Reply With QuoteSpot on
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In the vast majority of Ardley’s pre-game press conferences this season he’s often talked about his squad’s ability to adapt to play against any system/playing style and themselves tweak the style and gameplan to negate the strengths and exploit the weaknesses of the opposition.
Problem is - that’s just not true, is it?
Even playing against teams with limited scouting resources, the opposition knows EXACTLY how we’ll play and exactly how they can combat it, as the Barrow manager referenced directly recently. Has there ever been a Notts manager whose line ups and subs are easier to predict? That’s fine if things are going well, but we’ve conceded at least two in the past six games.
Sutton will know both Doyle and Rose can be pressed into giving the ball away and don’t generally track runners going the other way, they know to get tight to Enzio and that he will stay on the right where he’s less threatening and not be given license to swap wings which would make him harder to pick up. They know the centre of our defence is slow and struggling against any sort of pace or movement, they know both of our full backs are playing poorly in both an attacking and defensive sense. They know that, despite having 4 senior strikers most of this league would kill for, Thomas and Wooton will start and Dennis will replace Thomas with 10/15 to go (not long after he’s swapped the left winger in the other change. If you could bet on our substitutions I’d be a millionaire).
In short, despite lauding the competition in the squad having signing 14 new players, they know 10 of the 11 that will start. And they know the two subs (Booty/Shields and Dennis/Thomas) that will be made. Given the number of players and amount of resources at our disposal, we really shouldn’t be the easiest team in the league to prepare to play against.
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Spot on
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We must be a dream to play against. Either sit back and let us pass ourselves into oblivion, or press us into a mistake.
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According to the BBC we had 58% of the possession, the same amount of shots 15,but only 4 on target against Northamptons 8,so we are not a million miles away.
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As Ardley has said many times, we're pretty good between the boxes. It's just the scoring and defending of goals that's the problem.Originally Posted by gozzie321
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We aren't good between the boxes though. We are slow and predictable and I don't think I've ever known a Notts midfield that gives the ball away as much as this one does.
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They just have to hit high crosses into our box and the rest is easy, it also helps them when they know exactly what our team will be.
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58% of possession simply means that of the total number of passes, we made 58% of them. But if most of those passes were in our own half, so what? I imagine that’s because the opposition are happy for us to have the ball there, since we’re not going to hurt them - and there’s always a chance we’ll mess up and concede possession in a bad part of the pitch. What are the odds that despite that possession and the same number of efforts on goal, Northampton had more dangerous attacks (like most of our recent opponents) yesterday? All too often, we appear to be playing with the handbrake on.
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This is what concerns me, Ardley said after the game we are a good team inbetween the boxes, I'm not sure many would agree. Then he said more worryingly that sometimes we're too attack minded! If by attack minded he means slow sideways passes then yes Neal we are you're right.
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I've just posted the comment below on another thread before realising it probably belongs in this one, so here's a duplicate...
It's not often I'll quote former manager Steve Thompson as a voice of wisdom - because he wasn't - but I do recall the first time he arrived at the club he observed that under Mick Walker (and the managers who replaced him) in the disastrous season we got relegated from the Championship, we had become regarded in the game as a "nice" team to play against.
Nobody would want to go to the opposite extreme and the sort of long ball rubbish Thompson's teams played, but I do fear that once again we've become regarded as "nice" opponents who probably try to play more football than is required at this level, with players who aren't all up to the task technically and therefore do everything a little too slowly and deliberately. In one sense Neal Ardley deserves credit for being idealistic and not resorting to an overly direct style, but we certainly need to mix up our approach to keep opponents guessing, because at present they all know exactly how to set up against us.
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