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Ratings v Stevenage

What I would call a 3-4-1-2 was clearly an uncomfortable formation for us, especially with Kaboul on the left, I think he would have been far more effective being able to become a right back from RCB. Dawson didn't look comfortable with the responsibility of taking on the role of a right back when necessary. With the right personnel this could be a pretty good option with some practice though.

Walker was terrible going forwards, he really needs to up his game against Arsenal because he could tear them to shreds. Rose on the other side had a lot of joy converting to his former role as a winger, and running from deep they found him hard to cope with. He was often found in space on the overlap by Livermore and Bale.

I personally thought it was a good decision by Redknapp to give Bale a game behind the strikers, he could be a dangerous option there if needed, and I thought he looked promising, but needs more games to get accustomed to playing there. I don't think he made the game particularly narrow when he did move out to the wings after we went 4-4-2.

I actually thought Saha was pretty decent, wonderful take on his chest when the defender took his boot off, looked dangerous on occasion, Defoe not quite as much although he had a couple of chances.

Stevenage got at us and we couldn't really get going, our passing was off and that didn't help. Hopefully it is because we know how fudging huge the next 2 league games are and we will bring out our best in those games.

Cudicini - 6.

Dawson - 5.5.
Nelsen - 6.5.
Kaboul - 6.

Walker - 4.
Parker - 6.
Livermore - 5.5.
Rose - 7.

Bale - 5.5.
Saha - 6.
Defoe - 5.

Kranjcar- 5. Sloppy.
Lennon - 6.5. Not enough time to get going really, but he looked dangerous while he was on.

Harry - 7 for trying an alternative tactic. Plenty of people slate him as 'tactically inept', but he has been developing a range of strategies which have in turn made our players more versatile and thus comfortable with fluid football (Bale, Lennon, Kaboul, VDV).

The Stevenage players were extremely fired up and didn't give us too much space over the 90 minutes, I don't think the performance was as bad as it might look, we just didn't have that cutting edge or moment of brilliance to get the first goal and open the game up. Some dogbrick shooting all round didn't help though. Although we finally saw a Kaboul piledriver almost work!
 
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I think Daws was unimaginative, to put it mildly...but f#ck me, the whole team, bar Lennon, made me want to pour bleach in my eyes to stop me watching. Awful pitch, and an opponent who wanted it.

Thats the FA Cup, end of. Formalities at WHL, I hope.
 
unknown said:
I thought Livermore did OK.

I keep thinking, Liverpool paid how much for Henderson when Livermore plays. :evil:

Todays game was not won because of the lack of movement of the two up front and how narrow Bale makes the games when he isn't wide.

The whole point of him coming in was EPL defenders who are very good tripled him... he was up against League 1 defenders today.
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He moved the ball well at times and hit some passes that if Hudd had done we would have been fawning over but he was chasing shadows alongside Parker at times. Don't think the three centre back system helped either CM to be honest
 
Cudicini 5 - When their barrage of long shots finally hit the target you want your keeper to hold them. He couldnt.

Dawson 3 - Hoffy bastard, even tried to control the ball once in the game and it went right out of play, embarassing cnut, also fudge off out of our club.
Nelsen 7 - Played quite well, was last man in defence making tackles and blocks.
Kaboul 6 - Was ok.

Walker 5 - Didnt get forward as much as I'd have liked him to.
Livermore 5 - Offers nothing, there's no spark in him, there's no bit of magic or class, its all dull safe football.
Parker 5 - Few stray passes but put in a lot of effort.
Rose 7 - Tried to get crosses in and did farly well running at their defence.

Bale 5 - One sweet shot, thats it. He'll get paid for that.

Defoe 4 - Sorry JD, you were given fudge all service from that shower of brick behind you.
Saha 4 - As above.

Kranjcar 5 - Tried to get forward and make a difference but couldnt.
Lennon 6.5 - Beat his man time and time again. Few good crosses. Should have played from the start.
Harry 4 - Dont bother asking your son a grown ups question on wither you should take a job you havent been offered yet. Just fudging go already.
Pitch - Seemed to be ok for Stevenage, because they play on that park do they know where every bounce and bobble will happen ? how high the bobbles will be, how frequent and where they will land ? I take it they are all geniuses in physics too ?
 
Need to learn that Bale cannot carry the team. Didn't work against Liverpool didn't work today.

Kaboul was particularly poor I thought when he edged out towards left back. Rose ok but still made silly errors MOM would be Lennon.

But all a bit meh really
 
Wriggly said:
Pitch - Seemed to be ok for Stevenage, because they play on that park do they know where every bounce and bobble will happen ? how high the bobbles will be, how frequent and where they will land ? I take it they are all geniuses in physics too ?
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No, but their game plan of "hoof the ball onto Cudicini and hope it bobbles awkwardly, while defending for our lives" was aided massively by the pitch, while also skewing up one of Bale's efforts. Although, from some of your other comments I hope you're not thinking straight at the moment.
 
5s and 6s all round. The bobbly pitch played a massive part; we were afraid to play it along the ground, especially out of defence, and not without good reason. We will have far too much for them at WHL.
 
yiddo2786 said:
No, but their game plan of "hoof the ball onto Cudicini and hope it bobbles awkwardly, while defending for our lives" was aided massively by the pitch, while also skewing up one of Bale's efforts. Although, from some of your other comments I hope you're not thinking straight at the moment.
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What game were you watching ?
 
yiddo2786 said:
No, but their game plan of "hoof the ball onto Cudicini and hope it bobbles awkwardly, while defending for our lives" was aided massively by the pitch, while also skewing up one of Bale's efforts. Although, from some of your other comments I hope you're not thinking straight at the moment.
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It's not as if they parked the bus though.
 
Cudicini 6

Dawson 4
Kaboul - 6
Rose - 6.5
Nelsen - 6.5

Livermore -5
Walker - 5
Parker - 5
Bale - 5

Defoe - 4
Saha - 5
 
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I thought we were awful.

This was really a game, where our players just-out-of-the-first-XI such as Rose, Dawson, Nelsen, Livermore and Defoe could prove, that they could play some good football and tank some L1 side in front of lots of away fans.

And none of them bar Rose looked out of place that level, League One. At best they didn't look bothered and at worse they completely lost composure, like Dawson. Not that Bale and Saha looked bothered, to be fair.

Dissappointing. I expected at least some professionalism.
 
Wriggly said:
Cudicini 5 - When their barrage of long shots finally hit the target you want your keeper to hold them. He couldnt.

Dawson 3 - Hoffy bastard, even tried to control the ball once in the game and it went right out of play, embarassing cnut, also fudge off out of our club.
Nelsen 7 - Played quite well, was last man in defence making tackles and blocks.
Kaboul 6 - Was ok.

Walker 5 - Didnt get forward as much as I'd have liked him to.
Livermore 5 - Offers nothing, there's no spark in him, there's no bit of magic or class, its all dull safe football.
Parker 5 - Few stray passes but put in a lot of effort.
Rose 7 - Tried to get crosses in and did farly well running at their defence.

Bale 5 - One sweet shot, thats it. He'll get paid for that.

Defoe 4 - Sorry JD, you were given fudge all service from that shower of brick behind you.
Saha 4 - As above.

Kranjcar 5 - Tried to get forward and make a difference but couldnt.
Lennon 6.5 - Beat his man time and time again. Few good crosses. Should have played from the start.
Harry 4 - Dont bother asking your son a grown ups question on wither you should take a job you havent been offered yet. Just fudging go already.
Pitch - Seemed to be ok for Stevenage, because they play on that park do they know where every bounce and bobble will happen ? how high the bobbles will be, how frequent and where they will land ? I take it they are all geniuses in physics too ?
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What a macaronic comment.
To be expected I guess.
 
Some very harsh words on here. The players struggle to play their usual passing game on anything other than premiership standard pitches. We saw that against Young boys. The Stevenage pitch was incredibly bobbly and they struggled with control, passing and shooting. Against young boys it was a watered plastic pitch and they took a while to get use to the speed of the ball. It should be a different match at WHL.
Can't be arsed with individual ratings but I thought Rose did well and thought Nelsen gave a very committed performance with some good and at times vital blocks. Not a Dawson hater by any means, I love his commitment and he is very good in the air but the hoofing really got to me yesterday. Also why was Dawson being boo'ed every time he had the ball? I missed the first few minutes of the match and wondered if there was some sort of incident.
 
Lily White said:
Some very harsh words on here. The players struggle to play their usual passing game on anything other than premiership standard pitches. We saw that against Young boys. The Stevenage pitch was incredibly bobbly and they struggled with control, passing and shooting. Against young boys it was a watered plastic pitch and they took a while to get use to the speed of the ball. It should be a different match at WHL.
Can't be arsed with individual ratings but I thought Rose did well and thought Nelsen gave a very committed performance with some good and at times vital blocks. Not a Dawson hater by any means, I love his commitment and he is very good in the air but the hoofing really got to me yesterday. Also why was Dawson being boo'ed every time he had the ball? I missed the first few minutes of the match and wondered if there was some sort of incident.
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Sorry, even though I agree about the pitch, that's hardly an excuse for stopping moving about and for not hussling for 2nd balls breaking and so forth (talking about midfield and strikers here). And for panicking on the ball e.g. Dawson. Surely the most stoic Dawson-fan can see a problem about his nerves on the ball, if even a L1 level team can single him out for extensive pressure.
 
DanishWhite said:
Sorry, even though I agree about the pitch, that's hardly an excuse for stopping moving about and for not hussling for 2nd balls breaking and so forth (talking about midfield and strikers here). And for panicking on the ball e.g. Dawson. Surely the most stoic Dawson-fan can see a problem about his nerves on the ball, if even a L1 level team can single him out for extensive pressure.
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They didn't single him out, and most of the long balls he played were done with time on the ball and were clearly measured and thought out.

Like many, I hate to see that wimbledon route 1 brick, but given the opposition, the pitch and the occasion, I can see why it was tried. The experiment failed and for the remainder of the game the ball was passed out of defence, by and large.

Its not a case of being a Dawson fan, per se - its more a case of a dislike for the idiotic, classless and clueless vitriolic comments made about him, by whiney people who want to see the Saudi Sportswashing Machine result every game.

Sorry but the FA cup doesn't let that happen, particularly with teams like stevenage who were always going to play that way.

I swear some of the people on here have only been watching football for a few years - how many examples of this kind of game are there in the history of the FA cup, for people to reference and learn from?
 
mick cooper said:
They didn't single him out, and most of the long balls he played were done with time on the ball and were clearly measured and thought out.

Like many, I hate to see that wimbledon route 1 brick, but given the opposition, the pitch and the occasion, I can see why it was tried. The experiment failed and for the remainder of the game the ball was passed out of defence, by and large.

Its not a case of being a Dawson fan, per se - its more a case of a dislike for the idiotic, classless and clueless vitriolic comments made about him, by whiney people who want to see the Saudi Sportswashing Machine result every game.

Sorry but the FA cup doesn't let that happen, particularly with teams like stevenage who were always going to play that way.

I swear some of the people on here have only been watching football for a few years - how many examples of this kind of game are there in the history of the FA cup, for people to reference and learn from?
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We would have done much better ironically if we still had Crouch, then the long balls might have been useful. I agree with you the pitch was atrocious and your right, FA cup games against lower league teams do involve a lot of long balls and it's more of a battle than a football match, but one of the forwards that he kept lumping it to was Jermain Defoe who almost never wins headers and was unlikely to win any against Stevenage's centre halves.
 
He's been doing it for years - only reason it was 'diguised' against Liverpool was due to the fact we were defending hard for most of the game so it was the perfect context to launch a few which he did with much delight. :D
 
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