We miss O'Connell in defence and attack more than we realise.

[ThatJa]

Thread title.

 

['Doc' Pace my hero]

He is the left sided defensive/offensive player in our 5.3.2 / 3.5.2 system,he is absolutely crucial to our success,without him we are nowhere near as effective and unfortunately we don't have a direct replacement.I just hope he is available on Saturday and stays fit for the rest of the season,he is irreplaceable !!

 

[Houston_Blade]

Agreed. It showed massively today with a right footed LCB that we need JOC in there. Crainie did little wrong defensively but unfortunately we don’t just need defenders to defend.

 

[Kozzy_is_my_Dad]

Thread title.

Post reply.

 

[JackSUFC]

I said the same early on when it was evident Crainie wanted to come inside on his right foot every time he got the ball. I’m not faulting him for that though.

 

[LondonBlade89]

So true. We were pretty static for a lot of last night and Crainie in for J'OC was a big reason why. It just shows how hard it is to come and slot in and play that "overlapping centre-back" position.

 

[mattbianco1]

I said the same early on when it was evident Crainie wanted to come inside on his right foot every time he got the ball. I’m not faulting him for that though.

So true. We were pretty static for a lot of last night and Crainie in for J'OC was a big reason why. It just shows how hard it is to come and slot in and play that "overlapping centre-back" position.

Agreed, Cranie doesn't work there like he does on the right.. but, under no circumstances should we ever see Starvin Marvin on the pitch

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

Hardly surprising, as JOC is just about the only overlapping left-footed centre-back in world football. I suspect we got the lad from Man City in to train him up as cover/long-term replacement (the one who never plays, whose name I can never get right, and isn't David Brooks), but either his injury problems are bad or he's a slower learner than Jack.

 

[Benny and the Blades]

it sounded like Fleck had a very quiet game ?

 

[I should coco]

it sounded like Fleck had a very quiet game

A decent last 10 minutes combining with Dowell well, but a shocker in the first half. He's not been great for the last couple of months but some around me were giving him some right stick. Short memory syndrome is alive and well and living in our younger travelling support.

The fans were too nervous in the second half and too many thought it was a 'must win', so were knobbed off at the whistle. I actually think it will prove to be a decent point.

Onwards and upwards!

 

[raimond]

In fairness, I think most of us realise

 

[Speedracer]

Well it does highlight the fact the position was practically invented for him, so it is no surprise we don't have a direct replacement & at this stage of our development we cannot afford to identify someone who could play there as good as Jack but only gets one or two games a season.

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

What last night also highlighted again was the bigger picture and the fact that Brum nullified us quite comfortably. Up a level you can quite easily see what a massive task it would be for us to make our mark. Tufty has managed to improve certain players in certain positions but it becomes harder and harder to do that as we improve and it might be our 'uniqueness' that comes back to bite us eventually.

 

[Ricky]

Defensively we miss him less than expected. Cranie was absolutely fine. And defending is by far the priority at LCB.

If we want to maintain attacking threat on the left then we need to get more out of Fleck. With him, Stevens and McGoldrick we should have enough. It's not like O'Connell's been a huge attacking factor recently anyway.

 

[LJBlade]

Defensively we miss him less than expected. Cranie was absolutely fine. And defending is by far the priority at LCB.

If we want to maintain attacking threat on the left then we need to get more out of Fleck. With him, Stevens and McGoldrick we should have enough. It's not like O'Connell's been a huge attacking factor recently anyway.

It's not just about the LCB attacking though, it's about where the attacks start from. Cranie was more than happy to get forward and help the attack but when he got the ball he came inside with it every time. Very few attacks down the left hand side started form the LCB position (which is where a lot of our attacks start from) because Cranie just wasn't comfortable with playing the ball into Stevens with he left foot.

I don't think it was a coincidence that we saw a lot more of our play down the left hand side after Stevens went to LCB

 

[BigBed]

Agreed, but if we can have him back fit for the last 4/5 games, it's been worth him having a rest.