Our play is twofold
Our play at the moment basically can be broken down into two areas, one counter attack football and two breaking play high up the pitch to attack quickly.
Defensively we are not strong enough at the moment but we are set up to defend and then counter attack, however we have no pace in the side. Our counter attacks have to therefore be through speed of movement of the ball, the passing has to be fast and accurate. It is that skill that we are struggling with in midfield and why Mason has been brought in.
Capoue is one paced and is a better box-to-box midfielder than he is an out-and-out defensive midfielder, the role we are using him in at the moment. Our midfield passing broke down on too many occasions, we were certainly more direct than usual so that's a positive but the passes were just too hard, just to far ahead, just unable to be taken in stride, it was all just off.
When we have the opportunity, and you have to pick your moments, then we high press and swiftly attack from deep inside the opposition half. Our goal was a case in point. Mason saw an opportunity and robbed the City guy, we suddenly had three on two, again thanks to Mason's intelligent run to Soldado's left ensuring the defenders couldn't move across to cover Eriksen.
His role went unseen, it was more than just a tackle and that shows a player worth persevering with, mentally there is something there to go with the skill.
With both Eriksen and Lamela in the side the midfield looks lightweight, skillful but lightweight. There were players passing ball to a team mate who was in no better position they they were, passing responsibility on to them.
There was an incident approximately 10 seconds before 32 minutes when we had 4 men go for the same ball which the City man flicked forward over their heads, all 4 were now out the game playing catch-up. That's a lack of clear head thinking, it's panic thinking and panic thinking is no good when you need to pass the ball at speed.
This is where you separate the men from the boys, players with equal talent can be on different planes simply through mentality, not enough of ours are mentally good enough to play the way we want to the level we want.
Our high press can be effective, we have seen it but have we seen the quick attack from the back through passing lead to a goals yet? We get a point where we seem to want to lay a Hollywood ball, that gets cut out or are slow in moving the ball, we are incredibly slow moving the ball wide for overlapping full-backs.
I look forward to getting a look at Stambouli in midfield alongside Mason but we need competition for the central midfield attacking role, which presumably means competition for a wide berth thus having Lamela and Eriksen fight over the same berth.
Defensively we are not strong enough at the moment but we are set up to defend and then counter attack, however we have no pace in the side. Our counter attacks have to therefore be through speed of movement of the ball, the passing has to be fast and accurate. It is that skill that we are struggling with in midfield and why Mason has been brought in.
Capoue is one paced and is a better box-to-box midfielder than he is an out-and-out defensive midfielder, the role we are using him in at the moment. Our midfield passing broke down on too many occasions, we were certainly more direct than usual so that's a positive but the passes were just too hard, just to far ahead, just unable to be taken in stride, it was all just off.
When we have the opportunity, and you have to pick your moments, then we high press and swiftly attack from deep inside the opposition half. Our goal was a case in point. Mason saw an opportunity and robbed the City guy, we suddenly had three on two, again thanks to Mason's intelligent run to Soldado's left ensuring the defenders couldn't move across to cover Eriksen.
His role went unseen, it was more than just a tackle and that shows a player worth persevering with, mentally there is something there to go with the skill.
With both Eriksen and Lamela in the side the midfield looks lightweight, skillful but lightweight. There were players passing ball to a team mate who was in no better position they they were, passing responsibility on to them.
There was an incident approximately 10 seconds before 32 minutes when we had 4 men go for the same ball which the City man flicked forward over their heads, all 4 were now out the game playing catch-up. That's a lack of clear head thinking, it's panic thinking and panic thinking is no good when you need to pass the ball at speed.
This is where you separate the men from the boys, players with equal talent can be on different planes simply through mentality, not enough of ours are mentally good enough to play the way we want to the level we want.
Our high press can be effective, we have seen it but have we seen the quick attack from the back through passing lead to a goals yet? We get a point where we seem to want to lay a Hollywood ball, that gets cut out or are slow in moving the ball, we are incredibly slow moving the ball wide for overlapping full-backs.
I look forward to getting a look at Stambouli in midfield alongside Mason but we need competition for the central midfield attacking role, which presumably means competition for a wide berth thus having Lamela and Eriksen fight over the same berth.
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