Listening to the commentary of the Arsenal game the Sky Pundits could not understand why we played Danny up front when we had a Hungarian International on the bench, their only explanation was that maybe he hasn't impressed in training.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that we put Shittu on upfront to win headers from long balls and set plays! There were 10 minutes to go and we had to hit the ball long to create chances! Shittu was the one i'd have brought on aswell!
11 points in the bag - 1-1 with 10 mins to go against a quality top 3 premiership side and in going for a win, we decide to take an integral player out from our defence and bung him upfront in order to try to gain two extra points from a team where a draw is like a victory. There is a lesson to be learned there Aidy IMO.
I dont argue that moving Shittu up was a bad mistake but i do feel that we would have been better brining Priskin on than Doris... Doris has done nothing in my book to deserve a game (considering he is paid to score goals) and the way we had been playing i feel would have suited Priskin rather than Hendo if we had continued in that vein. and lets face it our style of play yesterday did cause them a heck of a lot of problems.
Apologies, for some reason I thought you meant Sheffield Utd because I think they mentioned that on sky aswell! Aidy stuck Shittu upfront when we went 1-2 down! He was out of position for the 2nd goal because he was up for a corner! No lesson to be learnt from that point of view because he was only doing what he has been all season!
i didn't want to seem pessimistic by stating that I still think yesterday was one of our best 90 mins performances this season and the players did us proud.
Or perhaps the lesson could be make sure we give the corners to someone that can cross a football accuratley! Why the hell was Stewart on free-kicks and corners when McNamee is probably the best crosser of the ball in the squad? We had a few free-kicks in great positions yesterday and wasted all of them!
Well Ash has wasted most of this seasons corners and free kicks, i was happy with the change. Macca - that has to be proved - he hasn't played enough to get used to the new style football - a bit risky perhaps?
Young's crossing has been atrocious and Stewart's last night wasn't much better either! Macca has proved in the past he can put in good crosses from set plays! Carlisle's header against Derby last season springs to mind... as do the set pieces we scored from boxing day last season against the saints!
Derby close to relgation, Southampton not much higher up. Were they real quality or just shyte defenders out of position.
I thought macca played well yesterday, he beat his man a good few times in the 1st half, didn't see much of the ball in the 2nd, but that one cross to young springs to mind, the one when young headed it back across the empty box......how we need a poacher!
i don't dispute the fact bubbly- but also macca as does all our players cross poorly a high percentage of the time. The fact that 3 or 4 are being discussed and the countless bad ones are not means that our quality of crosses is indedd poor. macca can also put in his fair share of shyte crosses.
Agreed - he should have started more times this season. Macca should be given a run. He did do prtty well yesterday with his non attacking duties and wanted to get stuck in a bit - all credit to him.
I think Macca puts good pace on the ball and wips it in towards goal...yeah sure some will go straight down the keeper's throat but some of the best set piece takers in the world don't have 100% success rate! 75% of his delievery would be spot on! Young floats the ball in too much and the ball is usually caught by the keeper or over hit past the back post! Macca puts defences under pressure by wipping it in with pace and curl!
I agree. I think he sometimes whips them in with so much pace and curl it puts our forwards under pressure too as some of them are looking for dolly drop headers.
If we had a real poacher in, then these whipped crosses would be exactly what we want. With Hendo in, the looped high crosses seem to be chosen to suit his build.
Not from set-plays though! Balls that are whipped in between the defenders and goal keepers are practically impossible to defend! If you hit the ball into these areas at pace you will cause havoc for opposition defences! Has Ash forgot that he scored directly from free-kicks against QPR and Stoke from pretty much the same angle!? He whipped the ball in with pace and the keeper didn't want to come for it and the defenders didn't want to touch it, thus resulting in goals! For a team that's supposedly good from set-plays we don't exactly make many count!!!
The key is to have a balanced PAIR of strikers. Hendo needs a young Kevin Phillips type playing off him. Two Gary Linekers would not work for anyone. What we have not had are two players who play well together. Hendo has been working his socks off making runs off the ball to create space or trying to deal with being double marked on crosses. Nobody has been moving into the space he's created or helped him out. All the talk about who we should buy because of their goalscoring rate ignores the fact that whoever we get needs to immediately blend with the strikers we have. The management (or even Hendo himself) would have a better idea of who would be the missing half of an effective pairing. And Bubble is spot on about our poor crossing, from corners especially. And if we keep hitting them long, why do we seldom have anybody at the far post??
Hendo with Macca down the middle playing off Hendo's knock downs and loose balls ( sounds very rude). Macca has the total skill of being able to make the ball stick to his feet. Out wide he has two men marking him, so bung him in the middle against big defenders and play the ball to his feet around the penalty area, he will either turn them and get into the box or be fouled, giving Ash a chance to do an Ash special free kick. We hardly get any free kicks around the box this season. Watford 5 Wigan 1
