Holding On To Our 1-0 Lead

[William Henry Foulkes]

Couldn't really make sense of our approach in the second half. We invited them on and tried to hold out.

According to the post-match interview this was deliberate, but there was no way we were going to keep a clean sheet last night. Walsall had already missed a sitter at the back post before they scored, and McEveley had lost his man from a corner, and after they'd scored they hit the post and the bar and had a pretty clear penalty, for a push by McEveley, waved away.

I've been very supportive if Clough but I couldn't really make sense of this approach.

And if Ben Davies had scored at the end, as mentioned in the interview, it would've been something of an injustice.

It reminded me of Rochdale where we had a two goal cushion and gambled that hoofing the ball into the channels and waiting for it to come back would only concede 1, and it did.

Confused.

Great goal by Baxter.

 

[Deadly_D'Jaffo]

Cloughy needs to understand it's a bigger gamble to not gamble.

The only time we have ever looked to be on the front foot in games is when we go a goal down at home and we are forced to commit a few more men forward to salvage a positive result.

I don't want to see Clough go, but I do want him to stop persisting with the negative mindset of trying to nick wins and preserve leads.

 

[Fulwood Blade]

I don't want to see Clough go, but I do want him to stop persisting with the negative mindset of trying to nick wins and preserve leads.

What we need is a defence that can defend properly.

Yet again, another ball into the box and yet another EASY goal conceded.

The day we get 2 x decent centre halves is the day we will be able to take a lead AND keep it - until then we are sitting ducks and the opposition know it.

The problem is staring us all in the face.

UTB.

 

[Foxy]

And if Ben Davies had scored at the end, as mentioned in the interview, it would've been something of an injustice.

Whilst not really going into the overall approach...

Had Murph's ball to Holt been half a yard in-front of him, instead of under his feet, we'd have been at least 2-0 up before half time.

Similarly, if Done's effort hadn't been well saved by an outstretched hand.

 

[Esablade]

This 'sitting back' tactic is doing a lot of fan's head's in..it's not like we can easily defend balls lumped towards the CB's is it...

 

[zablade]

We had Cloughs version of things that this was the tactic, perhaps that's to cover the fact that really teams like Walsall and Scunny are actually batter than us and are forcing us back.

I don't know which is the more worrying thought.

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

This 'sitting back' tactic is doing a lot of fan's head's in..it's not like we can easily defend balls lumped towards the CB's is it...

Exactly. It was obvious about 5 minutes into the second half that we weren't going to survive. Afaics we just gave them the ball and said: Bring it on.

This is where I part company with Clough's view of the game. As posted elsewhere:

McEveley lost his man from a corner - could've been a simple goal from a simple run
They hit the post
They hit the bar
They blazed it over the stand (and possibly out of the ground) unchallenged from about 6 or 8 yards out
They had a pretty clear penalty shout turned down. McEveley again - who is really out of sorts atm.

I think the View from Walsall blog sums it up fairly.

We were very fortunate last night.

UTB

 

[Blade82]

He did the same against Peterborough and cost us the points.

Said he was happy to see the game out against gillingham and handed them the game.

Fortune favours the brave nige

 

[Bergen Blade]

The formation was the same as the one we used a Bristol City. A midfield diamond with wide forwards in Murphy and Done. But the latter two tracked back even more and it's the closest I've ever seen to a 4-6-0 formation.

A few people described last season's formation as 4-6-0, but that was wrong. Even though Baxter wasn't playing as an orthodox centre forward he was still the focal point up front and was way ahead of the rest of the midfielders. when we were defending. Yesterday he spearheaded the midfield diamond.

When we attacked I think the plan was for Baxter to thread the ball through to Murphy and Done. It's difficult though when they had so much defending to do and the opposition goal was 80 yards away when we won possession. It was quite extraordinary to watch.



In theory it makes it more difficult for the opposition to drop deep and have many players behind the ball. But sometimes individual players can lose aggression and concentration when there's plenty of teammates around to cover for you most of the time. Maybe we exaggerated and had simply too many players back. Maybe our players fell into the trap of thinking 80% effort and focus would be enough.

We certainly gave Walsall enough time and attempts to find us out. Eventually we paid the price when they got their accuracy right. They'd put on an extra striker and it was him that got their equaliser. They had two chances prior to this and hit the post just after they scored, so Clough's comments of them not troubling us at the time wasn't correct.

To an extent, these tactics may be understandable when we're struggling and confidence is low. Maybe they are similar in mindset to the tactics of Clough's first few matches, which were also extremely defensive, with Clough arguing that "they had to knock the losing mentality out of the players". It's hugely disappointing to find ourselves back to that stage, but we can hope that it will gradually pay off, like it did last season. Two away draws is, after all, something to build on and if we can win two or maybe all three of our next matches we may hopefully be on the right track again.

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

He did the same against Peterborough and cost us the points.

I might be wrong and/or contradicting myself here but I don't think he did. At 1-0 up we sometimes play to nick the ball and score on the break, without particular shoring things up - like we could anyway. We did it against Southampton and created a few chances. Some of Murphy's goals have come this way, and if Freeman had made that pass he'd've got another one.

And as a consequence we'd've won 2-0, beaten the mighty Fleetwood riding the tide of optimism, finished better against Scunthorpe, and got the draw last night bc you can't win every game. As it is...

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

The formation was the same as the one we used a Bristol City. A midfield diamond with wide forwards in Murphy and Done. But the latter two tracked back even more and it's the closest I've ever seen to a 4-6-0 formation.

A few people described last season's formation as 4-6-0, but that was wrong. Even though Baxter wasn't playing as an orthodox centre forward he was still the focal point up front and was way ahead of the rest of the midfielders. when we were defending. Yesterday he spearheaded the midfield diamond.

When we attacked I think the plan was for Baxter to thread the ball through to Murphy and Done. It's difficult though when they had so much defending to do and the opposition goal was 80 yards away when we won possession. It was quite extraordinary to watch.

View attachment 11013

In theory it makes it more difficult for the opposition to drop deep and have many players behind the ball. But sometimes individual players can lose aggression and concentration when there's plenty of teammates around to cover for you most of the time. Maybe we exaggerated and had simply too many players back. Maybe our players fell into the trap of thinking 80% effort and focus would be enough.

We certainly gave Walsall enough time and attempts to find us out. Eventually we paid the price when they got their accuracy right. They'd put on an extra striker and it was him that got their equaliser. They had two chances prior to this and hit the post just after they scored, so Clough's comments of them not troubling us at the time wasn't correct.

To an extent, these tactics may be understandable when we're struggling and confidence is low. Maybe they are similar in mindset to the tactics of Clough's first few matches, which were also extremely defensive, with Clough arguing that "they had to knock the losing mentality out of the players". It's hugely disappointing to find ourselves back to that stage, but we can hope that it will gradually pay off, like it did last season. Two away draws is, after all, something to build on and if we can win two or maybe all three of our next matches we may hopefully be on the right track again.

Genius. If we don't make it through the play-offs what are you doing next season?

 

[Blade58]

Couldn't really make sense of our approach in the second half. We invited them on and tried to hold out.

According to the post-match interview this was deliberate, but there was no way we were going to keep a clean sheet last night. Walsall had already missed a sitter at the back post before they scored, and McEveley had lost his man from a corner, and after they'd scored they hit the post and the bar and had a pretty clear penalty, for a push by McEveley, waved away.

I've been very supportive if Clough but I couldn't really make sense of this approach.

And if Ben Davies had scored at the end, as mentioned in the interview, it would've been something of an injustice.

It reminded me of Rochdale where we had a two goal cushion and gambled that hoofing the ball into the channels and waiting for it to come back would only concede 1, and it did.

Confused.

Great goal by Baxter.

We're not good enough to hold our own watter, nay mind a poxy one goal lead and haven't been for a few months now

Some might say the players are under achieving. I would add it's Clough that's under achieving

Strategy
Tactics
Man management
Recruitment
Post match interviews

You name it, he's not delivering it

 

[Bergen Blade]

Genius. If we don't make it through the play-offs what are you doing next season?

Again supporting a League One side!

As mentioned we used the same formation at Bristol City and I thought they were spot on for that match. BC used wing backs though, i.e. only one wide player on each side. As Walsall had wide men supported by full backs it implied more defensive work/backtracking for Murphy and Done. It meant we dropped a lot deeper.

Another difference was our midfielders where we had stronger, more aggressive tacklers in midfield (Basham and Doyle in front of Coutts vs BC - Reed and Holt in front of Doyle vs Walsall).

 

[Kenilworth]

The most scary thing for me is that they rested Bradshaw for their Wembley date and we still couldn't put it to bed

If Bradshaw had played they would have ripped us a new one with the chances they created

That's how tactically adept NC is - his away point was protected by the fact that Smith rested his best forward player.

FFS!

 

[fuerstenberger]

I always look forward to your analysis Bergen, respect. I only watched the highlights but I think our problems are more simple. When playing lower teams, we tend to start slowly this gives teams time to get over any nerves that would be there naturally after our exploits against 'better teams'. Once the opposition start to realise we are nothing special they start to grow in confidence. Then opposition managers tend to work us out and adapt, usually at half time. Here, teams tend to change formation, tactics many times throughout a game, seemingly irrespective of how things are going. The notion of defending a slim lead is abhorrent. Clough, for me, appears to be too one dimensional. Then again I am not working with the players day in day out and I don't see every, many, games live. Actually I'm glad I don't having seen them against Gillingham.

 

[Bergen Blade]

I always look forward to your analysis Bergen, respect. I only watched the highlights but I think our problems are more simple. When playing lower teams, we tend to start slowly this gives teams time to get over any nerves that would be there naturally after our exploits against 'better teams'. Once the opposition start to realise we are nothing special they start to grow in confidence. Then opposition managers tend to work us out and adapt, usually at half time. Here, teams tend to change formation, tactics many times throughout a game, seemingly irrespective of how things are going. The notion of defending a slim lead is abhorrent. Clough, for me, appears to be too one dimensional. Then again I am not working with the players day in day out and I don't see every, many, games live. Actually I'm glad I don't having seen them against Gillingham.

This season has been so poor that I don't have much hope that we're suddenly going to be playing fantastic, flowing football. We've tried 4-4-2 and tried throwing the January signings into the team, but it's not improved our performances.

My guess is that Clough has assessed the squad's current ability and morale and seen the need to go more defensive and cynical. He did exactly the same when he first came. I think my first ever tweet was on one of his team selection and it included the word "Blackwell'esque". He later said that he had to "knock that losing mentality" out of them and I suspect he's deemed it necessary to do the same again.

The plan for the last couple of games may have been to regain defensive solidity and confidence, belief that we can be difficult to score against and that our players work hard for each other. We went to extremes against Walsall, and I too have sympathy for fans who travel to watch games like that. In isolation, in terms of entertainment, it was rubbish.

But hopefully the players gained something more from it than just the one point. The next stage of the plan should be to gradually attack more, while remaining solid in the upcoming three home fixtures. Maybe we can also gradually reintroduce returning players when they are fit and ready to supplement/complement what we have, not chuck them all in because we're desperate.

Then hopefully we'll go into the last few games and Play Offs with some belief, some momentum, defensively and offensively.

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

The plan for the last couple of games may have been to regain defensive solidity and confidence, belief that we can be difficult to score against and that our players work hard for each other. We went to extremes against Walsall, and I too have sympathy for fans who travel to watch games like that. In isolation, in terms of entertainment, it was rubbish.

It seemed apparent to me, particularly in the first half how hard the team was working for each other - as they had at Scunthorpe (for which they got what was to me some pretty shameful abuse). I remarked to the ever-fortunate Foulkes Jr Sr that we were playing like a massive underdog trying to spring a surprise through sheer endeavour.

Any hopes of defensive solidity were blown out of the water in the second half though when Walsall created several good chances, and McEveley, who's becoming a real liability imo*, made a couple of very basic errors.

But hopefully the players gained something more from it than just the one point.

Absolutely. Despite various pronouncements here, sometimes there's a bigger picture. Whether this approach is a success or not, time will tell.

Surviving game-to-game is a total nonsense, and can never have a positive outcome.



*I understand he's out of position - and it's nothing personal.