Capoue slows the game down more than anyone (except perhaps Chalobah). Cleverley has much more urgency but unfortunately not the quality.
Paolo Vernaza and Will Hoskins on Hive Live for this game. Is that the hollow sound of the bottom of a barrel being well and truly scraped? Well I suppose Andre Gray was too busy organising his next party to be available for this one.
I don't agree with this. We basically don't attack down the middle at all as whatever formation we've played this season there's never been an option in between the striker(s) and the more defensive midfielders. All of our attacking play comes down the flanks and we've had most success when it's been a quick switch of play, something that Capoue is best at. He did have one stinker (QPR I think) but in the other games, more often than not our attacks have started with him spraying the ball across the field.
I think this video is a short example of how Capoues range of passes create space and opportunities, even if it is a long diagonal a lot of the time. I think some people underestimate the number of interceptions that he makes also, by far the best player at winning the ball back.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Capoue is a good player and ought to be in the team. My criticism of him is not just about this season. I just wish his first thought was not to turn back and lay the ball off to a defender - he has all the attributes to be so much better than he often shows.
Hitting a dead ball is a bit different from hitting a moving one though; there's no guarantee that a player will be as good at one as the other. He could have also tried them in training and not been good at them?
Yeah that’s quite possible obviously. Hard to believe that Garner is the best of the bunch though given how poor he’s been of late at that aspect of his game.
Its not just about a win tonight .... its about the performance too ..... a 1-0 bore fest is not good enough ...... we need a dominant, positive attacking performance that gives us some confidence of what we are trying to achieve and what we are actually capable of. I know how this sounds but - we are 1/3 of the way through the season and quite honestly unless things change immediately we are not going to finish in the play offs let alone the win the league ass per our objective.
We can all predict this will be a low scoring affair, probably another 0-0 or 1-1 draw. We will play negative football, pass it back and sideways, stall if we try to attack down the centre. The wingers may put in a few crosses but the forwards are isolated and slow. All it takes is for the opposition to be organised and physical and they every chance of scoring 1, which we don't seem to be able to come back from. So they then defend even more, which we cant break down and its either a 0-1 loss or a 1-1 draw at best. Oppsotion coaches will have all cottoned on to how we play and know all they need is organisation, determination and physicality to some degree and they then have every chance of getting at least a point. We seem to be running out of answers in return
I know I’ll get laughed at for this, but for the boring and dull performances we’ve had recently away from home and on Saturday... I’m really looking forward to going back to the Vic tonight. Have really really missed it.
but he hit the bar v reading, and thus must take them all season long (yes I'm ignoring some of the other good balls, no I'm not a hypocrite)
I logged into my eticket account and found it's in credit. I'm assumimg they've already refunded me for tonights snoozefest....
No surprise to me that the season we were promoted we had a set piece expert. Would make a huge difference to this out-of-ideas side. Would say when Garner gets it right, his set pieces are fantastic, but there's no consistency at all.
Bit like Jordan Stewart the free kick "expert" who took them for a whole season after scoring a hugely deflected one against Wolves on the opening day of whatever season it was.
It's strange that we don't try out others on set pieces. Surely someone can deliver them accurately 70+%? I'd like to see Pedro on them.
I thought I'd be really looking forward to tonight, so I'm quite surprised to not be feeling it at all. I think it's a mix of only being 2,000 there and the turgid performances, but it feels like a drag. I guess it's also down to lockdown, 9 months or being stuck in my house or the immediate vicinity has sucked the joy and will out of life (and I was never a ray of sunshine before it).
Toszer scored five direct free kicks in that season as well as the high quality corners and free kicks. Abdi also scored at least one. And the previous time we got promoted, we had Ashley Young taking them. Incredible the recruitment team haven't seen fit to have a decent set piece taker for years.
Also and more importantly, those set piece goals directly led to points. We got relegated due to a lack of cheap goals from FK's and corners and it will be one of the reasons we won't get promoted.
Yep, totally mind boggling. As was watching Deulofeu and Pereyra clip every single free kick into the wall for three seasons. It must've become apparent that we had no-one with the dead ball skills to get a ball over a wall and yet not once did we try a clever routine or even 'tap it to the side and blast it' one that got Kaboul the deflected goal at Arsenal a few years back.
Do people remember how much flak came on this forum when it was reported we were looking at signing Ward-Prowse? Not good enough for us, well below what we should be looking at etc etc. The irony that his FK at their place helped send us down.
