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Matt Ritchie (now playing for Portsmouth)


Fenham Mag

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Just an average player.  We thought we had swapped like for like with Townsend, but on this evidence Ritchie is not even close to the player we had.

 

He's smarter than Townsend. Just doesn't have pace nor a right foot.

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He's a lot better when he's got Yedlin bombing down the wing overlapping him or on the inside.

 

Lack of pace down the right hand side is a real problem when Anita is playing right back and Ritchie is on the right.

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He's not the problem, it's the lack of creativity and nous around him which makes him look bad imo. Wasted, tbh.

His lack of producing quality balls into the box and also being in a position to do so but opting not too is a problem. He's not the biggest problem in the team, or even in midfield, but his performances need to pick up. It doesn't help that to the fans he's treated like a legend without really doing much, all he has to do is run at goal or come to take a corner and his song is sung for 10 minutes.
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I know this will be not overly agreed with but today i think he did he job correctly as Rafa is instructing him (imo), apart from not doing enough in front of goal that is. he kept making space by drifiting in for Anita to overlap which is clearly our set up. Time and time again Anita ballsed those chances up though.

 

He needs to do a lot more without a doubt but i think he's playing to a plan, which isn't overly benefical to him.

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I know this will be not overly agreed with but today i think he did he job correctly as Rafa is instructing him (imo), apart from not doing enough in front of goal that is. he kept making space by drifiting in for Anita to overlap which is clearly our set up. Time and time again Anita ballsed those chances up though.

 

He needs to do a lot more without a doubt but i think he's playing to a plan, which isn't overly benefical to him.

Sums it up for me.
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I know this will be not overly agreed with but today i think he did he job correctly as Rafa is instructing him (imo), apart from not doing enough in front of goal that is. he kept making space by drifiting in for Anita to overlap which is clearly our set up. Time and time again Anita ballsed those chances up though.

 

He needs to do a lot more without a doubt but i think he's playing to a plan, which isn't overly benefical to him.

 

I think you're right.

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I know this will be not overly agreed with but today i think he did he job correctly as Rafa is instructing him (imo), apart from not doing enough in front of goal that is. he kept making space by drifiting in for Anita to overlap which is clearly our set up. Time and time again Anita ballsed those chances up though.

 

He needs to do a lot more without a doubt but i think he's playing to a plan, which isn't overly benefical to him.

 

He was decent today I thought, very clever with his use of the ball, protected it well and ran into good spaces. If I have a criticism it would be he was too slow to get his shot or cross off and too many ended up being blocked as a result. One of our better players tonight apart from that.

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I know this will be not overly agreed with but today i think he did he job correctly as Rafa is instructing him (imo), apart from not doing enough in front of goal that is. he kept making space by drifiting in for Anita to overlap which is clearly our set up. Time and time again Anita ballsed those chances up though.

 

He needs to do a lot more without a doubt but i think he's playing to a plan, which isn't overly benefical to him.

 

He was decent today I thought, very clever with his use of the ball, protected it well and ran into good spaces. If I have a criticism it would be he was too slow to get his shot or cross off and too many ended up being blocked as a result. One of our better players tonight apart from that.

 

 

Yeah pretty accurate description for me.

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He's not the problem, it's the lack of creativity and nous around him which makes him look bad imo. Wasted, tbh.

 

Isn't he in the team to provide that ? Or has his role reverted to a 2nd right back ?

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I'm sure that he'd admit that he's not in the form of his life, but tbh I can see why he's struggling and I am feeling a bit sorry for him. 80% of our attacks go down our right hand side and the opposition knows it, and they also know that they can press a bit extra on that side because we carry almost no threat at all on our left. If we had more threat on the left hand side then we could probably switch play and stretch the opposition out of their positions. As it is know he's basically crowded out before he has even got the ball to his feet and he isn't the kind of winger that runs against his fullback.

 

The biggest reason most of our play goes down that right hand side is simply because we lack quality on the left and this makes us so unbalanced. The few times the ball goes to Dummett he ends up playing it back to a CB more often than not, and when he does manage to play it forward there's Gouffran to receive it and he isn't exactly a player that makes a nice turn and runs at people. Without Shelvey our change of possession from one side to another suffers even more as we have no one to dictate the center and spray the ball around. One way or another we need to fix that left flank so we can have some variation in the build up of our attacks. With a CM quickly getting the ball from one side to another and more quality out on the left we'd find it a lot more easy to stretch the opposition and create more clear cut chances. Would improve us so much overall, and Ritchie would look a different player as well Imo.

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Same amount of assists as Shelvey this season in the league, people being a bit harsh on him.

 

He's pretty much our only creative spark in the team without Shelvey so he is going to look worse as it is all on him. It's like the last few season really, Rafa hasn't changed much in that respect...our right side is where most of our attacking play goes down and our left side is so shit it does absolutely nothing but defend, poorly.

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I don't think he's been underwhelming at all. He always shows for the ball, nearly always takes it forward himself or looks to for others to do so. I just think creative style players, in particularly those who start well, are judged way, way differently from regular plebs who make up the team.

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:thup: he's not hitting the level he did with Bournemouth the last time he was down here but he hasn't been bad by any measure. He has more to give but unfortunately he's starting to get the Cisse treatment, so every time he miscues a pass or over-hits a corner the groans come out in full force.
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As Disco and many other have said, it really doesn't help Ritchie that our attacking force down the left hand side is non-existent

 

For a lazy comparison, see Jonas last time we were down. I'd be absolutely amazed if we're not after another wide man but in the mould of Ritchie for other wing leaving Atsu as the wildcard off the bench. Could be wrong like.

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As much as Gouffran has 'surprised' at times he's clearly not the answer and there was a reason we were trying to offload him at the start of the season. What happened to the Alan Judge rumours? He still completely fucked?

 

Back in training but still a little bit away from playing apparently, although we still hold an interest according to my Brentford supporting work colleague standing next to me.

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