Player ratings vs Western Snakes

Some ratings which are probably all wrong - feel free to add a better version.

Marinovic - 7

Probably not at fault for the goal.

His major mistake was not coming up for the corners in injury time.

Cacace - 7

Solid game, nice powerful shot 

De Vere - 7

Fine but passed sideways too much.

Taylor - 7

Fine but passed sideways too much.

Fenton - 5

Not good enough defensively - should have been marking Connor Pain as Davila wasn't good enough to do it.

Steinmann - 8

Solid game - never made a mistake. Definitely looking the look of our first ever German player.

Rufer - 6

OK

Davila - 4

Possibly not good enough for this league? Terrible at defence and didn't have that much going forward. Seemed to make less mistakes in the second half. Should have been taken off instead of Ball.

Hopefully he will adjust over the next few games - there is some talent there. Perhaps better suited to playing centrally than wide?

McCowatt - 7

Decent game but faded out for some periods. Positive and enthusiastic; tried to make things happen. Played too wide to get in many goalscoring positions.

Really pleased to see him in the starting lineup, but should have been there for Sotirio, not Piscopo

Ball - 6

Reasonable on the ball without standing out. Should have been kept on

Sotirio - 4

Can't remember him touching the ball. Pacy but not much else. Should have swapped positions with McCowatt - he is not a striker (although he really should have started on the bench).

Subs:

Payne - 6

Reasonable debut in a position (RB) we weren't expecting to see him play in.

Piscopo - 7

Tried to make stuff happen

Waine - no rating

Looked keen but not on long enough for a rating.

If they were both doing in Talay probably told Taylor and DeVere to do the passing thingy. 

Yes we don't know how much is just the players exercising Talay's game plan.

i feel like this was what was wrong with libby. You could see he wanted to push forward and attack but the game plan was to pass back and keep possession.

Even for the U23s Libby passed the ball backwards alot.

He needs to back himself more going forward. But I guess playing RB in a back 4 changes ones mindset.

Also felt pretty bad for fenton. Yes Fenton wasnt great but Davila has Carlos Hernandez-esque work rates and i feel him and not fenton was to blame for that goal.

thats blatantly untrue - he was skinned one on one by Pain twice because he was always tracking back in to the RB position. If the ball was turned over he was again up the field to receive (and probably lose the ball). He wasn't great with the ball but comparing his work rate to KFC Carlos is BS.

we obviously watched two different games. 

How the hell can some of you blame Davila for Paine getting all the room he got beats me seems he already is going to be many peoples scapegoat.Given how easily they let Berisha score think a 7 is to high for 3 of the back 4.

Im already loving this Davila yellow fever fan tension. Havent had this kind of divide since Vinnie Lia or when people though Daniel should play for the all whites.

The attacking midfielders are clearly being asked to defend outside of the fullbacks, then expected to act as 10s when we're in position. That's partly the reason for the slow build-up - they have a lot of distance to cover before they're back in position, effectively tracking from a WB position to an inside forward role - its a massive ask.

It means Fenton and Cacace are defending tighter to the CBs than last season, as we don't have a "spare" CB to pick up runners/space so they need to help more centrally. Our CBs and midfield are both marking (or should be) man for man so dropping that fullback off creates a spare player and a bit of a safety net in the middle.

Davila did a good job of dropping as deep as instructed early on but then did an awful job of actually defending the winger and let him run straight past him meaning Fenton couldn't act as the spare player. If we're gonna ask players to drop that deep to defend then they have to do a proper job of it. When Davila cocks up there, he's just tracked ages back to do nothing and is now out of position, which is a worse outcome than him not tracking back at all.

Thought this also restricted how far forwqrd Libby and Louis could get. Also very clear that we didn't have any width up front, which is very important when trying to break down a back 3 like WU had. Starting Sotirio wide right and plugging the corner would have caused Gulum all sorts of headaches. Instead, we kept our attacks tight, playing into the hands of their back 3 and in the second half we didn't create a lot beyond the fullback lumping long balls into the box, which Payne did better than either Fenton or Cacace.

I still think we'll score enough goals this year, we opened them up a few times and WU were going out of their way to put 11 behind the ball for the full second half and they really struggled to create opportunities even before they started doing that. I thought we defended really well, bar leaving Berisha free that one time and I think we'll fare a lot better when the teams we're playing don't have their hearts set on negative football. McCowatt, Ball, Steinmann, Rufer and Payne all looked good, imo. Was a better perfromance from us than I was expecting first up, but a long long way to go.

Who was our right midfielder? Fenton seemed to have to play 2 positions.

davilla

Marinovic - 7

Not at fault for the goal. Was strong when called upon - particularly the save v McDonald.

Cacace - 7

Solid game, tried to drive the team on

De Vere - 5

OK defensively, slipped over a couple of times which could've been disastruous. His passing was quite poor, I thought - very slow on the ball, takes an age to swap feet.

Taylor - 6

Similar to the above but his passing was a bit better

Fenton - 5

Not great, but not helped by Davila. Still working his way back after injury, but not sure a back 4 suits him.

Steinmann - 7

One of our best; just seems like a very solid player. Passed backwards a bit too much, but likely under instructions from Talay.

Rufer - 5

Average game, I thought - Jurtec dominated midfield and Rufer didn't seem to know what to do with him.

Davila - 3

Quite terrible, I thought. Genuinely bad. He reminded me of when Singh first came into the team as a kid and wasn't strong enough to hold up the ball - except, you know, without the Ozil-esque passing. His crosses were all poor. His corners were bad. His free kicks were bad too.

McCowatt - 7

Played well in, imo, the wrong position. Should be up front. Our best attacking player.

Ball - 6

Only one who looked like scoring the entire game.

Sotirio - 4

What does he do, exactly? Looked at sea and it's ridiculous that he stayed on the entire game.

Subs:

Payne - 6

Provided a lot of impetus to the team; quite a few good crosses.

Piscopo - 5

Thought he looked kind of crap, but he at least tried to make stuff happen. His first touch was really poor.

Waine - 6

Did well to almost score from a header. 

Isn't our right DM supposed to cover Fenton when he goes on a run up the line. This 4-2-2-2 formation is new to me so I'm a bit confused. I agree Davilla needs to toughen up but he is getting a lot of flak for not defending well enough. But in a 4-2-2-2 role I would have thought our right DM should be helping out Fenton in defence more than our right AM. Thats Rufer.

Nah, the right midfielder should be tracking back. DM's sit compact. Usually..

After reading all these opinions, now I want to go back and change my ratings (mostly to lower them)

Marinovic - 7

Solid.

Cacace - 6

Gave the ball away a few times, not as positive as you might have liked.

De Vere - 6

Fairly solid.

Taylor - 6

As above.

Fenton - 5

Positional awareness not always there, but difficult when trying to mark 2. Looked promising going forward.

Steinmann - 6

Decent, keeps things simple and does it well, typical German style footballer. 

Rufer - 5.5

Tried to make things happen but not sure he's the play-maker type. 

Davila - 1

Useless. Let their fullback go past him with ease, absolutely no effort or defensive awareness to track his man. Offensively, gave the ball away a lot, lacked creativity and is physically weak. Let's hope he improves on that display. 

McCowatt - 7

Could see what he was trying to do a lot of the time, shame nobody was quite on the same wavelength.

Ball - 6

Looked tidy, but rarely threatened. 

Sotirio - 3

Headless chicken. 

Subs:

Payne - 7

Gave a physical presence and urgency.

Piscopo - 5

Rusty.

Waine - 6

Almost scored from header. 



Not only do I worry about the lack of real finishers, there is also a lack of creativity from midfield. Who is going to unlock the defences? McCowatt seemed like the only one with the ability to do so in that lineup. 

The team seems out of  position for the formation played, so whilst I still am impressed by Uffie, I only rate him a 5 for first performance- plenty of room to improve. Player stats show Sotirio played the full game with 0 shots on goal, and the least touches of any player who did the full 90. I’m gob-smacked he wasn’t subbed. I rated him a 1/10. He just wasn’t there. Please please can we fill that position with McCowatt who I rated an 8. Unfortunately I only rated Fenton a 4 - it feels like he is really struggling to meet the demands of RB with just 4 at the back, similar to previous seasons except the last where the extra CB could give more room for Fenton to get forward. He isn’t as fit at the start of this season (can’t blame him) as last year. I rated Payne an 8 - it’s hard to get to the pace of a game late on but he did it and did it well. IMO he did enough to start there next week. On the left side can’t we shift Cacace up to midfield (and push McCowatt forward) - perhaps we should put Scott into LB behind Cacace, as I feel Cacace also struggled to adapt to the demands of 4-2-2-2, but less than Louis. Solid game though - I rated him 6. I feel some of the angst about Davila a little misplaced on this forum - he is an AM, not a DM. Average game though. I was disappointed with Taylor- rated him a 4 - not exactly a “Captain’s knock”. Best players imo were Steinmann and Maronovic, rated them 8. Everyone else average - pity Rufer didn’t put one of his attempts in.

would be very interesting seeing Cacace moved up the field and see how he'll do. 

Maybe something like this would be interesting

Marinovic

Payne - Taylor - DeVere - Scott

Rufer - Steinnman

Piscopo Cacace

Ball McCowatt

would be a big call to drop Davila as one of our 'big' name signings

Genuinely think Cacace would do very well moved further up. I also think he'd suit that role, as he could get up and down and support the FB quite easily.

dbl

it's only 1 game people.