Any news on the injury front?

[monty_rhodes]

If he put all that behind him, and set up correctly to go at teams away from home we may just may start to get a point or even three!

I quite agree, Brin. Dean Saunders recently made an interesting observation on the approach of lesser teams in games especially away from home and suggested managers overlook the psychological element in games. Where a team is at home to a team they are expected to beat they anticipate (both tactically and mentally) having to break them down. If the underdogs instead take the game to them the "better" team is psychologically unprepared, players can become anxious and confused, the crowd can become anxious and even hostile, and the fear that they might conced goals or even lose spreads quickly and dramatically impacts on performance.
Unfortunately, too many managers refuse to take the risk and go for a "safe" narrow defeat instead so the whole nonsense becomes self-fulfilling. Look at RUFC. Warne's away tactics clearly aren't working but he daren't change, risk a heavy defeat and lose his job.

[Brin]

Monty, I feel if Warne took us down TS wouldn’t sack him as he too is part of the equation why we have such an average side.

[monty_rhodes]

Monty, I feel if Warne took us down TS wouldn’t sack him as he too is part of the equation why we have such an average side.

Brin, you're probably right. I should have made my last sentence about the mindset of the generality of managers in charge of relegation threatened teams.

[mellowmiller]

If they fetch Proctor back too early and he breaks down with the same injury he will be out for longer, Proctor is back in training.
Smith has also been carrying an injury so the International break will have helped.

PW won't play 2 up front because he's afraid of conceding midfield and being overrun.
One up front is fine if midfield get forward quick to help Smith. It's sometimes awful to watch the ball being banged up to a Centre - Forward knowing the opposition are going to come straight back at us. Try holding onto the ball a little longer even if it means playing across midfield, passing to a red shirt would help.

They could play 3 up front, it won't make a difference, some of them are not taking the chances that come their way.

EDIT : Forgot to add we don't have the quality of wide men we've had in the past, Barry Lyons, Chris Sedgewick, Tony Towner, Ian Butler, John Buckley or Alan Crawford.
Try getting to the bye-line and put a quality cross in, it seems to help other teams.

The reality is our midfielders don't get forward quickly enough to support Smith when he holds the ball up so he becomes an isolated figure, loses the ball and the opposition come straight back at us.
In truth, we've never replaced Lee Frecklington.

[gkotw]

Some good points made on this thread. Reading Montys post about the lesser team ethos brought back a distant memory from my old Sunday League days:

It was late in the season and we were due to play a side that was top of the league and flying. They were undefeated and battered teams week in week out. Their players were obviously too good for the division. We, on the other hand, were absolute dog poo. We'd won one match all season and had got to the point where we were struggling to put a side out. Just before kick off our manager (also kit man, physio and centre half) said "feck it lads, lets have a laugh. We're going four up top, three at the back, with three just causing a nuisance in the middle. Lads up top, dont track back, just stay as high as you can whilst staying on side."

It was bedlam, and exactly as dean saunders predicts. Their back four were petrified. I remember their right back nearly having a crying fit because we just kept pumping the ball over his head. Hed spent the season playing almost as a winger. He hated it. For 90 minutes they just argued with themselves. We were supposed to just rollover and let them play, pass and score.

We got a draw (about 4 all I think).

Our unexpected tactics (even we didnt expect them), genuinely upset the apple cart.

In summary, with zero away points, wtf we got to lose?!

[CASPER-64-FRANK]

I
Looking only at the Prem they found that "...teams with a higher frequency of crossing have a lower conversion rate inside the penalty area..." The research was published in 2012 but so far as I'm aware no subsequent studies seriously dispute the conclusions.
The most consistent source of goals remains the dead ball situation and the engineering of corners and free kicks around the penalty area is likely to be the most effective approach for most teams.

Fair comment monty. I don’t doubt a lot of goals come from dead ball situations, even more so in our case.
Unfortunately I like to be entertained, not too bothered about the end result as long as they give 100%.
The writing was on the wall with pre-season recruitment. He’s not far off sorting the goals against column unfortunately the lack of goals will cost us.
An ideal situation would be a 3-0 win win against Bolton just to prove me and a lot more like me completely wrong, can anyone see a 3-0 win anytime soon ?
We’re showing far too much respect to other teams and end up on the back foot Home & Away.
Ps... It didn’t do Ronnie Moore much harm when Tony Towner sent his crosses in.

[CASPER-64-FRANK]

The reality is our midfielders don't get forward quickly enough to support Smith when he holds the ball up so he becomes an isolated figure, loses the ball and the opposition come straight back at us.
In truth, we've never replaced Lee Frecklington.

Exactly mellow, which is why it’s so frustrating and predictable.
Richie Towell was brought in to play attacking midfielder, not seen much of it atm.

[monty_rhodes]

Fair comment monty. I don’t doubt a lot of goals come from dead ball situations, even more so in our case.
Unfortunately I like to be entertained, not too bothered about the end result as long as they give 100%.
The writing was on the wall with pre-season recruitment. He’s not far off sorting the goals against column unfortunately the lack of goals will cost us.
An ideal situation would be a 3-0 win win against Bolton just to prove me and a lot more like me completely wrong, can anyone see a 3-0 win anytime soon ?
We’re showing far too much respect to other teams and end up on the back foot Home & Away.
Ps... It didn’t do Ronnie Moore much harm when Tony Towner sent his crosses in.

Casper, no criticism of you was intended and I fully agree with you about entertainment and showing teams too much respect. And, of course getting into positions to cross the ball will inevitably increase the number of corners and free kicks. On a slightly different point I was chatting to a football coach who said he was sick of telling his forwards not to pass around or in the box. Apparently passes in these situations are most likely to either go astray, be intercepted or to result in an offside. he reckoned almost always the percentage play was to take the ball into the box and make the defender risk giving away a penalty. Even from a successful tackle the ball was as likely to go to another forward as it would from a pass anyway. Greed is good!

[millmoormagic]

Exactly mellow, which is why it’s so frustrating and predictable.
Richie Towell was brought in to play attacking midfielder, not seen much of it atm.

Maybe it's worth a look at how the England team set up, regarding the front man, now before any smart arris jump on me i know we're not at that standard, but look how England do it, Harry Kane is excellent at holding the ball, in most cases, he isn't the front man, he's dropping in to receive it, Sterling is most often the one going beyond him, maybe we could try and adopt a little of that, if Smudge was 10 yards deeper we'd be in a much better position team wise to keep possession....just a thought..

[mikemiller]

"Recovery from injury" news on RUFC Official Site looks quite good ... nowt on Radio DeeDah Football Heaven tonight though