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A game of 2 halfs

braineclipse said:
I might be venturing into some circular reasoning here, but even though we were outplayed at times against Chelsea and Manu those are some two very good sides. It's to be expected that we struggle in periods against those teams and I didn't think there was a problem with our attitude. I really didn't think our effort could be questioned actually, in some games against the smaller sides I think it can though. The way we came out for the 2nd half today it looked like we just wanted to pass the ball around aimlessly for 45 minutes while standing on our heels while waiting for the game to end and our 3 points to be in the bag.

No team can maintain the same level of intensity and sharpness in all games as they have in the biggest games, it's about making the drop off as small as possible when facing smaller teams. We're not very good at it in my opinion.
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I agree and I was hesitant in citing those two examples.

Ultimately it has happened against teams that have eleven men behind the ball thats why I think we need different tactics at home than away. Its AVBs remit.
 
El Guepardo said:
We were lucky not to drop points today, if that happens in future in one of those games we WILL drop points. We can't afford to drop points in our pursuit for top 4, even less so if those mistakes are avoidable.
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In the future we might have the forward to make sure we were 4 up by half time.
 
According to the Daily Mail, (before the Soton game) we have conceded 83% of our goals this season in the second half of games.

Do I detect a pattern?
 
As much as it pains me I think we need to follow the lead of the arsenal side of 2004. Absolute blitz for first half hour, go 3-0 up, then it's all over.
 
El Guepardo said:
We were lucky not to drop points today, if that happens in future in one of those games we WILL drop points. We can't afford to drop points in our pursuit for top 4, even less so if those mistakes are avoidable.
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But we HAVE dropped points in just these circumstances. Last 10 minutes - Saudi Sportswashing Machine, WBA and Norwich.
 
What were his Porto games like in his succesful season there? Were they conceding goals in the second half of games? etc.
 
For me it is not fitness it is application. The 2nd half half was characterised by lack of effort by some players which resulted in a hard working but less skilful team having time and space to do what they wanted. It only takes a few players to step off the gas for this to happen.
For me the main culprits were Vertoghen, Bale and Defoe. And to a lesser extent Lennon and Dempsey. Thats how I saw it anyway.
 
We have a tread bare squad and have been playing midweek games with little to no rotation.

Agree we need something different for home games, where we will continue to get less space on the flanks. Hudd may well have a part to play with his passing game. We have tenacity in midfield but lack some creative finesse from central positions. Step up Thud...
 
games coming thick and fast.. we get back from our european adventures at 2am or 4am on a friday morning and by and large the same players are expected to play (perform) at the weekend. between the league cup or whatever the fudge its called nowadays, the uefa cup and our list of crocked players and lack of depth in quality subs and Thudd slowly coming back to full fitness and loss of Modric & VdV and only Defoe as our main forward & whatever the fudge is wrong with Ade etc, etc, even though its early doors, surely the players are feeling some strain??
 
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