Crucial point for Tufty.

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Since our good run of form, teams are treating us very differently now and managers / coaches are approaching a game against us with a different perspective.
i.e. how not to get tanked off the park.
They all watch the same vids and see how teams set up against us to prevent us from exploiting the possession we have.
We have two key weaknesses - without Jake Wright to marshal the defenders we are a car crash at the back.
We have little to offer in the forward line to break teams down who defend for their initial point - heightened now that Chapman is injured loing term.

Duffy is pretty much the only one we have that can offer the key to this (Scougs, potentially - but he has to put the chances away that his good movement creates) but he needs clever runs from wide and the main strikers showing for a one-two.
The partnerships up top are still some way off being effective, despite having a good set of strikers, individually.
They seem to clash as opposed to complement each other at the moment - apart from a Sharp/Done pairing but that suffers because Done isn't bagging any goals.

Teams aren't going to change the way the play us now, given they know they have a chance to maintain their point from a spirited shut out.
Wilder and Knill have to find a way to unlock this and, as we all know too well, the first goal is the crucial one to change the dynamic of the game.

Will be interesting to see if Swindon adopt the same tactics on us next Saturday.
They are a side that has picked up momentum, recently, and are capable of giving any team in this league a game. Not convinced they will take a bold decision to play - more likely adopt a safe decision to "stick" and counter attack. It's then up to us to unlock it. The earlier we can do that, the better.
 
Keen Blade said:
Done misses a lot of chances and scores none.

Clarke is tall and won every header against Walsall but Billy was too far away to capitalise on it because to play off a tall striker he would have to run around and keep up with him. .
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1. he didn't win every header against Walsall as he was often he was trying to deal with long punts from the keeper. His flick ons were aimlessThe link up play was better when played to feet. (as it is with Sharp)
2. You don't mention the headers/flick ons Sharp won (especially in the 2nd half) but Clarke was no where near to Sharp...Why is that ?
3. Sharp doesn't 'run around'. ?. He is not a Done but his work rate is on par with everyone else in the team
4. You may not have noticed as you are too busy having 'digs' at our top scorer but Clarke is not a typical target man on the Billy Whitehurst mode and he is not a good header of a ball. His is normally best with his ball to feet and holding up the ball, bringing others into play and playing off the shoulders of defenders. Unfortunately he is not in very good form at the moment and should be benched in favour of Done(preferably) or Lavery
5. To say the logical choice is Clarke/Done or Clarke/Lavery goes against all logic based to the games this season.
6. We have managed to score plenty of goals this season without a tall striker on the pitch (although it is good to have that option)
 
bartman said:
1. he didn't win every header against Walsall as he was often he was trying to deal with long punts from the keeper. His flick ons were aimlessThe link up play was better when played to feet. (as it is with Sharp)
2. You don't mention the headers/flick ons Sharp won (especially in the 2nd half) but Clarke was no where near to Sharp...Why is that ?
3. Sharp doesn't 'run around'. ?. He is not a Done but his work rate is on par with everyone else in the team
4. You may not have noticed as you are too busy having 'digs' at our top scorer but Clarke is not a typical target man on the Billy Whitehurst mode and he is not a good header of a ball. His is normally best with his ball to feet and holding up the ball, bringing others into play and playing off the shoulders of defenders. Unfortunately he is not in very good form at the moment and should be benched in favour of Done(preferably) or Lavery
5. To say the logical choice is Clarke/Done or Clarke/Lavery goes against all logic based to the games this season.
6. We have managed to score plenty of goals this season without a tall striker on the pitch (although it is good to have that option)
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The only time Clarke looked animated or interested yesterday was when he got booked.

As for Lavery, he needs to spend less time running down blind alleys. His default option seems to be to run towards the corner flag, get men around him, and fail to put in a cross or win a corner.

The jury remains out on both of these signings for me.
 
Ricky said:
Recent games have nicely highlighted what we need in January. More out wide, good cover in midfield and a quality striker who can play with Sharp.
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and a Jake Wright clone for when he's unavailable
 
Our next five games won't decide where we finish, but they could make or break whether we finish in the top two or not,

Another good run of results and we are bang in contention, a bad run of results and we could be left with too much to do catch up when / if we strengthen in the JTW.

Four wins and a draw from the next five minimum I reckon.
 
Done has that Jack Russell factor, the ability to yap and nip and be generally annoying. We have clearly been more successful with him in the side but I think we will need a more heavyweight solution at some point, certainly by the time we are challenging at the top of the Championship
 
bartman said:
Are you serious ?......scoring goals puts pressure on other players ?. If you mean his 'all round play' puts pressure on other players you obviously haven't seen his movement in the box to create space which is far better than anyone else we have. He also has more 'assists' than our other strikers this season. He scores but misses more ? Don't all strikers miss more than they score ? He is actually there for the chances...to be fair so is Done but he misses more than Sharp. Isn't the lack of fire power from the other strikers putting more pressure on Sharp ?

If you see Sharp is part of the problem up front this season then you need to go to Specsavers
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Ah someone who puts words into others mouths...I didn't say 'scoring goals puts pressure on other players ' but you carry on making quotes up if you want !!
 
FriethBlade said:
Ah someone who puts words into others mouths...I didn't say 'scoring goals puts pressure on other players ' but you carry on making quotes up if you want !!
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Try reading the whole of the post rather than the first few words.
 
bartman said:
Are you serious ?......scoring goals puts pressure on other players ?. If you mean his 'all round play' puts pressure on other players you obviously haven't seen his movement in the box to create space which is far better than anyone else we have. He also has more 'assists' than our other strikers this season. He scores but misses more ? Don't all strikers miss more than they score ? He is actually there for the chances...to be fair so is Done but he misses more than Sharp. Isn't the lack of fire power from the other strikers putting more pressure on Sharp ?

If you see Sharp is part of the problem up front this season then you need to go to Specsavers
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I get where FriethBlade is coming from. Sharp isn’t fast and he isn’t tall. A high percentage of strikers that are successful have one of those things going for them meaning they are a natural fit for a partner that has the other. This means it’s much more difficult to find the ideal partner for Sharp.


BUT, Sharp is, for this level, a very good striker. Wily, technically sound, positionally aware etc. So it’s worth persevering to find him the right partner rather than sacrifice him (in my opinion). He scores and creates goals. For now, with Done in alongside him, we’re fairly effective. I think we need another striking option through in January, especially now we’ve lost Chapman.
 
If you look at the last 5 games.......

Shrewsbury - all over them for 20 minutes when it was 11 v 11, scored twice, but then injuries disrupted the rhythm with Duffy, Coutts and Freeman all going off. Despite only winning 2-1... er.... we still won.

Bury - came to park the bus, no interest in attacking. We missed Duffy and to some extent Freeman. Absolutely battered them but managed to nick it in injury time. We still won.

Charlton - didn't go but by all accounts we should have put this one to bed long before they equalised. Before the game, a point would have been considered by most an ok result.

Walsall - one of those nights. Billy scores the pen and one of the other chances goes in and we're talking about a game we've dominated and won.

Bolton - wholesale changes made with an experimental forward line of Clarke and Lavery and no Duffy starting again. Only lost 3-2 to a side at full strength and expected to be in the top three.

I just think that if we'd been outplayed in any of these games, then we maybe should be concerned, but the fact is, we haven't.

I think if we'd won the Walsall game, we wouldn't even be having this thread as that would be 10 points from 12 and unlucky to go out in the cup.
 
For me, i'd be looking at getting in a couple of pacey wing backs who can attack their full backs.
I don't dislike Freeman or Lafferty, but against Walsall when we got the ball wide to them, too often they didn't have the pace, or a trick to beat their man and ended up playing the ball backwards and we lost any momentum we had created.
I think these two positions are our major failing in this formation.......and with three at the back we could maybe play winger type players rather than defenders pushed up.
 



Fraggle Blade said:
For me, i'd be looking at getting in a couple of pacey wing backs who can attack their full backs.
I don't dislike Freeman or Lafferty, but against Walsall when we got the ball wide to them, too often they didn't have the pace, or a trick to beat their man and ended up playing the ball backwards and we lost any momentum we had created.
I think these two positions are our major failing in this formation.......and with three at the back we could maybe play winger type players rather than defenders pushed up.
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I'm not convinced that it was an issue with the pace of Freeman or Lafferty - more so that Walsall played so deep, and kept things tight (and playing three goal keepers) that there wasn't any space to run into. That's when you have to pass it swiftly across and back to stretch the defending team out of position and see if you can get around the back. Sure, that sort of game requires some of the positive running and trickery that Chapman posesses to dart into positions to create opportunities - Duffy, probably Scougal, the only other two that have the capability to do something like this.

Lafferty has consistently got into great positions in these games - but failed to hit the target.
Scougal the same.
Freeman has chipped in with goals and assists and does get around the back when he can. It's just very tight the way teams play us at the moment.
There was an instance on Sunday where Hussey reacted slowly to a far post cross and could have got on the end of it at the back stick if he had been more aware.
 
Fraggle Blade said:
For me, i'd be looking at getting in a couple of pacey wing backs who can attack their full backs.
I don't dislike Freeman or Lafferty, but against Walsall when we got the ball wide to them, too often they didn't have the pace, or a trick to beat their man and ended up playing the ball backwards and we lost any momentum we had created.
I think these two positions are our major failing in this formation.......and with three at the back we could maybe play winger type players rather than defenders pushed up.
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I agree completely. This was exactly my point in starting the Pace thread.

UTB
 
Trigger Blade said:
The audience on here for your wise words is quite limited, have you thought about contacting the club and granting our manager an audience, for the greater good?



Even better, tell him that, he'd surely be interested.



Of course I do, I'm sure Chris Wilder will to if you allow him the opportunity.
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Great contribution to the debate. Like many other fans having spent a lifetime watching my team,football in general and actually managing a junior team for the last 6 years I don't think it unreasonable to point up a few areas I feel merit discussion. I have no doubt Wilder sees everything we do and much more,but if our comments need to be confined to sucking his knob then we are just like North Korea Talk and Foxy and Linz may as well shut the forum. I maintain the recent stutter is down mainly to teams having sussed us out and know we stop when getting near the box and fuck about from side to side and back again making defending pretty easy. No-one makes darting runs,makes one-twos or even shoots. I'm sure Wilder will get it right as I said in my OP,but I actually think Clarke is part of the problem inadvertantly,not the solution. The loss of Chapman is a big blow as we don't have pacy options. I really don't see Brookes as an answer having seen him a number of times. Leicester ,admittedly have lost Kante,but they have been sussed out and the result is clear to see. IMO all we lack is pace and movement in and around the penalty area. I'm not overly concerned about the defence. If we're banging goals in we aren't going to struggle to win games at this level. What Wilder thinks after the last few games will be clear when he announces his next starting eleven. Hopefully his hands won't be tied in Jan as with a couple of additions there's no reason we can't be serious contenders for automatic promotion.
Finally,I don't see expressing a few concerns as we plough along in our 6th season in Division 3 and our 10th of huge under achievement is unreasonable. But then I don't get a boner when we beat Shrewsbalona or Real Bury.
 
Keen Blade said:
Done misses a lot of chances and scores none.
Billy misses a lot of chances , including penalties , but scores a lot.
Done does pull defences apart with his running.
Billy running ? Are you serious ? Done does his share and Billy's.
As a later post says , Billy is a shitliner with a knack of scoring but no pace.
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With all due respect whatever anyone's opinion on Billy there was no lazier shitliner than King Keith Edwards and he was a legend for us. What he lacked in workrate, pace and height he made up for in positional play, anticipation and a hunger to score goals and like Billy, it was/would be criminal to drop him
 
spongebobblade said:
With all due respect whatever anyone's opinion on Billy there was no lazier shitliner than King Keith Edwards and he was a legend for us. What he lacked in workrate, pace and height he made up for in positional play, anticipation and a hunger to score goals and like Billy, it was/would be criminal to drop him
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Ah but that ignores some fans school of thought that to be an effective player you need to run around a lot, unfortunately some would prefer someone like Monty in the team than someone who only scored goals or why some fans defend the sale of Beattie and claim it 'was a great bit of business'
Edwards, Blake, Beattie and now Sharp are constantly derided for their lack of 'running about' but personally I would have these players as the first on the team sheet.
 
LS26BLADE said:
Ah but that ignores some fans school of thought that to be an effective player you need to run around a lot, unfortunately some would prefer someone like Monty in the team than someone who only scored goals or why some fans defend the sale of Beattie and claim it 'was a great bit of business'
Edwards, Blake, Beattie and now Sharp are constantly derided for their lack of 'running about' but personally I would have these players as the first on the team sheet.
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There's so many attributes that a striker needs. Workrate, pace, height, positional sense, hunger etc. The lower down the leagues the less of these attributes they have. Only the elite have them all. Doesn't stop our fans from demanding it though
 
spongebobblade said:
There's so many attributes that a striker needs. Workrate, pace, height, positional sense, hunger etc. The lower down the leagues the less of these attributes they have. Only the elite have them all. Doesn't stop our fans from demanding it though
Click to expand...

You missed out scoring goals.
 
Evans and Ariyibi from Chesterfield would solve it - for peanuts.
 
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