn't seem to have the ability to find space to receive the ball without being joined at the hip by the opposition. 

The problem is that we are too slow at moving the ball. The midfielders do run into space but by the time the centre halves decide to pass it they are closed down. Much as I really like Gibson you can literally see him trying to work out what pass to make even when he has options there. At this level it all needs to be really quick. 

[ridgeman 135]

Smith said after the Southampton game too many 6/10  performances why didn't he change it then before 72 minutes. It is alright stating the obvious but he is the only one who can change anything during a game and only giving new players eighteen minutes to change a game he must take some blame.

[vos 156]

1 hour ago, ridgeman said:

Smith said after the Southampton game too many 6/10  performances why didn't he change it then before 72 minutes. It is alright stating the obvious but he is the only one who can change anything during a game and only giving new players eighteen minutes to change a game he must take some blame.

Slight problem. Did we have anyone to bring on who were likely to change the game !!