Reply With QuoteDon't bet on it?Originally Posted by laddo
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Thankfully the Ardley IN/OUT is dead (until at least the end of the season)
RIP.
Good questions, good replies to date. The answer is probably well beyond all our means as we aren't qualified but great to hear everyone's thoughts. It certainly made me view things a little differently.
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Don't bet on it?
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I think the problem with Doyle is that he can only contribute at one end of the pitch, due to his lack of ability to get up & down the pitch at a half decent speed.
He cleary has all the technical abilities for this level and I like the fact that he is someone who is willing to use the dark arts, something I think we should do more of, but if someone runs off past him then he isn't getting back before the attack is over. Which means he can not afford to get up around the opposition box as much as a CM needs to if you are playing 2 in the centre.
I respect the way Ardley tries to get us to pass the ball around and be patient. If they don't have the ball they can't score but we need to be doing it a further 20 yards up the pitch, at the moment you can pass through the lines and one of our guys can go past someone but they are still to far from goal to make something truly happen. If that doesn't work though lump it up to a big f**ker! Look at the size of Effiong & Turner, why not if we are behind with 10 mins to go put them in the box and give them a chance to cause choas, even Guardiola at Barca wasn't afriad to do this if needed.
Last edited by bouncingoffthewalls; 25-02-2021 at 03:51 PM.
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The facts are last season we scored plenty of goals and the first 10 games of this season with the same tactics. It’s been the last 10 or so games we have struggled, it happens, it’s a long old season and hopefully they can get it right.
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Yes and how many were wonder goals?
If we keep scoring wonder goals then there isnt a problem.
But as you can see the wonder goals have dried up.
We now have to live on the scraps of a nominal amount of chances created in a game.
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Bouncingoffthewalls makes a great point regarding the good and bad of Old Man Doyle.
"He cleary has all the technical abilities for this level and I like the fact that he is someone who is willing to use the dark arts, something I think we should do more of, but if someone runs off past him then he isn't getting back before the attack is over. Which means he can not afford to get up around the opposition box as much as a CM needs to if you are playing 2 in the centre"
He's an oldie but a goodie, and if selected (as he should in my eyes) you have to get more mobility around him. JOB and Reeves don't do that. Can Wolfe?
And does Doyle's positives and negatives highlighted above mean we need 3 in central midfield?
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As others have said, we've lost a lot of goals out of the team with Roberts, Thomas and Dennis. Even so we had Roberts, Enzio, Wootton and Knowles on the pitch for the last fif**** on Tuesday and the midfield couldn't feed them and they couldn't hold it up when they did get it. They created absolutely nothing.
I think Wolfe will need a run of games to get the best out of him, it's close to impossible for a young player to just hit the ground running at 100%, even Ryan Yates didn't show his best until he'd had a run of three or four games and he was clearly playing a couple of divisions lower than his talent.
Centre mid is a problem and has been for a while, Harrogate , Boreham Wood, Chesterfield all ran over us to a degree, we compete but can't dominate against teams with high energy midfields, Stockport with Rooney didn't let us settle and he bossed us last season playing for Barrow.
It's always easy to see the problems but unless we find a way to get the best out of Effiong ( 1 in 3 for Dover ) or Sam finds something extra it could be that we're going to have to slog it out with clean sheets and tight wins all season. Hope not as it won't win us the league or play offs, I think we'll come up short playing like that in the end.
One thing we should do better from is set pieces, there's enough height in the team to at least make it difficult for teams and surely Barnett or Rodriguess can consistently whip balls in rather than floaters to the keeper that we do too many of.
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Our set pieces are sub-standard. You think back a decade with Benny D whipping them in and we looked dangerous on all attacking free kicks and even corners. Since then it's been p!$$ poor.
Must do better, you improve set pieces and you instantly score a wedge more goals. Can't stand Tommy floaters into the box, I can manage that even now but so easy to defend.
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I can think back four or five decades to when Don Masson took nearly all our set pieces. He didn't particularly whip them in or float them, but nearly every time he found what Geoffrey Boycott would describe in his test match commentary as 'the corridor of uncertainty'. That was the area where the keeper was in two minds as to whether to try and claim it or stay on his line. Seeing as Masson had Bradd, Needham and Stubbs to aim at there was genuine expectation whenever we had a corner. It's a pity that stats weren't around back then, but if they were I'm sure that they would show it's not just a few old farts remembering the good old days. Now when we get a corner I still get the initial burst of hope, but then the realisation that when it's cleared I hope they don't hit us on the break.
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I agree about the dead ball situations in the final third. It can be easy sometimes for keepers to come and pluck the ball out of the air from free kicks and corners or we lose possession and waste the chance. I don't mind us taking short corners either if we put ourselves in a position where we are threatening. Sam must be the tallest player on the pitch on many occasions so let's use his height to our advantage, even if he can knock a header down in and around the box so someone else can put their foot through it.
Set-pieces, incisive passes, creating goal scoring opportunities, forward runs. It all comes down to quality in the final third and that is what is the difference between us being a top three team and a title winning team at this point in time in my view.
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