My harsh and grumpy assessment;
+ves; I thought Herfield was outstanding - he defended well and was very dangerous going forward - he has the pace, skill and CONFIDENCE to take on and beat a player. I also thought Lochhead had his best game of the season - also went forward well at every opportunity. Brown - to be honest I think he is an only adequate player however he has the very redeeming feature of getting in to scoring positions and putting a few away.
-ves; We simply don't know how to put games away - it was all too familiar and predictable - last 10 minutes we lose our shape, get stretched, caught on the counter and insist on playing around with the ball in the red zone. Set pieces - I know we must practice corners and free kicks but we really don't look dangerous from either.
I still think we can and will make the playoffs but we are struggling to win because; we failed to sign a good 2nd striker (Costa's not the answer), we are still short a creative playmaker (Diego's not the answer) and we need a very good defensive midfielder (Lia's not up to it). The last item on my recruitment wish list is a player who is dangerous, in the air, from set pieces.
I can agree with most of this. The only issue I have with this is that Lia plays better with Brown that McKain does. Early in the year (and last year) they never really gelled. Since Lia has been in there, we have had 'better' results (read less losses) Lia may not be the answer but he offers a little more going forward. McKain is an out and out brickwall defensive midfielder and offers nothing attacking in the form of a link from the back half to the front half of the field.
Think Lia is a nice tidy midfielder who closes down attacks, wins the ball back, puts in a good shift and passes the ball very well, which means Brown can get into those positions like he did to score today. Effective doing the job he is being asked to do and certainly is an important player if we want to keep playing with 4 out and out attackers in the team.
Setting aside our differing views on Lia, and acknowledging this is probably the worng thread..... we are a mid table team. What needs to change for us to be title contenders ? I think we are 3 players short - striker, AM and DM.
It's a hard one really isn't it, I don't think they are that far away from being a better team, the main issues I keep seeing is that our final ball is often poor, especially those aimless floaty crosses, we seem to never really challange at corners or free kicks into the box either, and then there seems to sometimes be a lack of belief or something and we stop playing football and start lumping the ball forward.
Perhaps we need to look at the squad and actually say that some of the players, even some of the fan favourite, actually arent good enough, not necessarily from a skill or techincal point of view, more a winning mentality that seems to be lacking.
Also we can't afford to carry both Daniel and Leo when they are both underperforming!
And we need another real option up front as boy we missed Greeancre today!!
And we have to be more consisntant for more that 45 mins of any one game..
It;s a step by step thing, we have moved up a level by signing the likes of Ifill and Greenacre, we need to do the same again this summer, which may be hard as Ricki will have his mind on the world cup I suspect!!
Would rather we ran with a smaller squad and emptied those not in the frame like Chen and Mulligan and used their wages to improve the quality, and to bolster the squad with some good kiwi yougsters.
Oh and we need a reserve team in some league somewhere to give those outwith the first 14 a regular game.
irnbru142009-12-04 23:43:16
[/QUOTE]
Still really really frustrated that we threw the 3 points away tonight...