Post by capitalgull on Jun 23, 2008 17:21:02 GMT
I agree Dave, I don't think we did play a lot of hoof ball over the first half of the season. We played a lot of good football down the flanks when Zebroski was at his best down the left and when the combination of Stevens/whoever else was firing on the right.
But I differ about the service - I think it was more from this style of play, coming hand in hand, we won a lot of free-kicks in dangerous positions, because both wingers were adept at trying to beat their man, and also won an awful lot of corners....that is how we scored the vast majority of our goals, as showed by the apparent 22 assists for Kevin Nicholson, which was reported around the Xmas 2007 period.
When Zebroski had his mid-season slump in form, our form also 'collapsed' in comparison with the first half of the season, and with Stevens also becoming less and less effective before getting injured, we ended up playing long balls for Phillips to chase and try to play in Sills.
We did score some good goals before Christmas as well when Hargreaves had more time to exploit in midfield, but once we were found out by opposing managers when they came up against us for the second time in the season, sadly we had no Plan B to resort to because by then we had forgotten how to pass the ball and PB had allowed our defenders to drift deeper and deeper because he knew they would not be carrying the ball out of defence in the need to lump it forward quickly.
That left huge swathes of ground in midfield for the opposition when we were using two very similar central midfielders, both of whom lacked the pace to keep up with the game at all times, and were often caught out of position with a huge gap between them and the back four because, especially with Hargreaves, he was looking to pick up the crumbs off the long balls up to the 'big men'. Constantly getting pulled away from their 'man to man' opponent gave players like Ryan Harley, for example, in the play-off semi-final, time galore on the ball.
Add that to the fact that Nicholson's set pieces got worse as the season went on (and Mansell's when he took them), and you see why we struggled to score as many goals as we went on. Just look at Chris Todd's goalscoring record before and after Christmas - he is the big set-piece threat, which always seems strange to me because he is probably the worst header of the ball among our centre-backs, and in that I even include Steve Woods.
I just hope with the addition of willing runners like Hodges, Thompson, maybe Green, and Dsane (if he plays wide again) we'll be back to the way we played before Christmas, and having someone comfortable on the ball like Nicky Wroe in midfield could just be a godsend.
But I guess we'll just have to wait and see
But I differ about the service - I think it was more from this style of play, coming hand in hand, we won a lot of free-kicks in dangerous positions, because both wingers were adept at trying to beat their man, and also won an awful lot of corners....that is how we scored the vast majority of our goals, as showed by the apparent 22 assists for Kevin Nicholson, which was reported around the Xmas 2007 period.
When Zebroski had his mid-season slump in form, our form also 'collapsed' in comparison with the first half of the season, and with Stevens also becoming less and less effective before getting injured, we ended up playing long balls for Phillips to chase and try to play in Sills.
We did score some good goals before Christmas as well when Hargreaves had more time to exploit in midfield, but once we were found out by opposing managers when they came up against us for the second time in the season, sadly we had no Plan B to resort to because by then we had forgotten how to pass the ball and PB had allowed our defenders to drift deeper and deeper because he knew they would not be carrying the ball out of defence in the need to lump it forward quickly.
That left huge swathes of ground in midfield for the opposition when we were using two very similar central midfielders, both of whom lacked the pace to keep up with the game at all times, and were often caught out of position with a huge gap between them and the back four because, especially with Hargreaves, he was looking to pick up the crumbs off the long balls up to the 'big men'. Constantly getting pulled away from their 'man to man' opponent gave players like Ryan Harley, for example, in the play-off semi-final, time galore on the ball.
Add that to the fact that Nicholson's set pieces got worse as the season went on (and Mansell's when he took them), and you see why we struggled to score as many goals as we went on. Just look at Chris Todd's goalscoring record before and after Christmas - he is the big set-piece threat, which always seems strange to me because he is probably the worst header of the ball among our centre-backs, and in that I even include Steve Woods.
I just hope with the addition of willing runners like Hodges, Thompson, maybe Green, and Dsane (if he plays wide again) we'll be back to the way we played before Christmas, and having someone comfortable on the ball like Nicky Wroe in midfield could just be a godsend.
But I guess we'll just have to wait and see
