Sean Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 A year today that he joined the club. Hopefully the next years are easier for him! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richinspain Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 A "Matt Smith type" striker would have exactly the same problem as our current strikers. If the ball is crossed to the space five yards beyond the back post and three yards behind the line then he's not going to score many goals. Our crossing, generally, is very poor. All of our "wingers" and full backs have put some excellent crosses in and our strikers have all scored goals with their head (or back in Chrissie's case), but for the number of excellent positions we get in it's a very small percentage that result in chances. A big striker in our current mode would only be dangerous from set plays, when we already send up all the big defenders anyway. As for flick-ons, who would they be to? Both Martin and Waghorn have won some aerial duels, but they have to direct the ball backwards to an oncoming midfielder because there isn't a second striker running off them and the wingers are too deep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamworthram Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 46 minutes ago, Black ('n' White) Sheep said: I love Cocu's brand of football and what he's trying to do... 90% of the time it's brilliant to watch. The things that frustrate me at the minute are: a) trying to defend 1 goal leads from 80mins onwards b) the lack of a 'Plan B'... as we saw yesterday, we were never going to break F*rest down by passing it around them. It'd be nice to have a 'Matt Smith type striker' who we could bring off the bench to offer something completely different against those kinds of teams. Our goal seemed to come from plan B. A long free kick punt into the penalty area albeit forced upon us due to time running out. Reminded me of a Hail Marry (I think that's what they call them) in American Football. Lob it in there and see what happens. Not something you want to see too often but sometimes it's worth a go although I suspect the success rate is very low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracell Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 12 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said: Trouble is most of our crosses and long balls (including from the keeper) got nowhere near the man most able to head the ball well ie Martin. Not sure what good having a slightly taller version would do for us. ? Always thought that we're at our worst when we send anything above chest height to Martin. He's not particularly good at jumping and more likely to fall that win a header vs a CB. Martin just absolutely comes to life when the ball is at his feet. Facing goal, back to goal, it doesn't matter. Is there a player in the league with a better touch? He's a play maker in centreforward's clothing. Forest sense this danger yesterday and snuffed him out. You could tell it got to him because when he was forced into deeper positions, his touch and vision eluded him, so I think it was frustration coming out a little bit. If we could get an understanding going between Martin and Sibley, the latter would score as much as Bryson in 13/14 and we wouldn't have to think of going anywhere near Martin's head! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyMac5 Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 25 minutes ago, Duracell said: Always thought that we're at our worst when we send anything above chest height to Martin. He's not particularly good at jumping and more likely to fall that win a header vs a CB. ...and we wouldn't have to think of going anywhere near Martin's head! I disagree with you. But we don't play that way anyway out of choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Contain Nuts Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 Here's a pretty useless stat comparison Chris Martin: 133 goals of which 24 have been headers Matt Smith: 78 goals of which 46 have been headers. https://www.statbunker.com/players/getPlayerStats?player_id=20781 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IslandExile Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 So after all the gushing praise for Cocu with the second half of the season, two poor performances against Forest and WBA have brought all the Cocu detractors out again. Never mind the injuries and suspensions, we should be playing these top teams off the pitch with what's left of our squad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jourdan Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 9 minutes ago, IslandExile said: So after all the gushing praise for Cocu with the second half of the season, two poor performances against Forest and WBA have brought all the Cocu detractors out again. Never mind the injuries and suspensions, we should be playing these top teams off the pitch with what's left of our squad. Who has said we should be playing teams like WBA off the park? Some people are frustrated that we didn’t compete whatsoever in the previous two games. A few openings. A shot on target. Some nice passages of play. A more flexible approach if it’s not working. Something to take encouragement from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abu Dhabi Ram Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 2 hours ago, Jourdan said: Who has said we should be playing teams like WBA off the park? Some people are frustrated that we didn’t compete whatsoever in the previous two games. A few openings. A shot on target. Some nice passages of play. A more flexible approach if it’s not working. Something to take encouragement from. We did create some openings last night, Bogles cross, Holmes in the box, twice, we just didn’t make the most them/poor final ball. Martin had a poor game, not blaming him, but even under Mac, if he had a poor game we lost. It happens. That is just the difference between the top and us at the moment, they had far better attacking options. The Forest game was more disappointing for me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nottingram Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 3 hours ago, Jourdan said: Who has said we should be playing teams like WBA off the park? Some people are frustrated that we didn’t compete whatsoever in the previous two games. A few openings. A shot on target. Some nice passages of play. A more flexible approach if it’s not working. Something to take encouragement from. Saying we didn’t compete in a game we drew is a new one. We weren’t good but to say we didn’t compete is plain wrong. Yesterday we weren’t very good again, but we are down to the bare bones and WBA are a good side. Who knows if Holmes hadn’t taken 10 years to shoot early on the game might have been different. After that we lost our way and the early goal, which was a great goal, knocked the confidence of a young team. It happens and it’s why they are being blooded now. Frustrates me that all it has taken is a draw and a loss against good teams for the same questions to be asked of the manager and the team. It’s all a learning process. Think of the debuts this season, think of the team last night. Was essentially an U23’s team, if even half of them make it at this level we will save / make ourselves tens of millions. We’re lucky to have a manager who is prepared to play a long game with them. I remember when Clement was supposed to do this. Trouble is he was doing it with players he’d spent £30m on. Because of suspensions our team last night cost the square root of duck all. Yeah it would’ve been nice to have a bit more of a go but we are so lacking in so many areas that it’s not always possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyMac5 Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 3 minutes ago, nottingram said: Yesterday we weren’t very good again, but we are down to the bare bones and WBA are a good side... Yes when you compared their bench with some of our on field players, that should have been a clue. But there were times last night when we should have had a break but didn't. Holmes awful shot, or wandering offside to Martins flick on in the box. Whittaker's ridiculous booking. Evan's getting a worse kicking than Sibley got sent off for! The ref gave nothing to us, very few freekicks and no bookings to them for similar one's given to us - ie their penalty shout, Clarke's push was similar to the one on Whittaker, why wasn't their player booked? So we were playing a team of experienced players & bench, plus the ref! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 On 05/07/2020 at 11:43, RoyMac5 said: I disagree with you. But we don't play that way anyway out of choice. I would also have to disagree with you on Martin with Duracell, which I realise maybe a foolish move on my part. Martin has a few strengths but in the air is not one of them, he’s more likely to go down looking for a free kick. If you want the best out of Martin it has to be to his feet, not in the air, not into space for him to run on to, it’s too his feet or he may as well be on the bench. Not knocking him, all players have their strengths and weaknesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Srg Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 3 minutes ago, David said: I would also have to disagree with you on Martin with Duracell, which I realise maybe a foolish move on my part. Martin has a few strengths but in the air is not one of them, he’s more likely to go down looking for a free kick. If you want the best out of Martin it has to be to his feet, not in the air, not into space for him to run on to, it’s too his feet or he may as well be on the bench. Not knocking him, all players have their strengths and weaknesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyMac5 Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 10 minutes ago, David said: I would also have to disagree with you on Martin with Duracell, which I realise maybe a foolish move on my part. Martin has a few strengths but in the air is not one of them, he’s more likely to go down looking for a free kick. Martin tends to wardrobe when there's little option but a freekick or when he's not favourite to win the ball. If Holmes hadn't wandered off-side last might Martin flicked on from in the box - why not go down for a penalty there then? But yes he's stronger with his feet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheron85 Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 I found our Phil's outrage at the red card to be the most reassuring thing about yesterday - Everything else which happened was mostly down to playing a a team who are better than us People seem to think we should be the finished article overnight - We're looking very promising but I think we're only about 70% of the way into the Cocu-lution of this side Just think how good we'll be when he's finished the job... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramit Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 i am still not convinced Cocu has the team playing the most effective style in this division. Ball to feet all over the field is too slow, at the very least wingers need to get passes to run onto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rab a dab doo Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 No matter how much any manager plans if the players are unable or cannot put theses in practise success is going to be difficult to achieve. Add in the odd 1 or 2 major blunders and the odd sending off and you have no chance even if your the best coach in the world. But then what do i know am only a mere supporter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brady1993 Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 58 minutes ago, ramit said: i am still not convinced Cocu has the team playing the most effective style in this division. Ball to feet all over the field is too slow, at the very least wingers need to get passes to run onto. Most of our players likely to make such runs are currently unavailable for selection..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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