Midfield

[Guest SmileyCulture]

One thing iv'e noticed quite a bit is almost everytime we loose a game and most times when we win/draw we put most of our bad luck down to the defense, yes our defense is poor at the moment. Even full strength they are a mid-table defense at best at the moment (atleast until our younger lads get a little more experiance) but one thing that is regularly overlooked is our midfeild.

 

We play a very strange kind of football, we don't have any real shape and our style drifts between a poor attempt at a arsenal-esque style, trying to pass the ball from the back slowly building toward the oposing half (which doesn't work because most of our players can't pass at times!), a "hoof it and hope" style where someone picks the ball up at the back and just fires it up the pitch hoping for someone to take it down and do something with it and finnaly we try just feeding it out to the milner hoping he can take it 45 yards and cross it.

 

Some may disagree with that statement but personaly i think it pretty much sums up the team right now, anyway..

 

Most of these styles work for very attacking teams that have their team custom-built, drilled and experianced for playing either of the above styles of football (Arsenal being a prime example, any other style of play other than the afore mentioned and they look like mugs.) where as at the moment we really haven't seemed to adopted any kind of system - although this keeps the opposition guessing, it also keeps the rest of the team guessing. Anyway, back to the point i'm trying to make...

 

Basicaly i think our defense looks alot worse because of the amount of exposure they get to the opposing sides attacks, most teams no matter what system and/or style they play have a midfeild that will put in the tackles in midfeild or failing that they will track back and help cover the defense, mainly trying to hold the play up in midfeild while they attempt to regain possession, as for us.. it seem's we have a very open midfeild, were either attacking or our defense is getting hammerd.

 

I'm not making excuses for our defense but its fairly obvious that if the midfeild went the extra mile to put the tackles in, keep possession and hold play up in midfeild our defense would look infinately better when it did come to them having to put the tackles it.

 

Just my opinion, take it or leave it.

[Shearer9]

All of that has some truth with it, but I think the defense is rightly hated because of the total inability to do the most basic things, such as show technical skill on the ball, letting high balls bounce, putting in little effort, and an inability to communicate.  Despite the fact that a defense can be exposed, you can still judge players by what they do on the ball. 

[Howaythelads]

I agree with most of it, but I think it really starts at the front. If the front men can't hold up the ball it just keeps on coming back. It's a team thing, you need some kind of shape when you lose the ball. Headless chickens who produce nowt but graft aren't good enough.

[Lloydie]

It's a bit of both. One thing to note is that since we've been playing the kids at the back the fullbacks have been under orders to be a lot more cautious, and our wingers have been told to pay more attention to covering them.

 

So when we're going forward the wingers aren't getting the overlaps / support they want and the forwards are often stuck without anyone to pass to out wide.  The rest (balls bouncing etc.) I think can be put down to a lack of experience.

 

This has also got to be about the worst time to be making your debuts. You want to come into a winning team where there are pleny of experienced players around to support you. Instead we've chucked the kids into high pressure games, often against top class teams , and it must be wierd to be in the centre of defence, look left, look right and think you're in an academy game, then look up and see Robben, Drogba and 50 000 supporters...

[NUFC06]

I think when Parker is in form he produce some amazing tackles all over the field and i think thats his strongest quality+Butt plays this season almost every game and with Parker somethimes they produce really quality,strong midfield from a defensive point of view.On the other hand when it comes to attacking,well i dont want to say this but sometimes we cant pass the ball 3-4 times,forget building some meaningful attack.For example the first 20-30min against West Ham we were absolutely in no mans land.I think that in some games we play good one touch football,alot of movement,alot of pace,good combinations,but sometimes we really dont know what to do or how to attack.Sometimes we look really disorganized,alot of panic everywhere especially our defence and i dont refer just now.I think that this is all to the manager,its his job to create some sort of style of play,is it going to be passing football,always kick to ball to the forwards and what happens...

For me i want our team to have style of play and to try to improve every game.I think when SBR was in charge we had that.Back then we used to play very attacking,aggresing football and it was nice to watch.Right now weare too inconsistent and every game we dont know what to expect from  our style of play.IMO we should play or at least try to play passing football,our defence to try and get the ball through the midfield and then to build the attack,not to kick away every time the ball.I think right now the only player who is trying to build some attacks through some passing is Nobby but we can expect that from him

 

So the bottom line is that it all depends from the manager...

[tmonkey]

I think the Parker Butt partnership has looked woeful the few times its been played now. On paper, its like a brick wall, extremely strong tackling. But on the pitch, they seem to provide poor cover when together. Probably a case of two different style players who like to play in the same position getting in each others' way, with both not being able to play their game. The opposite of the Lampard Gerrard partnership so to speak - on paper, youd think one great goalscoring midfielder plus another one would equal double the attacking threat, but in reality its ends up negating both players' game.

 

I think we definately need to sign another centre mid, without breaking the bank for him since we need to invest heavily in other areas. Duscher on a free next summer would do nicely.

[Menace]

All of that and you couldn't even spell midfield.

[Guest SmileyCulture]

haha i was pulling a late one, posted just before i got to sleep (7am)

[Lenny]

I think that our style of football is likely to be erratic in that sense because our team is changing all the time, due to injury problems players are playing where they can. If the majority of our players were back then i guess we'd be in a better position to judge our style of football. I think if players like Emre, Dyer and Duff can be on top form then we would have quite an attractive style of play. The defence would still be shit though!

[Howaythelads]

I think the Parker Butt partnership has looked woeful the few times its been played now. On paper, its like a brick wall, extremely strong tackling. But on the pitch, they seem to provide poor cover when together. Probably a case of two different style players who like to play in the same position getting in each others' way, with both not being able to play their game. The opposite of the Lampard Gerrard partnership so to speak - on paper, youd think one great goalscoring midfielder plus another one would equal double the attacking threat, but in reality its ends up negating both players' game.

 

I think we definately need to sign another centre mid, without breaking the bank for him since we need to invest heavily in other areas. Duscher on a free next summer would do nicely.

 

 

 

I'll wait for the usual suspects to tell you why the club shouldn't be spending any money at all, let alone "investing heavily."

[toptoon]

We have some top quality players in depth in our midfield, i'd stick with Parker and Emre personally, Parker in a defensive role and Emre more forward creating.

 

 

Dyer  Parker  Emre  Duff    When we get Owen back i'd start with these four (untill then its Dyer and Martins up top imo and Milner on the RW) and if anyone's not up to it we have Butt and Zoggy too!

[Northern Monkey]

We have some top quality players in depth in our midfield, i'd stick with Parker and Emre personally, Parker in a defensive role and Emre more forward creating.

 

 

Dyer   Parker   Emre   Duff     When we get Owen back i'd start with these four (untill then its Dyer and Martins up top imo and Milner on the RW) and if anyone's not up to it we have Butt and Zoggy too!

 

No crosses from the right, then.

[toptoon]

??Nobby playing at RB can supply them along with whoever is playing on the RW, i.e. Dyer or Milner. Dyer likes to run at players more which i like as he can create big problems for opposition defences, pulling players out of position. Dyer though has to play up front for me at the moment, due to Owen's absence, so its down to our best player over the last month or so Milner to provide the crosses and to bag a few himself. Once we get Zoggy playing well again we have the option of putting Duff on the RW too.

[Guest Moe-Ali]

Very good thread Smiley, i agree with you also.

[Guest Jangles]

Part of the problem is that at the moment whoever we play on the left is simply making up the numbers - from what Ive seen neither Pattison or O'Brien are premiership players, they dont offer much going forward or in helping the left back. Im not a fan of Luque but we've tried the alternatives and theyre not up to scratch so give him a chance until Duff/Zoggy is fit.

 

Milner is pretty much undroppable on the right at the moment seeing as hes providing almost all of our attacking options on his own.

 

Another problem is our central midfield partnership, none of the options has worked particularly well but personally I feel the Butt Emre partnership is the best we've got (Parker Emre doesnt seem to work nor does Butt Parker). Dyer's running is much more effective further up the pitch and I think playing Dyer and Martins upfront would create more space for Emre to run into as defences drop deep. This means that the long ball should be avoided at all costs and the midfield needs to give the defence options so they dont have to hoof it long