Ignoring the Other Team

[Raoul Duke]

Anyone else find it annoying when people virutally completely ignore the opposition when analysing a team's performance? Like everyone today bitching about our first-half performance being due to our slow build-up play as opposed to Villa being fantastic in giving anyone but our deepest 3 players absolutely no time or space on the ball.

I'm glad that we were patient and just took what they gave us, rather than trying to force things. The game was bound to change as it went on (and especially after we took the lead), with them becoming more stretched and tired, and when it did we took advantage and played well.

So let's give Villa some credit for a very good defensive performance first half, and let's give AVB and the lads some credit for being patient and ending up comfortable winners.

Completely agree, this happens every game.

 

[Nigeyman]

I think whats missing from this thread is the deep analysis and tactical insight of my favourite poster on this forum......

a poster who makes Yoda look like a blubbering bafoon.....

the stage is yours colin..........................................

 

[Modric THFC]

OP Trevor: Sigg and Holtby do not have pace, they do not have power, they are not explosive... so they should be adept at interlinking, short pass and move, keeping possession, knitting the midfield and attack, probing through balls, exchanging positions, dropping deep or pulling wide or doing SOMETHING to get on the ball.

I appreciate that Villa were pressing hard, compressing midfield and there wasn't much room, but those guys had to do something about it.

I feel confident that the Goons midfielders (Ozil Cazorla Ramsey Wheelchair Arteta Podolski types) would have found a way to get the ball, turn and attack Villa. They would play a 1-2, create a chink in the armour and push forwards.

All we did for ages was probe a little, panic, pass back to the centre backs and then knock it long. It was not good football, one of Sigg and Holtby should have been able to turn and face the right way, but every time they just smuggled it backwards to recycle the same pattern of play.

As far as im concerned, whilst there is a degree to which the opposing team has an effect on how we play, it is not the fact that this happens but the ease by which it happens.

People need to get their head out of the ground and stop trying to find 'excuses'. Have you not considered WHY this seems to happen? WHY is it simple to nullify us? and yes yes it is. Its predictability. Ghod said it himself and so have members on here. AVB needs to sort that out. Whats ironic is that its actually unpredictable which spurs turn up - the one that battered the likes of Norwich or Inter or the one that struggled to create anything against Villa in the first half or West Spam in the last game.

It is an issue, a recurring one at that, and its not one that required heads in grounds, its one that requires attention rather than 'excuses'.

The issue here is our central midfield. We had two guys playing today against their three in the middle and our two didn't want the ball from the centre halfs. The middle of the pitch in the first half was some huge no go zone for us, that we played long balls over and passed to the sides of.
Arsenal would never play like that. The likes of Arteta and Wheelchair would be demanding the ball from the centre halfs and directing play through the middle.

We don't have those midfielders (well one is on loan at QPR and the other is thought of as a number 10 type). All any team has to do to stifle us is to pack the centre of midfield.

 

[Bullet]

The issue here is our central midfield. We had two guys playing today against their three in the middle and our two didn't want the ball from the centre halfs. The middle of the pitch in the first half was some huge no go zone for us, that we played long balls over and passed to the sides of.
Arsenal would never play like that. The likes of Arteta and Wheelchair would be demanding the ball from the centre halfs and directing play through the middle.

We don't have those midfielders (well one is on loan at QPR and the other is thought of as a number 10 type). All any team has to do to stifle us is to pack the centre of midfield.

Indeed, so the issue isn't "ignoring the other team" when moaning in the match thread... it is spotting the problem (we are not linking defence and attack, so Holtby and Sigg are not in the game) and then trying to think of ways around the problem as well to either get those guys to play differently or in different areas, or move the ball quicker, or make a substitution to change things.

I.e. when people are crying out "it's not working, we look rubbish, change something" I think most people realise that it is Villa causing us a lot of the problems by stifling midfield, but then wanting us (AVB) to change something so we don't continue banging our heads against the side of the bus.

 

[Jordinho]

Could be that AVB doesn't want to change things, but rather we kept moving the ball, waiting for them to tire. They'll leave bigger gaps later on in the game and it'll be easier to force errors. The most important thing is not to concede first.

 

[Modric THFC]

Could be that AVB doesn't want to change things, but rather we kept moving the ball, waiting for them to tire. They'll leave bigger gaps later on in the game and it'll be easier to force errors. The most important thing is not to concede first.

Its a huge gamble and once we go one down we're ****ed. We haven't come back from being behind yet this season.
To me there wasn't much difference between yesterday 's first half and against West Ham. Only thing was we looked better down the left. In the end we got a lucky unintentional goal, Villa had to come out to play and we suddenly looked a good team again.

 

[indianspur]

Could be that AVB doesn't want to change things, but rather we kept moving the ball, waiting for them to tire. They'll leave bigger gaps later on in the game and it'll be easier to force errors. The most important thing is not to concede first.

fcuking dangerous game to play

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Could be that AVB doesn't want to change things, but rather we kept moving the ball, waiting for them to tire. They'll leave bigger gaps later on in the game and it'll be easier to force errors. The most important thing is not to concede first.

If that is the case then AVB needs to start reading quotes from our halcyon days and at least try and have us attempting a Tottenham style of play. As demonstrated by our second goal yesterday (ironically from a long ball originally), the Tottenham way CAN work.

 

[Modric THFC]

The issue here is our central midfield. We had two guys playing today against their three in the middle and our two didn't want the ball from the centre halfs. The middle of the pitch in the first half was some huge no go zone for us, that we played long balls over and passed to the sides of.
Arsenal would never play like that. The likes of Arteta and Wheelchair would be demanding the ball from the centre halfs and directing play through the middle.

We don't have those midfielders (well one is on loan at QPR and the other is thought of as a number 10 type). All any team has to do to stifle us is to pack the centre of midfield.

This is our passing before we scored

 

[Bullet]

This is our passing before we scored

Ha ha that is brilliant. A big void in the middle where Holtby and Paulinho should have been linking up and probing, and a billion balls across the defence and back again. Nothing working up top at all really.

 

[Jordinho]

Holtby seems to have been everywhere else than where he's supposed to be:

 

[Jimmy-g]

They were a yard quicker than us and hit long balls from back to front in the first half, they could not keep it up and tired, our passing game killed them in the second half because of that, both Soldado and Siggy need the play to go through them when they are left to fend for themselves they struggle to get into the game, both are clever players we need to get them on the ball more.

 

[unit kaboom]

Some amazing responses to a 2-0 away win. 5th clean sheet from 8 games and a win that equals our best ever premier league start!
Also to the poster that mentioned arsenals midfield would have found a way through.. Maybe you should look at how they got on at home against villa 1st game of the season. Some joke fans on here!

 

[Spursalot]

Its a huge gamble and once we go one down we're ****ed. We haven't come back from being behind yet this season.
To me there wasn't much difference between yesterday 's first half and against West Ham. Only thing was we looked better down the left. In the end we got a lucky unintentional goal, Villa had to come out to play and we suddenly looked a good team again.

No, we haven't come back from being one down yet this season, but that's hardly a statistically relevant point.

We've gone one goal behind on two occasions this season.

 

[Modric THFC]

Some amazing responses to a 2-0 away win. 5th clean sheet from 8 games and a win that equals our best ever premier league start!
Also to the poster that mentioned arsenals midfield would have found a way through.. Maybe you should look at how they got on at home against villa 1st game of the season. Some joke fans on here!

Just because Arsenal lost doesnt mean they didnt dominate the midfield.
Villa scored from 2 set pieces and a counter attack in that game. Arsenal controlled the game from the middle in a way we werent able to.

 

[onlyme]

Just because Arsenal lost doesnt mean they didnt dominate the midfield.
Villa scored from 2 set pieces and a counter attack in that game. Arsenal controlled the game from the middle in a way we weren't able to.

I watched that game.
Villa looked like they had 10 men not Arsenal.
Unfortunately it looks like all the bad luck Arsenal were due went in total in this game. Why can't the feckers have their bad luck spread out like the rest?

 

[Rorschach]

Ha ha that is brilliant. A big void in the middle where Holtby and Paulinho should have been linking up and probing, and a billion balls across the defence and back again. Nothing working up top at all really.

Holtby seems to have been everywhere else than where he's supposed to be:

Agree. I just posted somethng similar in another thread.

 

[mudshark]

Completely agree, this happens every game.

I've often thought so too, and it works the other way around as well. I suppose if we played a team of 10-year-old schoolkids and hammered them 99-0 (it should have been 100, but Defoe was caught offside on the hour mark and fired straight at the keeper anyway, missing his hat-trick), we'd have to wax lyrical and shower them all with 9s and 10s or risk being ridiculed for our low ratings

 

[SpursLodge]

Villa were unlucky in the first half, they had the same game plan as West Ham and were doing well, if that cross doesn't find it's way into the net we could have ended up chasing the game second half. I think they would have tired anyway and we probably still would have won it but who knows.

The problem for me is that with our style of play the odd 3-0 like West Ham is inevitable. If I remember rightly Villa had 3 or 4 decent opportunities before we scored, if they put any one of them away it becomes a totally different game, we have to start pushing on, they can defend a little deeper and hit us on the break like West Ham did.

We need a way back in to the game if we don't score first, it was the same against Arsenal, we largely dominated the possession but they scored first, we then had to chase the game but couldn't come up with a goal.