Walrus
Oppressed White Male
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2008
- Messages
- 11,165
Yes Redcafe, its another thread of complaints and negativity.
To make my own positions clear; I am Ole-in, Pogba-out, and think our #1 priority this summer should be to try to sign Haaland.
Now the actual point - I am watching the game against Brighton and the thing that stands out to me is that - compared with virtually every other team in the league - we seem to have a lot of players who simply lack basic technical competence.
I am defining technical ability as things like first touch, ball control and passing. Things that you should pretty much take for granted in any professional footballer. We have too many players who are deficient in these areas. This isnt a thread about naming names or trying to blame specific players because I believe it is a problem with the entire squad, but there are certainly some more culpable than others. Fred and AWB come to mind - but again, they arent the only ones.
The result of this is that we rarely seem to score goals from well worked pieces of play. Most of our goals are either counterattacks, set pieces or individual brilliance. We struggle to maintain possession and to beat the press, because too many of our players simply arent comfortable on the ball.
If you look at basically any other team in the league, especially the midfielders and forwards, they are technically sound players, comfortable on the ball and able to do the basics with a 90%+ success rate. It isnt about being able to play a killer pass or take on 5 players, its about the basics;
* Simple 10-yard passes are too often sloppy/imprecise. This invites pressure and often kills any momentum.
* First touches when recieving the ball. Again, these are often sloppy, leading to the classic "second touch is a tackle" syndrome.
* Holding the ball under pressure. This makes us too easy to play against and spoils a lot of opportunities to counterattack - you beat a press by either crisp short passing, or by beating a man - we dont reliably do either.
I think there are some significant holes in the squad that need addressing, but in order to strengthen as a team, we need our players to be comfortable on the ball. This doesnt mean a £60m playmaker, this simply means players who can do the basics (and then presumably have some key strengths on top of this - we dont want a squad of Tom Cleverleys). Dont look at the other team teams in the league, look at the mid table sides. Look at the ~6th place sides in La Liga. You will not see so many players who are so uncomfortable on the ball as ours.
To make my own positions clear; I am Ole-in, Pogba-out, and think our #1 priority this summer should be to try to sign Haaland.
Now the actual point - I am watching the game against Brighton and the thing that stands out to me is that - compared with virtually every other team in the league - we seem to have a lot of players who simply lack basic technical competence.
I am defining technical ability as things like first touch, ball control and passing. Things that you should pretty much take for granted in any professional footballer. We have too many players who are deficient in these areas. This isnt a thread about naming names or trying to blame specific players because I believe it is a problem with the entire squad, but there are certainly some more culpable than others. Fred and AWB come to mind - but again, they arent the only ones.
The result of this is that we rarely seem to score goals from well worked pieces of play. Most of our goals are either counterattacks, set pieces or individual brilliance. We struggle to maintain possession and to beat the press, because too many of our players simply arent comfortable on the ball.
If you look at basically any other team in the league, especially the midfielders and forwards, they are technically sound players, comfortable on the ball and able to do the basics with a 90%+ success rate. It isnt about being able to play a killer pass or take on 5 players, its about the basics;
* Simple 10-yard passes are too often sloppy/imprecise. This invites pressure and often kills any momentum.
* First touches when recieving the ball. Again, these are often sloppy, leading to the classic "second touch is a tackle" syndrome.
* Holding the ball under pressure. This makes us too easy to play against and spoils a lot of opportunities to counterattack - you beat a press by either crisp short passing, or by beating a man - we dont reliably do either.
I think there are some significant holes in the squad that need addressing, but in order to strengthen as a team, we need our players to be comfortable on the ball. This doesnt mean a £60m playmaker, this simply means players who can do the basics (and then presumably have some key strengths on top of this - we dont want a squad of Tom Cleverleys). Dont look at the other team teams in the league, look at the mid table sides. Look at the ~6th place sides in La Liga. You will not see so many players who are so uncomfortable on the ball as ours.