Question about Watford and Stoke games- building from the back

[Returning Avatar 0]

Against Villa, Ruddy''s kicks (from ground and hand) were aimed to Snoddy. You only have to look at his reaction to the odd headed goal to confirm his opinion that he''s one of the worst headers of the ball in the club. I haven''t seen the highlights of Watford or Stoke games, but are we persisting with this? RvW is not a hold-it-up type of player, Snoddy can''t head for toffee and all that happens is the ball is returned to our half, putting us under pressure. Surely a return to the days when we built from the back is in order?

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

Against Stoke I was worried before the game whether they would close us down and force us to play a lot of long balls, which is what happened in the fixture last year, and as you say most of those long balls were just conceding possession.

 

This time with 3 in midfield we were able to play it from the back a lot.  Even better, we pressed them and often won the ball high up the field, which led to the goal for example.

 

Ruddy did play some balls long but not too many.  You could see he was trying to direct them to the flanks with Pilks and Snoddy the target recipients rather than RVW which is just common sense and it worked ok.  I think you can''t play it on the floor all the time or the other side work out they can close you down, and we played enough long to avoid this, while mainly keeping it on the ground.  Unfortunately a few of his kicks went straight into touch which is pretty much the only thing he did wrong.

 

Happily going the other way, when Stoke played it long, Ryan Bennett won virtually every header and Stoke had no joy with the long game at all - coupled with the fact that we pressed well and made it hard for them passing on the ground, we pretty much stopped them playing and looked a class above for most of the game - the only exception was the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half when we sat back a bit, fortunately towards the end of the half we resumed pressing higher up the pitch.

[Master J-Do Pur 0]

Interesting point. This was probably to do with the fact that on the other wing there was Redmond so Snodgrass was the obvious target for the long ball out from the back. For the Stoke game however, with Pilks replacing Snodgrass, this tactic moved over to the left and most long balls were played down the left to capitalise on Pilkington''s height advantage. I never like to see long balls but i think against stoke the decision making was spot on. We now have Fer, who is fantastic on the ball when surrounded by the opposition, and with Howson and Tettey, they played lots of tight triangles out of danger without getting caught out from memory. However, the goalie and defence didn''t do any ''hospital balls'' and, when needed, played it long down the left. It''s also worth noting this is where our goal came from as well. RVW gets a lot of stick but it was him that won a great header under a strong challenge that Pilks then picked up from to play it to Howson to shoot. Pilk''s anticipation of the drop down shows that he is expecting RVW to win flick ons, something Snodgrass sometimes stands and watches currently. I thought there was some good chemistry starting to show from Pilkington and RVW.

[Master J-Do Pur 0]

Obviously meant Pilks replacing Redmond. Damn you no edit button!

[Salopian 1]

When you watch other (very good) keepers, they frequently build by kicking the loose ball, or throwing or rolling it, to one of the fullbacks. They have confidence that movements can begin in this way. Very often the (ball-playing) central midfielder will have dropped back to receive the ball from the fullback. Wilshire is a good example, but most of them do it.

 

My impression is that we tend not to do this so much. Is this due to a lack of confidence on someone''s part - players who don''t like to have possession,  are not confident in their ability to pass to another player, or are not sure that there will be an unmarked recipient? If this is the case, CH must do something about it. If possession is good for the better teams, and who tend not to launch the ball as far as they can usually, why not us?

 

In my book it is better to have possession and make something happen, rather than engaging in heading duels with uncertain result., no matter how far upfield.

[Returning Avatar 0]

Thanks for the replies gents. Didn''t we used to build from the back under PL?

[Waveney Canary 0]

A poor thread no stupid comments, no personal attacks, no bullying. U must try harder next time. Hughton out

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="Waveney Canary"]A poor thread no stupid comments......[/quote]Well, you soon changed that then.......