Energy, Press/Combativeness and Organisation

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JayGreen17

JayGreen17

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3 things that we’ve been missing all season that‘s markedly improved the team tonight.

Best performance all season, improvements from Hamer and Souza, Brooks was solid, Bogle was massively improved.

Some excellent chances created too, just a real shame we couldn’t put them away.

Let’s home we can use that to win on Saturday.
 

That performance was what you would expect against Liverpool, and a bit of luck maybe we get a point. What we need to see is a different performance against “lesser” sides, where we impose ourselves on the game. Saturday will be a good measure of Wilder’s impact. Brent does are really good but not Liverpool’s level.
 
Let's not get carried away but also let's be realistic against who we were playing.

That was much improved. We have to see how things carry on but that performance had fight and press in it and we didn't just fall apart after conceding.

We also had a few pieces of decent passing play. Albeit limited.

And if we really want to put a biased but positive spin on it. Both of their goals could have been given as fouls. On balance from what I've seen the 2nd is a foul and the 1st is kinda clever blocking play but equally seen them given as fouls.

Brooks has put himself right in the squad too. Reckon he won't always start but a nice positive performance. Osula I reckon might be one to push on after getting a goal.
Funny because I heard from a few fans wilder didn't play youth.
 
Rochdaleblade said:
Loved seeing our midfield actually sprinting back when we lost possession. Shame these same players threw Hecky under the bus.
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Or did Hecky just want paying up? Can't blame him given what he's been given to work with if he thought "lets tank it and get me paid up ASAP".
 
Thought we played better V City myself but still a solid defensive performance. Although I can’t judge on that just yet. Brentford and especially Luton will be more of a marker of where we’re at.
 
Chimpan-A said:
I thought Bogle was excellent tonight.
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Definitely. We'd obviously decided we were just going to have to allow the diagonal against him to compress the space elsewhere and he dealt with it about as well as can be done.
 
I think what we can say is: it was better. We'll find out how much better over the next few games but it was definitely better.

Organisation, making ourselves compact without the ball, actually using the channels now and then. We had a threat on the break that nearly came off a few times (especially the McAtee chance early on) which makes it the first game this season where we had a plan for how we might actually score.

No shame in losing that game, no shame in how we played. Might still not be good enough but we at least had the look of a team with a plan.
 
Yes, good to see us creating chances, that's something we've not really done all season
 
JayGreen17 said:
3 things that we’ve been missing all season that‘s markedly improved the team tonight.

Best performance all season, improvements from Hamer and Souza, Brooks was solid, Bogle was massively improved.

Some excellent chances created too, just a real shame we couldn’t put them away.

Let’s home we can use that to win on Saturday.
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We were all saying the same, definitely looked better.
Someone near me commented "we're playing like a team" another said "they all seem to know their jobs".
I was saying it just shows how we have suffered, the above are the basics of football, but we've been starved of this
so it's created the false illusion that we were really good tonight, when we weren't, but at least it was very much acceptable
and the players were deservedly clapped of the pitch.

Other differences:
1: Archer's best match of the season, he was playing deeper linking with midfield and was much more involved
Looked hungry and alive, wanting the ball. Hecly had him playing as loan target man up front and he struggled badly.

2: Was quite impressed with Brookes, gave the ball away a few times but at least he tried stuff and went on a few dribbling runs.
Not the finished artifice but looks talented and showed plenty of promise.

3: Norwood dropped
Thought we looked better, Liverpool totally dominated but it was mainly the centre circle where they looked good
as soon as they got near our area they struggled. My mate said at half time the game reminded him of the Spurs cup tie when we won 1-0.

4: Effort and confidence
We didn't look overawed and the heads didn't drop, we looked like a decent Championship side showing good effort playing a PL side in the cup. Finally got there....this should be the absolute minimum. Under Hecky we were playing like a league 1 and at times even a league 2 team.
Lost 2-0 but feeling much better about our prospects.

5: Having plenty of men forward when we attacked.
My gripe this season is that we've been say so deep that most of the players are permanently fixed inside our half and daren't venture over the halfway line. However tonight we had a few breakaway with 6 players running into there box attacking in numbers.
We also had spells where we caused some panic amongst the Liverpool defence, apart from 2nd half against Wolves we've not made a single defence panic this season because we've never previously attacked with numbers forward.
 
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BiggerBladeThanThou said:
Thought we played better V City myself but still a solid defensive performance. Although I can’t judge on that just yet. Brentford and especially Luton will be more of a marker of where we’re at.
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Did you because despite seeing battle Vs city you could easily argue that before they opened the scoring they could or really really. Or should have been 3-0 up by then. We kinda got battered but kept in it by the skin of our teeth till it got to 1-1 with admittedly some good fortune.
For me we pushed Liverpool alot closer tonight despite the scoreline.

Tonight with bad luck you could maybe argue Liverpool win that 3 maybe 4 nil.
But with good luck we draw 0-0 or take the lead first half and see how that transforms the game..
 
Rochdaleblade said:
Loved seeing our midfield actually sprinting back when we lost possession. Shame these same players threw Hecky under the bus.
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I don't think the players threw Hecky under the bus, it was more that they carried out his game plan, which was limited and predictable, then when that didn't work there was no guidance coming from the technical area as Hecky had no plan B, they looked lost. Doing this week in, week out demoralised them until they had no fight left, as the tactics just weren't working and they were getting battered by everyone. Sadly many aren't intelligent enough to figure things out themselves.

Hecky's approach was try not to lose, but we kept losing anyway.

Wilder's approach used to be every game is a chance to win and I'd rather lose trying to win then lose trying not to lose.

It's too early for comparisons but it was obvious last season that Hecky was tactically limited and lacked any sort of plan B, and he continued that into this season where his one and only old school approach was easily found out in a modern Premier League.

I'll judge Wilder next season, not this one. As far I'm concerned this season is a right off unless miracles really do happen. So long as we go down fighting and look more organised with a clear game plan then that'll be somewhat of an improvement, and we may pick some points up along the way. He wasn't my choice for manager, but he gets a free swing for me.
 
Enjoyed the break in play for a Liverpool injury in the first half. Blades players we just stood around. Wilder shouted at the to keep moving and run about a bit.
 
Did we just make it through a match without picking up any injuries?
 
CPB said:
Did you because despite seeing battle Vs city you could easily argue that before they opened the scoring they could or really really. Or should have been 3-0 up by then. We kinda got battered but kept in it by the skin of our teeth till it got to 1-1 with admittedly some good fortune.
For me we pushed Liverpool alot closer tonight despite the scoreline.

Tonight with bad luck you could maybe argue Liverpool win that 3 maybe 4 nil.
But with good luck we draw 0-0 or take the lead first half and see how that transforms the game..
Click to expand...

Just felt we passed it more V City whereas last night we didn’t create any passing triangles at all and played on the hope of Liverpool being dispossessed and we get on the counter, which to be fair, we did a few times. However, I’d like us to change it up for the ‘easier’ opponents when they come visiting.
 
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