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lake district canary

Good defence but where is the attacking cohesion?

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I''ve seen every minute of every match - some at games, some on line - but the clear message is - good defence - but midfield are not getting the attacking quality in.     I don''t blame Holt - its the amount of time the midfielders give the ball away.  The striker just doesn''t get enough service, because the ball is lost so many times or delivered poorly.  Johnson, Hoolahan, Pilks, Snodgrass all too wayward.  

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[quote user="The ghost of Michael Theoklitos"]We build our new squad / style from the back. CH saw the back as the biggest priority. He''s got it sorted, the rest will come with hard work and time.Have faith my good man. He knows what he''s doing[/quote]

I agree, but it ain''t half frustrating to watch the good work done defending being wasted by poor deliveries at the other end.

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Definitely need better ball retention and accurate passes and I feel that would frustrate teams even further and cause so many more problems for them against us

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That final pass/cross/shot isn''t quite there at the moment and everyone takes their share of the blame for that including Grant Holt. But past form suggests he will go on a goalscoring run at some stage and if he does that when we are already on an unbeaten run then we will be laughing. A lot of people are criticising Hughton for being overly negative but I''m not sure he is. He is just not as attack minded as Lambert which is not entirely surprising.

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Attacking cohesion has to include holt though - his lack of goals is down to him as well as the midfield and I think in cohesion you have landed on exactly the right word for the problem LDC.

 

The players are good enough and 4231 IS the best formation for us, but its not clicking yet from a scoring point of view.    We have two wide players yet Holt insists on being wide despite being a lone striker - he has to be more central and ready in the box more than he is;  wes, pilkington and snodgrass have to improve their passing and crossing quality - its frustrating all of us.  All 4 have to improve their movement so BJ has a simple pass out - I think part of his failure rate is the lack of accessable available out pass.   None of that is terminal and will improve and evolve.

 

We have some real quality in Morison (DOES play the lone striker well), Jackson (injects pace and urgency), Bennett (direct with pace and excellent defensive effort), Surman (keeps the ball well and covers more ground than any player at the club), Howson (passing potential) and we need to get the best out of them all,  not just labour on with the chosen 4 if it needs refershing or tweaking.   All players go through dips in form or simply have days things just dont come off.

 

We have seen how effective dropping a player can be this season (worked for snod and holt) and the impact subs can have - sometimes that rest helps the subbed player as much as the new face in the 11 gives fresh impetus (in a slightly different way) to the team on the pitch.  For the front 4 that time is getting near - not because they are playing very poorly,  just the attacking element needs a refresh.

 

I would start the sunderland game with the same 11 again,  but holt, pilkington and snodgrass should expect to make way after 60 mins if they perform as they did last night (ie not badly but lacking that cutting edge / spark)

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I completely agree with Zipper on this one! The fact that e doesn''t change things around early enough annoys me too. I think Benno , Howson and Simeon could really change the game. Pilkington wasn''t great last night, so why not change things round earlier, bring on Howson, Benno and give them some time? I think LDC has got a point with the midfielders not giving our strikeforce enough service, but there''s potential on the bench that''s not getting the chance to impress imo

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I couldn''t disagree more. What do you lot want? We''re on the longest unbeaten premiership run since 1993, taken 13 points from the last seven games (four of them away) and beaten Man U and Arsenal. FFS!

 

Of course things can always improve but there is every chance that if we change things then it could get worse not better. I get so chessed off with people saying we haven''t scored two goals for however long. The last time we managed it we let in 5! One was enough to beat United.

 

While things continue like this then leave it alone! 

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Away from home we sit too deep & don''t have the pace to break or get the ball up the field. At Everton & Southampton going behind forced us up the pitch & we dictated both games. Last night was crying out for Elliott Bennett, Snodgrass'' delivery is generally superb but he was dreadful & we were too deep for him to have much impact, Bennett would have been more useful playing on the break.

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[quote user="Hairy Canary"]

I couldn''t disagree more. What do you lot want? We''re on the longest unbeaten premiership run since 1993, taken 13 points from the last seven games (four of them away) and beaten Man U and Arsenal. FFS!

 

Of course things can always improve but there is every chance that if we change things then it could get worse not better. I get so chessed off with people saying we haven''t scored two goals for however long. The last time we managed it we let in 5! One was enough to beat United.

 

While things continue like this then leave it alone! 

[/quote]

Spot on.  Let''s not complain as we are on a brilliant run of results.  I don''t understand some people''s negativity when we''re doing so well.

 

It comes back to getting a balance between attack and defence.  If we try and bomb forward on every occasion we will undoubtedly leak goals.

 

I think Hughton has started to get the balance spot on. Beating Arsenal, Stoke and Man Utd with clean sheets in successive home games is phenominal and let''s not forget we''ve come from behind to earn valuable points in three of our last four away games, keeping another clean sheet in the other.  

 

The formation he has adopted has been the key to our success and as long as we don''t get hit with an injury crisis there is no reason why we won;t continue to shut teams out, week in week out. 

 

Long may it continue.

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Not being negative at all. I just think that during the game, substitutions might influence the game on the POSITIVE SIDE. A fresh pair of legs in the 70th minute, might have a huge impact. Only remark: why does CH wait so long?

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Its not negativity, more just chatting about the poor quality passing, how to improve a cutting edge to convert the draws into wins without converting draws into defeats.

 

Its a great run and I simply looking to see how we could raise the levels a little further

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This is what Hughton does. The board knew what they were buying into. He is doing it well. Results do not lie. If we managed to combine potent attacking with formidable defence we would be in the top 3.

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[quote user="dpit"]This is what Hughton does. The board knew what they were buying into. He is doing it well. Results do not lie. If we managed to combine potent attacking with formidable defence we would be in the top 3.[/quote]

But dpit, all we are lacking is that quality in the finish, quality final ball, bit of luck. Something we had with the same players last season. Its not like we aren''t attacking.

We are having only 2/3 less shots on average compared to last season (possibly more, but i''m sure it was about that when i did a comparison a few weeks ago) and I can think of plenty of examples in the recent run of games where we should, but failed to get a shot in, get the final ball into the right area, which could have lead to goals very easily.

We don''t need to sacrifice any of our tremendous defensive work to score a few more goals. I''m not sure if its lack of practise, being ''found out'', lack of confidence, better defences, bad luck or a mixture. I honestly don''t think we are attacking much less than last season. Many a game last year we let the other team have plenty of possession, soaked it up and counter attacked. Our style isn''t actually that much different, we just have competent defensive players. With Fox playing more last year we did probably just about have more possession on average, but we weren''t known for keeping the ball a huge amount...

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