Eddie Howe

[Gallowgate Toon]

Have we scored as many as City so far in the league? That's absolutely mad, considering context.

[KaKa]

Just now, The Butcher said:

Piss off, Kaka

 

[gbandit]

Think you need to take a break man, Butcher. Last six months? Howay, we’ve been absolutely fucked by injuries to the point we couldn’t change the team for months. Then when people come back they’re not match fit and others then get injured, it’s impossible to build any fluency.

 

Our defence is terrible, that’s not up for debate. Our shielding of the defence in midfield isn’t right either. There are massive mitigating factors but it’s also a minor concern that Howe hasn’t found any solutions. I just don’t know that there are that many solutions with the team of players we have currently. 
 

It’s almost impossible to draw proper conclusions about anything right now and anyone trying to make a strong case for anything needs to take a step back and accept that this season has been mental with many things outside of our control 

[madras]

32 minutes ago, greydos said:

Sir Eddie doesn’t believe in playing possession football for possession’s sake. I think that’s where he has to adapt going forward. Well coached possession football reduces the amount of high intensity reactive running a team has to do. It means matches are played at our intensity and not the opposition’s intensity. If games are played at your intensity, and you train for that intensity, you’re less likely to suffer injuries. 
 

it’s like in rugby where teams play France trying to keep the ball on the park to tire their massive forwards. Their forwards don’t train for high ball in time play, so they get tired and need replacing or risk getting injured. 
 

We need to control games so they’re played on our terms. Then we can conserve energy against minnows rather than go toe-to-toe to the death with Luton and the likes!

He said last season that we needed to become more possession  based, hence Tonali. Instead we've been firefighting the worst injury crisis I've known so changes are hard if not impossible le to implement.

[Thumbheed]

We need to concede less and score even more. I'd even go as far as saying we should win more games and lose less. 

 

Thank you for reading my tactical analysis - think I've covered most the points made recently.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31 by Thumbheed

[The Butcher]

Aye, I'm out

 

[Holmesy]

Just now, Theregulars said:

What selections would you have made differently and how would they have produced a preferable outcome?

Keiran Trippier went through a run of terrible form where he individually cost us goals in multiple games (possibly due to fatigue). Never even looked like being dropped despite us having a fully fit Livra on the bench, who has been one of our players of the season despite his lack of minutes.

 

Botman looked crap for ages. Never dropped despite not even being fully fit. Swap him with Burn or Lascelles and bring in a proper left full back.

 

Dan Burn has largely been a disaster for the past 4-5 months and has cost us goals individually in a good number of games. Never looked like being dropped despite us having a fully fit Livra and Hall on the bench, both of whom have looked excellent when they’ve played recently. This is the biggest head scratcher for me. When Bruce continued playing Ciaran Clark and leaving Schar on the bench people went mental. What’s the difference here?

 

This is more of a shape thing. Every set piece, we throw 9 men forward, leaving one back. This, despite having probably the slowest defence and midfield in the league. We are more threatened from our own set pieces than we are threatening - constantly. Leave more players back. We rarely score from set pieces anyway so it’s a shit risk to take - see Bowen’s goal yesterday 

 

Our midfield is cut open so easily, leaving our pedestrian back 4 totally exposed. Dropping one midfielder back to fill the gap between defence and midfield would give us loads more protection. I would suggest Longstaff given that he offers nothing from an attacking standpoint.

 

Against superior teams, sit deeper to negate our defensive fragility. Press hard when they cross the halfway line and use our pace and passing accuracy to play on the counter. 
 

Not all player-related but I also don’t think any of them would be considered crackpot suggestions.

[KaKa]

2 minutes ago, gbandit said:

Think you need to take a break man, Butcher. Last six months? Howay, we’ve been absolutely fucked by injuries to the point we couldn’t change the team for months. Then when people come back they’re not match fit and others then get injured, it’s impossible to build any fluency.

 

Our defence is terrible, that’s not up for debate. Our shielding of the defence in midfield isn’t right either. There are massive mitigating factors but it’s also a minor concern that Howe hasn’t found any solutions. I just don’t know that there are that many solutions with the team of players we have currently. 
 

It’s almost impossible to draw proper conclusions about anything right now and anyone trying to make a strong case for anything needs to take a step back and accept that this season has been mental with many things outside of our control 

 

Happy clapper!!!

 

[SUPERTOON]

5 minutes ago, gbandit said:

Think you need to take a break man, Butcher. Last six months? Howay, we’ve been absolutely fucked by injuries to the point we couldn’t change the team for months. Then when people come back they’re not match fit and others then get injured, it’s impossible to build any fluency.

 

Our defence is terrible, that’s not up for debate. Our shielding of the defence in midfield isn’t right either. There are massive mitigating factors but it’s also a minor concern that Howe hasn’t found any solutions. I just don’t know that there are that many solutions with the team of players we have currently. 
 

It’s almost impossible to draw proper conclusions about anything right now and anyone trying to make a strong case for anything needs to take a step back and accept that this season has been mental with many things outside of our control 

Agree with this, however the defence/defending is a massive concern for me. Hopefully players returning will help, but maybe that’s to simplistic.

[KaKa]

1 minute ago, Holmesy said:

Keiran Trippier went through a run of terrible form where he individually cost us goals in multiple games (possibly due to fatigue). Never even looked like being dropped despite us having a fully fit Livra on the bench, who has been one of our players of the season despite his lack of minutes.

 

Botman looked crap for ages. Never dropped despite not even being fully fit. Swap him with Burn or Lascelles and bring in a proper left full back.

 

Dan Burn has largely been a disaster for the past 4-5 months and has cost us goals individually in a good number of games. Never looked like being dropped despite us having a fully fit Livra and Hall on the bench, both of whom have looked excellent when they’ve played recently. This is the biggest head scratcher for me. When Bruce continued playing Ciaran Clark and leaving Schar on the bench people went mental. What’s the difference here?

 

This is more of a shape thing. Every set piece, we throw 9 men forward, leaving one back. This, despite having probably the slowest defence and midfield in the league. We are more threatened from our own set pieces than we are threatening - constantly. Leave more players back. We rarely score from set pieces anyway so it’s a shit risk to take - see Bowen’s goal yesterday 

 

Our midfield is cut open so easily, leaving our pedestrian back 4 totally exposed. Dropping one midfielder back to fill the gap between defence and midfield would give us loads more protection. I would suggest Longstaff given that he offers nothing from an attacking standpoint.

 

Against superior teams, sit deeper to negate our defensive fragility. Press hard when they cross the halfway line and use our pace and passing accuracy to play on the counter. 
 

Not all player-related but I also don’t think any of them would be considered crackpot suggestions.

 

The issues with our defence have mostly stemmed from the midfield missing our best presser and ball winner as well as missing our sweeper keeper.

 

This idea that the solution is simply chopping and changing people in the backline due to individual errors is awful.

[Sufi]

I’m curious how much of this injury bug is due to our style vs overtraining vs shit physio vs bad luck vs packed schedule/small squad. 
 

im sure every one of those plays some part. Idk if I’ve ever seen any team have this many injuries. I wonder what the team and training staffs philosophy is on rest and prevention etc. lots of teams in other sports incorporate flexibility and range of motion for injury prevention etc. 
 

 

 

[TBG]

Just imagine what it's going to be like when we're class.

 

Two or three games without a win? Sack Pep, and don't get me started on his assistant Diego Simmone.

 

Diego is up there with Anchelotti (the first manager to bring silverware to the club in over 60 years - League x2, Champions League x3) as one of our worst ever appointments.

 

 

Edited March 31 by TBG

[The Prophet]

[madras]

Just now, KaKa said:

 

The issues with our defence have mostly stemmed from the midfield missing our best presser and ball winner as well as missing our sweeper keeper.

 

This idea that the solution is simply chopping and changing people in the backline due to individual errors is awful.

And further forward missing players to press and keep up intensity as the game goes on like most teams look to now.

[Holmesy]

5 minutes ago, KaKa said:

 

The issues with our defence have mostly stemmed from the midfield missing our best presser and ball winner as well as missing our sweeper keeper.

 

This idea that the solution is simply chopping and changing people in the backline due to individual errors is awful.

What’s even more awful surely, is just going “well there’s not a single thing we can do about that so we’ll just accept conceding 3 goals per game”?!
At least fucking try to stop us conceding FFS! Do something! 
Of course Joelinton is a huge miss, but if one player missing renders our whole defensive game plan useless, it’s a pretty sketchy plan to start with, right?! 

[Shearergol]

1 minute ago, Holmesy said:

What’s even more awful surely, is just going “well there’s not a single thing we can do about that so we’ll just accept conceding 3 goals per game”?!
At least fucking try to stop us conceding FFS! Do something! 
Of course Joelinton is a huge miss, but if one player missing renders our whole defensive game plan useless, it’s a pretty sketchy plan to start with, right?! 

Scoring 4 when conceding 3 is a decent way of winning games 

[astraguy]

looks like miggy is fucked now,unless i missed willock getting injured 

 

[Holmesy]

4 minutes ago, Shearergol said:

Scoring 4 when conceding 3 is a decent way of winning games 

Name one team that has won a cup or league in the past day 20 years conceding an average of 3 goals per game? 

[TBG]

8 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

 but if one player missing renders our whole defensive game plan useless, 

 

Are we forgetting or conveniently leaving out the amount of injuries we've had to our defence?

 

Apologies if I'm wrong, just I can't remember many pre match line ups including a defence of

 

                      Dubs

    Murphy Schar Burn Hall

 

 

Edited March 31 by TBG

[Pablo]

Some cracking to and from comments this afternoon. I think we all need to remember we aren’t the only team trying to win every time we play. Our opposition also have a squad of 25 and who knows how many coaches, sports scientists, physios, analysts etc. Our opponents might be richer than us, they might have less injuries ans they might have a stronger bench. They might have a player who has a season defining performance, and they may have worked out how to exploit a weakness in our system caused by a savage injury list. There players might be good at game management, cheating and off the ball fouls. They might play for Luton on a relatively low wage fighting for their financial future.

We have no right to beat anyone on any given day, we have to work our socks off and take our moments. As the club progresses so will the squad and we will have a stronger first team, bench and more experienced coaching g set up.

in spite of all of the above, the injury and fixture list this year have been crippling, and we are probably overachieving based on every metric except net spend over the past 5 transfer windows.

[nufc123]

27 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

This is more of a shape thing. Every set piece, we throw 9 men forward, leaving one back. This, despite having probably the slowest defence and midfield in the league. We are more threatened from our own set pieces than we are threatening - constantly. Leave more players back. We rarely score from set pieces anyway so it’s a shit risk to take - see Bowen’s goal yesterday 

This is actually a good point. Lost count for how many times this has caused us problems. 

[ShootShoot]

11 minutes ago, Shearergol said:

Scoring 4 when conceding 3 is a decent way of winning games 

Not conceding 3 in the first place is the better way to go

[Weezertron]

Next season I’d like him to improve our defensive record and also manage our injuries better through increased rotation/better medical staff. 
 

 

[KaKa]

14 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

What’s even more awful surely, is just going “well there’s not a single thing we can do about that so we’ll just accept conceding 3 goals per game”?!
At least fucking try to stop us conceding FFS! Do something! 
Of course Joelinton is a huge miss, but if one player missing renders our whole defensive game plan useless, it’s a pretty sketchy plan to start with, right?! 

 

You've seemingly convinced yourself he isn't doing anything, because you think it's as easy as just changing something and everything starts working perfectly.

 

Howe himself came out and spoke about how they make adjustments every game after the Wolves game when Gary O'Neil made that cheeky comment.

 

Just because it isn't as obvious as dropping any player that makes an error, doesn't mean nothing is being done.

[Holmesy]

10 minutes ago, Pablo said:

Some cracking to and from comments this afternoon. I think we all need to remember we aren’t the only team trying to win every time we play. Our opposition also have a squad of 25 and who knows how many coaches, sports scientists, physios, analysts etc. Our opponents might be richer than us, they might have less injuries ans they might have a stronger bench. They might have a player who has a season defining performance, and they may have worked out how to exploit a weakness in our system caused by a savage injury list. There players might be good at game management, cheating and off the ball fouls. They might play for Luton on a relatively low wage fighting for their financial future.

We have no right to beat anyone on any given day, we have to work our socks off and take our moments. As the club progresses so will the squad and we will have a stronger first team, bench and more experienced coaching g set up.

in spite of all of the above, the injury and fixture list this year have been crippling, and we are probably overachieving based on every metric except net spend over the past 5 transfer windows.

You’re absolutely spot on, but also remember this is the pinnacle of club football. The elitist of elite sport.

We should b making these analysts have to really earn their money to come up with a plan for creating chances against us, let alone scoring. 

For the past few months, leaving a pacey player on the halfway line when we have a set piece will get you chances. As will putting your fastest player on the right wing and continually  running at Dan Burn. The effectiveness of a plan as simple as that should leave our entire supporter-base horrified, but most seem ok with it. Honestly, some of the shithouse managers we’ve had made it harder for them. 

Our only saving grace is how good we are going forward (and Eddie deserves as much praise for that as he does criticism for making us so easy to score against).

 

 

Edited March 31 by Holmesy