A Shrewd Idea...Home v Shrewsbury Sat 22nd April 3'O'clock.

[BWFC_Insane]

Dire. Dire. Dire. Dire. A half of mind numbing awful football. Sideways passing with 11 static lumps who have absolutely no idea what to do to break a side down.
But it’s shocking. Absolutely shocking.

What's that you were saying about strongest eleven again...?

The issue was the lack of intensity and effort to get behind Shrewsbury but we fixed that second half.

If you want me to be honest I think the possession ideal has held us back at times this season. We look a better team when we start taking risks playing forward more and upping the tempo of games. I get we can't do that all the time but for me Shrewsbury would have been much easier if we'd played with some tempo earlier on and really stretched them.

Yeah, I think that was the problem, some of the bits I was disappointed with prior to HT, we fixed, without getting the rewards we probably deserved. Second half, Randy got past his man a few times, Sheehan found "holes" all over, which meant that other holes were created for Bradley, Demps, Morley and Dion - it all worked a lot better. I think there has to be credit for the coaching team for forcing that at HT, I'm sometimes a little unsure whether that's part of the "Plan" - move them all about first half, go at them second...

Here's the thing. Evatt says 'it is the plan' but watching his frustration on Saturday on the touchline at times I find it hard to believe it really is.

My observation is this - IF that is the plan to tire out the low block by moving them sideways then too often it hasn't worked - we've drawn too many games by not upping the tempo early enough IMO. But even then I'd argue strongly that we are NOT the right sort of team to compress games effectively into 45 minute or half hour affairs. Allardyce had a team for a while that loved to do this. Build slowly and compress the game into a thirty minute period where we'd have built the pressure and could pen the opposition back and often score. But this Evatt side is not economical enough for me to do that. It doesn't score a high enough percentage of its chances so its risky. Defensively we can do it, but relying on opening a game up later and taking our chances proves risky when we have so many (like second half saturday) and miss them.....yes Josh scored a wonder goal but you cannot rely on that every time - nor on just one goal.

Its why I think we need to look to up the tempo in periods rather than just concentrating it into the second half.

[Worthy4England]

I doubt anyone has directed that we don't score early and more than one. and as you say IE was animated first half, but it was very clear it changed from minute 46, tempo-wise...

[BWFC_Insane]

I doubt anyone has directed that we don't score early and more than one. and as you say IE was animated first half, but it was very clear it changed from minute 46, tempo-wise...

Yeah. But he's come out and done the whole 'educate the fans' thing on 'this is the plan'. I don't buy it. But if we take him at his word I think the big flaw is our profligacy in front of goal and as games go on the stakes ratchet up and chances missed become more costly and psychologically wounding. Score a couple first half and I reckon Saturday easily could have been a 4-0 without much sweat second half.

I mean - its easy saying 'play with tempo and score' doesn't mean it happens. But I feel the balance can be adjusted. We can spend 90 minutes lobbing balls into the box but I also don't see why we need to spend a whole first half with the wing backs turning round and passing it across the park. A mix of doing that but also threatening the byline and getting some balls across would for me be appropriate.