Pied and Prejudice, Wigan (A) 27/02/04.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Taking off Sheehan's probing meant our passing got even safer, largely out to the wing back. What you then want is for them to drop a shoulder and hit the line, or drive inside, or look for a one two, but they were shagged, and we didn't manage to make any 2v1s ,(partly because our "two 8s" were now deeper with Collins at 10).

Aye. It was, in short, a clusterf*ck of a Plan B.

[Worthy4England]

You can select time periods in who scored. This is what the last 15 looked like for touches by Bolton...Fairly sure most of us would agree it wasn't much...

Last 15.jpg (143.42 KiB) Viewed 247 times

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

∆ you can also make Wigan disappear. If only twere true in life.

More seriously - touch counts suggest we tried twice as hard to get down our left as our right. The Geth/JDC combo has come under criticism and I understand why. We've got centre-back options but what's happening with Ramsay? And would any potential RCB work as well going forward as Geth usually does? Then again, he's off form so maybe his reliability at always reaching 7/10 is very much under threat...

[BWFC_Insane]

For what it’s worth, (which is absolutely zero) but it’s something that always stuck with me an old coach I knew used to say ‘unless you are doing something to score or stop the other lot scoring then don’t do it’.

And I always think with football that is how I want the game played. Either we are trying to score a goal or trying not to concede one.

That doesn’t mean we just lump it forwards aimlessly or go ‘direct’ but I do think an awful lot of what we do isn’t really going to produce a goal. It’s passing without any intent. Give the ball to someone and hope they do something.

Nobody wanted to run with it. Nobody wanted to drop a shoulder and beat their man. Sheehan was more or less on his own with the creative stuff and had little support. Thomason did the running and ball winning ok but tended to be scared of the forward pass. Maghoma wasn’t really in the game and the wing backs never once really tried to hit the byline other than by accident.

I think there were hundreds of passes you could say we made that were not in any way an attempt to create a goal. They were just a pass for the sake of getting rid of the ball.

Whilst we do score some goals after a huge string of passes the vast majority don’t come from that.

The last fifteen we had Wigan pinned in so couldn’t we have stuck Jerome on the right and tried to hit him and then play the second ball? At least it would have given us a chance at getting players into and around the box quicker.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

It's a fair comment. The coaching staff would say that the short passes are a "long game" move to score - they're supposed to move the oppo around and draw them out, but we plainly weren't doing that. City, who very regularly come up against a low block, are masters at it; and while I know you prefer Liverpool's all-action style (and I understand that; I might even agree with it), it works for them. But it doesn't work for us when nobody's making the moves, risking the harder passes, showing their balls. I still can't believe Evatt sacrificed Sheehan and I wonder how many times, as he's replayed the game in his head, he's regretted it.

The last fifteen we had Wigan pinned in so couldn’t we have stuck Jerome on the right and tried to hit him and then play the second ball? At least it would have given us a chance at getting players into and around the box quicker.

What we absolutely shouldn't do is bring on a target man (and another six-footer) then simply not get the ball into the box, any way - fast, slow, long, short, low, high. As Worthy's touch map shows, soooooo little action in Wigan's box.

[Worthy4England]

It's a fair comment. The coaching staff would say that the short passes are a "long game" move to score - they're supposed to move the oppo around and draw them out, but we plainly weren't doing that. City, who very regularly come up against a low block, are masters at it; and while I know you prefer Liverpool's all-action style (and I understand that; I might even agree with it), it works for them. But it doesn't work for us when nobody's making the moves, risking the harder passes, showing their balls. I still can't believe Evatt sacrificed Sheehan and I wonder how many times, as he's replayed the game in his head, he's regretted it.

The last fifteen we had Wigan pinned in so couldn’t we have stuck Jerome on the right and tried to hit him and then play the second ball? At least it would have given us a chance at getting players into and around the box quicker.

What we absolutely shouldn't do is bring on a target man (and another six-footer) then simply not get the ball into the box, any way - fast, slow, long, short, low, high. As Worthy's touch map shows, soooooo little action in Wigan's box.

I think that's right.

Most things you do on a football field neither score nor prevent a goal, regardless of style. Whilst I hear the tippy tappy thing (which I agree with in general, it annoys me shedloads), I couldn't really say "and it never leads to goals" because I doubt there are many years where we've bagged over 100. So in some senses the the notion that what we do doesn't look like leading to scoring goals, is a bit moot and often situational.

It doesn't come down to whether the system can or can't produce goals, just whether it can in the given situation in front of us. There are games when it looks like we could play until midnight and not really look like scoring and sometimes it's because they're defending our system better than we can exploit it. Our general response is to roll out a collective of still not really scoring strikers, to replace (on the day) our not scoring strikers, whilst roughly doing exactly the same, when they've been pretty comfortable sat on a block for 70 minutes.

What I would suggest is there's probably less mileage in 7 v Exeter versus 5 v Exeter and 2 v Wigan. I know which one I'd prefer.

[BWFC_Insane]

It's a fair comment. The coaching staff would say that the short passes are a "long game" move to score - they're supposed to move the oppo around and draw them out, but we plainly weren't doing that. City, who very regularly come up against a low block, are masters at it; and while I know you prefer Liverpool's all-action style (and I understand that; I might even agree with it), it works for them. But it doesn't work for us when nobody's making the moves, risking the harder passes, showing their balls. I still can't believe Evatt sacrificed Sheehan and I wonder how many times, as he's replayed the game in his head, he's regretted it.

The last fifteen we had Wigan pinned in so couldn’t we have stuck Jerome on the right and tried to hit him and then play the second ball? At least it would have given us a chance at getting players into and around the box quicker.

What we absolutely shouldn't do is bring on a target man (and another six-footer) then simply not get the ball into the box, any way - fast, slow, long, short, low, high. As Worthy's touch map shows, soooooo little action in Wigan's box.

I think that we take too many passes too often. If we moved it quicker and with less players involved we'd be better.

I do prefer Liverpool to City as a template but even City have changed up considerably since Haaland arrived. They've been more direct. Scored more goals with fewer touches. But City at their peak 'tiki taka' had gear changers in midfield who could in an instant flip the situation to create. They also added wide players who contribute more directly too. We lack real gear changers bar Sheehan and then don't have close to the quality out wide. Grealish, Foden, Doku we do not have anything like that, relative to level of course.

One of my frustrations with the system we play, and the fact we only play it, is it often relies on dynamism out wide....and we don't have much of that. Cogley has burned out and Ogbeta is ok but not really got going yet. Ashworth and loanee lad aren't necessarily that type. Nor is Jones.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

One of my frustrations with the system we play, and the fact we only play it, is it often relies on dynamism out wide....and we don't have much of that. Cogley has burned out and Ogbeta is ok but not really got going yet. Ashworth and loanee lad aren't necessarily that type. Nor is Jones.

Again, fair. Williams is back - can he play both sides at once?