Chak looks like Asprillia did last year, constantly making a surging run to look up and find nobody else available. If Louza or Kayembe were available they got the return pass and we ambled back to possession in our own third until we either give it away or pass to Bachman to hoofslice (tm) it up to anywhere there generally isn't a Watford player for 30 yards. Also the only tactic we seem to have is "give it to Chak". Which was apparent when he went off because nobody knew what the **** they were supposed to do from that point.
Seeing our late goal last night I reckon that most of our recent goals have come from a "Baah surge to the bye line and pull it back". Chack used to do similar down the left but now he constantly surges around / accross the D looking for a chance to curl one in. And that's basically it as far as creating chances. Passing in midfield has improved but we have gone back to the usual Watfordy way of players seeming to want to save their legs rather than give their all. I just don't understand it....
I really hope we sign a striker, we have Bayo and Jebbison who are on loan so not technically ours, Rajovic who we have loaned out so the only striker we actually have in the squad that is ours is a youngster who has played a handful of minutes. The starting line up with Bayo as sole striker is depressing, he is constantly chasing the ball out wide so whenever we have attacking possession, more often than not there is no one in the middle to attack a cross or create an option. No issue with him being out wide if he is one of two goal scoring threats but let’s face it, he isn’t. We look better when we have players who will hold the ball and drive forward, either in the middle or on the wings but our attacking options up front are poor, Bayo has seven goals, but how many games has he scored in? Four? Shocking that he is our best bet up front and more so that the challengers to that position have zero goals between them!
I find Baah does better as a sub but we have no one like him in terms of pace and direct running at players
That was dull to say the least. I laughed out loud at the air kick from their player, it basically summed up the game. A draw was about right as they didn't do a lot either and their goal was handball. I though that was Giorgi's poorest game for us and deserved to be taken off. Ngakia was ok but why not start Ebosele instead I know Ince isn't a youngster anymore but I'm sure he used to be quite nippy, looked like he was running through treacle last night Louza was quiet but has been decent recently Sierralta is dreadful, I've said it countless times before but his ability on the ball is worse that Doyley's and is currently too slow to react to what is going hence the many yellow cards Porteous was good, Pollock play their chap onside for the goal but in general was ok Banchmann does what he does, scares the life out of me but has made some vital saves in the last few weeks Bayo did absolutely nothing and no idea how he stayed on the pitch Everybody else was meh except Baah and Vata who seemed to want to make things happen. Would like to see Baah, Vata and Doumbia start against West Brom but I know it will be Bayo On the plus side, they had a new manager which gave them a lift and we showed a good reaction to going behind but not a game that will live long in the memory
I don't feel as if we have improved defensively though. It's true that we've now stopped conceding goals in the first few minutes of every game, but in half of recent games it's just seemed that's because the opponent failed to take their chances. Hull should have taken the lead yesterday when we got caught out from our set-piece. We've been giving teams below us in the table frequent gilt-edged chances throughout games and have been lucky that they just can't capitalise on it. We mostly just seem more passive and playing within ourselves, while lacking in attacking ideas.
Yet it was Chak's replacement who got our goal... It has taken Vata 208 league minutes to notch his first goal for us. Chakvetadze is now on 1631 league minutes this season without a single goal from open play. His lack of goal threat is frankly abysmal.
After the huge disappointment of blowing a win so late on at Plymouth, last night was our 5th point won this season from the 88th minute or later. Last night was our 20th second half league goal of the season, compared to only 7 scored before half-time.
Yeah but I'd love to understand the quality of those chances. Presumably the stats can't take account of the quality of the person on the receiving end? So if Chak was creating, say, chances that only Haaland or Mbappe could put away with any regularity, that's pretty pointless for us. I'm the first to slag off Bayo but I've definitely seen Chak overlook the obvious pass in order to present a more difficult 'chance' to someone else on the team.
Same here . Must have been earlier in the season or I didn’t see them ! We have hardly had a shot in the recent games of note .
For balance ,Chak has a value to the team in as much as he seems to be constantly in possession when we attack . On a separate point I thought Bayo did ok during the 1st half with some nice touches although he blotted his copy book when he took the ball of Ince's toe only to kick the ball out for a GK. Which came as a complete shock to all of us .
The note scribbling was strange, especially as the paper was a bit of scrap paper and he was using his hand as a flat surface! As budget as you can get!!
Dunno though, he had one of those snazzy pens with different colours. Mrs UEA buys those and they ain't cheap.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mzcu...ey=5z2sgfgxflqateqovu4ogd38b&st=ptga3q5q&dl=0 @BigRossLittleRoss @Sahorn @Vic
We should have scored from one of his chances last night, but Bayo took the chance instead of Ince who was behind him and moving onto the ball around 12 yards out. Not aimed at you, but in general I think Chak is being massively underrated by the forum. What I will agree with though is his shooting is woeful, and bearing in mind how often he gets into those edge of the box positions you'd think the club would get a coach to work with him on shooting for a good few hours every week.
Got round to watching the highlights, obviously the goal came from a handball, the actual impact on the hand would have been hard to spot in the heat of the moment, but the way the ball went into the net, it did have a whiff of handball about it! Chak didn’t have one of his best games, and he perhaps is getting tired, but he’s still our best player. I’m wondering if there’s a way to fit him, Vata and Baah in the same team (Baah has been one of our three best players this season, although I suppose there have been a few question marks around some of his performances when he’s started). I know only a tiny fraction as much about football as Clev, and I don’t see them in training, although I’m wondering why he seems to have an aversion to Dwomoh, I think he and Louza in a midfield pairing would work well, certainly better than what we’ve seen so far this season from Kayembe and Sissoko
He’s 3rd in the league in terms of overall chances created, 7th in terms of expected assists (which is a more useful statistic to measure creativity as it’s not dependent on the finishing ability of the guy in front of him), although he’s only a whisker behind the top 3. Think he would get even more xA (and indeed actual assists!) if he had a better striker playing in front of him who would actually regularly get into good areas
You’d have to think that individual players wouldn’t care much about playing away vs home. If they were that weak willed, surely they wouldn’t have made it to what is effectively an elite level. So, such poor away performances can only really come from the manager, a different set of instructions, different selections, different tactics, more negative language etc. But there is just absolutely no justification for treating an away game against the bottom placed team any different to a home game, but the results and performances clearly suggest that this is what is happening. It’s frankly unacceptable and completely maddening.
According to the report he tapped into an empty net from six yards. Our striker has more chance of passing it out of play or passing it backwards.
Tbh we haven’t been that good at home recently either and hardly had a decent first half all season really often being quite defensive and passive. If anything the recent away games at Plymouth and Sheffield Wednesday have been the best games in the past month or so. And even those had moments of back foot defending or moments of luck .
So why has there historically been such an advantage to playing at home across all the divisions? Are all footballers weak-willed? This is a bit old but if makes the point well: http://eightyfivepoints.blogspot.com/2016/08/home-advantage-home-advantage-is-much.html
Why did we have such amazing home form during Covid with no fans in the ground? There is obviously a correlation between home and away from being better or worse, but I’d say that’s mostly led by the manager and how they set the team up, more than anything else. My point was in our case I think Cleverley has a greater influence on that than most managers, as evidenced by some recent awful away performances against terrible teams. I can’t really see any other excuse for winning pretty much all your home games and then struggling away against the bottom placed team, the buck for that stops with the manager, for me at least.
Who knows? I'm not sure I really understand why home form is so much better than away form for any club, but it clearly is. As to your TC point; maybe. Is he too cautious, perhaps?
Well that’s the thing, I guess what I’m trying to say is I think there is an automatic tendency for all managers, not just TC, just to set up differently and more cautiously by default away from home, which can often be a self fulfilling prophecy (but in certain scenarios is of course warranted). I however think in the case of TC, the massive disparity between home and away form does suggest he is far too cautious away from home, certainly against lesser teams. If you can beat Sunderland and Boro at home, I personally don’t think you need to change your set up away to bottom placed Hull, but our night and day away home and away form suggests we do.
I disagree in fact, I think he wasn’t changing it away from home to start with. He thought we could play the same stuff away but it hasn’t worked. He’s now trying to swing the balance and on Wednesday went overly cautious against a poor side that I think he over estimated due to the new manager. He’ll get the balance right eventually, it doesn’t help we don’t have the lone striker to help strike that balance either tbh.
Hull might be bottom and are on terrible form, but are they really that bad? I know their previous manager played a style of football which could be generously described as ‘high-risk’ (with little concept of a ‘midfield’) and was easy to play against, whereas now they have a new manager who presumably plays a more normal style of play which might see them rise up the table soon
I know that was definitely a factor in the last promotion season when we had the best home record in the entire Football League, and when Foster mentioned that the grass at Hillsborough where we played out a tame 0-0 was too long
