Am i the only one??? 22:55 - Jan 1 with 2452 views | sparkes12 | Who thought we played with passion in the 2nd half? Thought it was one of our best 45 mins this season,every player showed real commitment and never gave up. Could have scored 3 or 4 in the 2nd half,yes we were dire in the first half but thought they done us proud in the second half. Seems i am very much in the minority. | | | | |
Am i the only one??? on 23:03 - Jan 1 with 2429 views | LowerloftLad | No Not just you even when it went 2-1 Doncaster never gave up and had a few chances ow you meant QPR | |
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Am i the only one??? on 23:10 - Jan 1 with 2403 views | jonno | I thought we were absolutely shocking first half - and only slightly better after half time. There are a number of players who are simply not putting in a challenge and producing lightweight performances. Only Barton, Dunne, Onuhua and Austin were getting a foot in - the rest of them were making no real challenges for the ball. The midfield was particularly bad and allowed Doncaster an easy ride. It looked like some of them got a rocket at half time because O'Neil definitely upped his game after the break and they had to sub Benayoun because he was totally ineffective, another lightweight like Carroll.Why has he been signed? Kranjcar must be a stone overweight and just can't get into the game - why? Hoillett yet again breaks down after ten minutes - why? Phillips on the bench - why? Johnson not starting up front with Austin - why? Half a yard behind Doncaster players to the ball - and virtually every team we play - why? Do they actually do any training? Do they work on patterns of play because there seems to be none at all. Any match is a series of individual battles between players - win the majority of them and you generally win the game. In the first half we must have lost 90% of individual challenges for the ball - absolutely pathetic. When you see our recent performances you have to have serious doubts about the coaching and management of the side. | | | |
Am i the only one??? on 23:21 - Jan 1 with 2360 views | derbyhoop | A game of 2 halves. Apologies for the cliche. First half Donny were the better side and deserved to be ahead. Midfield looked unbalanced. Second half, we upped the tempo and were miles better. In the end, i think we deserved the win. | |
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Am i the only one??? on 23:35 - Jan 1 with 2331 views | kensalriser | Jonno, these are very pertinent questions about the coaching and management. We should be doing better with the players we have, but there's rarely any verve to our play and we never look like the well-oiled machine that well-coached and well-managed teams do. We're edging matches simply because we have far superior players - compare to Leicester who don't have as good a squad in my opinion but do have a game plan. I know we've flogged the McLaren debate to death, but the facts speak for themselves and I'm no great believer in coincidence. | |
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Am i the only one??? on 23:39 - Jan 1 with 2315 views | themodfather | qpr started low tempo, gave them too much space cos we stood 5 yards off the ball and we were wasteful...too many were poor barton, niko, yossi were all poor with passing..yossiw as not fouled , he messed up. ekotto is so laid back i'm stunned he stands up! brilliant winner by austin, and no matter how we leveled, whoopeee! 3rd and a long way to go. we can raise our game...can the others? | | | |
Am i the only one??? on 05:15 - Jan 2 with 2190 views | westberksr |
Am i the only one??? on 23:10 - Jan 1 by jonno | I thought we were absolutely shocking first half - and only slightly better after half time. There are a number of players who are simply not putting in a challenge and producing lightweight performances. Only Barton, Dunne, Onuhua and Austin were getting a foot in - the rest of them were making no real challenges for the ball. The midfield was particularly bad and allowed Doncaster an easy ride. It looked like some of them got a rocket at half time because O'Neil definitely upped his game after the break and they had to sub Benayoun because he was totally ineffective, another lightweight like Carroll.Why has he been signed? Kranjcar must be a stone overweight and just can't get into the game - why? Hoillett yet again breaks down after ten minutes - why? Phillips on the bench - why? Johnson not starting up front with Austin - why? Half a yard behind Doncaster players to the ball - and virtually every team we play - why? Do they actually do any training? Do they work on patterns of play because there seems to be none at all. Any match is a series of individual battles between players - win the majority of them and you generally win the game. In the first half we must have lost 90% of individual challenges for the ball - absolutely pathetic. When you see our recent performances you have to have serious doubts about the coaching and management of the side. |
pretty much spot on; Charlie and I were sat saying pretty much the same thing. Donny were organised and worked their socks off, our lot just seemed to be cruising through the game. we once again got lucky and we do have the 'better' players, but the overall team formation and tactics seem to be pretty non-existent. getting the run around from well drilled players with virtually no top level experience is pretting damning imho. | | | |
Am i the only one??? on 05:29 - Jan 2 with 2179 views | WatfordR |
Am i the only one??? on 23:10 - Jan 1 by jonno | I thought we were absolutely shocking first half - and only slightly better after half time. There are a number of players who are simply not putting in a challenge and producing lightweight performances. Only Barton, Dunne, Onuhua and Austin were getting a foot in - the rest of them were making no real challenges for the ball. The midfield was particularly bad and allowed Doncaster an easy ride. It looked like some of them got a rocket at half time because O'Neil definitely upped his game after the break and they had to sub Benayoun because he was totally ineffective, another lightweight like Carroll.Why has he been signed? Kranjcar must be a stone overweight and just can't get into the game - why? Hoillett yet again breaks down after ten minutes - why? Phillips on the bench - why? Johnson not starting up front with Austin - why? Half a yard behind Doncaster players to the ball - and virtually every team we play - why? Do they actually do any training? Do they work on patterns of play because there seems to be none at all. Any match is a series of individual battles between players - win the majority of them and you generally win the game. In the first half we must have lost 90% of individual challenges for the ball - absolutely pathetic. When you see our recent performances you have to have serious doubts about the coaching and management of the side. |
Agree 100%. As said elsewhere, IMO the players either don't like or believe in 4231, or don't understand it. And if that's the case, that's down to the coaching. Loads of waffle from many on here about giving the team time to get used to it, only a new team, will get better over time, blah blah blah. A blind man can see that we neither possess the pace or guile to play 4231. It's a functional team brought together to play a sophisticated system. Absolutely no evidence all season long that there is any serious work being done on attacking patterns of play using this system. Give them 442 and all of a sudden there is a pace and tempo to our game, because players are being asked to do something they know, something they've spent most of their careers doing, playing 442. And we have personnel to do it better than most teams in this division if we play that way. [Post edited 2 Jan 2014 5:41]
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Am i the only one??? on 08:18 - Jan 2 with 2059 views | BrianMcCarthy |
Am i the only one??? on 23:10 - Jan 1 by jonno | I thought we were absolutely shocking first half - and only slightly better after half time. There are a number of players who are simply not putting in a challenge and producing lightweight performances. Only Barton, Dunne, Onuhua and Austin were getting a foot in - the rest of them were making no real challenges for the ball. The midfield was particularly bad and allowed Doncaster an easy ride. It looked like some of them got a rocket at half time because O'Neil definitely upped his game after the break and they had to sub Benayoun because he was totally ineffective, another lightweight like Carroll.Why has he been signed? Kranjcar must be a stone overweight and just can't get into the game - why? Hoillett yet again breaks down after ten minutes - why? Phillips on the bench - why? Johnson not starting up front with Austin - why? Half a yard behind Doncaster players to the ball - and virtually every team we play - why? Do they actually do any training? Do they work on patterns of play because there seems to be none at all. Any match is a series of individual battles between players - win the majority of them and you generally win the game. In the first half we must have lost 90% of individual challenges for the ball - absolutely pathetic. When you see our recent performances you have to have serious doubts about the coaching and management of the side. |
I was slightly more upbeat than you about the game, just a slight trurn of the dial up, but generally I agree with your posts and would have the same questions as you. As for the OP's question, I don't think we played with enough passion in either half, though the second was far, far better than the first in that regard. | |
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Am i the only one??? on 14:32 - Jan 2 with 1886 views | A40Bosh |
Am i the only one??? on 08:18 - Jan 2 by BrianMcCarthy | I was slightly more upbeat than you about the game, just a slight trurn of the dial up, but generally I agree with your posts and would have the same questions as you. As for the OP's question, I don't think we played with enough passion in either half, though the second was far, far better than the first in that regard. |
I have stated before in discussions on here, sometimes in posts with Neil_S that for years and years I have simply watched the game for good or bad passively and not really ever technically analyzed what makes us good or what makes us bad at any given time throughout a game. However more recently I have tried to be more proactive in watching what is going on and as a result yesterday during the second half yesterday with us taking off Yossi at HT and throwing a second striker up front alongside Charlie, and as such reverting to the much discussed 4-4-2 set up, it completely changed our shape for the better and actually forced us to play more to our strengths. From what I could see the main difference might not have been one of desire or passion in the first half, I think it is just down to a system of having 5 across the middle, it does not suit our particular brand of wide players and they are not at their most effective. We seem to very quickly get into this situation where we have the back 4 and up to 4 middle players all crowding the centre of the park resulting in a lot of tippy tappy passing in and out of a narrow area of the pitch without actually penetrating Doncaster and causing them any issues. I also think that Ned might have looked worse than he actually was because having been out of the side more than in it this season, most of the time once he was in possession of the ball, he was trying to bring it forward out of defense but then hit a bank of midfield players and could not find an incisive pass that tried would spring an attacking player in behind the Doncaster defense. Once we switched to 4-4-2 it seemed to stretch us and forced us to look for the longer ball and push out through the wide players more and forced us to stay out wide and get to the byline where in the second half we got much more ball into the box successfully and could have had more goals in the end. I have to say that I know that all fans moan about it when other teams time waste , but the transition from playing everything at zero miles an hour to then 100 miles an hour by the Doncaster players (especially the keeper) was funny to behold after they fell behind after spending most of the entire second half wasting as much time as they could. | |
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Am i the only one??? on 15:12 - Jan 2 with 1834 views | HollowayRanger | i groaned when i was the line up 451 yet again austin just back from injury yet again left up front on his own hoillet starting ahead of phillips two things he did get right onouha alongside either hill/dunne o'neill next to barton and eventuly saw the light at half time | |
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Am i the only one??? on 17:00 - Jan 2 with 1745 views | Neil_SI |
Am i the only one??? on 14:32 - Jan 2 by A40Bosh | I have stated before in discussions on here, sometimes in posts with Neil_S that for years and years I have simply watched the game for good or bad passively and not really ever technically analyzed what makes us good or what makes us bad at any given time throughout a game. However more recently I have tried to be more proactive in watching what is going on and as a result yesterday during the second half yesterday with us taking off Yossi at HT and throwing a second striker up front alongside Charlie, and as such reverting to the much discussed 4-4-2 set up, it completely changed our shape for the better and actually forced us to play more to our strengths. From what I could see the main difference might not have been one of desire or passion in the first half, I think it is just down to a system of having 5 across the middle, it does not suit our particular brand of wide players and they are not at their most effective. We seem to very quickly get into this situation where we have the back 4 and up to 4 middle players all crowding the centre of the park resulting in a lot of tippy tappy passing in and out of a narrow area of the pitch without actually penetrating Doncaster and causing them any issues. I also think that Ned might have looked worse than he actually was because having been out of the side more than in it this season, most of the time once he was in possession of the ball, he was trying to bring it forward out of defense but then hit a bank of midfield players and could not find an incisive pass that tried would spring an attacking player in behind the Doncaster defense. Once we switched to 4-4-2 it seemed to stretch us and forced us to look for the longer ball and push out through the wide players more and forced us to stay out wide and get to the byline where in the second half we got much more ball into the box successfully and could have had more goals in the end. I have to say that I know that all fans moan about it when other teams time waste , but the transition from playing everything at zero miles an hour to then 100 miles an hour by the Doncaster players (especially the keeper) was funny to behold after they fell behind after spending most of the entire second half wasting as much time as they could. |
For once, I actually felt that 4-4-2 would be high risk and a gamble, just because Doncaster played through our midfield with such ease in the first-half, and taking a player out could and should have made that even easier for them on the break. But it paid off, and in the end, the extra man up front did actually give them more to think about and made them drop deeper as a result. They certainly showed us the concept of playing to your strengths and they understood what phase of a passage of play they were in. They only put their foot down on the accelerator when it was time to go, otherwise they simply played with excellent movement and control until they could unlock those moments to quicken it up. I paid a lot of attention to how they flowed up and down the pitch with rhythm, and every pass they made, they attempted to provide support and options to the man on the ball, especially from midfield. They were usually never more than fifteen yards away from the person on the ball. I saw Wellens making some passes from just outside his box to the wide men, and seconds later he was fifteen yards away and offering himself. I saw Joey Barton playing passes to Matt Phillips and then standing still and letting a gap of about forty of fifty yards grow between them. This is by no means just pointing at Barton, several of our players did the same and that lack of support and movement means the units get isolated and have no support other than to try and go it alone and win their own personal battle. | | | |
Am i the only one??? on 17:15 - Jan 2 with 1718 views | WatfordR | Fao sparkes and Clive, apologies, somehow I have reported the OP for abuse?? Not a clue how! | | | |
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