Back From The Game - Sheff Utd (H)

[handbags_harris]

mm ok..

Did you see our centre backs backing off every single time the opposition midfield bought the ball forward?

They sprayed it out wide or had a shot due to the total lack of pressure..

It led to 2 goals

You must have seen it

I maintain that today it wasn't down to the personnel deployed, it was solely down to one man - the manager (with a helping hand or two from Federici).

[chilipepper91]

The minute the team was announced, I tried to work out in my mind how this team was going to work. 5-3-2, Cissé at centre-back? 4-5-1, Tabb and Hunt on the wings? 4-4-2, Tabb and Siggy on the wings? Nope, a 4-4-2 diamond, with 4 central midfielders, and absolutely no width. Ok, at least we'll dominate the middle of the park. Nope, every time they got the ball they looked dangerous.

First half, we were alright. Knocked it around nicely, a few good chances, and 1-0 up everything was peachy. Then the inevitable lapse of concentration only inexperience can bring, and it's 1-1, and the game was slipping away.

Second half, we were found out. All they did was knock it wide every time, knowing we had absolutely no width. Sure, their second goal was a Federici mistake, but where was the closing down? Same for the third?

The problem I had with today was that every time, we tried to play it out wide. Despite the fact that anybody could see that our only wide players were our wing-backs. There was nobody even remotely in a wing position to support Bertrand and Rosenior. We looked more dangerous, for sure, but we also conceded 3 goals in open play.

Ratings...

Federici - 4 - Distribution OK, 2nd goal was obvious mistake, maybe that knocked his confidence for the 3rd.
Rosenior - 5 - Did an OK job. Might have been at fault for their first.
Mills - 4 - Turned in the first minute, poor defensively, looked good passing. Scored, though that doesn't boost his mark.
Pearce - 6 - One of 4 players who, I thought, actually looked up to the job today. Competent on the ball.
Bertrand - 6 - Good attacking, worse defending. 2 good runs.
Karacan - 6 - Good in possession, cleaned up well.
Cissé - 3 - I don't remember a significant contribution.
Tabb - 7 - Always ran, good tackles, good passes. MOTM.
Sigurdsson - 5 - Apart from "that" shot, didn't really do anything.
Hunt - 5 - Ran a bit.
Long - 4 - Ran a bit less.

Subs:
Church - 3 - See Cissé.
Harper - 4 - Waved his arms a bit.

Tactics: 2 - Once they'd figured us out, it was all over.

[The whole year inn]

Bikey - £2.8m
Mills - £2.0m

Murked.

& the fools on here were happy to see Bikey go

Bikey certainly would not have let the opposition play around with the ball like they did today

Bikey is a proper defender that would have got stuck in and tackled

[Gilksey]

can anyone tell me why the oxf*rd we started the game without a winger on the pitch?..Bullivant MK fooking 2

Can anyone tell me why Cisse plays in midfield, the guy is teriible whenever plays there? Picking him on the right side of a midfield diamond was the management of a crackpot. Get it sorted out Rodgers.

I think you're missing the point of the diamond. It's a narrow formation with a holding midfielder (Karacan), two, I suppose orthodox central midfielders playing as though they'd be in a regular 4-4-2 (Tabb and Cisse), and a man just behind the front two (Sigurdsson). The fact that Cisse played on the right side of that central pairing is by the by. He wasn't deployed as a wide player.

The point I was making was that Cisse is garbage when he plays in the centre of midfield as well, so moving him to the right of the diamond was crackers. Tabb has the abiity to make that position work on the left side, by moving from in to out, linked up well with Bertrand on occasions.

[handbags_harris]

Tactics: 2 - Once they'd figured us out, it was all over.

Fcuk me, that's generous. I'd put it down on a par with Southampton's points total.

[chilipepper91]

Tactics: 2 - Once they'd figured us out, it was all over.

Fcuk me, that's generous. I'd put it down on a par with Southampton's points total.

The 2 marks came from the fact that before they figured out that all they had to do was put a ball down the wing, we were 1-0 up, and *heaven forbid* comfortable.

[dean horrix legend]

Men against boys.

This team has some potential but that's all it is. If it isn't added to they will be relegated.

They play well in parts but as soon as they go behind, they are finished. They lack the experience and maturity to cope. Sadly the ones with experience at this level, like Long and Rosenior are left overs on the shelf that no one wants in the firesale and aren't going to help.

The club currently has no abition beyond being financially stable, and having a top notch hotel.

You have hit the nail on the head schards.Rosenior is League one at best.

[dean horrix legend]

It's been mentioned before in this thread but why has Mooney not been given a chance?He has at least experience of this division and has shown he can score at this level,Church has neither and has started and come on as sub,I and my mates don't understand this at all!!

any ideas?

[Royal Lady]

Ask Royalee he seems to know everything.

[Pablo]

The minute the team was announced, I tried to work out in my mind how this team was going to work. 5-3-2, Cissé at centre-back? 4-5-1, Tabb and Hunt on the wings? 4-4-2, Tabb and Siggy on the wings? Nope, a 4-4-2 diamond, with 4 central midfielders, and absolutely no width. Ok, at least we'll dominate the middle of the park. Nope, every time they got the ball they looked dangerous.

First half, we were alright. Knocked it around nicely, a few good chances, and 1-0 up everything was peachy. Then the inevitable lapse of concentration only inexperience can bring, and it's 1-1, and the game was slipping away.

Second half, we were found out. All they did was knock it wide every time, knowing we had absolutely no width. Sure, their second goal was a Federici mistake, but where was the closing down? Same for the third?

The problem I had with today was that every time, we tried to play it out wide. Despite the fact that anybody could see that our only wide players were our wing-backs. There was nobody even remotely in a wing position to support Bertrand and Rosenior. We looked more dangerous, for sure, but we also conceded 3 goals in open play.

Ratings...

Federici - 4 - Distribution OK, 2nd goal was obvious mistake, maybe that knocked his confidence for the 3rd.
Rosenior - 5 - Did an OK job. Might have been at fault for their first.
Mills - 4 - Turned in the first minute, poor defensively, looked good passing. Scored, though that doesn't boost his mark.
Pearce - 6 - One of 4 players who, I thought, actually looked up to the job today. Competent on the ball.
Bertrand - 6 - Good attacking, worse defending. 2 good runs.
Karacan - 6 - Good in possession, cleaned up well.
Cissé - 3 - I don't remember a significant contribution.
Tabb - 7 - Always ran, good tackles, good passes. MOTM.
Sigurdsson - 5 - Apart from "that" shot, didn't really do anything.
Hunt - 5 - Ran a bit.
Long - 4 - Ran a bit less.

Subs:
Church - 3 - See Cissé.
Harper - 4 - Waved his arms a bit.

Tactics: 2 - Once they'd figured us out, it was all over.

How can you say that Sigurdsson didnt really do anyhing apart from that shot!

From Readingfc.co.uk:
We won a free kick wide on the left hand side, and Gylfi Sigurdsson, making his first League appearance for the club, whipped in a very good set piece, and Matthew Mills got himself free to head home from close range.

There was a real melee inside the box, and Sigurdsson showed great skill to dance some space while Noel Hunt looked to have a strong penalty claum but nothing was given.

Just before the half hour the Blades survived another close thing in their box, Sigurdsson´s flicked header very nearly finding a teammate as it rolled wide past the post.

The Royals then began to take control again, and Sigurdsson was at the heart of our best play with som great trickery and two good feet on his League bow.

On 57 minutes he was only a few inches from a superb goal, cutting inside his man but grazing the outside of the post from 22 yards; the ´keeper beaten.

[rotherwick_royal]

Good performance I thought.

Sadly though the youngsters have little chance of gaining any confidence because of the inbred morons who call themselves RFC fans.

Absolutely, nothing to do with cr@p players/performance/tactics, it must be the fan's fault

[Man Friday]

Look at the stats - we're supposed to be the home team. European style football? What with 45% possession?

[wolsey]

Good performance I thought.

Sadly though the youngsters have little chance of gaining any confidence because of the inbred morons who call themselves RFC fans.

Absolutely, nothing to do with cr@p players/performance/tactics, it must be the fan's fault

Look at the stats - we're supposed to be the home team. European style football? What with 45% possession?

Too many players are only "fringe player"-material, yet we are relying on them for the starting XI.
Clearly this is not good enough. And the tactics are a joke.

One of the problems of employing a Manager with the selling skills and the Contractual Integrety
of a Tenerife Time Share Salesman

[Wycombe Royal]

Someone tell me how the hell Matejovsky is apparently "surplus to requirements" when we're playing a style of footy that has an attacking midfielder supposedly just behind attack

Who says he is surplus to requirements? This is a direct quote from Brendan Rodgers a couple of days ago:

"In terms of other injuries Marek is ongoing, still trying to regain full fitness but is training well. He's got a little niggle but we hope he'll soon be up to full speed.

I hope that puts all the Matejovsky consiracy theories to bed......

[yuomi]

Bringing on a pair of unproven kids .

They are not kids!! Our kids are the U15's.

Scott Davies has close to 100 first team games under his belt! He is a reserve team player, by no means a kid

+1. none of these guys are, by anyone except for our slightly bizarre definition, kids. pato is a kid. these boys are reserves. and it shows.

[winchester_royal]

Good performance I thought.

Sadly though the youngsters have little chance of gaining any confidence because of the inbred morons who call themselves RFC fans.

Absolutely, nothing to do with cr@p players/performance/tactics, it must be the fan's fault

I'd call you a cretin, but with your apparent lack of intelligence I doubt you know what it means.

[The Quiet Man]

I thought that today's performance was an improvement on what has gone before as BR now seems to have realised that we need to play a more direct game and that he needs more of his experienced players on the pitch. The diamond worked pretty well against Sheff utd but the game was lost by Federici's howler which gave the blades an undeserved goal and knocked the stuffing out of our team. However the bench looked weak and there wasn't really a game changing option for the last 20 minutes.

Priority for RFC - a forward who can hold the ball up and another fit striker with some pace (Hunt is not match fit and lacks the legs to be effective at present). Judging by the offical site BR is now offering up his veiled opinion as to the amount of money that needs to be spent in a slightly more obvious way than SC - I'm now expecting to hear that the manager has money to spend lets hope god's gift to directors of football can now get his finger out and bring in the targets. Only 44 to go.

[Royalwaster]

Wait for all the other teams with any players worth selling putting up their price by at least a million .... we've got money to spend after all haven't we?

[weybridgewanderer]

I thought that today's performance was an improvement on what has gone before as BR now seems to have realised that we need to play a more direct game and that he needs more of his experienced players on the pitch. The diamond worked pretty well against Sheff utd but the game was lost by Federici's howler which gave the blades an undeserved goal and knocked the stuffing out of our team. However the bench looked weak and there wasn't really a game changing option for the last 20 minutes.

sorry but the diamond only worked pretty well for 30 minutes

then sheffield worked it out and it was pretty much one way traffic.

feds was at fault for number 2 but they were unlucky to have had onr disallowed by then and defended what they had after.

had feds not conceded that goal i still think sheffield had more and would have won

[North Somerset Royal]

Someone commented early on that it was men against boys and I think that was spot on. In truth for all the fancy passing we never created a single chance after the goal. It shows how bad things are when even BBC RB are criticising the club. I am all for developing the young talent but as Mick gooding said today good managers like Ferguson introduce youngsters gradually not by making wholesale changes. The fact that a fit Marek was not even on the bench shows that the club or Rodgers are hell bent on marginalising the senior pros presumably in the hope that they then seek a move.