by URZZZZ »
12 Dec 2019 10:34
Stranded URZZZZ Zip Agreed. Five at the back is too restrictive. I really want us to play authentic wingers as well.
Works with decent wingbacks. Sheffield United play it with two high flying wingback (both on the scoresheet on Sunday against Norwich)
Ours simply aren't. You can play Yiadom/Gunter/Obita/Richards or whoever you want there. More or less, you'll get the same outcome. Gunter is afraid to go forward, a non entity in that aspect. Obita can cross the ball in, but never has the chance to because he refuses to take a man on. Richards and Yiadom cut inside too much. And there's your problem. As soon as Meite came on RW, Adam picked up the ball in midfield, switched the play to him, and we were getting crosses in the box. It isn't rocket science. Why it took Bowen 75 minutes to realise it, I have no idea, really poor from him tonight
Can't disagree on the general point of that but:
Gunter isn't afraid to go forward there were at least 2 occasions in the first half yesterday where firstly he linked up really well with Puscas and got in the box before being tackled and secondly he was the only Reading player with Puscas when he took a poor touch after a bobble and couldn't shoot/square for a tap in - Gunter even gave him an ear full.
Only annoying time with Gunter yesterday was an occasion after yet another excellent Adam pass where he burst forward, suddenly stopped and passed it backwards - probably a hangover of Stam/Gomes - which ended up with the ball back with Rafael to boot forward and we lost the ball. If you look at Gunter's heatmap most of his touches were in the Barnsley half.
Overall a very disappointing performance and the tone was set in the first few mins when Obita fell over and Moore completely missed his kick and sent the ball out for a corner under no pressure. We were lucky Barnsley are total pony else we would have been 2 or 3 down at the break - as is from the moment Joao scored we probably had a 10/15 min spell where we should have scored the second - how Meite doesn't hit the target from a Baldock cross that simply had "goal" written all over it, only he'll know.
On the flipside, once that spell finished we just switched off and seemed to think we could coast to the point - very nearly coming unstuck as a result.
To be honest, whilst Barnsley aren’t great, they don’t look like a team that should have been 8 points adrift off relegation, Ive seen plenty worse teams this season
General consensus from their fans is their defence is woeful. Which, sort of, went with the flow of the game, no idea how the ball went through for our goal and how they left Meite and Joao so free for Meite’s headed chance was slightly strange
Of course, if we’d played onto their weaknesses a bit more, we could have got more from the game. Now we’re looking onto Stoke where we need a point minimum