"Cocu Ball"

[WamRam]

I love the idea and when it works it's great and we've seen it many times this season...

But......I'd love to see us sometimes just up the intensity and speed at which we play and break. Not claiming I know better, or can even do a better job than Cocu btw. It makes us easy to defend against, hence why we've not beaten a top 6 side this season. Because better set ups and better defences can cope with it quite comfortably at times.

So many times we get forward to halfway and instead of attacking at pace, like you would see with Leeds & WBA, players flying forwards, full-backs over lapping, the breaks are put on and we go inside and slowly across the pitch. I know it's hard to play like that all the time but hopefully next season we have the ability and players to be able to switch between the two during games.

I've noticed so many opportunities to switch the ball in the last few games and yes some are difficult passes, but other teams do it so effectively against us, we just seem to have to take an extra pass to get there.

I understand the idea behind our style...it's more about probing and waiting for gaps or a mistake but it would be nice to see us impose ourselves a tad more aggressively on teams sometimes.

 

Anyway, all in all i'm pretty positive for next season. UTR

[Millenniumram]

Good post, think you’ve hit the nail on the head really in terms of where our problems lie. It’s not the possession based style of football that’s the problem, it’s the pace and tempo we do things at. If you watch Man City or Liverpool, two of the best teams in the world, they both tend to play a possession based style, but what makes them so good is the speed they move the ball around at, and the constant movement you see from their forward players.

We seem to lack a lot of that at the moment. We’ve got a lot better over the season at retaining and controlling possession in the middle third, but we’re far too slow at the moment moving the ball from back to front. Quite often there’s a good chance on to overload the opposition on the counter, but we move the ball around so slowly that once we get the ball in the final third the opposition have all their men back behind the ball. It then becomes very difficult for us to create anything, especially when our front line is as static as it is currently, and teams find it very easy to defend/play against us.

All you have to do at the moment is let us have the ball, press us and wait for us to make a stupid mistake. It’s that easy to beat us. Obviously things will improve a lot if we cut the silly mistakes out as Cocu rightly says, but I hope he doesn’t think that’s the only problem. We’re still never gonna score enough goals unless we up the tempo of our play from the start of matches. We need to pass the ball around with more zip, and also be far braver with our passing - we choose the easy option far too often, at some point we have to take a risk and get the ball into the forward players (though we need more movement from them as well to make themselves available). It’s all just too cautious at the moment for me, and I feel Cocu needs to allow a bit more freedom in the team. It’s all a bit Paul Clement right now.

That said, personnel is obviously a problem as well. As mentioned many times in other threads, we seem to have assembled the slowest team to ever play championship football. It’s not even like it’s a particularly old team, but there isn’t a burst of pace to be found within our squad. Opposition defences aren’t exactly scared of us driving toward them when they could give us a 50m head start and still catch up before we get near the goal. Signing a couple of wingers with some actual speed and power over the summer could make a huge difference to our attacking threat.

[Andrew3000]

Agreed, two key words for me speed and power. If we can add those qualities we'll be a decent side.

[roboto]

I think the way we currently play can switch up intensity when needed (and with the right personnel). We saw last night that a fast break got us our goal and there was a period where Cardiff couldn't get anywhere near the ball towards the end of the first half. Just some reckless mistakes (from midfield where we have so many gifted players on the ball) that cost us last night.

There are a few things needed to make this style of play more consistent and more of a threat for next season.

1. Speed up top. This is clear. When we want to make the defence splitting pass we haven't had the right players on the pitch to get behind the defence or stretch the play out wide. Rooney's favourite outlet is Jayden Bogle who is quick and is always available for the pass, but when he wasn't on the pitch last night Rooney didn't offer the same pass up to Lowe who has to cut inside when he plays RB.

2. Defenders comfortable on the ball. Clarke is great at this, but he's not ours permanently. Evans is good on the ball, but lacks the positioning know how of a out and out central defender. Wisdom is ideal for this role and since he has been out we have been on this poor run. I hope Te Wierik is good on the ball, but I haven't seen anything outside of some youtube highlights so far.

3. More depth in utility players. We can't operate with 3 players for each position, but with our injury history we've often had to rely on 3rd or even 4th choice players to cover and it's evident during this extreme run in with so many matches in a short space of time. Bogle is unwell? Lowe covers... Don't get me wrong, Lowe has done well there, but he isn't a suitable replacement at all and it's only out of necessity. Duane Holmes is a kind of good utility player, but we need someone in the style of Chris Baird (but obviously not him) to cover a few positions if we are to run with a small squad under FFP restrictions. In recent matches we've had 4 players on the pitch that are (or have been) Left Backs, the squad needs balancing out.

4. A settled and confident keeper. Another obvious one. I prefer Roos over Hamer, but he's a back up at best. We all know that this is a priority in the summer window and hopefully the recruitment team have something lined up. Someone who can catch a ball, block a shot, organise a defense and find a team mate with a pass or throw. Without making everyone clench their sphincters. Is that too much to ask?

So, all in all, we are a few signings away from being a promotion contender in my opinion. Goalie, RB/Utility player, CB comfortable on the ball and a speedy forward. Easy, right?

[cheron85]

1 hour ago, WamRam said:

But......I'd love to see us sometimes just up the intensity and speed at which we play and break.

I think we show it in flashes - The goal last night was a great example of us being able to play quick and on the break with brutal effectiveness

But it's gonna take time to build

Cardiff were a very effective side because they play a ruthlessly simple game of football - Forest are pretty much the same - Very organised defence, sit back and soak up pressure, then hammer the ball quick and long into the channels for quick, skilful players to chase

The way Cocu wants us to play will (IMO) produce better long term outcome - He's building a style for the whole squad to align to which allows rotation to choose the right players for the right games but they all know what they're doing - It takes longer to build that way but I think we'll see better long term outcomes from it

3 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

We seem to lack a lot of that at the moment. We’ve got a lot better over the season at retaining and controlling possession in the middle third, but we’re far too slow at the moment moving the ball from back to front.

Added quality and time is what we're missing - This squad has been slowly assembled so far over the course of the season - Half the team which started the last few games have been players who weren't in the first team for a good half of the season

I think they just need more time to settle into the rhythm, know where each other are and how they play best together - Playing this kind of football doesn't happen overnight unless you can throw money at it

Liverpool I think are the best example - They were never 'bad' but it's taken several years for Klopp to assemble the right squad and get his players playing the way he wants - Many have been there the whole time but it's just about developing them into the style - I think that's the project Cocu is trying to deliver

[Van der MoodHoover]

3 minutes ago, Andrew3000 said:

Agreed, two key words for me speed and power. If we can add those qualities we'll be a decent side.

Hey Gary - how are things down at Millwall? ?

[therealhantsram]

10 minutes ago, Andrew3000 said:

Agreed, two key words for me speed and power. If we can add those qualities we'll be a decent side.

I think Cocu would like that too. Just don't think we have the personnel for it at the moment. 

Look to see those changes over the Summer. 

[ramboy63]

9 minutes ago, Andrew3000 said:

Agreed, two key words for me speed and power. If we can add those qualities we'll be a decent side.

Agreed we are far to negative,tippy tappy football is all good when you have a end product and we certainly dont as the forward players we have are just not good enough

With this so called must not give the ball away at all costs style is costing us more goals than we are scoring

[jimbobram]

1 hour ago, WamRam said:

I love the idea and when it works it's great and we've seen it many times this season...

But......I'd love to see us sometimes just up the intensity and speed at which we play and break. Not claiming I know better, or can even do a better job than Cocu btw. It makes us easy to defend against, hence why we've not beaten a top 6 side this season. Because better set ups and better defences can cope with it quite comfortably at times.

So many times we get forward to halfway and instead of attacking at pace, like you would see with Leeds & WBA, players flying forwards, full-backs over lapping, the breaks are put on and we go inside and slowly across the pitch. I know it's hard to play like that all the time but hopefully next season we have the ability and players to be able to switch between the two during games.

I've noticed so many opportunities to switch the ball in the last few games and yes some are difficult passes, but other teams do it so effectively against us, we just seem to have to take an extra pass to get there.

I understand the idea behind our style...it's more about probing and waiting for gaps or a mistake but it would be nice to see us impose ourselves a tad more aggressively on teams sometimes.

 

Anyway, all in all i'm pretty positive for next season. UTR

Cocu ball isn't just him wanting to play the ball from the back, knock it about for a bit and then make a hopeful punt forward. I think Cocu wants to play out from the back and get it forward quickly, as we see with Leeds, WBA etc. The issue is, we dont have those players in attacking positions to allow that work. This means our players do end up knocking the ball about from side to side and in a lot of cases losing the ball. 

We know that Cocu hasn't been able to get the players HE wanted for one reason or another. However when he does, I think thats when you will really see his philosophy take place.

You need those intelligent wingers to make those runs, either to draw players away, or to get in behind. Currently, they are too static, leading to us having to over play at the back. Cocu has said he wants at least 1 if not too wingers. 

We need full backs who are willing to get forward and overlap. Bogle does this, however i think we are heavily reliant on using him and right side because for me, the left side is weak in this aspect of our game. 

You need a striker who can get in behind and link up too. (Hard to find without paying the big bucks) 

I fully believe Cocu will get us playing the football we want to watch AND getting the results in the process, we just need to give him the time to improve the team. 

[Elgin_Ram]

At the end of the day it's our own fault. There were promising signs in the last few games, but the obvious mistakes and lack of a threat going forward are a burden. I think we should be really positive. The set up is great, the young players already in the side and those coming through looks promising. Hopefully Philip Cocu will get the pieces to the jigsaw that he wants, then we will see the results. Also, if the EFL give us a points reduction, then it needs to be this season. This has been one crazy year. I think that waiting a little longer is for the best. 

[brady1993]

22 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Good post, think you’ve hit the nail on the head really in terms of where our problems lie. It’s not the possession based style of football that’s the problem, it’s the pace and tempo we do things at. If you watch Man City or Liverpool, two of the best teams in the world, they both tend to play a possession based style, but what makes them so good is the speed they move the ball around at, and the constant movement you see from their forward players.

We seem to lack a lot of that at the moment. We’ve got a lot better over the season at retaining and controlling possession in the middle third, but we’re far too slow at the moment moving the ball from back to front. Quite often there’s a good chance on to overload the opposition on the counter, but we move the ball around so slowly that once we get the ball in the final third the opposition have all their men back behind the ball. It then becomes very difficult for us to create anything, especially when our front line is as static as it is currently, and teams find it very easy to defend/play against us.

All you have to do at the moment is let us have the ball, press us and wait for us to make a stupid mistake. It’s that easy to beat us. Obviously things will improve a lot if we cut the silly mistakes out as Cocu rightly says, but I hope he doesn’t think that’s the only problem. We’re still never gonna score enough goals unless we up the tempo of our play from the start of matches. We need to pass the ball around with more zip, and also be far braver with our passing - we choose the easy option far too often, at some point we have to take a risk and get the ball into the forward players (though we need more movement from them as well to make themselves available). It’s all just too cautious at the moment for me, and I feel Cocu needs to allow a bit more freedom in the team. It’s all a bit Paul Clement right now.

That said, personnel is obviously a problem as well. As mentioned many times in other threads, we seem to have assembled the slowest team to ever play championship football. It’s not even like it’s a particularly old team, but there isn’t a burst of pace to be found within our squad. Opposition defences aren’t exactly scared of us driving toward them when they could give us a 50m head start and still catch up before we get near the goal. Signing a couple of wingers with some actual speed and power over the summer could make a huge difference to our attacking threat.

I think the thing that's difficult to seperate is intent from execution. If you look back to the Millwall game we were moving the ball quickly with purpose and looking like opening up Millwall at any point. 3 games later against Forest and everything is slower and more lethargic. Is that tactical? I don't think so, I think it's a case of missing personal and a general drop in performance level due to a difficult schedule and a lack of depth in the squad to change things around. 

I can definately understand people's frustration because when this style of play isn't quite working it can look woeful and inneffectual. And I agree that we need to change it up from time to time in games but I'm not convinced the options off the bench with their to materially change it for a lot of games in this run in.

[brady1993]

Also I think something else to think about is that interviews last summer when he came to the club he mentioned several times something to effect that he wanted a team to play with the ball without keeping it for the sake of it. And his PSV side generally transitioned rapidly and moved the ball really quickly. So again I do suspect things will look a touch different when he's got a few different pieces in place.

[Animal is a Ram]

We saw it from the moment we scored vs. Cardiff, to about half time. The players can do it. What we need is for them to do it for 50-60 minutes of a game rather than 10-15.

That will come in time. But only if the recruitment is good enough.

[Srg]

Just now, Animal is a Ram said:

We saw it from the moment we scored vs. Cardiff, to about half time. The players can do it. What we need is for them to do it for 50-60 minutes of a game rather than 10-15.

That will come in time. But only if the recruitment is good enough.

I’d say some of the players can do it, but not enough. And some of the better ones and kids and still learning. 

[Millenniumram]

15 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

I think the thing that's difficult to seperate is intent from execution. If you look back to the Millwall game we were moving the ball quickly with purpose and looking like opening up Millwall at any point. 3 games later against Forest and everything is slower and more lethargic. Is that tactical? I don't think so, I think it's a case of missing personal and a general drop in performance level due to a difficult schedule and a lack of depth in the squad to change things around. 

I can definately understand people's frustration because when this style of play isn't quite working it can look woeful and inneffectual. And I agree that we need to change it up from time to time in games but I'm not convinced the options off the bench with their to materially change it for a lot of games in this run in.

Oh yeah of course, there’s no way we can really tell exactly what Cocu has told the team to do. From his interview yesterday it sounded like he was as pissed off as the rest of us with the opening 20 minutes of the game - certainly sounded like he gave them a rocket up their arse and that triggered the improvement before half time! It’s just Cocu’s interviews that worry me sometimes. He talks a lot about defensive errors (quite rightly) but doesn’t seem to ever mention the problems going the other way. It’s probably just because he interviews a little weirdly sometimes - I mean he seemed to deflect blame away from Hamer last week, but then dropped him anyway. I just hope he’s working on improving our attack as well as our defence.

FWIW I agree with you about the end to this season. I said it in another thread, our lack of squad depth this season always left us vulnerable, and it’s really caught up with us during this busy schedule. We needed to be able to rotate more than we have done, but with a lack of options we’ve been forced to play players who seem tired, and that’s been part of our undoing as well as generally not having enough quality throughout the squad. My post wasn’t really about the end to this season, more looking forward to how we need to improve next year.

[Andicis]

Whilst obviously we can't add extra players this season, for the last two games I just want us to up the speed of our passing. We take too many touches and it's too slow and predictable. We also need to take risks in possession, and not in our own half. 

[Andrew3000]

We have to hope that he can do some business.  The summer window was dreadful (which sounds odd as Clarke was good and we had the excitement of Rooney but we failed to improve the team) and January we did nothing.  So it feels like this will be Cocu's first window on which to be judged. 

[Mick Harford]

I remember canvassing opinions on Cocu from a few of my Dutch mates when he was first appointed. The general few was that the first season would be a slog with not particularly attractive football, one lad with a good grasp of the Championship said to expect something similar to Rowetts tenure, and that we would have plenty of possession but with few chances created and a lack of dynamism in the final third. He said that that is what Fenerbache got and didn't give him time. First half of the seas, since Christmas I would say that that is exactly what we got.

The Dutch lads also said that he is great at bringing younger players through and coaching players to do exactly what he wants them to do, but that it needs time. Again, I think we have seen an improvement in players understanding of the system that is required.

Now give him a transfer window (Keeper, Winger and poss CF minimum) and I think we can be rather optimistic about next season, especially when you consider that this season he has had the off-field stuff and a truncated pre-season with woeful loans. The dutch lads almost as one said that once the fundamentals are right then his PSV team started playing lovely football, hence why they won the league.

 

[LeedsCityRam]

2 hours ago, WamRam said:

I love the idea and when it works it's great and we've seen it many times this season...

But......I'd love to see us sometimes just up the intensity and speed at which we play and break. Not claiming I know better, or can even do a better job than Cocu btw. It makes us easy to defend against, hence why we've not beaten a top 6 side this season. Because better set ups and better defences can cope with it quite comfortably at times.

So many times we get forward to halfway and instead of attacking at pace, like you would see with Leeds & WBA, players flying forwards, full-backs over lapping, the breaks are put on and we go inside and slowly across the pitch. I know it's hard to play like that all the time but hopefully next season we have the ability and players to be able to switch between the two during games.

I've noticed so many opportunities to switch the ball in the last few games and yes some are difficult passes, but other teams do it so effectively against us, we just seem to have to take an extra pass to get there.

I understand the idea behind our style...it's more about probing and waiting for gaps or a mistake but it would be nice to see us impose ourselves a tad more aggressively on teams sometimes.

 

Anyway, all in all i'm pretty positive for next season. UTR

The question I'd ask here is whether that is down to the manager or the players? Does Cocu want the players to take an extra touch before delivering the ball? Does Cocu not want players to move into space & drive at the opposition? I think it would be bizarre to think he does - its energy & purpose which the players lacked last night allied to a lack of skills in certain areas (pace, vision and execution of key passes & movement in general from the front 4). Don't believe it has anything to do with tactical instructions at all.

 

9 minutes ago, Mick Harford said:

I remember canvassing opinions on Cocu from a few of my Dutch mates when he was first appointed. The general few was that the first season would be a slog with not particularly attractive football, one lad with a good grasp of the Championship said to expect something similar to Rowetts tenure, and that we would have plenty of possession but with few chances created and a lack of dynamism in the final third. He said that that is what Fenerbache got and didn't give him time. First half of the seas, since Christmas I would say that that is exactly what we got.

The Dutch lads also said that he is great at bringing younger players through and coaching players to do exactly what he wants them to do, but that it needs time. Again, I think we have seen an improvement in players understanding of the system that is required.

Now give him a transfer window (Keeper, Winger and poss CF minimum) and I think we can be rather optimistic about next season, especially when you consider that this season he has had the off-field stuff and a truncated pre-season with woeful loans. The dutch lads almost as one said that once the fundamentals are right then his PSV team started playing lovely football, hence why they won the league.

 

Great post & really encouraging to read. Maybe should pin it to the top of the forum everytime we lose ? 

[brady1993]

17 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

Oh yeah of course, there’s no way we can really tell exactly what Cocu has told the team to do. From his interview yesterday it sounded like he was as pissed off as the rest of us with the opening 20 minutes of the game - certainly sounded like he gave them a rocket up their arse and that triggered the improvement before half time! It’s just Cocu’s interviews that worry me sometimes. He talks a lot about defensive errors (quite rightly) but doesn’t seem to ever mention the problems going the other way. It’s probably just because he interviews a little weirdly sometimes - I mean he seemed to deflect blame away from Hamer last week, but then dropped him anyway. I just hope he’s working on improving our attack as well as our defence.

FWIW I agree with you about the end to this season. I said it in another thread, our lack of squad depth this season always left us vulnerable, and it’s really caught up with us during this busy schedule. We needed to be able to rotate more than we have done, but with a lack of options we’ve been forced to play players who seem tired, and that’s been part of our undoing as well as generally not having enough quality throughout the squad. My post wasn’t really about the end to this season, more looking forward to how we need to improve next year.

I think the overall point with the mistakes he was driving at is that we were in those games until we handed away gifts at key times that just crippled the belief in the side. Take last night for example we only lost that game because we gave them two gifts. And I think he hasn't highlighted the attacking issues so much partially because there isn't a lot we can change up there and partially because we are giving ourselves an uphill battle from an attacking point of view.