Attacking play limitations

[rammieib]

Around the 80/85th minute today, Knight put a wonderful cross into the box. CKR ran to the near post and took a defender with him. The ball went middle/back post. Where was Tom Lawrence? Stood still on the edge of the box making no attempt to get in.

Good (great) players make things happen. Our current structure, albeit somewhat forced on us with players available, but for everything we do amazingly well defensively, we are the complete opposite in the other half.

We don’t make many runs behind, and thus our more creative players don’t seem to even look to pick out the defence splitting pass.

Lawrence, When playing as a winger and Morrison only want the ball to feet.

Bird and Shinnie rarely Venture into last man territory and given Morrison has already dropped deep and Lawrence has pulled out wide to receive it, we are such an easy team to defend against.

Our players need to be more adventurous, Especially Morrison and Lawrence. We need to look for the killer pass more often instead of the focus of playing the triangles to retain possession and we must be generally braver on the ball even if the final pass fails 9 in 10.

As solid as it was today, it’s another game I never saw us scoring and they were there for the taking, especially first half.

Having CKR back fit will hopefully help by allowing us to play off him a little more but if we don’t make third man runs it’s pointless.

Morrison and Lawrence, and to a lesser extent Knight need to bring more to the table. It needs to start Tuesday.

[Parsnip]

8 minutes ago, rammieib said:

As solid as it was today, it’s another game I never saw us scoring

It makes the prediction league pretty easy though. I just counted 18 people who correctly predicted a 0-0 today. Is that a record @mozza?

We're Stoke. ?

[RodleyRam]

Agree with this. Back in the day when we've been at our fluent attacking best, is when we've have had wide players and midfielders going beyond the central striker. 

We actually have players with the ability to do this, it's a mindset thing for me. When I was playing, we were always told to gamble in the final third and get the defenders guessing. It was effective, forced mistakes, created space etc.

It's frustrating to watch players seemingly 'not' want to get on the score sheet but can't fault their effort and team spirit in other areas of the pitch. Just need to get a couple more bombing on and busting a gut to get beyond the defensive line and into scoring positions.

[rammieib]

19 minutes ago, Parsnip said:

It makes the prediction league pretty easy though. I just counted 18 people who correctly predicted a 0-0 today. Is that a record @mozza?

We're Stoke. ?

Yep I was one of them.

[Comrade 86]

1 hour ago, rammieib said:

Morrison and Lawrence, and to a lesser extent Knight need to bring more to the table. It needs to start Tuesday.

To be honest, I thought Morrison was good today. 

[Ramifications]

I thought Morrison was good too. It was as if he can't play the killer ball he is clearly capable of because there's no one to play it too.

I wondered if Festy Ebosele could be utilised in a different role? As a couple of runs showed, he has the ability and confidence to go past players. That's a rare quality worth nurturing in someone so young. 

[Ramifications]

Returning to Sibley, I did feel a little bit sorry for him, playing out of position but he could have worked it a bit smarter. He should have grasped the nettle more. It was a golden opportunity for him to shine and sadly he failed to take advantage of it. When he was substituted he just sat on the steps behind the dugout, looking dejected. I saw Wayne Rooney putting a seemingly protective arm around him at the end and talking to him, as the players came to acknowledge the fans support. 

[Ramifications]

Actually, forgive me, scrap that, Sibley was given a nigh on impossible task. Thinking back, there was a couple of times when the Preston defender marking him appeared to manhandle him as well. 

I'm thinking back to the game and just trying to fathom out the reason why we didn't score. We had so much quality on the ball, especially the first twenty minutes. Absolute class. Preston was there for the taking. It should have been three points. 

[Anag Ram]

9 hours ago, rammieib said:

Around the 80/85th minute today, Knight put a wonderful cross into the box. CKR ran to the near post and took a defender with him. The ball went middle/back post. Where was Tom Lawrence? Stood still on the edge of the box making no attempt to get in.

Good (great) players make things happen. Our current structure, albeit somewhat forced on us with players available, but for everything we do amazingly well defensively, we are the complete opposite in the other half.

We don’t make many runs behind, and thus our more creative players don’t seem to even look to pick out the defence splitting pass.

Lawrence, When playing as a winger and Morrison only want the ball to feet.

Bird and Shinnie rarely Venture into last man territory and given Morrison has already dropped deep and Lawrence has pulled out wide to receive it, we are such an easy team to defend against.

Our players need to be more adventurous, Especially Morrison and Lawrence. We need to look for the killer pass more often instead of the focus of playing the triangles to retain possession and we must be generally braver on the ball even if the final pass fails 9 in 10.

As solid as it was today, it’s another game I never saw us scoring and they were there for the taking, especially first half.

Having CKR back fit will hopefully help by allowing us to play off him a little more but if we don’t make third man runs it’s pointless.

Morrison and Lawrence, and to a lesser extent Knight need to bring more to the table. It needs to start Tuesday.

I have never seen a more goal shy team by which I mean a set of players that doesn't seem interested in scoring a goal. 

You're right in saying that we just don't have players who bust a gut to get into the box when we are attacking. 

For all our undoubted talent in the U23 side I can't see a solution there. Stretton is developing but isn't a goal poacher.

Honestly, even a Conor Sammon or a Cameron Jerome would do. Just someone who considers their self to be a goalscorer. 

Rooney needs a hypnotist in the dressing room to instil some belief.. 

[rammieib]

58 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

I have never seen a more goal shy team by which I mean a set of players that doesn't seem interested in scoring a goal. 

You're right in saying that we just don't have players who bust a gut to get into the box when we are attacking. 

For all our undoubted talent in the U23 side I can't see a solution there. Stretton is developing but isn't a goal poacher.

Honestly, even a Conor Sammon or a Cameron Jerome would do. Just someone who considers their self to be a goalscorer. 

Rooney needs a hypnotist in the dressing room to instil some belief.. 

correct but I don’t put this on Rooney or even the players really given out current position. Rooney isn’t daft, he knows this and working with what he’s got.

He knew he had to bring someone in, free transfer, £4500 a week wage cap - Baldock is what you get for that.

Possibly yesterday when Baldock goes off Lawrence up front and Joz on is a better option? Sibley up front is pointless - defenders dream.

Somehow he needs to work with what we’ve got abs take a few more risks especially in parts of the game we’re in the ascendency.

[Sparkle]

We have extremely limited options up front so they are looking at scraps and in all reality we need one of the premiership clubs to actually turn round and say we can basically have one of their underused centre forwards for next to nothing in January just like the kind of deals Reading FC had of Chelsea in the summer - there are players out there at those clubs so Rooney and his connections could prove to be extremely important.

Actually there are some sat doing nothing in the championship - the lad £20 million pound Brewster at Sheffield United would be more than useful for us in January and if we got him scoring goals and it would ultimately be good for Sheffield United as well 

[Anag Ram]

29 minutes ago, rammieib said:

correct but I don’t put this on Rooney or even the players really given out current position. Rooney isn’t daft, he knows this and working with what he’s got.

He knew he had to bring someone in, free transfer, £4500 a week wage cap - Baldock is what you get for that.

Possibly yesterday when Baldock goes off Lawrence up front and Joz on is a better option? Sibley up front is pointless - defenders dream.

Somehow he needs to work with what we’ve got abs take a few more risks especially in parts of the game we’re in the ascendency.

Yes but that doesn't explain why our midfield is so reluctant to get in the box. 

I don't expect a Bryson. Just occasionally two of Bird, Shinnie and Knight getting in the area so at the very least they can pull defenders out of position. 

[jimtastic56]

I can’t fault Rooney for his defensive approach. If we can average 1.3 pts per game we should (in a normal season) overturn the 12 points. However if we do get any more deductions he will have to throw caution to the wind and win a few games on the trot.

[Reggie Greenwood]

1 hour ago, Sparkle said:

We have extremely limited options up front so they are looking at scraps and in all reality we need one of the premiership clubs to actually turn round and say we can basically have one of their underused centre forwards for next to nothing in January just like the kind of deals Reading FC had of Chelsea in the summer - there are players out there at those clubs so Rooney and his connections could prove to be extremely important.

Actually there are some sat doing nothing in the championship - the lad £20 million pound Brewster at Sheffield United would be more than useful for us in January and if we got him scoring goals and it would ultimately be good for Sheffield United as well 

I’ve not seen anything from Brewster for Sheff Utd or England U21 that would improve us. Just looks disinterested every time I’ve seen him play. Think I’d rather stick with Stretton than Brewster 

[Gone]

When we had some money it’s a shame we wasted ~£4M on the least creative attacking player our scouts could find and not a striker which we all knew we needed 

[Sparkle]

1 hour ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

I’ve not seen anything from Brewster for Sheff Utd or England U21 that would improve us. Just looks disinterested every time I’ve seen him play. Think I’d rather stick with Stretton than Brewster 

I don’t mind Stretton at all, the likes of Brewster has scored goals in the championship and has pace and if England’s leading scorer can get him performing here it would help us enormously 

[MackworthRamIsGod]

41 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

When we had some money it’s a shame we wasted ~£4M on the least creative attacking player our scouts could find and not a striker which we all knew we needed 

For me Stretton has to starts every single game, either him or another academy product, if there is one. At least until CKR is back properly.

Our only hope is to find a Malcolm Christie hiding within our ranks. 

[LeedsCityRam]

There are a few contributory factors to this but lack of options in the box is by far the biggest. As the OP rightly says, Lawrence/Knight were not gambling enough yesterday by being at that back stick when deliveries were coming from the other side. That can be addressed very quickly with explicit managerial instruction & is easy to solve.

We have also lacked enough presence up top recently but Kazim's return will help with that. What is essential though is to have someone playing off him (whether second striker/number 10) otherwise we risk being static & predictable...that role would be ideally suited to either Stretton or Sibley. Our quality from wide has been improving, we're just short of conviction at the moment in committing to attacking options. Once we get into the positions to miss chances, then we can properly judge question of our finishing.

I'd also like to see Ravel further up the park as he tends to attract attention (as does Lawrence) so opening space for others. He has real quality & seems a waste him being so deep. Rooney might be tempted to wait until Bielik is back before trying that, given the role Ravel plays in our build up/general tempo though.

[Oldben]

Sam Baldock, Reading 2019-20:

The forward scored six goals in his 28 appearances and always found himself down the pecking order.

Effort was never an issue for Baldock but he ultimately had very little to show for it!

81 appearances over 4 years at Brighton and scored 18 goals.

3 years at Reading, 65 goals and 10 goals.

Throughout that timelinw he's used as a striker.

 

 

[dcfc4ever]

23 hours ago, rammieib said:

Around the 80/85th minute today, Knight put a wonderful cross into the box. CKR ran to the near post and took a defender with him. The ball went middle/back post. Where was Tom Lawrence? Stood still on the edge of the box making no attempt to get in.

Good (great) players make things happen. Our current structure, albeit somewhat forced on us with players available, but for everything we do amazingly well defensively, we are the complete opposite in the other half.

We don’t make many runs behind, and thus our more creative players don’t seem to even look to pick out the defence splitting pass.

Lawrence, When playing as a winger and Morrison only want the ball to feet.

Bird and Shinnie rarely Venture into last man territory and given Morrison has already dropped deep and Lawrence has pulled out wide to receive it, we are such an easy team to defend against.

Our players need to be more adventurous, Especially Morrison and Lawrence. We need to look for the killer pass more often instead of the focus of playing the triangles to retain possession and we must be generally braver on the ball even if the final pass fails 9 in 10.

As solid as it was today, it’s another game I never saw us scoring and they were there for the taking, especially first half.

Having CKR back fit will hopefully help by allowing us to play off him a little more but if we don’t make third man runs it’s pointless.

Morrison and Lawrence, and to a lesser extent Knight need to bring more to the table. It needs to start Tuesday.

Is this a joke…85th minute if you were there you could clearly see our players were shattered after a massive effort both defending and attacking.As for another game I never saw us scoring comment we were incredibly unlucky at Preston hitting bar,shots blocked,good saves and 2 penalty decisions going against us.Our players don’t need to bring more to table there effort is admirable in the current circumstances