Waghorn's conundrum

[Oso Butch 0]

Waghorn asks:"So here''s your conundrum - how do you set-up a team to play the way you want them to play at home, on that billiard table surface, and yet be able to play winning football away from home on something that all too often in this division resembles a ploughed field?"

Dunno, stupid....but Reading did it.  How about phoning Steve Coppell and asking him, rather than write this guff.   [:@]

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

Its utter tripe, we dont even pass the ball at home either!!!  I am sure he is a nice guy, but recently his offerings have been uninformed poop.  I am not sure why he feels it necessary to write articles supposedly backing our underperforming and lazy lesser players.

[South Norfolk Old Boy 0]

This man is a well paid journalist and he puts his point across very well. However, there are some glaring holes in his arguements:

1) If Carrow Road is so different to all the other pitches in the Championship at this stage of the season does that suggest that they are always like it - even at the start of the season, when we couldn''t win away from home either?

2) What about teams coming down. He suggests that all Premiership pitches are like ours. OK so every season at least 3 more are like ours....

3) On the occasions when Safri does make it onto the pitch he is instructed to play alongside The Donk and whoever is his parner on that day. He is not encouraged to be creative. Indeed more often than not if a defender steps forward 10 yards with the ball he has no one to play it to as the midfield id behind him.

4) Mulryne did NOT pass the ball for fun! He was an OK Championship player who didn''t make it at Manchester United. He was lazy before he left us and Cardiff found him out.

5) We have NOT been brought on for 30 years on "pretty football". For the past five years we have had NW and his kick and rush stuff. Before that it was OK. We won a good few games and, at times, played attractive football, but to liken us to something Brazillian and magical is far from reality. Mike Walker''s sides and Dave Stringer''s sides knew how to dig a result out on a bad pitch as well as anyone. All those side had kickers in them who only knew one way to play football.

6) The side is not constructed to play attractive football EITHER at home OR away. We were treated to an hilarious fifteen minutes against Leicester when the crowd embarassed them into trying to play it on the ground - at home, on a flat pitch! It was a scream - in more ways than one!

Clever article from Mr Waghorn - just doesn''t take too much close scrutiny.

 

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Fulham scored in standing water at Sunderland on Saturday before the match was abandoned and they did so because on an atrocious surface they passed the ball.

[Canary Poirot 1]

For me this article sums up the sorry state of football outside of the top 6 in this country. Too many teams believe that they have to fill their team with cloggers and hard workers because they''re so scared of losing. In fact, avoiding defeat has become more important than winning to some managers - with 4-5-1 tactics adopted. But what these managers are forgetting is that, yes while winning pleases your immediate fans, as a product for the wider audience who really wants to spend your Sunday afternoon watching Charlton and Bolton serve up a dour 0-0.

To me it is unforgivable that professional footballers cannot control the ball perfectly first time and lay it off accurately to a team mate. That should be the bar for being a professional. But far too many of our players are not up to it. They''re too slow. They can''t control it soon enough to give them the time to lay it off. Plus the rest of the team don''t help one another by standing still. It''s unforgivable - they should be passing and training for at least 5 hours a day until they can do it perfectly.

The state of pitches does play a part however, as the pitches in a poor state do make controlling the ball more difficult due to bobbles. But a good team can still overcome it to an extent. The fact we can''t shows up that in truth we''re no better than the opposition. Worthington has taken this club back years by signing the shocking midfield we currently have. And the only way he can save his reputation as a professional football manager is to clear them out in the summer and replace them with people who can actually play football.

[0peteddMMyyyy0Falseen-USTrue 0]

Sorry but lifes too short to read the ramblings of Waghorn, but from what I have read on this post he seems to say Carrow Rd pitch is in better shape than others in the Div.

Well it certainly cost a bit and was lauded at the time, two seasons on it looks pretty threadbare and the £6ook spent doesn''t look good.  State of pitch not an issue if you don''t play it on the ground.

Did you see state of Pompey pitch on MOTD looked as good as August. 

 

[gazban 0]

Waghorn seems to be trying to convince everybody that Worthy is doing the right thing tactically and this last article is the most blatant example. It is total pap. We got promoted because we had Quality players, Huckerby, Crouch, Mcviegh who could hold the ball and beat people, while you then had supporting players who would do the hard work, but had the quality to pass the ball and keep possession. That team wasn''t the greatest, but they were a team. That is how you get promoted, every player fits into their own piece of the jigsaw. Worthy puts people where he has a gap because his squad is too small and he only seems to buy what he thinks is a good player, not what is needed to fit the team jigsaw. Earnshaw is a classic example. He seems to have got it right once when he got Huckerby, Crouch and the right winger (forget his name) on loan and they filled the missing pieces. He''s floundered ever since.