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Post by alunmeerkat on Oct 25, 2010 9:47:44 GMT
Interesting to read the reports especially from Merse. Its not just me who is completely unim pressed by Kee then.
Still cannot see why Buckle persists with Benyon by himself up front - I mean its like nullifying one of our main strengths. We still lack a target man and since the manager has desisted with the 4-4-2 we have become completely derailed.
Watched a local match on Saturday - just switched the radio on when Gillingham scored and as I was driving home all four wheels had seemed to completely come off the wagon as the ref appeared to be trying to set some kind of record by booking a whole team in ten minutes.
Mansell's red card (a big miss he is going to be).
But we salvalged a last gasp point - the best thing to come out of this was that we actually got something out of a game we looked to have lost for a change.
Still - down to fifteenth and Buckles Friday assertion "that we are at the right end of the table on merit" is ludicrous.
We are showing relegation form and are now lower in the table than Stevenage, a team choc full of non league players and if you make that comparison it does not appear that our manager is as great as some people think.
We really need to start winning really must take care of Morecambe on Saturday otherwise the writing is clearly on the wall.
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Oct 25, 2010 10:47:06 GMT
Still - down to fifteenth ... Proof, if ever required, that the meerkat lives in a parallel universe... |
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merse
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Post by merse on Oct 25, 2010 11:36:57 GMT
Interesting to read the reports especially from Merse. Its not just me who is completely unim pressed by Kee then.
Still cannot see why Buckle persists with Benyon by himself up front - I mean its like nullifying one of our main strengths. We still lack a target man and since the manager has desisted with the 4-4-2 we have become completely derailed.  Dave Thomas was of the opinion that Buckle started the game with 4-4-2 on Saturday and whilst I would disagree (although sitting lower down than him) from my seat, we certainly went to that formation in the second half. In my opinion we played five accross the middle though not necessarily in a straight line and just Benyon faffing around in front of them. Unimpressed with Kee? Well, yes he struggled to get into the pace of the game when he came on as a sub for Rose and he is a totally different type of player than the talented QPR youngster. He was very unlucky for his flick on shot to hit the post after beating the keeper though, it was text book "across the keeper to the far post" stuff and Gritton really let the whole side down by failing to complete the "kill" when it rebounded off the woodwork. That's the whole point of shooting low across the keeper as any coach will tell you, and for a player of Gritton's experience not to properly anticipate that says more about Gritton than Kee in my opinion. I think your pessimism about the points return should be set against the achievements of coming away unbeaten from successive trips to Shrewsbury, an in form Crewe and a tough environment like Gillingham and I think people should be asking more questions of Gritton than Benyon; but Benyon's ludicrous piece of pantomime in handling in front of goal last week and then his histrionics over getting rightfully booked for it and his "Bamby on Ice" impersonations in the face of some big grown up central defenders on Saturday have really cost the team in the way of effectiveness in front of goal. I think playing a 5 man midfield with one up front is very effective in terms of approaching games when sides (either through being at home or through their own adventurousness and taking us on at Plainmoor) it is the quality of the "one up front" that needs to be enhanced..................Benyon doesn't cut it in that role and Gritton couldn't cut a loaf with a bread knife these days that's for sure. Perhaps the removal of Wroe, Charnock and maybe Carlisle; from the squad and payroll and certainly Gritton in January; will enable the manager to bring in a player with the brains and technical ability to fulfill that lone role up front. |
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Oct 25, 2010 12:04:12 GMT
Dave Thomas was of the opinion that Buckle started the game with 4-4-2 on Saturday and whilst I would disagree (although sitting lower down than him) from my seat, we certainly went to that formation in the second half. In my opinion we played five accross the middle though not necessarily in a straight line and just Benyon faffing around in front of them. I've seen Torquay play a 4-4-1-1 formation this season with O'Kane in the "withdrawn striker" (aka "back 1") role. I think he fits that position very well because he has the pace and imagination to move forward quickly when we are in possession, and the tenacity to press the opposing defence when they have the ball. As England found out in South Africa, a 4-4-2 formation can sometimes have the effect of isolating the front two if the midfield aren't supporting effectively, and while this isn't so much of a problem at League Two level, a 4-4-1-1 formation does put more pressure on the opposing midfield as they have to nominate a defensive midfielder to mark our O'Kane/whoever is in that role, or one of the two centre-backs gets drawn out of position. I felt we were playing a different style of 4-4-1-1 last season with Rendell playing the fulcrum role as the "front 1": holding the ball up for Benyon/Zebs/Carayol to scamper forward and support him but this season, when the 4-4-1-1 formation has been utilised, it is the "back 1" who plays the fulcrum role and moves the ball forward in a more mobile and (theoretically) fluid attack. I also happen to think that it is easier to move from 4-4-2 to 4-4-1-1 quicker if you have a midfielder playing the "back 1" position, and that can be more effective if it confuses the opposition's marking. Shame we seem to need a defensive midfielder ourselves to help stop the goals going in at our end: sort of a 4-1-3-1-1 but I'm not sure who would best play that defensive midfielder position the best. |
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Oct 25, 2010 12:08:14 GMT
...and certainly Gritton in January; will enable the manager to bring in a player with the brains and technical ability to fulfill that lone role up front. Don't you just know that Gritts is going to score about 6 goals in December to scupper our wishes?! But as Bucks said at the Fans Forum, he know exactly what he was getting with Gritts, so he was either looking for a body to fill a space for 6 months before someone like Rose became available, or he is waiting for the heavy winter pitches when Gritts might be more effective. We shall see. |
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merse
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Post by merse on Oct 25, 2010 14:41:08 GMT
I also happen to think that it is easier to move from 4-4-2 to 4-4-1-1 quicker if you have a midfielder playing the back 1 position, and that can be more effective if it confuses the opposition's marking.
Shame we seem to need a defensive midfielder ourselves to help stop the goals going in at our end: sort of a 4-1-3-1-1 but I'm not sure who would best play that defensive midfielder position the best. Blimey, all those permutations; I'm not sure young Elliott can cope with all that  As for Grits, as he couldn't even be trusted to get himself in a position to poke that Kee effort over the line when he's been in the game as long as he has.................  The midfield "enforcer/anchor man" is Oastler for sure. Most top sides employ a player to fulfill the "Viera" role in modern day football and he looks tailor made for that role to me. Tall, as opposed to Wroe, strong physique as opposed to Wroe, good engine ~ Wroe's got that in his legs but as for his head I wouldn't like to say and Oastler gets his foot in whereas Wroe was decidedly keeping his out when I saw him last at Stevenage. Mansell's been on a "last chance" ever since that Stevenage game left him one booking short of a ban and Wroe "going missing" beside him was the last thing the manager needed. |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Oct 25, 2010 16:46:09 GMT
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Post by stokeygull on Oct 25, 2010 17:42:13 GMT
Not a classic game but a day without football is a day wasted. The game started at a decent pace, the impressive Rose and Zebroski overloading excellently when we had possession turning a 4-5-1 or 4-3-2-1 into a 4-3-3. This penned Gillingham back and made life difficult for them as a home side and restricted them to few meaningful attacks. Unfortunately for us Sinclair and the impressive Lawrence exposed Benyon’s weakness and lack of imagination as he ran the same channels time and again. I’m sure this is something that’s been worked hard on and well drilled in training but sometimes you need to choose to mix it up a little and for all his qualities I’ve never really rated his decision making outside of the box and without the ball.
The introduction of Akinfenwa after half n hour must have been music to Branston’s ears. Short of one headed chance he tucked him away superbly.
Hemmings came on for Okane and Kee for the tiring Rose after the hour and we switched to a more conventional 4-4-2. This invited Gillingham onto us and as the game stretched we looked the weaker team and their goal was coming. There’s been a lot of hot air on the internet over the past month about messing around with formations, one thing that is clear is that 4-4-2 with this squad against a more industrial (if poor) team does not work.
With hindsight Gritton’s introduction for Benyon that was coming before they scored was probably half an hour late. The sending off was well documented and even after seeing it on TV I can’t understand how the ref (who had lost it at this point) interpreted Mansell’s clumsy tumble under a good challenge as a dive. The goal, well Martin Gritton summed it up by saying it was very generous of Julian to turn himself into a cat flap.
A couple of disappointing facts were two lads deciding to sheepishly sing a song (copying Tottenham when playing Arsenal a few years back) about Akinfenwa’s father washing elephants. It’s not as if there’s many more suitable things to rip into Bayo for and full marks to the chap a few rows in front of them who pointed out the error of their ways.
The other is how quiet our away support have become. It’s like Plainmorgue on the road out there, we have a young squad and we’re asking them to run through brick walls, they need encouragement from the support. Maybe we should develop a chant that consists of Stadler and Whaldorf style tutting, there would be no shortage of joining in then.
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merse
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Post by merse on Oct 25, 2010 18:37:25 GMT
The game started at a decent pace, the impressive Rose and Zebroski overloading excellently when we had possession turning a 4-5-1 or 4-3-2-1 into a 4-3-3.  If he overtakes the heffalump I'll switch "horses" again!Don't you think Rose is in effect a "Zebroski" from four years earlier which in effect (given their age differentials) he is? Similar in build, pace and playing style; I thought the young QPR loanee reminded me of my first sight of Zebs when he was a Millwall youngster who found his way into the "first team game" at Plainmoor on loan. If he turns out to be as good as Zebs, then I think we would have a very good player on our hands, it all depends on whether a permanent deal can be worked out to everyone's interests. I thought Romone's turn and shot in the opening phase of the game was pure class and it was only foiled by a fine save by "The Cat Flap"  Like it or not, physique is all important in the modern day game and watching on Saturday from my seat very near to where the technical area was, gave me a closer than usual insight into how the managers and coaches view the game and how they form their opinions and make judgemental decisions on players' futures. Lack of physique is why so many youngsters are effectively rejected these days by centres of Excellence and Academies before their careers have even been allowed time to develope, and whether we like it or not; that is a FACT. I've even started becoming a bit paranoid about Anthony on that score, and found myself making comparisons when he was walking beside his friend Yasim who is at Tottenham Hotspur Elite Development and thinking "bloody hell, Yasser is a lot better built than Anthony" Whatever will be, will be; but for certain the day of the Elliot Benyon and the Danny Stephens making it in the game are getting rarer and rarer and it's easy to see why they both had to drop down so far to begin bouncing back up again in their careers. You've really got to have exceptional talent such as that of Eunane O'Kane, to get an immediate second chance in the fully professional game these days if you are less than impressivley developed; or phenominal ability such as Jack Wilshere possesses. I'll be taking up an invitation to attend another Centre of Excellence at a different Football League club tomorrow morning accompanying a group of Under 8s as they are assessed and put under the microscope, and I know already that the coaches will be eyeing them up and trying to assess their "growth potential" and there will even be an expert in that field there purely with that brief in mind. |
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merse
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Post by merse on Oct 26, 2010 6:54:59 GMT
...........given the restrictive nature of the available budget for the manager; and I thnk he's doing a good job getting in people like Rose and Oastler early to have a good look at them (and them at us) before they come up for grabs in January. Another QPR youngster who might be on Bucks' radar could be 20 year old Josh Parker who has just terminated a month long loan at troubled Northampton Town seven days early after being told he would not be selected again during that last week. He's a very talented player, but only on a year long contract which will run out at the end of this season, so could well fall into the "free to go" category in January but by the regard in which he is talked about in the game I would reckon that he might only be available as a short (to the end of the season ) term deal whilst he looks for a future at a higher level than ours. I'm told he impressed a lot of people watching during the pre season friendly between the clubs in the summer. A flank player who I am told is very comfortable on the left ~ could be just what we need! |
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Oct 26, 2010 20:25:19 GMT
Dave Thomas was of the opinion that Buckle started the game with 4-4-2 on Saturday and whilst I would disagree (although sitting lower down than him) from my seat, we certainly went to that formation in the second half. In my opinion we played five accross the middle though not necessarily in a straight line and just Benyon faffing around in front of them. There's an fascinating (well, to those of us who like the technical aspect of the game, which I know isn't everyone) article in The Guardian today where Jonathan Wilson suggests Barcelona are returning to the old W-W (2-3-2-3) formation of Italia circa 1930's. www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/oct/26/the-question-barcelona-reinventing-w-wHowever, even those who don't have time for tactical formations might find his closing paragraphs interesting [my bolding]: "There is a wider point here, which relates to notation. Looking at reports from the early 70s, it seems bizarre to modern eyes that teams were still listed as though they played a 2-3-5, which had been dead for the best part of 70 years. Yet that, presumably, was still how journalists and their readers thought. Future generations may equally look at our way of recording formations and wonder how we ever thought it logical that a team playing "a back four" could feature fewer defensive players than a team playing "a back three". We understand that full-backs attack and that in a back four the two centre-backs will almost invariably play deeper than their full-backs, but the formation as we note it does not record that. Barcelona tend to play a 4-1-2-3 or a 4-2-1-3, according to our system of notation; heat maps of average position, though, show it as a 2-3-2-3. Barcelona, like Mexico, play a W-W, but not as Pozzo knew it." Edit: I found a Hannibal/Merse quote that I feel is more relevant... |
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Post by stuartB on Oct 26, 2010 20:34:30 GMT
Aaaah the good old 2-3-5 formation, those were the days. when I first started playing I was an inside right or right winger but soon found my forte in goal!! My later years were spent at right back after a brief spell upfront again.
I think the term "utility player" was used to describe me which was a veiled attempt to say " where the hell do we stick him this week?" ;D
I remember that we then developed into 1 centre back and then to 2.
it's no wonder that there were alot more goals in the old days.
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merse
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Post by merse on Oct 26, 2010 20:52:30 GMT
Talking of Barcelona and fact that we touched on the merits and demerits of tika taka the other week, I spent this morning accompanying a group of Under 8s who were the guests of a Football League Centre of Excellence to showcase themselves and gain comparisons with the standards of professional football clubs. They acquitted themselves excellently against the club's CoE team after stuttering a bit "early doors" until they had got the pace and speed of thought of the opposition into their heads, and then absolutely took apart that club's Development Team and at one stage put on a display of passing that saw over fifty passes completed without surrendering possession. A watching mother (of one of the Development lads I guess) lost her rag and stomped off saying loudly "I can't take any more of this they're taking the piss". It set me thinking of just what sort of professional football we are going to be watching in the lower professional leagues in ten years time, and just what we can expect to see from the full England side when they are including players who have been coached and brought up to the same exacting standards as the World Champions Spain; as opposed to the embarrassing bunch of technique limited performers Fabio Capello has to work with right now. Already we are seeing players performing in League 2 who's command of the ball and ability to create space far outweighs that of their predecessors, and slowly but surely the sea change of difference between Premiership football and lower league football is disappearing so that English lower league football more closely resembles that to be seen in Spain, Holland and Germany where the fact that football is played further down the ladder doesn't equate to the matter of it being of lesser tactical appreciation or effort of production.
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Post by lambethgull on Oct 26, 2010 21:12:13 GMT
the sea change of difference between Premiership football and lower league football is disappearing so that English lower league football more closely resembles that to be seen in Spain I hope not. I want blood and guts with my Bovril, not namby-pamby nonsense served up by "former starlets" from Premiership acadamies  |
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merse
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Post by merse on Oct 26, 2010 21:16:07 GMT
The term "Centre Half" of course hung around in football for nigh on half a century after the true centre halves had disappeared. They were indeed midfield players of a defensive persuasion. We universally played our football with twin central defenders for years as part of a back four but in the last two years I have noticed from studying the likes of Arsenal, Hamburg (under Martin Jol), and Real Madrid ; to name but three sides I have watched from high in the seats at The Emirates, that they are indeed playing with a back two sitting behind a centre half and that is the role I saw Joe Oastler fulfilling for us on Saturday ~ albeit in front of a back two flanked by traditional fullbacks. The more technically gifted sides of European football tend to play with wing backs rather than fullbacks when adopting this line up, and to my mind Torquay United have two such players who could play that role in Danny Senda and Kevin Nicholson, but to do so safely we would need far more technically adept players in the "Ellis & Branston" pairing who could be relied upon to retain possession with far greater reliability than we currently see from them.................and that is exactly what I was getting at a month or two ago when a few took umbrage in me giving my opinion that Mark Ellis (whilst a very effective defender) is not a potential Premiership footballer for the very reason that his possession retention is so poor compared with what is seen at that level. But this mode of playing does enable those fullbacks to take up residence on the touchlines and push forward at every opportunity as indeed Arsenal and Barcelona consistently do.............look out for Oastler playing as an old fashioned "centre half" this Saturday and see if you can spot it.
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