Derby away

[SmokinFrazier]

The reason we can't create chances is because the team is completely lacking in cohesion and structure when going forward. There are serious problems with our attacking football. Nowhere near enough goals, shots and chances. We've gone from a team who had the most shots in the league under Coyle, to a team who goes 45 minutes without a single attempt on goal.

[ohjimmyjimmy]

Well, people wanted change

[Leyther_Matt]

Anyone got a link for the goals? Went on the beer run before half-time and missed our goal!

[BWFC_Insane]

The reason we can't create chances is because the team is completely lacking in cohesion and structure when going forward. There are serious problems with our attacking football. Nowhere near enough goals, shots and chances. We've gone from a team who had the most shots in the league under Coyle, to a team who goes 45 minutes without a single attempt on goal.

Stats of goals conceded and scored under Coyle and Freedman don't back that up though.

Our goals per game have gone from 1.3 per game under Coyle to 1.36 under Freedman.

So a very slight increase since Freedman came in, but essentially negligible.

And our goals conceded under Coyle from 1.6 per game to 1.5 per game.

So again a slight improvement under Freedman.

So IF there are serious problems with our attacking football (and I agree there are), those problems were inherent under the previous regime too.

Its certainly not been created since Dougie arrived. Nor has it been fixed. The question remains though whether it is down to invidual performances, the wrong mix of players, or that Coyle and Freedman are both just useless.

And I don't think there is the answer to that yet, personally.

[Bruce Rioja]

http://www.skysports.com/video/inline/0 ... 12,00.html

Highlights!! We always seemed to have 10 players behind the ball - does that not invite pressure against a team that cant keep clean sheets.

Cheers, Fella. First time I've had a chance to see it. Sam Ricketts - WTF?

[boltonboris]

Those highlights again.. We are so shit at the back. If we're not camped in our box, getting too tight and being spun like children we're not tracking runners, or completely askew with the line..

We're on the verge of a proper good hiding by a team who actually takes their chances.

Earlier in the season, we were wasting shedloads of opportunities and seemingly conceding against teams who barely registered shots on target.. It's gone full-turn now and we need to sharpen up! Start with playing higher up the pitch for a start.

[BWFC_Insane]

Those highlights again.. We are so shit at the back. If we're not camped in our box, getting too tight and being spun like children we're not tracking runners, or completely askew with the line..

We're on the verge of a proper good hiding by a team who actually takes their chances.

Earlier in the season, we were wasting shedloads of opportunities and seemingly conceding against teams who barely registered shots on target.. It's gone full-turn now and we need to sharpen up! Start with playing higher up the pitch for a start.

We're defending deep and in numbers because we're not very good at defending.

I'd slightly disagree with your analysis in that sides are exploiting mistakes rather than carving us open through the middle as they did previously.

I think we've tightened up as a team (which was essential) but mistakes let us down.

Question I guess is whether Dougie's longer term plan of creating a team that keeps the ball is a) feasible and b) worth the transition period and even c) the right thing to do.

I don't know.

[boltonboris]

You're going to "tighten up" a little bit if you try and make it every persons job to defend first, play second.

That's the way it should be.. But it doesn't have to be around your own box all the time.

If you're "not very good at defending" you don't have the team sit deep and invite them on. Because you're asking for mistakes to be made. You're asking for opposition players to make runs in short times that aren't picked up, or are picked up too late like midfielders running between the defenders. That should NEVER happen! You're not getting defined roles..

We need to defend in banks. Not in numbers, because the centre mids and the full backs don't have the foggiest what they're doing and the centre backs get too tight (Connor Sammon, could've had a hat-trick, from turning the defenders and getting a shot out from 12 yards or less)

Even with the mistake for the goal. We play higher up the pitch, that goal doesn't get scored because Bogdan has room to claim anything within 12 yards of his posts and the cross has to come in from deeper, which is easier to defend. We play higher up the pitch, that header from the unmarked midfielder in the first few seconds of the clip doesn't happen.

[boltonboris]

And it's no good playing keep ball if you can't get past the half way line with it away from home. With the centre midfielders we played on Tuesday night, Derby would've been rubing their hands at the thought of them getting the ball into feet from the centre backs.

It's not Freedman's fault that we don't have the personnel available yet, to play his way. But it is his fault that he's asking things of players, that they're just not capable of.

[boltonboris]

Sorry to pap on (not heard that for ages!), but I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly with it..

There's situations when we're defending deep that are undefendable, but only because we create those situations ourselves. If the space between our own defenders and midfielders is limited, it means that their midfielders and strikers are closer to eachother and closer to goalscoring positions..

A Pro footballer can blitz the 100m in under 12 seconds now, so if a midfielder decides to sprint 10 yards and in-between defenders, there's no way Spearing or Pratley can react and stop it.. Nor do they have time to communicate that they're passing them on.. It's just asking for trouble. Defend high, you may get caught with a quality pass (don't see it often at this level), but defend as deep as we do away from home? You WILL get mullered

[BWFC_Insane]

Sorry to pap on (not heard that for ages!), but I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly with it..

There's situations when we're defending deep that are undefendable, but only because we create those situations ourselves. If the space between our own defenders and midfielders is limited, it means that their midfielders and strikers are closer to eachother and closer to goalscoring positions..

A Pro footballer can blitz the 100m in under 12 seconds now, so if a midfielder decides to sprint between defenders, there's no way Spearing or Pratley can react and stop it.. Nor do they have time to communicate that they're passing them on.. It's just asking for trouble. Defend high, you may get caught with a quality pass (don't see it often at this level), but defend as deep as we do away from home? You WILL get mullered

But we defended a high line under Coyle did we not?

And was Sam Allardyce's success not mainly built on sitting deep and in numbers, especially when you had the lead?

[boltonboris]

Sorry to pap on (not heard that for ages!), but I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly with it..

There's situations when we're defending deep that are undefendable, but only because we create those situations ourselves. If the space between our own defenders and midfielders is limited, it means that their midfielders and strikers are closer to eachother and closer to goalscoring positions..

A Pro footballer can blitz the 100m in under 12 seconds now, so if a midfielder decides to sprint between defenders, there's no way Spearing or Pratley can react and stop it.. Nor do they have time to communicate that they're passing them on.. It's just asking for trouble. Defend high, you may get caught with a quality pass (don't see it often at this level), but defend as deep as we do away from home? You WILL get mullered

But we defended a high line under Coyle did we not?

He was a different shade of shit and continually picked the wrong midfielders against much better players and teams

And was Sam Allardyce's success not mainly built on sitting deep and in numbers, especially when you had the lead?

No, not neccessarily. We got players around the ball.. Not around the box. If the ball was on the half way line, we wouldn't be as near our to own box as we are nowadays.

Sam's teams defended from the front, we didn't let anybody settle anywhere on the pitch. It's totally different and perhaps you've forgotten just how effective our midfield was at covering (let's face it) some very average defenders.

[SmokinFrazier]

The reason we can't create chances is because the team is completely lacking in cohesion and structure when going forward. There are serious problems with our attacking football. Nowhere near enough goals, shots and chances. We've gone from a team who had the most shots in the league under Coyle, to a team who goes 45 minutes without a single attempt on goal.

Stats of goals conceded and scored under Coyle and Freedman don't back that up though.

Our goals per game have gone from 1.3 per game under Coyle to 1.36 under Freedman.

So a very slight increase since Freedman came in, but essentially negligible.

And our goals conceded under Coyle from 1.6 per game to 1.5 per game.

So again a slight improvement under Freedman.

So IF there are serious problems with our attacking football (and I agree there are), those problems were inherent under the previous regime too.

Its certainly not been created since Dougie arrived. Nor has it been fixed. The question remains though whether it is down to invidual performances, the wrong mix of players, or that Coyle and Freedman are both just useless.

And I don't think there is the answer to that yet, personally.

Under Coyle, we were definitely wasteful but at least we were creating chances. You got the sense watching a Coyle side that we could have, if we had a bit of luck, win 4-1 or something like that. Under Freedman though, we have regressed and now look far less likely to score, with scrappy, fortunate goals all the time. The statistics are pretty similar, which is surprising, but I wouldn't hesitate to say that Coyle is a drastically superior coach of attacking football.

[TANGODANCER]

The reason we can't create chances is because the team is completely lacking in cohesion and structure when going forward. There are serious problems with our attacking football. Nowhere near enough goals, shots and chances. We've gone from a team who had the most shots in the league under Coyle, to a team who goes 45 minutes without a single attempt on goal.

What exactly does that mean? Cohesion, structure what? All sounds very studious in talk, but, agreeing now with your later comment, we don't get enough goals but it it's from want of players willing to shoot on sight rather than try Arsenal style walk-ins. Craig Davies may well change that. The fact is, opposition defences don't think cohesion and structure, they watch the ball, grab it and attack. Professional footballers should know where they should be and what they should be doing. What we need is to stop being defencively minded and attack their goal. We're only in this league because of teams scoring extra-time or last minute goals against us last season and not scoring enough ourselves. We went down once before on goal-difference and not because we were any worse than our competitors for relegation. Nothing, but nothing matters in a football team except scoring more than the opposition. For all talk of the rest, football's that simple.

[BWFC_Insane]

The reason we can't create chances is because the team is completely lacking in cohesion and structure when going forward. There are serious problems with our attacking football. Nowhere near enough goals, shots and chances. We've gone from a team who had the most shots in the league under Coyle, to a team who goes 45 minutes without a single attempt on goal.

Stats of goals conceded and scored under Coyle and Freedman don't back that up though.

Our goals per game have gone from 1.3 per game under Coyle to 1.36 under Freedman.

So a very slight increase since Freedman came in, but essentially negligible.

And our goals conceded under Coyle from 1.6 per game to 1.5 per game.

So again a slight improvement under Freedman.

So IF there are serious problems with our attacking football (and I agree there are), those problems were inherent under the previous regime too.

Its certainly not been created since Dougie arrived. Nor has it been fixed. The question remains though whether it is down to invidual performances, the wrong mix of players, or that Coyle and Freedman are both just useless.

And I don't think there is the answer to that yet, personally.

Under Coyle, we were definitely wasteful but at least we were creating chances. You got the sense watching a Coyle side that we could have, if we had a bit of luck, win 4-1 or something like that. Under Freedman though, we have regressed and now look far less likely to score, with scrappy, fortunate goals all the time. The statistics are pretty similar, which is surprising, but I wouldn't hesitate to say that Coyle is a drastically superior coach of attacking football.

But the stats show definitively that we are marginally more likely to score under Freedman than Coyle.

Getting a 'feeling' is irrelevant if the stats show it not to be the case.

So we have marginally improved our defending at no cost to our attacking play.

What we now need is to improve both.

Pretty much the priority has to be defending.

We've scored the same number of goals as second placed Hull.

Tells its own story.

Defence HAS to be priority.

[BWFC_Insane]

Sorry to pap on (not heard that for ages!), but I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly with it..

There's situations when we're defending deep that are undefendable, but only because we create those situations ourselves. If the space between our own defenders and midfielders is limited, it means that their midfielders and strikers are closer to eachother and closer to goalscoring positions..

A Pro footballer can blitz the 100m in under 12 seconds now, so if a midfielder decides to sprint between defenders, there's no way Spearing or Pratley can react and stop it.. Nor do they have time to communicate that they're passing them on.. It's just asking for trouble. Defend high, you may get caught with a quality pass (don't see it often at this level), but defend as deep as we do away from home? You WILL get mullered

But we defended a high line under Coyle did we not?

He was a different shade of shit and continually picked the wrong midfielders against much better players and teams

And was Sam Allardyce's success not mainly built on sitting deep and in numbers, especially when you had the lead?

No, not neccessarily. We got players around the ball.. Not around the box. If the ball was on the half way line, we wouldn't be as near our to own box as we are nowadays.

Sam's teams defended from the front, we didn't let anybody settle anywhere on the pitch. It's totally different and perhaps you've forgotten just how effective our midfield was at covering (let's face it) some very average defenders.

Personally I think we sat pretty deep a lot under Allardyce.

Especially when we has poorer players.

Think back to the play off final against Preston, at 1-0 Preston dominated for about an hour.

Hendry was virtually a second keeper at times.

We did of course have Rocket Ricketts to bring on though.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Just let me introduce a hint of sarcastic criticism here, please. All that ^ above, you're all talking like we are shades of Barcelona/Manbleedin United/or even (god forbid) Arsenal and that the managers you are talking about (Coyle & Freedman) have the same ability as Mourinho/Ferguson/Benitez [the prick]/ or even god forbid Hodgson. We aren't, they haven't. I was there Tuesday and the game was more similar to a kick-about at school than a European Cup Final. The team are average at best, the squad is crap, the manager is struggling... the match was scrappy and could have gone any which feckin way... but remember this was Derby we were playing: Derby - not Barcelona, not even Fenerbache, but lowly, shitty Derby managed by Nigel 'I'm only a manager because my father's spunk glow has slightly rubbed off on me' Clough. Truly - think about it.

[Enoch]

Well structured and very cohesive.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Well structured and very cohesive.

oops! Did I go over the top?

[Enoch]

I didn't think so.