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Shack Attack

Some belated thoughts from last night

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Always best to sleep on these things and not get caught up in the heat of the moment I think. So......1) Playing possession football and pressing hard when you don''t have the ball is much more difficult when the opposition play the same way - Sounds obvious but I don''t think people are maybe giving Swansea enough credit for the way they played yesterday. I thought we actually dealt with them better than we did in the home game which we won but their style made it difficult for us. Compare and contrast with the recent televised game against Bristol City where we pressed them hard and they coughed up possession on a regular basis. That gave us plenty of possession and gave the forwards/attacking midfielders a breather whilst we played the ball around in the first two thirds of the pitch. Yesterday Swansea caused us problems with their pressing (Fox and the two full backs in particular looked a lot more rushed in possession) and our build up play looked a lot less patient.2) The diamond becomes less effective the more stretched it becomes - In the first half there was often too much space between the two players at the top and the base of the diamond. This was particularly apparent in the latter part of the first half when Swansea looked by far the better side for the only real time in the match. This leaves too much space in the middle of the park and allows the opposition to run at our defence in our most vulnerable area. This also happened in the ten minutes or so of the Bristol City game before they equalised when Campbell-Rice and Adomah caused us problems through the middle. Which leads me on to.......3) We miss Wes - Now some might like to claim that because we created chances that means we didn''t really miss him but I think that oversimplifies things. Wes is very comfortable receiving the ball in tight areas in the middle third and is always available to take a pass from Fox (or the centre backs) and create triangles with the full backs. Lansbury likes to play further forward and didn''t drop as deep as Wes likes to. This contributed to the stretching of the diamond mentioned above and made things very difficult for Surman and Crofts who often found themselves rather isolated. It also led to Ward in particular taking a few risks when he was in possession as Swansea were able to mark Fox a lot easier. The fact that the diamond was sacrificed at half time shows how important Wes is to it''s success IMO.4) There is no need to panic - The three points above are fairly minor ones which were exacerbated by the fact that Swansea are a very good side. Yet we still created some very decent chances and were really only beaten by two exceptional strikes. We''re still second and before yesterday had only lost one in eighteen. There are not many teams who are either brave enough or good enough to take us on in the same manner as Swansea did. We''ll still finish second [Y]

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I agree with the point about Wes. He pops up everywhere offering to receive the ball regardless of whether he is marked or not. We really missed that yesterday. I just felt the diamond perhaps played into Swansea''s hands as well. We played a narrow formation, on a wide rugby pitch against two very fast wide men. In hindsight maybe we could have flattened the midfield out to a 4-4-2 like we did against Huddersfield away last year and that turned the game.It was an off day. But they have only had 2 off days in the last 18 games. I can live with that.

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totally agree that we missed Wes so much!! it is worrying that one player makes us tick so much though

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Another excellent post. Wes is completely integral to the way we play, in diamond formation, & the players were never going to be as comfortable without him. Even so, there was some absolutely wonderful play before their first goal, which gave them confidence, & the second knocked the stuffing out of us. Suddenly players looked tired & passes were half a yard behind where they should have been, so momentum kept being lost. But we were still good in parts - it was rather like watching an arm wrestling match between two equal competitors.It was much, much closer than the result suggests. If one of Korey''s shots had have gone in I think we would have got at least a draw - he & Jackson had already lifted the energy levels & the team would have responded in kind. Roll on Tuesday. OTBC!

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I think we simply cannot play the diamond without Wes. We have no other player that can do that role well.

Possibly Pacheco but he was taken off too early in the 2nd half to really tell.

What I do know is that Lansbury cannot play at the top of the diamond. He was completely AWOL for the 1st half yesterday and the other match that springs to mind is Cardiff at home, where he also had a shocker and was taken off early in the 2nd half.

Lansbury is a very good player in an orthadox midfiled position. Playing him at the top of the diamond does us no favours.

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Great post Shack as usual.Borini''s goal really killed us, I thought. In the first five minutes, Swansea did look really nervous, and they were ''coughing up possession'', as you put it, all the time. Had we scored when Pacheco and then Holt had those chances, I think we''d have gone on to win. Had Borini not scored that wonderful free-kick, Swansea would not have had the breathing space to settle down and I think it would have been a tight game.But the stuff about the stretched diamond sounds about right to me. Certainly the game passed Lansbury by yesterday.

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My belated thought from yesterday having been at the game then watching backing on sky, is we can play whatever formation and players but we have to do the basics.

Forget about Wes not playing as we could have played for 2 hours and still not scored. If you make chances which we did, and don''t convert them the tactics pale into insignificance. We were outfought, out played and out defended and we move on.

Some of the players have to take a look at themselves. Surman didn''t look interested and ran around like he was wearing lead boots and we looked too light weight.

Roll on tuesday.

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