City slickers
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:58 pm
Well that went pretty much as expected. When seen close up, you do appreciate what a completely different planet of football City's players live on. Their speed of thought, movement and passing is something else. But is this just innate skill or coaching and set-up too?
I wasn't overly impressed with our tactics. Obika and Holmes wasted a lot of energy harrying City's centre backs when they built from the back (which was all game), but since our other players didn't join in the press it was very easy for them to just pass round us. Contrast with when Mitchell rolled the ball out to Nelson, and City were tight to every single one of our players, meaning we had to resort to going long straight away from about 20 mins in. I understand that we didn't want to commit too many players forward when not in possession, but why bother pressing high at all in that case? Why not let them get to the halfway line then get in their faces and save energy? Also, we seemed so scared that their wide players would skin our fullbacks that we didn't bother marking them at all! That long diagonal to Mahrez was a very impressive ball played very accurately, but surely a change in Garbutt's positioning could have stopped it.
I also wish we'd shown a little more ambition when we did have the ball. On the few occasions that we ran at City we did actually cause them some problems, But what do I know? The fact that there was only one goal in it with 15 minutes to go shows that the tactics worked to a degree, and when we did then go more gung-ho with two up front and long throw-ins etc we quickly shipped two clinical goals on the counter. But it all reminded me a bit of that FA Cup defeat at Highbury when Atkins set us up not to lose too heavily.
Hard to rate individuals on a night like that, but that was my first look at Hanson and I wasn't very impressed. Brannigan looks better (ie less of a liability!) further forward, but didn't really get into the game much for obvious reasons before he went off injured. Obika missed a sitter (albeit he was offside), and should have got a cross in late on when free on the right, but he worked hard and won some impressive balls and retained possession against some very, very good defenders. Baptiste is some find isn't he? I fear he won't be with us for long, but let's enjoy it while it lasts. I got a bit fed up of Mitchell kicking goal kicks straight off the side of the pitch.
The crowd sounded good when they got going, but were a bit subdued for long periods, mainly thanks to our cagey tactics I think. Shame the South Stand didn't get the memo about the sea of yellow! Was I the only one that got a bit bored of the anti-Kassam chants?
That was my first evening home game for a while, and I was surprised to see the floodlights looking so bright. I read somewhere that they're not in fact broken, but we choose to only turn some of them on to save money usually. Clearly the eyes of the world were worth the extra few quid last night...
I wasn't overly impressed with our tactics. Obika and Holmes wasted a lot of energy harrying City's centre backs when they built from the back (which was all game), but since our other players didn't join in the press it was very easy for them to just pass round us. Contrast with when Mitchell rolled the ball out to Nelson, and City were tight to every single one of our players, meaning we had to resort to going long straight away from about 20 mins in. I understand that we didn't want to commit too many players forward when not in possession, but why bother pressing high at all in that case? Why not let them get to the halfway line then get in their faces and save energy? Also, we seemed so scared that their wide players would skin our fullbacks that we didn't bother marking them at all! That long diagonal to Mahrez was a very impressive ball played very accurately, but surely a change in Garbutt's positioning could have stopped it.
I also wish we'd shown a little more ambition when we did have the ball. On the few occasions that we ran at City we did actually cause them some problems, But what do I know? The fact that there was only one goal in it with 15 minutes to go shows that the tactics worked to a degree, and when we did then go more gung-ho with two up front and long throw-ins etc we quickly shipped two clinical goals on the counter. But it all reminded me a bit of that FA Cup defeat at Highbury when Atkins set us up not to lose too heavily.
Hard to rate individuals on a night like that, but that was my first look at Hanson and I wasn't very impressed. Brannigan looks better (ie less of a liability!) further forward, but didn't really get into the game much for obvious reasons before he went off injured. Obika missed a sitter (albeit he was offside), and should have got a cross in late on when free on the right, but he worked hard and won some impressive balls and retained possession against some very, very good defenders. Baptiste is some find isn't he? I fear he won't be with us for long, but let's enjoy it while it lasts. I got a bit fed up of Mitchell kicking goal kicks straight off the side of the pitch.
The crowd sounded good when they got going, but were a bit subdued for long periods, mainly thanks to our cagey tactics I think. Shame the South Stand didn't get the memo about the sea of yellow! Was I the only one that got a bit bored of the anti-Kassam chants?
That was my first evening home game for a while, and I was surprised to see the floodlights looking so bright. I read somewhere that they're not in fact broken, but we choose to only turn some of them on to save money usually. Clearly the eyes of the world were worth the extra few quid last night...